Speaker 1: History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Mental Flaws. In nineteen fourteen, when Theodore Roosevelt trekked into
Speaker 1: the Brazilian jungle to explore a previously uncharted tributary of
Speaker 1: the Amazon River, it must have seemed like just another
Speaker 1: adventure on a very long list of adventures, one that
Speaker 1: would briefly get him out of the public eye after
Speaker 1: his disappointing loss in the nine twelve election. The loss stung,
Speaker 1: and his reputation had taken a hit, but none of
Speaker 1: that would matter in the jungle. Of course, Roosevelt knew
Speaker 1: this adventure wouldn't be easy. If it were, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be appealing, and he knew it would be dangerous, which
Speaker 1: only made it more enticing for the fifty year old
Speaker 1: former president. If it is necessary for me to leave
Speaker 1: my remains in South America, he wrote to a friend,
Speaker 1: I am quite ready to do so. And now, a
Speaker 1: month and a half into his trek down the River
Speaker 1: of Doubt, it looked like he might do just that.
Speaker 1: From the outset, the journey had been besieged by calamity, Malaria,
Speaker 1: and dysentery had cut through many of the men on
Speaker 1: the expedition, not to mention the dwindling food supply and
Speaker 1: the lingering threat of South American tribes who didn't take
Speaker 1: kindly to arms strangers showing up uninvited. Roosevelt had lost
Speaker 1: fifty pounds. A few days ago he bashed his leg
Speaker 1: open on a rock and it became infected. Now, as
Speaker 1: thunderstorms raged, he was in the throes of a severe
Speaker 1: malaria fit. Convulsively shivering with one four degree fever. He
Speaker 1: recited the same poem over and over and over in
Speaker 1: sandy Dude did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree
Speaker 1: where al the Sacred river ran through caverns measureless two men.
Speaker 1: Though no one expected him to live the night, he did.
Speaker 1: By morning, he had regained his senses and he had
Speaker 1: reached a decision. He gathered the team, his son Kermit,
Speaker 1: Co Captain Candido Rondon, and now turalist George Cherry among them,
Speaker 1: and told them the expedition cannot stop. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: I cannot proceed. You go on and leave me. But
Speaker 1: tears journey wasn't over. Ultimately, the Amazon wouldn't claim Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: In fact, after countless brushes with death. Over the five
Speaker 1: previous decades, it was starting to look like nothing could
Speaker 1: from mental flaws. And I heart radio. This is History Versus,
Speaker 1: a podcast about how your favorite historical figures faced off
Speaker 1: against their greatest foes. I'm your host, Aaron McCarthy, and
Speaker 1: in this round, we're pitting Theodore Roosevelt against the greatest
Speaker 1: opponent of all death. It's a foe that Roosevelt fought
Speaker 1: his entire life in family tragedies, on the battlefield and
Speaker 1: on the hunting ground, and during run ins with assassins.
Speaker 1: But for tr death wasn't something to fear. It was
Speaker 1: just the opposite. The worst of all fears, he wrote
Speaker 1: in his autobiography, is the fear of living. So how
Speaker 1: did he take on the grim reaper time and time again?
Speaker 1: We're about to find out. To understand Roosevelt's life, you
Speaker 1: have to understand how death colored his formative years. His
Speaker 1: first real encounter with death came on February nine, when
Speaker 1: his father, Theodore Roosevelt Sr. Passed away while tr was
Speaker 1: still a student at Harvard. It was a loss he
Speaker 1: wrote about, often, detailing his devastation in his journals. He
Speaker 1: threw himself into his school work, to cope. For the
Speaker 1: rest of the semester, he was grinding like a trojan,
Speaker 1: according to historian Edmund Morris, scoring high marks on exams,
Speaker 1: teaching Sunday school, and obsessively exercising. During this tornado of productivity,
Speaker 1: he continued to grieve privately in his diaries. Theodore doesn't
Speaker 1: know what he's thinking, what he's doing. He's kind of
Speaker 1: in a in his own Um you know, it seems
Speaker 1: my impression of what I've read is that he kind
Speaker 1: of just turns off to the world. Um, maybe internally
Speaker 1: he's struggling. I don't know. I mean, I'm I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of the way that I would react if I lost
Speaker 1: a very important person in my life. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: the type of person that you later call the best
Speaker 1: man I ever knew and the only man I was
Speaker 1: ever afraid of. That's Alyssa Parker, guysman, lead ranger at
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City.
