Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio. Guess
Speaker 1: what Will Ah, That's right, Will is not here today. Actually,
Speaker 1: before this episode, Will told me he loves Teddy Ruxpin
Speaker 1: and Teddy Pendergast, but he has zero interest in Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: which is what today's episode is all about. So of
Speaker 1: course I let him off the hook. But me, I
Speaker 1: love Teddy Roosevelt, and one of the things I love
Speaker 1: most about him is that every story you hear about
Speaker 1: the man is better than the last. He gave the
Speaker 1: White House its name, he invited the first black man
Speaker 1: over for dinner there. He made things like national parks,
Speaker 1: but he also tried to bring hippos to the US
Speaker 1: as a meat source, like he actually wanted to farm
Speaker 1: hippos in the Bayou and get people into hippo bacon.
Speaker 1: He walked his pet bear around on a leash, and
Speaker 1: one time in Montana this guy called him four Eyes,
Speaker 1: and even though the dude had two loaded guns on him,
Speaker 1: Teddy casually noted him out. I mean, the stories are insane,
Speaker 1: but I have so many questions, from whether Roosevelt once
Speaker 1: actually climbed a mountain out of Spie to what were
Speaker 1: Teddy's productivity, life hacks and also what is big stick energy?
Speaker 1: So we're diving into all of that. Let's dig in.
Speaker 1: Hey that our podcast listeners, it's Mangashi Dealer. You're listening
Speaker 1: to part time genius and my co founder, co host
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, decide not to come in today. It is
Speaker 1: such a mistake because Loel is wearing a shirt with
Speaker 1: the words Emily Spinach on it. It's got a picture
Speaker 1: of a cartoon garter snake, and I'm guessing it has
Speaker 1: something to do with Teddy Roosevelt because he always plans
Speaker 1: for these things. We'll have to ask our guests today
Speaker 1: about that. But I am here with a wonderful Aaron McCarthy.
Speaker 1: Aaron is the editor in chief of Mental Bloss, a
Speaker 1: position I used to have years ago, and she's an
Speaker 1: old friend. Some of her interviews and articles are still
Speaker 1: some of my favorites on the site. She's the one
Speaker 1: who told me all about jelly Belly's disastrous attempt to
Speaker 1: make a pizza flavored jelly bean, and also the oral
Speaker 1: history of Trafford Keepers. But today she's here to talk
Speaker 1: exclusively about a different obsession, Teddy Roosevelt. Hey, Aaron.
Speaker 2: Hi, So I want.
Speaker 1: To get into your new podcast, History Versus, which is
Speaker 1: all about Teddy Roosevelt. And I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: know this, but I years ago I desperately tried to
Speaker 1: get Teddy Roosevelt on the cover of Mental Floss.
Speaker 2: I did not know.
Speaker 1: I mocked up a version of him cutting like karate
Speaker 1: chopping aboard like in a judo up and no one
Speaker 1: else dnug it. But it's still in.
Speaker 2: The arts, I'm king.
Speaker 1: So, tell me, how is it that you got so
Speaker 1: obsessed with Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 2: So so I feel like when you work at Mental Floss,
Speaker 2: history is kind of your thing. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like it somehow becomes part of
Speaker 2: everything that you do. And so, you know, I knew
Speaker 2: a little bit about him. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, the conservation president. He liked to hunt things,
Speaker 2: and that was sort of where my knowledge ended. And
Speaker 2: then I took a fateful trip to the Strand Bookstore
Speaker 2: and I was just kind of wandering and looking at
Speaker 2: the shelves as I want to do, and I saw
Speaker 2: Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll just like pick this up and I'll read this, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know that much about Tart, it's going to
Speaker 2: be interesting. I didn't know it was the third book
Speaker 2: in a trilogy. So I read it and it was amazing.
Speaker 2: I cried at the end on the subway, like a
Speaker 2: real weirdo, and so then I had to go back
Speaker 2: and read the others, and then it was just like,
Speaker 2: you know, full speed ahead from there. I was just like,
Speaker 2: did you know that Theodore Roosevelt did this? And did
Speaker 2: you know that he did this? And now I just
Speaker 2: can't stop talking about him ever and making a podcast
Speaker 2: about it. So that's great.
Speaker 1: And it didn't confuse you to start with the third one.
