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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newtsworld. Theodore Roosevelt Junior was born

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Speaker 1: in New York City on October twenty seventh, eighteen fifty eight.

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Speaker 1: He was born into a well to do family. He

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Speaker 1: was homeschooled and went to Harvard College. He dropped out

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Speaker 1: of Columbia Law School to enter in local New York politics.

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Speaker 1: In September nineteen oh one, at the age of forty two,

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Speaker 1: he became the twenty sixth President of the United States

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Speaker 1: after President William McKinley was assassinated. Roosevelt was a leader

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Speaker 1: of the progressive movement, and he championed his Square Deal

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Speaker 1: domestic policies, promising the average citizen, fairness, breaking of trusts,

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Speaker 1: regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. After leaving office,

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt traveled the world, including trips to Africa and South America.

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Speaker 1: He was a lifelong conservationist. He passed away in his

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Speaker 1: sleep at his home Sagamore Hill and Cove Neck, New York,

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Speaker 1: on January fifth, nineteen nineteen, at the age of sixty.

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Speaker 1: I want to share with you the human whirlwind that

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Speaker 1: was Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was amazing both as an individual

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Speaker 1: and because in some ways. He personified the America that

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Speaker 1: was emerging at the beginning of the twentieth century. I

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Speaker 1: find him to be one of the most extraordinary American

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Speaker 1: presidents just because of the sheer range that he was

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Speaker 1: capable of doing. He was obviously extraordinarily bright and wrote

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Speaker 1: at a very early age a guide to birds in

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Speaker 1: New York State. He wrote a history of the Naval

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Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelve, is still considered a remarkable book,

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Speaker 1: and that, by the way, was done at a very

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Speaker 1: early age, I think in his early twenties. So here

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Speaker 1: you got this guy who is born relatively weak at

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Speaker 1: asthma and really went to work building up his physical strength,

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Speaker 1: became ultimately a cowboy, was driven to be successful, to

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Speaker 1: be unique, And while he was doing all of that,

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Speaker 1: he got involved in politics. But it's fascinating because he

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Speaker 1: didn't fit any pattern that you could have imagined. On

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Speaker 1: the one hand, he was at Roosevelt and therefore in

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Speaker 1: effect part of the aristocracy of that time, the kind

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Speaker 1: of person who went to Harvard, the kind of person

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Speaker 1: who had lots of nice outfits and went to nice events.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, he was a politician, and he

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Speaker 1: was determined to rise in politics as a great line

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Speaker 1: where one of his friends says to him, how can

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Speaker 1: you go out to these German and Irish bars and

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Speaker 1: be hanging out with those normal working people. And Roosevelt's

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Speaker 1: response was simply, he said, luck power in this city

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Speaker 1: is in those bars. I want to be part of

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Speaker 1: how decisions are made. Now, you don't need to go

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Speaker 1: to those bars, but then you're always going to be

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Speaker 1: on the outside, and you're always going to come to

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Speaker 1: somebody who's in the bar to get the decision made.

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Speaker 1: And I want to be in that room. I want

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Speaker 1: to do that. And Roosevelt went out at a very

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Speaker 1: early age and began developing a whole series of activities.

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Speaker 1: He was always a reformer. I think it was partly

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Speaker 1: because he's had this edge to him. On the one hand,

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Speaker 1: he's sort of a puritan in his toughness and in

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Speaker 1: his desire to fix things and improve things. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, he loved life so much that he just

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Speaker 1: kind of bubbled over. And you have to think of

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Speaker 1: him almost as a pot of the stove, where every

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Speaker 1: day things are coming out of the pot and you

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Speaker 1: have no idea what's going to happen next. So for example,

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Speaker 1: at one point he becomes the police commissioner of New

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Speaker 1: York City and he decides to actually enforce the law,

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Speaker 1: and the law said that you couldn't have bars and

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Speaker 1: saloons open on Sunday, so he closed them. Well, people

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Speaker 1: were enraged because he was violating the way in which

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Speaker 1: they had historically operated, and he said, well, if you

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Speaker 1: want them open, change the law, but as long as

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Speaker 1: I'm the police commissioner, we're closing them, at which point,

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Speaker 1: of course they fired him because they didn't want to

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Speaker 1: get involved in this, and he had a certain lack