Speaker 1: So heavily impacted him, and I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it just follows with him. When he's president and he's
Speaker 1: facing a difficult decision, he usually asks himself, what would
Speaker 1: my father do in this case? Um? So it's ever
Speaker 1: kind of present um of the impact of losing his father.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt would go on to experience many tragedies in his life,
Speaker 1: but the torrent of grief, the outpouring of emotion he
Speaker 1: wrote in his diary after his father's death, never really
Speaker 1: happened again. Six years later, when Roosevelt was a young
Speaker 1: assemblyman in New York, he lost his first wife, Alice,
Speaker 1: and his mother Mitty, on the same day. He was
Speaker 1: back to work in Albany just four days later, where
Speaker 1: Marris writes his activities were so prodigious that one gropes
Speaker 1: for an inhuman simile, like a factory ship in the
Speaker 1: whaling season. He combined the principles of maximum production and
Speaker 1: perpetual motion. Roosevelt strategy for beating his depression was to
Speaker 1: outwork it. Whenever he encountered tragedy, he followed the same pattern.
Speaker 1: Work to the point of exhaustion, exert yourself until you
Speaker 1: can no longer feel repeat as necessary. As he once wrote,
Speaker 1: black care rarely sits behind a rider whose space is
Speaker 1: fast enough. In this quest to avoid and dull his grief,
Speaker 1: tr didn't just face death, he seemingly invited it. In
Speaker 1: wilderness warrior. Historian Douglas Brinkley discusses Dr. K. Redfield Jamison's
Speaker 1: book Exuberance, which features t R as a prime example
Speaker 1: of the emotion. Brinkley writes that his set of symptoms,
Speaker 1: propulsive behavior, deep grief, chronic insomnia, and an all around
Speaker 1: hyperactive disposition, demonstrate both the manic and the depressive phases
Speaker 1: of bipolar disorder. While some manic depressive patients, which is
Speaker 1: Jamieson's preferred term, withdrawal from life, Brinkley writes that those
Speaker 1: afflicted with exuberance go in the opposite direction, behaving as
Speaker 1: relentless human blow torches, unable to turn down their own flame.
Speaker 1: Only by exhausting oneself in physical activity could an exuberant
Speaker 1: maniac like Roosevelt turn himself off. This kind of energy
Speaker 1: allowed Roosevelt to achieve incredible things, but as Jamison notes,
Speaker 1: exuberance has its downsides. Working so hard and sleeping so
Speaker 1: little was detrimental to his health. But if doctors had
Speaker 1: tried to get him to take better care of himself
Speaker 1: or slow down a little, he probably would have responded
Speaker 1: as he did when a Harvard doctor told him that
Speaker 1: his bad heart meant he needed to live a sedentary
Speaker 1: life by disregarding their advice entirely. Tr also faced death
Speaker 1: as a big game hunter. In pursuit of a target,
Speaker 1: he could be relentless. Take for example, his first bison hunt.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt insisted on pursuing his goal even when the weather
Speaker 1: conditions became horrendous, even when his guy, Joe Ferris, wanted
Speaker 1: to of up. As a friend recalled, he nearly killed
Speaker 1: poor Joe. He would not stop for anything. Roosevelt pushed
Speaker 1: himself hard and sometimes took risks to bag a quarry,
Speaker 1: whether it was a bison, a lion, or a hippopotamus.
Speaker 1: His closest called during a hunt came during a trip
Speaker 1: out west tr Then a civil service commissioner, had just
Speaker 1: come out on the losing end of a political clash
Speaker 1: over a postmaster in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and decided a hunting
Speaker 1: trip was just the thing he needed to clear his head.
Speaker 1: On this particular trip, he was, he said, especially hot
Speaker 1: for bear. He found one in Montana at twilight. The
Speaker 1: grizzly was in the valley sixty yards away. Tiar fired around,
Speaker 1: but the bear did not fall. Instead, the wounded animal
Speaker 1: uttered a loud, moaning grunt. In Roosevelt's words, and took off.
Speaker 1: He followed the wounded animal, which Roosevelt would later say
Speaker 1: was making a peculiar savage kind of wine, And in
Speaker 1: the confusion of the trees and thicket that who were
Speaker 1: suddenly upon each other, he turned his head stiffly towards me.
Speaker 1: Scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips, his eyes
Speaker 1: burned like embers in the gloom, Roosevelt wrote. He fired
Speaker 1: another round, again, hitting the bear, and again it wouldn't
Speaker 1: go down Instantly. The great bear turned with a harsh
Speaker 1: roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from
Speaker 1: his mouth so that I saw the gleam of his
Speaker 1: white fangs. And then he charged straight at me, crashing
Speaker 1: and bounding through the laurel bushes so that it was
Speaker 1: hard to aim. The animal charged at Roosevelt, and as
Speaker 1: he would later recall, he fired again and then once more,
Speaker 1: and leapt out of the way of the approaching animal.
Speaker 1: Through the smoke, he could see its huge paws. It
Speaker 1: took a swipe at him and finally dropped to the ground.