Speaker 1: It was like starting with Back to the Future three
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I was just kind
Speaker 2: of like, hmm, maybe I should have gone back to
Speaker 2: get the other ones, but I just did, like it
Speaker 2: just didn't even occur to me, and by then I
Speaker 2: had bought it, so I was like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to read this, Yeah, and then you know,
Speaker 2: you go back and I actually I feel like I
Speaker 2: read them. I read the third one, the first one,
Speaker 2: and then the second one, so it was like, really weird,
Speaker 2: but I came out of it knowing so much more
Speaker 2: about him and just being totally obsessed.
Speaker 1: So it's amazing how your series is structured, because it's
Speaker 1: like history versus and then different aspects that Teddy Roosevelt's battling.
Speaker 1: And I want to start with time because I have
Speaker 1: no idea how he managed to get so much into
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 2: Oh me either, me either, And it's just baffling, baffling,
Speaker 2: Like it makes you tired. Yeah, when you read about
Speaker 2: how productive he was, I just strive for that energy
Speaker 2: every single day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every day. Well, I mean even as a college student.
Speaker 1: You think like college students should be lethargic or whatever,
Speaker 1: but like his schedule that you lay out is insane, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean that's part of what made him
Speaker 2: so productive was that he just had this devotion to
Speaker 2: a schedule. And what he would do is he would
Speaker 2: block out his time, which allowed him to be more productive.
Speaker 2: You know, I spoke with productivity experts and they were like,
Speaker 2: this is the key. Obviously he had a lot of energy,
Speaker 2: which helped a lot, but you know, he was just
Speaker 2: really really focused and he blocked out his time and
Speaker 2: apparently all the super productive people in history. Well, maybe
Speaker 2: not all of them, but many of them. Yeah, do that.
Speaker 2: You know, they'll say, this block of time is for
Speaker 2: reading my book. And you know, he had the schedule
Speaker 2: from when he was on the campaign trail and it
Speaker 2: was literally every hour and a half an hour was
Speaker 2: blocked out. He had something else going on, and that
Speaker 2: allowed him to be super focused and super productive.
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing was that he was also like,
Speaker 1: not only was he reading and doing all these things
Speaker 1: and writing letters, but you're just giving speeches NonStop too,
Speaker 1: all the time. It's insane.
Speaker 2: I wonder if he ever got tired of the sound
Speaker 2: of his own voice, because, like, I sometimes get tired
Speaker 2: of this as I'm sitting in the studio podcasting, like ugh, I.
Speaker 1: Read somewhere that he had a distinctive voice though too.
Speaker 2: Right, he did. He spoke with this really distinctive style,
Speaker 2: and some people actually think he had a speech impediment
Speaker 2: as a kid. But he had this kind of high
Speaker 2: pitched voice and he would distort words. So there's this
Speaker 2: story that Edmond Marris tells about how when he was
Speaker 2: in the New York State Assembly, he would just yell
Speaker 2: mister speaker, mister speaker, like forty times, just over and
Speaker 2: over until the speaker would acknowledge him.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So he was he was a weirdo. They always talk
Speaker 2: about his teeth. One of my favorite things that I
Speaker 2: learned from this podcast is that people talked about his
Speaker 2: teeth all the time. And so when he was police
Speaker 2: Commissioner of New York, Vendors Street Vendors used to make
Speaker 2: these whistles and they were Roosevelt whistles and they had
Speaker 2: his teeth on them. Yeah, And I mean, I'm assuming
Speaker 2: they were really cheap because I can't find any of
Speaker 2: them on eBay. I've looked, but yeah, like his teeth
Speaker 2: were just so distinctive, you know, just like really white
Speaker 2: and square, and he was always just like chomping on words.
Speaker 1: That's funny because I I guess if you think about
Speaker 1: like the caricatures of him, they do have that, but
Speaker 1: it's not something that I picked up on.
Speaker 2: Well, now you're gonna notice, Well.
Speaker 1: He also used to put those teeth to good use
Speaker 1: for meals, right, Like he was a big eater.
Speaker 2: Oh, a big eater, huge eater. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: like pretty plain stuff. He wasn't like into super duper
Speaker 2: fancy foods. But yeah, he ate a lot, so when
Speaker 2: he wasn't being as active, he got kind of chunky
Speaker 2: and it made him sad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing I didn't realize was how much coffee
Speaker 1: he drank.
Speaker 2: So much, so like a gallon a day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and what was his his son something
Speaker 1: that said something like his coffee mugs resembled a bathtub.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more in the nature of a bathtub. And actually,
Speaker 2: if you go to the birthplace in New York, they
Speaker 2: have like a tea cup of his and it's huge.