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Speaker 1: of common sense in that sense. City was so driven

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Speaker 1: that again and again he would do things that would

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Speaker 1: irritate people. He was very active in the Republican Party,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, in the election of eighteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: it is Roosevelt and the mayor of Syracuse who come

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Speaker 1: up with the best argument against William Jennings Bryan, an

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Speaker 1: argument which was then picked up by William McKinley, and

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Speaker 1: McKinley promptly won the election's over and he's won gives

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt the appointment as the number two person in the

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Speaker 1: Navy Department, and one weekend, the Secretary of the navy

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Speaker 1: happens to be gone, and Roosevelt, on his own hook

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Speaker 1: sends out a note saying that he wants the American

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Speaker 1: fleet under Dewey, which at that point was city in

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong, and he wants them to go to Manila.

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Speaker 1: Now he had no authority to do that, he just

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Speaker 1: did it, and luckily for us, when the Spanish American

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Speaker 1: War broke out, the American fleet was ready to defeat

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Speaker 1: the Spanish in the Battle of Manila Bay, and Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: was heroic, even though he had totally exceeded his authority.

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Speaker 1: Before that, his wife, who he adored, had died. He

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Speaker 1: was very depressed, and he went out to the Dakotas

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Speaker 1: bought a ranch and became a genuine rancher. Now again,

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Speaker 1: remember this is a guy who starts in life sort

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Speaker 1: of weak, physically builds himself up, becomes a boxer, becomes

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Speaker 1: a rider, ends up now leaving behind all of his

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Speaker 1: social friends, all of the Harvard connections, and is out

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Speaker 1: there ranching and having a great time and recovering from

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Speaker 1: the death of his wife, and at one point actually

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Speaker 1: helps arrest several wrestlers. He's genuinely a man of the West,

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Speaker 1: and that becomes an advantage to him when the war

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Speaker 1: breaks out with Spain, because he organizes what we're called

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Speaker 1: Colonel Roosevelt's Rough Riders, a regiment that he pulled together

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Speaker 1: of volunteers. Teddy is bringing friends of his from the

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Speaker 1: Dakotas who are showing up Native Americans, cowboys, and the

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Speaker 1: New York Polo Club is sending people because after all,

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Speaker 1: it's Theodore Roosald. So he is blending together these very

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Speaker 1: elegant Ivy League Polo players and these very inelegant cowboys

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Speaker 1: and Native Americans into the Rough Riders, and the actually

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Speaker 1: end up along very well and end up charging up

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Speaker 1: San Juan Hill, although technically it wasn't San Juan Hill,

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Speaker 1: but isn't Kettle Hill towards the San Juan Heights. But

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Speaker 1: everybody at the time said, o san Juan Hill is.

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Speaker 1: Somebody once said, you have to choose between fact and legend.

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Speaker 1: Print the legend. So Roosevelt comes home having led this

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Speaker 1: heroic charge up the hill, and he's a genuine war hero.

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Speaker 1: And here's where it gets interested. Roosevelt is a reformer,

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Speaker 1: and the New York Machine hated him, but they had

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Speaker 1: a problem. They'd had a little bit of corruption, and

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Speaker 1: they were going to lose the next governor's race and

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Speaker 1: all of the patronage and all the contracting power and

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Speaker 1: all the money, and so they needed somebody to be

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Speaker 1: their frontman. And so they went to Roosevelt and said, look,

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Speaker 1: you're a hero, and we want you to run for governor.

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Speaker 1: And Roosevelt who always was willing to take the next

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Speaker 1: opportunity that came along, and in that sense, he's a

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Speaker 1: little bit like Winston Churchill and that his life is

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Speaker 1: a continuing series of enormously energetic gambles. So he runs

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Speaker 1: for the governor of New York, and he runs with

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Speaker 1: a train which is celebrating the charge of San Juan Hill.

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Speaker 1: He has rough riders with him, they have people who

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Speaker 1: can play the bugle. They basically are whipping up the patriotism.

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Speaker 1: If you were a patriot, you were for Theodore Roosevelt.