Speaker 1: It would be the closest he'd come to death at
Speaker 1: the hands of a big game animal, and the bear's
Speaker 1: pelt quickly became one of his favorite trophies. The danger
Speaker 1: Roosevelt threw himself into didn't just involve wild hunting trips
Speaker 1: in the Dakotas he clashed with the Marquis de Morat,
Speaker 1: a French aristocrat with eyes on establishing a cattle empire
Speaker 1: in the area. He founded the town of Medora, which
Speaker 1: was named after his wife. The marquis domineering personality made
Speaker 1: him an obvious foil for someone with a presence as
Speaker 1: strong as Roosevelt's, and the two soon found themselves at odds.
Speaker 1: And somehow the Marquis decided that Theodore Roosevelt wanted to
Speaker 1: kill him, which wasn't the case. That's Eileen Andy's the
Speaker 1: chief of interpretation in public affairs at Theodore Roosevelt National
Speaker 1: Park in Madora, North Dakota. So not only had strong personalities,
Speaker 1: but they were both ristocrats that we're probably all both
Speaker 1: um used to being Lt Mail. It's the big boss man.
Speaker 1: And then there's the story about Um. When Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was in Weibo. Weibo is a little town, let's see,
Speaker 1: six miles on the other side of the Montana border,
Speaker 1: and it's really small, and he was there in a
Speaker 1: saloon and some guy challenged him to a fight, because
Speaker 1: you know, men who were glasses were weak. The man
Speaker 1: called him four eyes, which he would quickly come to regret. Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: in his own words, stood up and struck quick and
Speaker 1: hard with my right just to one side of the
Speaker 1: point of his jaw. Roosevelt could him. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think tr was the kind of person who never would
Speaker 1: back down. He um in his life there were very
Speaker 1: few things that he ever regretted, and he didn't believe
Speaker 1: in backing down. Take for example, and encounter Roosevelt had
Speaker 1: with a man named E. G. Paddock, who was working
Speaker 1: closely with the Marquis de Moray on his cattle business.
Speaker 1: Paddock had spread word around the area that elk And
Speaker 1: Ranch was his property, not Roosevelt's, and that if tr
Speaker 1: wished to have it, he'd have to pay for it
Speaker 1: in dollars or in blood. Once Roosevelt got wind of
Speaker 1: the threat, he immediately sought out Paddick at his home.
Speaker 1: Here's Clay Jenkinson, founder of the Theodore Roosevelt Center at
Speaker 1: Dickinson State University in North Dakota, gets on his horse
Speaker 1: and goes thirty five miles into Medora, unknocks at the
Speaker 1: guy's door and says, hey, I hear you want to
Speaker 1: shoot me. When do you want to start? And the
Speaker 1: guy he starts to hubbahblahbe and I didn't mean it.
Speaker 1: I've been miss boat. And then maybe they worked it out.
Speaker 1: But Roosevelt always confronted the problem. He never docked or
Speaker 1: tried to elude it. He always went straight for it
Speaker 1: and said here I am, it's been here. I think
Speaker 1: that's one of his greatest qualities. Perhaps the most legendary
Speaker 1: story of TRS days in the Dakota's occurred when his
Speaker 1: boat was stolen from Elkhorn Ranch in March. From the start,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt knew the crime was likely the work of a
Speaker 1: man named Mike Finnegan and his gang, who Roosevelt would write,
Speaker 1: had previously been implicated in cattle killing and horse stealing
Speaker 1: in the area. Instead of learning the authorities or just
Speaker 1: letting the three armed and potentially dangerous men go, he
Speaker 1: had his ranch hands Bill Sewell and will Matt Dao
Speaker 1: build a new boat so they could go after the thieves.
Speaker 1: Tire grabbed a camera and a couple of books, including
Speaker 1: Anna Karrennina, and the trio headed down the icy Little
Speaker 1: Missouri River as temperatures dropped to zero degrees. Despite the
Speaker 1: fact that the thieves had a head start of several days,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt had an advantage. The thieves had stolen what Tier
Speaker 1: said was the only craft there was on the river
Speaker 1: and would never suspected chase was even possible. On the
Speaker 1: third day of the pursuit, Roosevelt spotted the stolen boat
Speaker 1: and ambushed one of the thieves, who surrendered immediately. Soon after,
Speaker 1: the other two returned, and Roosevelt and his party aimed
Speaker 1: their rifles at them and ordered their surrender, which they
Speaker 1: did without a drop of blood being shed. It was
Speaker 1: then up to Tier to hike the thieves back to
Speaker 1: face justice in Dickinson. Today, by car, the trip from
Speaker 1: Elkhorn Ranch to Dickinson is more than eighty miles and
Speaker 1: would take around two hours. Roosevelt and company were north
Speaker 1: of the Elkhorn and it wasn't just distance that made
Speaker 1: the trip challenging. Here's Andy's. It was hiking through bad
Speaker 1: lands and then over the prairie, So it was it
Speaker 1: was not only distance, it was really rugged country, and
Speaker 1: the boat thieves no doubt, we're not happy about the situation. Like,
Speaker 1: obviously he needed the boat to get across the river
Speaker 1: to check on his cattle. But if it's easy enough
Speaker 1: for your farm hands to build you another boat, why
Speaker 1: go after your first boat? I think, what what is it?