Speaker 2: It's huge. Really, Yeah, it's really, it's really big. And
Speaker 2: now at the gift shops in some places they actually
Speaker 2: sell a bull Moose coffee mug that's like really big.
Speaker 2: So I obviously bought one and I drink my coffee
Speaker 2: out of it exclusively now because I too have a
Speaker 2: bit of a caffeine problem. Not that badly, but pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Well, tell me a little bit about his childhood, because
Speaker 1: I feel like you think about Teddy Roosevelt and you
Speaker 1: imagine him as this super rugged person, which he was.
Speaker 1: But he grew up in New York City partially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was born in New York City in
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty eight, and you know, he was born to
Speaker 2: a very wealthy family. His father. The family business was
Speaker 2: plate glass importing. Really but yeah, it's weird, right, And
Speaker 2: I think his father was eighth generation Dutch New Yorker.
Speaker 2: But his father, THEI was basically a professional philanthropist. He
Speaker 2: gave money away like crazy, and he supported a lot
Speaker 2: of causes like the Newsboys lodging house, and he would
Speaker 2: bring the kids along to go down there. So service
Speaker 2: was like a really big part of his life growing up.
Speaker 2: His father also was part of the founding of the
Speaker 2: American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Speaker 2: So like this guy was just give away money, making
Speaker 2: it rain towards worthy causes all the time. So Tir
Speaker 2: was born. He was the second child, first son. He
Speaker 2: had his first asthma attack at age three, and he
Speaker 2: had asthma so badly that he would have to sleep
Speaker 2: sitting up. His parents really didn't think he was going
Speaker 2: to live to see his fourth birthday. They would make
Speaker 2: him drink black coffee and smoke cigars to try to
Speaker 2: get him to like breathe, which makes no sense, but
Speaker 2: you know, at that day it was or in that
Speaker 2: day it was. You know, that was the cutting edge.
Speaker 2: And you know, when your kid is sick, you're willing
Speaker 2: to do basically anything that you think is going to help.
Speaker 2: So you know, his father would put him in the
Speaker 2: carriage and go for these wild rides down the road
Speaker 2: trying to force air into TR's lungs, Yeah, to try
Speaker 2: to get him to breathe. And you know back then,
Speaker 2: I mean asthma is still it can be fatal today,
Speaker 2: but back then it was it was really bad. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he was this sickly little kid, but well traveled. So
Speaker 2: you know, they lived in New York and the family
Speaker 2: would go out. They would spend summers in New Jersey
Speaker 2: or out on Long Island just to kind of get
Speaker 2: the fresh air. Tir and his mother would go to
Speaker 2: these like health spas where they would take the waters
Speaker 2: or do whatever it is that you did in that
Speaker 2: day to try to make yourself healthier. And they toured
Speaker 2: Europe and they did the same sort of thing over there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he had this kind of crazy, crazy childhood
Speaker 2: where he was all over the place and you know,
Speaker 2: just like a sick, sick little kid. And then when
Speaker 2: he was a teenager or just about to be a teenager.
Speaker 2: His father said to him, you have the mind, but
Speaker 2: not the body, and so you have to build your body.
Speaker 2: And so now we think of him as this robust guy,
Speaker 2: and he really built himself up to be that robust guy.
Speaker 2: He basically they built a little gym out on the
Speaker 2: piazza and he would be out there, like lifting weights
Speaker 2: and pull ups and yeah, I mean, yeah, basically, like
Speaker 2: that's kind of what it was like. Although I guess
Speaker 2: there was like a beautiful garden in the back yard
Speaker 2: or whatever, so he would be like lifting weights and
Speaker 2: looking out over the garden. And then he took up
Speaker 2: boxing because he actually took this trip up to I
Speaker 2: want to say, Moosehead Lake in Maine. But he met
Speaker 2: these kids on the stage coach on the way up there,
Speaker 2: and they just beat the crap out of him, and
Speaker 2: so you know, he's like, I've been lifting weights for
Speaker 2: two years, why can't I like take on these kids.
Speaker 2: And so then he was like, I'm going to take
Speaker 2: up boxing. So he became a lifelong boxer at least
Speaker 2: until he got punched in the eye and lost part
Speaker 2: of the site in his eye. As President the White House, yeah,
Speaker 2: just crazy, Yeah, and then it was like no more boxing,
Speaker 2: so that's when he took up judo, anything to stay active.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Jersey Shore where like all
Speaker 1: these people can't fight, but they lift weights to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you have that much focus towards any activity,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you just get great at it, right, Like
Speaker 1: if you had that same focus as a child.