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Speaker 1: And if you just were one of those people who

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Speaker 1: wanted Tammany Hall back to with its corruption, then you

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Speaker 1: were going to vote for the other guy. So he wins,

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Speaker 1: and he is now the governor of the largest state

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Speaker 1: in the country. And that leads to a very different

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Speaker 1: situation because it turns out that Roosevelt really is as

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Speaker 1: he has always been a reformer, and so he uses

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Speaker 1: the governorship to start reforming New York State government. Well,

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Speaker 1: the machine is horrified. I mean, they elected him to

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Speaker 1: keep power so that they could use the power for

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Speaker 1: their own enrichment, and here he is taking apart their system.

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Speaker 1: So they want to get rid of him. They're desperate

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Speaker 1: to get him out of the state. And along comes

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Speaker 1: an opportunity for Roosevelt to become the vice presidential nominee.

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Speaker 1: And there's a great story that McKinley's great adviser, one

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Speaker 1: of the greatest managers of American political history, was not

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Speaker 1: in town the day this decision was made, and he

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Speaker 1: turned and he said, when he was told about it,

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Speaker 1: do you realize there's only one heart beat between that

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Speaker 1: damned cowboy in the White House, And in fact McKinley

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Speaker 1: was shot and died. And here you are in nineteen

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Speaker 1: one with Theodore Roosevelt as president. Now, you could not

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Speaker 1: possibly in early eighteen ninety seven, before the Spanish American morp,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't possibly have figured out how four short years

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Speaker 1: later Theodore Roosevelt would end up being president. But he

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Speaker 1: was president, and when he became president, he was the

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Speaker 1: most sophisticated populist to occupy the White House in modern times.

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Speaker 1: For example, he understood that the Associated Press, which at

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Speaker 1: that time was the dominant method of communicating for the

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Speaker 1: news media in the country. The Associated Press every Sunday

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Speaker 1: night had a huge hold on what it was covering.

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Speaker 1: There was nothing going on, and yet they had to

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Speaker 1: fill up for the Monday morning papers. So every Sunday afternoon,

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt would issue a statement which we get picked up

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Speaker 1: and given huge coverage because it meant the Associated Press's

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Speaker 1: need to have something, And so Roosevelt began to become

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Speaker 1: much better known than any president suld Say Braham Lincoln.

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Speaker 1: He was also just an amazingly personable guy. At one point,

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Speaker 1: he's boxing in the White House and the retina of

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Speaker 1: one of his eyes is detached and he can't see,

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Speaker 1: and he doesn't want his wife to learn that he

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Speaker 1: had just lost sight in one of his eyes, so

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Speaker 1: he kept boxing but trying to avoid the guy hitting

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Speaker 1: him on that side of his head. And he would

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Speaker 1: do stuff like this all the time. He was an archer.

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Speaker 1: He was a hunter. One of the things that made

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Speaker 1: him amazingly popular. Was in nineteen oh two he went

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Speaker 1: on a hunting trip out west and there was a

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Speaker 1: bear cub that somebody had tied to a tree. So

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt consumer resultive, I'm not gonna kill a bear cub,

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Speaker 1: Are you crazy? Well, a Brooklyn toymaker decided that he

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Speaker 1: would create a stuffed bear, which at the time was

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Speaker 1: called Teddy's Bear, and then became, of course a Teddy Bear,

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Speaker 1: and it became wildly popular. And so her you have

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Speaker 1: a president who is continuing to be sort of slightly

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Speaker 1: a wild man. But he's a wild man with a

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Speaker 1: big smile, and people love him. He is so much energy,

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Speaker 1: he's bouncing all over the place, so lots of people

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Speaker 1: get to see him. In nineteen oh five, his daughter

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Speaker 1: Alice married Nicholas Longworth, a congressman from Ohio, and it

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Speaker 1: was the biggest social event of the decade. Somebody once

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Speaker 1: said of Roosevelt. To truly understand Teddy, you have to

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Speaker 1: recognize he wants to be the bride at every wedding

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Speaker 1: and the corpse at every funeral. There literally was how

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt operated. It was his whole excitement about life. He

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Speaker 1: wrote constantly. He had published many books, and he had

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Speaker 1: a pretty serious sense of what he believed in and

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Speaker 1: what he was trying to do. And he was faced

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Speaker 1: with a huge crisis in nineteen o two because it

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Speaker 1: was a big coal strike and it became obvious during

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Speaker 1: the coal strike that the mine owners thought that they

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Speaker 1: were more powerful than the United States government. And Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: brought them into the White House and he said, look,

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Speaker 1: here's the situation. I am the President of the United States.