Speaker 1: Is it just the principle of the thing? I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt, I think had a very acute sense of
Speaker 1: right and wrong, and he felt that he had been
Speaker 1: wrong and the boat didn't belong to them, It belonged
Speaker 1: to him, and he wanted it back. Roosevelt wanted things
Speaker 1: to be on the right way, in the honorable way,
Speaker 1: and that's part that's part of his character. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: sure that people thought he was kind of a pain,
Speaker 1: but that's part of his charm. I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: Roosevelt I thought about going after both thieves as being dangerous.
Speaker 1: It was just something he did because he felt he
Speaker 1: should and he had to. Um he was impulsive. We
Speaker 1: know that a sense of bravado also seemed to be
Speaker 1: a play when it came to tr and the Spanish
Speaker 1: American War. He had been loudly and publicly beating the
Speaker 1: war drum. As the assistant Secretary of the Navy. He
Speaker 1: believed that it was the country's duty to intervene in
Speaker 1: the war for Cuban independence, which sometimes made him act
Speaker 1: against the wishes of his superiors. Once the u became
Speaker 1: part of the war in Roosevelt resigned from his post,
Speaker 1: forming the first U. S Volunteer Cavalry, the Rough Riders,
Speaker 1: and heading to Cuba to get in on the action himself.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Tier's fearlessness in the face of
Speaker 1: physical danger would become the stuff of legend in June,
Speaker 1: when Roosevelt and the Rough Riders took part in the
Speaker 1: Battle of Las Guasimas. There, in the sweltering jungle, a
Speaker 1: newly discovered Spanish stronghold blocked a military advancement. It was
Speaker 1: here that Roosevelt faced live fire for the first time.
Speaker 1: Hailes of bullets peppered his position, and the Rough Riders
Speaker 1: suffered their first casualties of the campaign. Roosevelt himself was
Speaker 1: said to be so excited by the action that he
Speaker 1: made no effort to take cover. Instead, he frantically moved
Speaker 1: about as he awaited orders. Once a bullet missed him
Speaker 1: by mirror inches, piercing a tree right next to him
Speaker 1: and sprang his face full of bark. Days later came
Speaker 1: the famous Charge of Kettle Hill during what's now known
Speaker 1: as the Battle of San Juan Heights. The rough Riders
Speaker 1: were tasked with helping to capture Kettle Hill as part
Speaker 1: of a larger campaign by the US to take Santiago
Speaker 1: to Cuba. On this day, time was not a luxury.
Speaker 1: The Americans were firing artillery by six thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: Soon after, the Spanish responded with explosions that rocked the
Speaker 1: rough rider camp, leaving four dead and Roosevelt himself with
Speaker 1: a shrapnel wound on his wrist. Orders to charge the
Speaker 1: hill were slow to come from General Sumner, and Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: growing impatient to see action, was on the verge of
Speaker 1: unilaterally sending his men up the hill on his own.
Speaker 1: Just before he was given official word to make his move,
Speaker 1: I sprang on my horse, and then my crowded hour began.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt gleefully powered throw on horseback, with his men running
Speaker 1: behind him, bullets flying at them from all sides. Tr
Speaker 1: himself would take down a Spanish soldier using a pistol.
Speaker 1: He doubled up neatly as a jack rabbit, Roosevelt would
Speaker 1: proudly proclaim the Rough Riders suffered the most casualties of
Speaker 1: any regiment in the Cavalry Division on that day. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: himself dodged death on numerous occasions. Bullets always seemed to
Speaker 1: be just missing him, sometimes whizzing by in the scenery,
Speaker 1: sometimes hitting fellow rough Riders just feet away. During one
Speaker 1: early morning bombardment by the Spanish, Roosevelt found cover under
Speaker 1: a tree as a shell exploded overhead. Five men directly
Speaker 1: behind him were killed or wounded. Roosevelt came away unscathed.
Speaker 1: I really firmly believe now they can't kill him. Family
Speaker 1: friend and fellow soldier Bob Ferguson wrote in a letter
Speaker 1: to Tear's wife, Edith, but tr himself saw it all
Speaker 1: through a boy's eyes. The charge itself was great fun,
Speaker 1: he said, Oh, but we had a bully fight. The
Speaker 1: Rough Riders helped secure a victory for the US that day,
Speaker 1: and the image of Roosevelt charging up the hill on horseback,
Speaker 1: sneering at death would become a part of American folklore
Speaker 1: and helped turn him into one of the most popular
Speaker 1: men in the country. Upon his return to the States
Speaker 1: in August. This is what propels his career. He becomes famous,
Speaker 1: nationally famous, becomes a household name after the rough Rider's.