Speaker 2: Well, and I mean like and he applied that same
Speaker 2: focus to everything he did, like all throughout his life,
Speaker 2: so you know, and I mean I think it helped
Speaker 2: that his father was the one to kind of push him.
Speaker 2: He worshiped his father, and you can sort of see
Speaker 2: how that plays out throughout the rest of his life
Speaker 2: in a lot of really interesting ways. But his father
Speaker 2: told him weakness is a shame and often a sin.
Speaker 2: And you can imagine if you worship your father and
Speaker 2: your father tells you that, what would happen or how
Speaker 2: you would act down the line to kind of not
Speaker 2: be not show your weakness. So whenever he has any
Speaker 2: kind of major tragedy in his life, he just is
Speaker 2: like he doesn't show it, he doesn't talk about it,
Speaker 2: he acts like it didn't happen. And I think you
Speaker 2: can trace that back to not wanting to show weakness.
Speaker 1: Ah, there's so much good stuff, but we need to
Speaker 1: pause more with Aaron after the break. Okay, So we're
Speaker 1: here with Aaron McCarthy and of Mental Floss talking about Teddy
Speaker 1: Roosevelt as a child. I know from the podcast that
Speaker 1: he had a snapping turtle that he like strapped to
Speaker 1: a sink or something. Yeah, and he tried to train
Speaker 1: a woodchuck is Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was that possible. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: think it was, but you know he was going to try,
Speaker 2: so he you know, growing up in New York, you
Speaker 2: sort of feel like maybe you're not going to see
Speaker 2: a lot of nature, but there's actually a lot of
Speaker 2: nature all around you in New York, which I can
Speaker 2: attest to. So one day he was walking down the street.
Speaker 2: He was going to get strawberries from the market or something,
Speaker 2: and he saw a dead seal at the market and
Speaker 2: it just kind of like changed his whole life in
Speaker 2: New York. Yeah, it had been swimming in the harbor
Speaker 2: and somebody killed it and which poor seal. But you know,
Speaker 2: they brought it up and they I guess we're trying
Speaker 2: to sell it or something. Sure, And so he saw
Speaker 2: it and he was like, I need to know everything
Speaker 2: about this seal. So he was measuring it and he
Speaker 2: really wanted to bring it home with him, which I
Speaker 2: can only imagine what people would have thought at his house.
Speaker 2: But he ended up bringing the skull home, and then
Speaker 2: that sort of kicked off this obsession with nature, and
Speaker 2: so he would just bring things home living dead. He
Speaker 2: keep them in his room. He had the snapping turtle.
Speaker 2: I feel like there was some squirrels that he raised
Speaker 2: by hand or something. I mean, he was just obsessed
Speaker 2: with obsessed with nature. And it's a funny thing too,
Speaker 2: because you know, I think today we kind of think
Speaker 2: to ourselves, like, well, how could someone who loved nature
Speaker 2: so much go out and hunt like he did? As
Speaker 2: someone told me, that's very like twenty first century attitude.
Speaker 2: Back in the day, there wasn't a difference between being
Speaker 2: a hunter and a scientist. You know, if you wanted
Speaker 2: to know about animals, if you wanted to study them,
Speaker 2: you kind of had to kill them and see what
Speaker 2: made them work. And so he did that a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so no, it's hard to reconcile those things.
Speaker 2: Right it is now, yeah, but not back then. It
Speaker 2: was just it was it was the thing. One thing
Speaker 2: that I think is interesting that came up in the
Speaker 2: course of researching this is that, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of hunters of that day were the first constan deists
Speaker 2: because they could see, you know, that animal populations were depleting,
Speaker 2: and so they said, you know, we need to take
Speaker 2: care of these like if we want to still be
Speaker 2: hunting them many years in the future, we need to
Speaker 2: make sure that the populations are managed. And so you'll
Speaker 2: see that, and you'll see that today. Like if you
Speaker 2: are a hunter and you pay for a hunting license,
Speaker 2: a lot of times that goes back to conserving animal populations.