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Speaker 1: I am prepared to send the US Army in to

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Speaker 1: take over your minds. So unless you want to lose

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Speaker 1: control of your minds potentially permanently, you're going to sit

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Speaker 1: down and work out a deal with the strikers. And

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Speaker 1: I just want all of you. Remember I'm the president

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Speaker 1: and you're not. And it was the first really big

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Speaker 1: imposition of executive power on large businesses in America, and

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Speaker 1: it stunned them. They began also to create a gap

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Speaker 1: between the reform Republicans and the old Guard, and the

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Speaker 1: old Guard was in favor of the big businesses, and

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Speaker 1: the Reformers were in favor of the public interest at

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Speaker 1: large and were willing to take on the big businesses.

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Speaker 1: And Roosevelt clearly was in the group that was in

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Speaker 1: favor of taking on a big business. It wasn't that

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Speaker 1: he was for small things. It's important to remember that

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Speaker 1: there's been several efforts to build a canal across the Isthmus,

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Speaker 1: both in Nicaragua and in Panama. And actually one of

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Speaker 1: the more fun things was, as they were trying to

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Speaker 1: decide whether to go to Nicaragua or to Panama, one

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Speaker 1: of the people who favored Panama convinced the Post Office

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Speaker 1: to issue a series of stamps selling volcanoes going off

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Speaker 1: in Nicaragua. And that was one of the more subtle

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Speaker 1: examples of lobbying, because people began to figure out, well, gosh,

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Speaker 1: if they have all those volcanoes, maybe that's not the

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Speaker 1: right place to put the canal. However, Panama was owned

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Speaker 1: by Columbia. Columbia had a contract with the French, who

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Speaker 1: had failed. There are a number of technical problems digging

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Speaker 1: the canal, and in addition, yellow fever killed the workers

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Speaker 1: at an alarming rate. And in nineteen oh three, probably

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Speaker 1: with the encouragement of the United States, there was a

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Speaker 1: rebellion in Panama, and the United States happened to have

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Speaker 1: a warship nearby which happened to block the Columbia Navy

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Speaker 1: from going back to imposed order. And therefore it was

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Speaker 1: fair to say that Roosevelt invented Panama. In order to

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Speaker 1: build the canal, he then undertook a project which would

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Speaker 1: take until nineteen fourteen to complete. And if you've ever

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Speaker 1: been to the Panama Canal, you realize what a huge

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Speaker 1: engineering achievement this was. It was also a huge public

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Speaker 1: health achievement because in fact, Walter Reid was the medical

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Speaker 1: doctor for the US Army, and he discovered how to

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Speaker 1: stop yellow fever and the result was an enormous improvement

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Speaker 1: in health. So Roosevelt undertakes what is an enormous project

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Speaker 1: and changes history. I mean, the Panama Canal has been

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Speaker 1: a major part of world commerce. It's been a major

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Speaker 1: part of American national security because it allows us to

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Speaker 1: move ships back and forth between the Atlantic and Pacific

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Speaker 1: dramatically faster than if you have to go all the

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Speaker 1: way around South America. The Russians and the Japanese have

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Speaker 1: been fighting a very very tough war. The Russians had

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Speaker 1: been losing, but the Japanese were running out of money,

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Speaker 1: and so they were pretty desperate to find a solution.

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Speaker 1: Anne Roosevelt invited them both to come to New Hampshire,

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Speaker 1: to Portsmouth, where they had a peace conference. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: o four, Anne Roosevelt got them to sign an agreement

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Speaker 1: ending the war, and in nineteen o six he got

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Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize. Here is a many ways a

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Speaker 1: militaristic personality, a guy who cheerfully went off to war

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Speaker 1: in Cuba, a guy who cheerfully sent the Navy off

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Speaker 1: to war in Manila. And yet he is a very

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Speaker 1: very good diplomat, very successful and as you could imagine,

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Speaker 1: somewhere between the Panama Canal, Teddy's Bear and everything else

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Speaker 1: he was doing, he was wildly popular. And in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o four, and the only time he really had run

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Speaker 1: up to that point nationally, because he was the vice

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Speaker 1: presidential nomine Andrew McKinley nineteen hundred, but he beat the

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Speaker 1: Democratic contender, Alton Parker three hundred and thirty six to

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Speaker 1: one hundred and forty in electoral votes, and the margin

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Speaker 1: was just enormous. I would say Roosevelt may have at

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Speaker 1: his peak been the most popular American president since George Washington.