Speaker 1: You know when the Battle of sam Wan Heights and
Speaker 1: you become so popular that the New York political machine
Speaker 1: or Republican Party wants to run for governor, they running
Speaker 1: for government, he's successful. That's Tyler Caliberta, education technician at
Speaker 1: Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, who explains that Republican machine
Speaker 1: boss Thomas Platt, who had clashed with Roosevelt before and
Speaker 1: probably should have known that he would not fall in
Speaker 1: line as governor, was fed up with Tiers reform policies,
Speaker 1: so they kicked him upstairs, according to Caliberta, to be
Speaker 1: McKinley's running mate. Not everyone was pleased with that development.
Speaker 1: When Tier was chosen as McKinley's running mate, Mark Hanna,
Speaker 1: McKinley's right hand man, said, don't any of you realize
Speaker 1: that there is only one life between that manman and
Speaker 1: the presidency. Roosevelt was hiking at the New York Vermont
Speaker 1: border when McKinley was hit by an assassin's bullet. At first,
Speaker 1: he went to Buffalo to be by the president's side,
Speaker 1: but when it looked like McKinley would recover. Tier went
Speaker 1: back to the mountains. He was on Mount Marcy, the
Speaker 1: highest point in New York State, when word reached him
Speaker 1: that McKinley had taken a turn for the worse and
Speaker 1: was dying. Roosevelt took off, flying down the mountain. Here's
Speaker 1: Clay Jenkinson. Roso made this heroic journey and reckless. Um
Speaker 1: could have himself been killed, urging the stage rider faster, faster,
Speaker 1: don't hold back. And they were going on these really
Speaker 1: dangerous paths and in the darkness, and she wanted to
Speaker 1: get to a train that was waiting for him. And
Speaker 1: so he gets to the train and goes to Buffalo,
Speaker 1: and then when he arrives, he already knows that the
Speaker 1: president is dead. And now he's in this really strange
Speaker 1: position because he's wanted to be president, He's intended to
Speaker 1: be president, but he certainly didn't think it would come
Speaker 1: this soon. You have to tread very very carefully in
Speaker 1: the wake of an assassination. You can't be gleeful, but
Speaker 1: you have to assume control. You have to make sure
Speaker 1: that the people who were McKinley's aids and insiders will
Speaker 1: accept you and not flee. And yet you have to
Speaker 1: establish your own administrative mastery and control of the levers
Speaker 1: of power pretty quickly, and he did it beautifully. Still,
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt was Theodore Roosevelt tr who came into office
Speaker 1: thanks to an assassin's bullet. Was the first president to
Speaker 1: have formal protection by the Secret Service, but he wouldn't
Speaker 1: make it easy on them. According to historian Kathleen Dalton,
Speaker 1: he resisted Secret Service protection at first, preferring to carry
Speaker 1: his own gun. Tier did eventually accept their protection, but
Speaker 1: as Dalton rights, only begrudgingly. And when Roosevelt wished to
Speaker 1: observe the capabilities of one of the Navy's earliest submarines,
Speaker 1: the USS Plunger, he didn't do so from the safety
Speaker 1: of the Presidential yacht. Instead, he joined the crew of
Speaker 1: the vessel as a dove underwater for hours. This despite
Speaker 1: the fact that submarine technology was still in its infancy.
Speaker 1: Never in my life have I had such a dive
Speaker 1: hurting day, nor can I ever recall having so much
Speaker 1: enjoyment in so few hours as today, he said. Danger
Speaker 1: seemed to find Roosevelt even when he wasn't looking for it.
Speaker 1: On September three, the President was heading to Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and a horse drawn carriage with him were Winthrop Crane,
Speaker 1: Governor of Massachusetts, future Secretary of the Treasury George Bruce
Speaker 1: could tell you. And Secret Service agent William Craig. As
Speaker 1: the carriage crossed some trolley tracks on the way into town,
Speaker 1: it was hit by an electric trolley. The carriage flew
Speaker 1: forty feet. Roosevelt was thrown, landing on his face and
Speaker 1: bruising his leg. Crane and Cortel You were okay, but
Speaker 1: Craig had been run over by the trolley. He was dead,
Speaker 1: the first Secret Service agent to die on presidential duty.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt had barely escaped. John Hey, Roosevelt, Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: later said that had the trolley car struck the rear hub,
Speaker 1: Crane and the President would have been tossed to the
Speaker 1: left and under the wheels, just as poor Craig was.