Speaker 2: Protecting animal populations, you know, so if you pay for
Speaker 2: a permit to shoot a bear, which makes me sad,
Speaker 2: but it's a thing that happens that goes back to
Speaker 2: helping bears. So it's one of those things. I'm actually
Speaker 2: surprised more people didn't yell at me about that Nature
Speaker 2: episode because I'm a big believer in scientific collections. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a thing that's kind of controversial these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they inspire so much wonder you know,
Speaker 1: and just being at the museums and stuff, and if
Speaker 1: you couldn't have seen all these wonderful taxidermy things, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine being as interested in animal at
Speaker 1: least for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know they have in the back rooms
Speaker 2: of museums they have just drawers and drawers filled with specimens.
Speaker 1: For me, once we went to see like the hippos
Speaker 1: hippos skulls, which was incredible.
Speaker 2: They're so cool, They're massive, they're huge. It's like, how
Speaker 2: can you figure out, for example, if mercury levels are
Speaker 2: rising in the world's oceans. Well, you can go back
Speaker 2: and you can look at the feathers of seabirds in
Speaker 2: scientific collections and you can prove that mercury is rising
Speaker 2: in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you didn't have those specimens, you couldn't make that discovery.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of important. The way that scientists collect
Speaker 2: today is not like it used to be. I mean,
Speaker 2: I feel like, especially for tr he would go out
Speaker 2: and he would just.
Speaker 1: Be like, bag stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm a bag everything I can bag science.
Speaker 1: In high school, I saw Bill Clinton was going to
Speaker 1: Africa and they were contrasting his trip there with like
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelts, and it just listed out all animals he shot.
Speaker 2: Hundreds, like hundreds, five hundreds of animals. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 2: they went to the Museum of Natural History, they went
Speaker 2: to the Smithsonian. There are some like I guess ticks
Speaker 2: that came from those animals are in a collection of
Speaker 2: ticks down in Georgia or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Crazy, And I was like, I want to go there,
Speaker 2: but maybe one day.
Speaker 1: Well. The other thing that's interesting to me is that Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: You think of him as such a collector, right he
Speaker 1: has this like little museum in his house or in
Speaker 1: his room or whatever, and and he's always contributing to
Speaker 1: things and whatever. Jefferson also kind of had that inclination, right,
Speaker 1: like he collected fossils and whatever. But Roosevelt did not
Speaker 1: like Jefferson.
Speaker 2: Hated him so much, hated him.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 2: Well, one, Jefferson was a constitutionalist, right, so he really believed,
Speaker 2: at least my understanding of it is he believed that
Speaker 2: the president's powers were limited to what was written specifically
Speaker 2: in the Constitution. And I think he kind of bent
Speaker 2: the rules a little bit for the Louisiana purchase, but
Speaker 2: otherwise it was basically like the Constitution is what it is.
Speaker 2: And Tir was a Hamiltonian and he sort of thought, well,
Speaker 2: you know, if it's not expressly forbidden by law or
Speaker 2: the Constitution, I can kind of do what I want.
Speaker 2: And he did so I think it has something to
Speaker 2: do with that. He also had an issue with the
Speaker 2: way that Jefferson dealt with George Washington, or like tried
Speaker 2: to undermine George Washington, and Washington tr held up to
Speaker 2: a pretty high He put him on a pedestal, not
Speaker 2: as high as the pedestal he put Lincoln on, but
Speaker 2: you know, he thought Washington was pretty great.
Speaker 1: Well, that was a funny line in your show, was
Speaker 1: talking about how, you know, he loved Lincoln but less
Speaker 1: enamored with his neighbor Jefferson.
Speaker 2: Jefferson hated Jefferson so much. And what's so funny is
Speaker 2: that at Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's Long Island estate, there is
Speaker 2: a portrait of Jefferson hanging I think like on the
Speaker 2: second or third floor. And as we were touring it,
Speaker 2: I said to Tyler Coloberta, who's the education technician there, like,
Speaker 2: what's what's this doing here? And he goes, you know,
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: That's really funny.
Speaker 2: He just needed some things, I know, I know it's
Speaker 2: like somebody's fooling around here, somebody's playing a little trick.
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny. So tell me about his obsession with Lincoln,
Speaker 1: because it starts when he's pretty young, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so his father actually worked with Lincoln.
Speaker 1: I get so confused about the times, like the fact
Speaker 1: that he like his he kind of interacts with Lincoln
Speaker 1: because of the lack of heir in some way, right,
Speaker 1: But also like, doesn't he have like a Doctor Seuss
Speaker 1: incident as well?
Speaker 2: I feel like he does.
Speaker 1: His trick is so strange in terms of how far it.