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Speaker 1: That people just really liked him. They thought he personified

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Speaker 1: American nationalism, that his energy, his drive. He was also daring.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen o nine, he becomes the first president to

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Speaker 1: ride in a car, which at that period was a

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Speaker 1: fairly daring thing to do. I've always liked the story

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Speaker 1: that in nineteen o six Roosevelt was eating breakfast while

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Speaker 1: he was reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which has a

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Speaker 1: scene in which a worker falls into a vat and

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Speaker 1: becomes sausage. And Roosevelt was halfway through his breakfast sausage

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Speaker 1: as he read this scene, and he promptly sent up

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Speaker 1: a note to create the Food and Drug Administration. Now

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Speaker 1: I don't know that that's totally true, but it's always

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Speaker 1: struck me such a wonderfully apocryphal story that it should

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Speaker 1: be true. Roosevelt was an activist in foreign policy. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen o five, he forced the Dominican Republic to install

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Speaker 1: an American Economic advisor, who's really in fallpac verses the

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Speaker 1: country's financial director, running it as an economic protectorate. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen o six, he set up a military protectorate in Cuba.

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Speaker 1: He put pressure on Canada in a boundary dispute over Alaska.

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Speaker 1: So again, he's constantly doing things because he loved the outdoors,

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Speaker 1: and because he was part of the progressive reform wing

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Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, he urged Congress to create the

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Speaker 1: Forest Service so that the government would manage their forest

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Speaker 1: reserves in a professional way. He developed almost five times

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Speaker 1: as much land as all of his predecessors combined. In fact,

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt set aside one hundred and ninety four million acres

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Speaker 1: by nineteen o seven. He has a real diplomatic quarrel

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Speaker 1: because the Japanese government is very angry about anti Japanese

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Speaker 1: sentiment in California, and he works out what was called

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Speaker 1: the Gentleman's Agreement, in which an effect, we would not

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Speaker 1: pass laws against the Japanese, but the Japanese government would

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Speaker 1: restrict Japanese immigration, so a sort of a face saving win.

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Speaker 1: Win nineteen oh eight, his hand picked successor succeeded him,

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Speaker 1: and this was one of the sad moments if you

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Speaker 1: will an American politics. William Howard Taft was a remarkable man,

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Speaker 1: physically enormous, and had been a very successful governor of

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Speaker 1: the Philippines. Came from a very successful Cincinnati legal family,

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Speaker 1: would altamnly later in his life become the Chief Justice

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Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court. Taft was a very smart, very

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Speaker 1: sincere guy. Roosevelt thought he would act as Roosevelt's disciple,

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Speaker 1: and after Taft one in nineteen oh eight, Roosevelt left

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Speaker 1: the country in order to give Taft the time to

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Speaker 1: be on his own to get things done without Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: looking over his shoulder. The thing that's fascinating is Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: tours Europe, where they're all thrilled to see him, and

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Speaker 1: he's received as a gigantic celebrity. He goes to Africa,

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Speaker 1: where he shoots everything he can and sends it back

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Speaker 1: to the American Museum and Natural History or the Smithsonian.

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Speaker 1: Then he comes home and he realizes the Taft has

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Speaker 1: in fact, fundamentally undermine what Roosevelt was doing. And it's

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Speaker 1: a fact that Roosevelt really thought the Taft would be

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Speaker 1: his disciple. Taft really came to the conclusion that Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: was wrong, and the Taft actually was part of the

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Speaker 1: traditional wing of the party that did not favor reform,

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Speaker 1: and so Taft was in many ways siding with the

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Speaker 1: old guard against Roosevelt. So Roosevelt decides that he has

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Speaker 1: an obligation to run for president and take on Taft.