Speaker 1: How close a call was it, according to Morris, a
Speaker 1: mere two inches in true tr form. He soldiered on
Speaker 1: campaigning in the Midwest, at least until the trip was
Speaker 1: cut short when the bruise on his shin developed into
Speaker 1: an abscess that required emergency surgery. One of Caliberta's favorite
Speaker 1: tr stories is an anecdote of Edith's casual reaction to
Speaker 1: seeing her bloodied husband come inside one day at Sagamore
Speaker 1: Hill after colliding with the blades of the windmill that
Speaker 1: still stands on the property. Apparently, Edith tells him very calmly, thedore,
Speaker 1: I wish you'd do your bleeding in the bathroom, which
Speaker 1: for me gives me a sense that she was used
Speaker 1: to this, that this was something she was She experienced
Speaker 1: him hurting himself, and she knew that he would be
Speaker 1: fine and everything would be okay, and she's worried about
Speaker 1: and just don't bleed. Don't bleed here. Just because she
Speaker 1: was accustomed to it doesn't mean she didn't worry. And
Speaker 1: even after he was out of office, Edith still couldn't
Speaker 1: shake the fear that McKinley's fate would also befall her husband,
Speaker 1: and it almost did on October four during a campaign
Speaker 1: stop in Milwaukee, when tire was running for president for
Speaker 1: a potential third term, not as a Republican but as
Speaker 1: the candidate for the Progressive Party. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most famous pieces of the Roosevelt mythology. He was shot
Speaker 1: by John Flaming shrank, deranged would be assassin who claimed
Speaker 1: the ghost of McKinley was guiding him to gun down
Speaker 1: Roosevelt right before he was set to deliver a speech,
Speaker 1: With a bullet lodged in his chest and death closer
Speaker 1: to his front door than ever. Tire handled the situation
Speaker 1: in trademark Bull Moose fashion, powering through a roughly ninety
Speaker 1: minute speech as blood continued to escape the wound. Only
Speaker 1: after he was done with his work would Roosevelt go
Speaker 1: to the hospital. Edith wasn't by her husband's side for
Speaker 1: this trip. Instead, she was back home in New York
Speaker 1: watching a production of Johann strap Us as The Mary
Speaker 1: Countess at the Casino Theater in Manhattan. When she got
Speaker 1: the news, A weeping Edith bolted from the theater and
Speaker 1: was heard to demand take me to where I can
Speaker 1: talk to him or hear from him at once. She
Speaker 1: was taken to the Progressive National headquarters at the Manhattan
Speaker 1: Hotel and spoke over the phone with Tears doctors, who
Speaker 1: informed her that the wound had been X rayed and dressed,
Speaker 1: and they were in the process of determining if the
Speaker 1: bullet could be safely removed or not. After midnight, she
Speaker 1: received a telegram from her husband that attempted to downplay
Speaker 1: the situation. It read, I am now in the American hospital.
Speaker 1: The bullet did not hit anything vital, and I think
Speaker 1: they will find it somewhere around. It is no more
Speaker 1: serious than the injury the boys received. My voice is
Speaker 1: holding out well, and I will go on with the trip.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, Love to all. The doctors did indeed find
Speaker 1: the bullet around somewhere. It was lodged in Roosevelt's rib,
Speaker 1: and the doctors decided to leave it where it lay.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Following the assassination attempt and his
Speaker 1: loss in the election, familiar Roosevelt pattern re emerged. He
Speaker 1: decided to overcome the post election melancholia by shaking off
Speaker 1: the modern world and going on his famed trip down
Speaker 1: the Amazon's River of doubt. It shouldn't have come as
Speaker 1: a shock to Edith that, even after surviving run ins
Speaker 1: with grizzly bears, a carriage accident, in a bullet to
Speaker 1: the chest, Tara was still willing to take enormous risks,
Speaker 1: tempt fate, and set off on boyish adventures. Even at
Speaker 1: the age of fifty five. Here's Andy's who could make
Speaker 1: this up. He went for the adventure, but he also
Speaker 1: went to be the first to do this. Um that
Speaker 1: was a big thing. But that was a big thing
Speaker 1: among the explorer class back then. I'm sure Edith looked
Speaker 1: at him like, that's dangerous. But Edith knew him really well. Um,
Speaker 1: But I don't think the thought of danger ever stopped
Speaker 1: him from doing anything. He almost died on that trip,
Speaker 1: and he never really recovered his health after that, and
Speaker 1: Kermit almost died too, with the malaria, a bacterial infection
Speaker 1: in the gash on his leg. Roosevelt wasn't just close
Speaker 1: to death during his Amazon trip. He was also growing
Speaker 1: concerned that his condition would spread and endanger the other
Speaker 1: men in his group. He had brought along morphine on
Speaker 1: the trip, as he always did on expeditions like these,
Speaker 1: in case things got bad. As he later told a
Speaker 1: friend who recounted the story, one never knows what is
Speaker 1: going to happen. And I did not mean to be
Speaker 1: caught by some accident where I should have to die
Speaker 1: a lingering death. I always meant that, if at any
Speaker 1: time death became inevitable, I would have it over with
Speaker 1: it once without going through a long drawn out agony
Speaker 1: from which death was the only relief. I've had a
Speaker 1: very full life, and I'm not at all afraid to die.