Speaker 2: Expands, and basically it's like if something crazy happened in
Speaker 2: the time when Theodore Roosevelt was alive, Theodore Roosevelt was
Speaker 2: basically there or involved in some way. But start with
Speaker 2: the Lincoln Lincoln. So his father worked with Lincoln on
Speaker 2: this program that would okay, well, let me back up.
Speaker 2: So Theodore Roosevelt's father did not go to war and
Speaker 2: didn't sign up for the Civil War. He paid someone
Speaker 2: to go in his place. Sure, and that is because yes,
Speaker 2: or at least partially because well yes, but not really.
Speaker 2: I think he probably still would have gone except that
Speaker 2: his wife was a Southerner and her brothers were fighting
Speaker 2: in the war, and she could not bear the idea
Speaker 2: of her husband potentially fighting her brothers. And I think
Speaker 2: she also did a little bit of the guilt trip, like,
Speaker 2: you know, if you died, I've got all these kids,
Speaker 2: and like, please don't go to war. So he didn't.
Speaker 2: He paid someone to go in his place. You know,
Speaker 2: there was probably a little bit of guilt there, sure,
Speaker 2: And so what he ended up doing was working with
Speaker 2: the Lincoln administration to create this program that would allow
Speaker 2: soldiers to send money home to their families. And so
Speaker 2: he actually traveled a lot during the war signing soldiers
Speaker 2: up for that program. So he wasn't home a lot,
Speaker 2: and when he wasn't home, TR's health took a nose dive,
Speaker 2: which is a whole other thing. So he worked with
Speaker 2: Lincoln in that capacity, and they even went to church
Speaker 2: together one time. So Big Theodore and Little Theodore both
Speaker 2: big Union guys not so much. And her mother and
Speaker 2: sister were in the house as well, so it was
Speaker 2: like a nation divided and a house divided. So it
Speaker 2: was kind of a delicate time. So he really revered
Speaker 2: Lincoln for that, and he also revered Lincoln for keeping
Speaker 2: the country together in a time of great strife, and
Speaker 2: so his when he was sworn in for the first time,
Speaker 2: he was elected, so he assented to the presidency when
Speaker 2: McKinley was assassinated, but then when he was elected of
Speaker 2: his own right, his secretary of State, John Hay, gave
Speaker 2: him a ring with Lincoln's hair in it. And John
Speaker 2: Hay had been lincoln secretary of State as well, and
Speaker 2: so he kept that his whole life, and it's at
Speaker 2: Sagamore Hill, along with a portrait of Lincoln that's basically
Speaker 2: looking down at his desk. So he really loved Lincoln.
Speaker 2: He thought he was like the perfect person.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me that Teddy Roosevelt not only
Speaker 1: took his presidency so seriously right, like he'd never take
Speaker 1: a photo of himself in tennis whites, all these things.
Speaker 1: But can you talk a little bit about how he
Speaker 1: and Taft had a falling out because they were really
Speaker 1: good friends.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, they were extremely good friends, very very close,
Speaker 2: and actually Taft was TIR's handpicked successor to the presidency,
Speaker 2: and so as soon as they decided like Taft is
Speaker 2: going to be the guy, taf didn't even want it.
Speaker 2: Taft wanted to be a Supreme Court justice. It would
Speaker 2: have been cool with that, but his wife was really
Speaker 2: ambitious and she was like, you have to be president
Speaker 2: and I was like fine, which I is kind of
Speaker 2: indicative of how Taft was with everything, right. He kind
Speaker 2: of let himself be bullied or pushed into things. And
Speaker 2: so the minute that Tir decided this is going to
Speaker 2: be the guy, he starts sort of coaching him, you know, like,
Speaker 2: don't let people see you golfing. It's bad form, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't let people take a photo of me and
Speaker 2: my tennis whites. And that's one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes him a modern president was that he cared very
Speaker 2: much about his image and the image he projected and
Speaker 2: how people perceived him. And Taft didn't care. He just
Speaker 2: wanted to golf and fish and do what he wanted
Speaker 2: to do. And so he ascends to the presidency or
Speaker 2: he's elected president. Tir goes off to hunt in Africa
Speaker 2: for a year and he comes back and Taft is
Speaker 2: sending him these letters where he's basically whining about how
Speaker 2: he can't get anything done and he can't lose weight,
Speaker 2: and you know, oh, Teddy come visit me, and Tir
Speaker 2: is like, no, I don't think it's a good idea
Speaker 2: for you know, a former president to come down, you
Speaker 2: know and visit a current president or whatever. He's like,
Speaker 2: it's just unseemly. Yeah, but I guess the real falling
Speaker 2: out and there are people debate about why it happened,
Speaker 2: but the people that the experts that I spoke with,
Speaker 2: one of them at least thought that it was the
Speaker 2: firing of Gifford Pinchot, who had been TR's chief of forestry,
Speaker 2: that was the break. And then there were also issues
Speaker 2: with US Steel and Taft went after US Steel, which
Speaker 2: is a merger that Tier had approved, and it was
Speaker 2: just like a whole mess, and then they were just
Speaker 2: at each other's throats for the rest of TIR's life. Basically.