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Speaker 1: This was the very beginning of the period when they

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Speaker 1: were primaries. Most states still picked their delegates in closed

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Speaker 1: systems where the power the bosses really had control. Where

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Speaker 1: there were primaries, Roosevelt won decisively. Where the people could

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Speaker 1: directly express themselves with their votes, Roosevelt won, But there

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Speaker 1: weren't enough primaries, and so where there weren't primaries, William

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Speaker 1: Howard Taft one. Well, Roosevelt wasn't about to allow the

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Speaker 1: party bosses to cheat him of the nomination. So Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: decides that he has no choice except to run as

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Speaker 1: a third party candidate, and he becomes the most important

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Speaker 1: third party candidate in American history, and in fact gets

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Speaker 1: more votes than William Howard's Aft. In the middle of that,

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Speaker 1: as a perfectly Rooseveltian moment, he's out campaigning as the

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Speaker 1: third party that was called the Bull Moose Party in

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Speaker 1: sort of an honor of Roosevelt himself. And on October fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, he's campaigning a Milwaukee, he's giving a speech

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Speaker 1: and he's shot. Now, the fact is that the bullet

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Speaker 1: went through his overcoat, a fifty page manuscript, a steel

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Speaker 1: eye glass case and then lodged in his chest. He

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Speaker 1: coughed into his hand. There was no blood, so he

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Speaker 1: concluded that the bullet did not enter his lung. So

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Speaker 1: he ignored the effort to get him to go to

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Speaker 1: a doctor and finished his speech. Will imagine the electrifying

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Speaker 1: effect of a guy who was that strong, that courageous.

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Speaker 1: His line was, I don't know whether you fully understand

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Speaker 1: that I have been shot, but it takes more than

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Speaker 1: that to kill a bull moose. The doctors, actually, when

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Speaker 1: they did finally look at him, decided it was safer

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Speaker 1: to leave the bullet in his chest, and had stayed

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Speaker 1: there for the rest of his life. The person who

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Speaker 1: shot him was John Flaming Shrank. Shrank opposed a sitting

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Speaker 1: presents ability to seek a third term in office, and

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Speaker 1: he had a bizarre dream where he was advised by

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Speaker 1: the ghost of William McKinley to avenge his death while

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Speaker 1: pointing to a picture of Theadore Roosevelt. Actually, in Shrank's case,

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Speaker 1: the doctors decided he was suffering from quote insane delusions.

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Speaker 1: Grandios in character declared him insane, and he was sentenced

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Speaker 1: to a mental hospital in Wisconsin, where he remained until

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Speaker 1: his death. After he loses the presidency in nineteen twelve,

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Speaker 1: splitting the Republican vote in such a way that Woodrow

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Speaker 1: Wilson becomes the first Democratic president since eighteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt then goes off to Brazil, goes up the Amazon,

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Speaker 1: catches several really bad diseases, almost dies. A remarkable story

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Speaker 1: of his entire trip on the Amazon. It's one of

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Speaker 1: those places where he just pushed his luck, and he

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Speaker 1: was getting older, he was sort of a little bit

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Speaker 1: worn down, and then he almost really did have a

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Speaker 1: serious problem and took a long time to recover. When

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Speaker 1: World War One broke out, Roosevelt was very pro English,

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Speaker 1: really wanted to help the Allies, tried to convince Woodrow

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Speaker 1: Wilson to let him serve. Wilson would not do that.

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Speaker 1: His sons did serve in the military, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt Junior landed at Normandy in nineteen forty four

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Speaker 1: carrying a cane, wandering around as a brigadier general, helping

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Speaker 1: get people off the beach. So the Roosevelt family tradition continued.

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Speaker 1: I think that to really understand Theodore Roosevelt's importance, you

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00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 1: have to go almost to psychology, and culture. He came

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Speaker 1: for most Americans to personify a sense of certainty, a

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Speaker 1: sense of canduism, a sense of optimism. He was adamant

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Speaker 1: that we all are Americans. That he did not want

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Speaker 1: hyphenated people. He didn't want Greek Americans, or Italian Americans

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Speaker 1: or African Americans. He wanted everyone to be an American.

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Speaker 1: He was enormously proud of the country. People I think

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00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: identified They identified with his energy, They identified with his

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Speaker 1: good humor. They identified with his sense of grandiose dreams.

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Speaker 1: He thought big. He thought we were a big country,

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Speaker 1: and he wanted us to do big things. He also

400
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: wanted people to live a big life, so he pushed

401
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 1: people pretty hard to say get out there and get involved.