Speaker 1: On the Amazon trip, things got bad, and Roosevelt told
Speaker 1: his friend that when I found myself so ill that
Speaker 1: I was a drag on the party and a big
Speaker 1: and to look as if we could not all get
Speaker 1: out alive. I began to think it might be better
Speaker 1: for me to take my morphine and end it. But
Speaker 1: then it occurred to Roosevelt that Kermit wouldn't abandon him,
Speaker 1: not even if he died. He would insist on bringing
Speaker 1: his father's body back, which tr knew would be impossible.
Speaker 1: So there was only one thing for me to do,
Speaker 1: and that was to come out myself. He said. It
Speaker 1: was a hard fight, but I made it. The River
Speaker 1: of Doubt is now known as the Roosevelt River in
Speaker 1: honor of the expedition that Tier was all too ready
Speaker 1: to sacrifice himself for. But his pension for cheating death
Speaker 1: was suffering from diminishing returns. His body was broken down,
Speaker 1: he had lost much of his formidable size, and he
Speaker 1: was looking more mortal than ever. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: tr faced failing health and even more tragedy when his
Speaker 1: son Quentin died after his plane was shot down in
Speaker 1: Germany during World War One. Tr faced his grief quietly.
Speaker 1: There's no use writing about Quentin, he wrote to novelist
Speaker 1: Edith Wharton, for I should break down if I tried.
Speaker 1: The Roosevelt routine of plunging into adventure to combat the
Speaker 1: loss of a loved one had run its course. Even
Speaker 1: before Quentin's death, it was becoming clear that Tier's body
Speaker 1: simply wouldn't allow him to be the bull Moose anymore.
Speaker 1: By eighteen, he was suffering from rheumatism, lumbago and nemia
Speaker 1: and vertigo, which made it difficult to walk or even
Speaker 1: stand at times. Various infections would put him in and
Speaker 1: out of the hospital, and illnesses he faced on the
Speaker 1: Amazon would still affect him, something he called his old
Speaker 1: Brazilian trouble. In November nineteen eighteen, Roosevelt was brought to
Speaker 1: the hospital to treat the recurring abscesses in his legs.
Speaker 1: He came home around Christmas time, though he was still
Speaker 1: suffering from worsening pain due to his rheumatism. By this point,
Speaker 1: Edith had his bed moved to the chamber adjacent to
Speaker 1: their room, one with corner windows facing south and west,
Speaker 1: the warmest room in the house. The coal fire was
Speaker 1: kept lit all day and night, keeping Roosevelt comfortable as
Speaker 1: he rested in his mahogany sleigh bed. Despite the litton
Speaker 1: of ailments, he was still working. Morris writes that on
Speaker 1: January three, tr dictated editorial to the Kansas City Star
Speaker 1: on the proposed League of Nations, and on January five,
Speaker 1: he dictated an article for the Metropolitan voicing his support
Speaker 1: for a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a long letter to his son Ted
Speaker 1: with a draft of his Metropolitan article enclosed. Around midnight,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's caretaker, James Amos, helped the colonel get into bed.
Speaker 1: After watching the fire for a while, Roosevelt asked James,
Speaker 1: will you please turn out the light before closing his
Speaker 1: eyes to go to sleep. Just a few hours later,
Speaker 1: early in the morning on January after decades of dodging
Speaker 1: it physically, mentally, and emotionally, death finally came for Theodore Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: Here's caliberta you guys. Quietly. It's kind of the the
Speaker 1: opposite of I think how he thought he would die.
Speaker 1: It's kind of ironic to die quietly in your family
Speaker 1: home and your sleep, whereas Roosevelt, I think um was
Speaker 1: somebody who I think would have seen himself as somebody
Speaker 1: who could die in battle. There's somebody who would die
Speaker 1: giving himself to a great cause. Roosevelt's battle with death
Speaker 1: was probably best summed up by Vice President Thomas Marshall, who,
Speaker 1: upon hearing that the colonel had passed away, said death
Speaker 1: had to take him in his sleep, for if Roosevelt
Speaker 1: had been awake, there would have been a fight. Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: death was a shock to the nation and to the world.