Speaker 2: I feel like there was one time when they ran
Speaker 2: into each other somewhere and they like shook hands and
Speaker 2: kind of put on a show, but they were never
Speaker 2: close again after that.
Speaker 1: That's kind of crazy. Yeah, And I remember from the
Speaker 1: show some of the like curses and man banter they
Speaker 1: had for each other was kind of awful.
Speaker 2: I mean awful but also awesome.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's like this old fangle, like.
Speaker 2: There's nobody who's better at crafting an insult than Theodore Roosevelt.
Speaker 2: And you know, Taft got some good ones. He called
Speaker 2: him a puzzle whit and a fat head and brains
Speaker 2: less than a guinea pig. And I mean he would
Speaker 2: know because his children had so many guinea pigs. But
Speaker 2: you know, his favorite or my favorite insult of his
Speaker 2: is he called William Jennings Bryan, a professional yodeler, a
Speaker 2: human trombone, which is like.
Speaker 1: Human trombone's pretty great human trombone.
Speaker 2: It's so good. So you know, I just look for
Speaker 2: excuses to use that all the time.
Speaker 1: There's so much good stuff there. We need to pause
Speaker 1: more with Aaron after this break. So we're here with
Speaker 1: Aaron McCarthy of Mental Floss talking about Teddy Roosevelt. So
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about I'm sure you get
Speaker 1: asked about the story all the time, the one about
Speaker 1: the bear. But the thing I didn't realize was in
Speaker 1: the chronology what had happened right before, right ca, Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little.
Speaker 2: Bit about that. Theodore Roosevelt went on this bear hunt,
Speaker 2: and it was partially to sort of smooth feathers over
Speaker 2: because he had had Booker T. Washington over to the
Speaker 2: White House for dinner, and back then it was just
Speaker 2: really not considered proper to have dinner with a black
Speaker 2: man because it basically meant that you were saying that
Speaker 2: this black man could marry your daughter. Tr just kind
Speaker 2: of didn't really care about that. Or when he went
Speaker 2: out to send the invitation, he was like, he hesitated
Speaker 2: for a minute, and then he was like, no, I
Speaker 2: got to send it, like I'm ashamed. I can't believe
Speaker 2: I hesitated. So he sends it. Booker T. Washington comes
Speaker 2: for dinner. He has dinner with a whole Roosevelt family,
Speaker 2: and it's like a working dinner too, but you know,
Speaker 2: the kids are there and Edith is there, Tierre's wife.
Speaker 2: And then the next day someone put it in the
Speaker 2: paper and it was just chao chaos. I was gonna
Speaker 2: I was going to use an expletive, but I was like,
Speaker 2: what's the word that doesn't have give it? Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was pretty bad. And actually it never died down, really,
Speaker 2: I mean people kept bringing it up and bringing it
Speaker 2: up and bringing it up long after Tir was out
Speaker 2: of office, basically up until the day he died.
Speaker 1: Did he feel like he'd made a mistake or how
Speaker 1: did he know?
Speaker 2: He was just comfortable with that. He never talked about
Speaker 2: it again, and he never invited Booker T. Washington to
Speaker 2: dinner ever again. So but you know, I afterwards, he
Speaker 2: sent a letter that was basically like, I don't understand
Speaker 2: why everyone's so upset, and you know, I'll have him
Speaker 2: back to dinner anytime I want. And then he just
Speaker 2: never did because I think he realized that politically it
Speaker 2: was a little bit of a risky move. Sure, and
Speaker 2: he was always very attuned to his image. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I mean, I I don't know if he cared so
Speaker 2: much about his image, Like he was very progressive, you know,
Speaker 2: like he fought against segregation in New York when he
Speaker 2: was governor, and he certainly appointed a few African Americans
Speaker 2: to prominent positions. But you know, it just became such
Speaker 2: a thing that I think he was kind of like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it slowed policy and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and you know he then had to go
Speaker 2: smooth feathers is that a phrase?