402
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: One of his most stirring statements was about the man

403
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Speaker 1: in the arena, the person who actually is trying to

404
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Speaker 1: get the job done, and that nobody else outside the

405
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: arena understands what it's like to be the man in

406
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Speaker 1: the arena. I once said, the remarkable experience of having

407
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Speaker 1: Richard Nixon read me that passage, and you could tell.

408
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Speaker 1: After his resignation from office and trying to rethink and

409
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: sort of recenter his own life that Nixon found Roosevelt

410
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: comforting in the idea that he Nixon had also been

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Speaker 1: in the arena. And I think it was this sense

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Speaker 1: for most Americans that Roosevelt was in the arena every

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Speaker 1: day of his life, and in a sense he woke

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Speaker 1: up each morning and tried to figure out where the

415
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 1: arena was, that he went there, and he carried people

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Speaker 1: with him. And I think that of all the presidents,

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Speaker 1: you can make an argument that no one so captured

418
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Speaker 1: our imagination between Lincoln and FDR as Theodore Roosevelt did,

419
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Speaker 1: and that he personified a kind of reform republicanism that

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Speaker 1: was very much in favor of national parks, of the

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Speaker 1: scientific management of forests, of concern for conserving animals. While

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Speaker 1: he was a hunter, he was a hunter who wanted

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Speaker 1: to make sure that the species flourished and that every

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00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: generation had an opportunity to be out in the wilderness.

425
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: He was also an American nationalist. Part of that probably

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Speaker 1: came because he was a child of the Civil War

427
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: era and had grown up surrounded by people who fought

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Speaker 1: for the Union and took it very very seriously. Partly

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Speaker 1: because you know, seeing in his generation, we were now

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Speaker 1: the biggest economy in the world. Roosevelt sponsored the development

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Speaker 1: of the Navy, both as Assistant Secretary of the Navy

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Speaker 1: under McKinley and then as president. He sent the Great

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Speaker 1: White Fleet around the world. It only had enough money

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00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: to get halfway around the world, and he said, well,

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00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: Congress has a choice. They can either pass the rest

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00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: of the money and will bring him home, or they

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00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,719
Speaker 1: can let the fleet stay in Japan, knowing that of

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00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 1: course Congress would collapse and pay for it. But those

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00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: typical of Roosevelt, they would send the modern battle fleet

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00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,400
Speaker 1: to the United States without congressional approval, using up all

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00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: the money to get him halfway around the world, and

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00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: then dare the Congress to not finish it up. And

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00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: of course they caved and did exactly what he wanted.

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt I think would have been successful in any part

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Speaker 1: of American history because he had the energy, he had

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Speaker 1: the intelligence, he had to drive, he wanted it that badly,

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00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 1: and he was really good with people. So on the

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00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: one hand, you have this huge intellect, on the other hand,

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00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: you have this frenzied physical behavior, and then you have

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00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: this guy who's just is charming, and all of it

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00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: comes together If you get a chance someday to go

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00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: to his home on Long Island, it's absolutely worth the visit,

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00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: and you get a flavor of just a guy who

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00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: jumped up in the morning, living life to the fullest,

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00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: ran all day long, collapsed at the end of the day,

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00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: got enough sleep to jump up the next morning and

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00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: live life to the fullest. And I think that's the

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Speaker 1: kind of America that Littore Roosevelt hoped we would become,

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Speaker 1: and why I think he really is, in many ways

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00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: an immortal. At a time when many Americans are divided,

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00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: unsure of the nature of our country, not certain about

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00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: the future, there are few presidents who can offer us

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00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: more hope, more insight, and a greater sense of what

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Speaker 1: being an American potentially is all about than Theodore Roosevelt.

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Speaker 1: And that's why I think it's particularly useful to look

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Speaker 1: at Teddy's life, think about what Teddy did, and ask

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00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: ourselves what is it we can learn from him that

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Speaker 1: can make our future, in our children's future even better.

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Speaker 1: Newts World is produced by Gingwidge three sixty and iHeartMedia.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producers Debbie Myers. Our producer is Garnzi Sloan

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Speaker 1: and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the

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Speaker 1: show was created by Steve Kendler. Special thanks to the

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00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: team at Gingwich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newts World,

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00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate

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00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: us with five stars and give us a review so

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00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: others can learn what it's all about. I'm new Gangwish.

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Speaker 1: This is next book. M