Speaker 1: There had been talks of him running again for president,
Speaker 1: and to the public at large, he had always been
Speaker 1: a figure that seemed invulnerable. Within hours of the news,
Speaker 1: the Senate and the House of Representatives were adjourned. US
Speaker 1: flags were ordered to half masted around the globe, and
Speaker 1: military planes made ceremonial flights over Oyster Bay, dropping laurel
Speaker 1: wreaths onto the lawn of the Roosevelt family home. Mourners
Speaker 1: swarmed through Oyster Bay, leaving Edith and son Archie direct
Speaker 1: traffic and console the very people who had come to
Speaker 1: comfort them. The tributes to tr poured in. A Marisato,
Speaker 1: former Japanese ambassador to Washington, reflected on Roosevelt's legacy and
Speaker 1: his efforts to bring about peace during the Russo Japanese War,
Speaker 1: saying tire was perhaps the only great American who understood us.
Speaker 1: George Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister, wrote to Edith, saying
Speaker 1: France loses in him an excellent friend. British Prime Minister
Speaker 1: David Lloyd George remarked Mr. Roosevelt was a great and
Speaker 1: inspiring figure far beyond his own country shores, and the
Speaker 1: world is poorer for his loss. Later, a memorial service
Speaker 1: was held at Westminster Abbey, where a choir sang Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: favorite him how firm a foundation, followed by a rendition
Speaker 1: of the Star spangled banner on the church. Organs. Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's funeral was held on January. His body lay in
Speaker 1: a coffin in the north room of Sagamore Hill, resting
Speaker 1: on a prized lion skin adorned with flags for both
Speaker 1: the United States and the Rough Riders. His daughter Ethel
Speaker 1: said that he looked as if he were asleep. And weary,
Speaker 1: but not stern. Roosevelt was laid to rest in Young's
Speaker 1: Memorial Cemetery, just about a mile away from Sagamore Hill,
Speaker 1: at the top of a hill looking out over the bay.
Speaker 1: The weather and the hike to the site were pure Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: The mourners, who included mentor and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
Speaker 1: and friend turned rival William Howard Taft, had to make
Speaker 1: a forty five degree trek up the hill while trudging
Speaker 1: through a layer of wet snow that had fallen that morning.
Speaker 1: It's a humid day in July when John went a mental.
Speaker 1: Floss's video editors and I make the truck out to
Speaker 1: Sagamore Hill and to Young's Memorial Cemetery. The hill is
Speaker 1: no joke. We are sweating buckets by the time we
Speaker 1: reached the steps to Roosevelt's grave twenty six steps up.
Speaker 1: Did you just know that? No, I looked it up
Speaker 1: ahead of time, but you know, President steps makes sense.
Speaker 1: So this place is called Young's Memorial Cemetery, and that's
Speaker 1: because this used to be the Young's farm. They were
Speaker 1: a long time Long Island residents, and they started burying
Speaker 1: their own family members here in sixty eight. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then later on they made it available to their neighbors,
Speaker 1: and so tr and Edith bought plots here. According to
Speaker 1: this this pamphlet, some years before the President's death, his
Speaker 1: simple country grave reached by twenty six steps, signifying that
Speaker 1: he was the twenty six President. Soon became the focus
Speaker 1: for pilgrimages by groups and individuals like me. At the
Speaker 1: top of the hill is trs grave site. It's a
Speaker 1: simple tombstone adorned with a great seal, surrounded by a
Speaker 1: wrought iron fence. There's a small concrete pathway around the grave,
Speaker 1: which is covered with plants. There are two small American
Speaker 1: flags and one blue flag that reads Medal of Honor recipient.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously in two
Speaker 1: thousand one. He was the first and only president to
Speaker 1: receive the distinction. The site is tranquil. The trees rustle
Speaker 1: in the wind, the bay glitters in the sun, and
Speaker 1: above the distant sound of screaming kids and the drone
Speaker 1: of a lawnmower and the wishing of cars going by,
Speaker 1: you can hear what Theodore Roosevelt thought was the sweetest
Speaker 1: sound in the whole World He Loved Birds. History Versus
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Aaron McCarthy. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by j Serafino, with research by me and fact checking
Speaker 1: by Austin Thompson. Field recording by John Meyer. Joe Wigan
Speaker 1: voiced Theodore Roosevelt in this episode. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Klang. The supervising producer
Speaker 1: is Dylan Fagan. The show is edited by Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: and Loll Berlante. Special thanks to Elisa Parker Guisman, Eileen Andy's,
Speaker 1: Tyler Caliberta, and Clay Jenkinson. To learn more about this
Speaker 1: episode and Theodore Roosevelt, check out our website at mental
Speaker 1: flass dot com, slash History Versus. That's mental flass dot
Speaker 1: com slash h I S t R y vs. History
Speaker 1: Versus is the production of I Heart Radio and Mental Floss.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.