Speaker 1: I think? So?
Speaker 2: And making things up for you know, So he went
Speaker 2: down there to try to make amends a little bit.
Speaker 1: So what do. He goes down to Mississippi.
Speaker 2: He goes down to Mississippi on a bear hunt, and
Speaker 2: they're led by this legendary bear hunter who supposedly has
Speaker 2: killed thousands of bears. It's probably more like a few hundred,
Speaker 2: but sure, thousands of bears, apparently. Tr from the start
Speaker 2: was like, this is bad news because there are a
Speaker 2: million people with us, and you know, this isn't really
Speaker 2: a bear hunt. His perception of hunting was, you know,
Speaker 2: you go out with a few dogs, or you go
Speaker 2: out on your own, and and you know, you do
Speaker 2: it that way. But there were a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: people with them, and so he was like, this not
Speaker 2: my version of it. But he went ahead and did
Speaker 2: it anyway. It was at the invitation of the governor
Speaker 2: of Mississippi or one of the senators. But so he
Speaker 2: goes down there and he's everybody has shot a bear
Speaker 2: but him. And so he comes back to the campsite
Speaker 2: and they've tied up this kind of sickly bear that
Speaker 2: has already killed some of the dogs, and they're like,
Speaker 2: here's a bear for you to shoot, and Tierra was like, no,
Speaker 2: I won't do it. Yeah, this isn't sportsmanlike and so
Speaker 2: that's where the teddy bear comes from. Someone from a
Speaker 2: toy company came to him and said, can we use
Speaker 2: your name for this teddy bear? And he said sure, okay,
Speaker 2: and then it became a thing. But I think what
Speaker 2: most people don't necessarily realize is that it's not like
Speaker 2: they let the bear go. Somebody else killed it with
Speaker 2: a knife. Oh godd So I know it's like, oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: his family because I'm kind of fascinated by his sister
Speaker 1: Baby and how he relied on her. Can can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Basically, anytime he had a big decision to make, he
Speaker 2: would bounce it off of her, which is wild, you know,
Speaker 2: because he's the president and that was not really something
Speaker 2: that was done at that time. But she was very
Speaker 2: involved in his political career. She was always writing letters
Speaker 2: for him and sort of making connections for him. And
Speaker 2: I think his sister Karn also helped, but to a
Speaker 2: lesser extent because Bamy was down in Washington and he
Speaker 2: just relied on her and her judgment a lot, which
Speaker 2: was rare for that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think in the show you said he referred
Speaker 1: to her as like the second White House.
Speaker 2: Her house is the second White House, which is crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to hear just a few of the
Speaker 1: fun stories that maybe you haven't gotten to talk about
Speaker 1: on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's so much. Okay, So we've kind
Speaker 2: of discussed a little bit about how the Roosevelts had
Speaker 2: this insane menagerie of pets. So Emily Spinach obviously was
Speaker 2: Alice's pet garter snake that she would carry around in
Speaker 2: her purse. Yeah, low loves loves. But my absolute favorite
Speaker 2: story about their pets is they had a bear, a
Speaker 2: small black bear named Jonathan Edwards. The kids named it
Speaker 2: Jonathan Edwards because of its calvinistic tendencies, but then also
Speaker 2: I guess Edith was somehow related to Jonathan Edwards. But
Speaker 2: they used to take it for walks. They had like
Speaker 2: a leash, It was a chain basically, and they would
Speaker 2: walk it with a club, which is a club. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I guess it would get out of hand,
Speaker 2: you know, And I could see it getting out of
Speaker 2: hand pretty quickly. And eventually they gave it to the
Speaker 2: Bronx Zoo. And when they did, Tir was like the
Speaker 2: whole household breathed a sigh of relief, except for the
Speaker 2: dogs because the dogs love to chase it and it
Speaker 2: would give them the thrill of the hunt. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean they had so many, so many pets. He
Speaker 2: got a hyena which he named Bill from some diplomat.
Speaker 2: They had a hyena for a little while, so lion cubs,
Speaker 2: a zebra, they had lion cubs. They had lion cubs
Speaker 2: for a little bit. Yeah, it's crazy. A pig named Maud.
Speaker 1: I know, the names are incredible, really good names.
Speaker 2: They had a badger named Josiah. This was a gift
Speaker 2: from a little girl who named it after her brother,
Speaker 2: and they would just carry this badger around. And then
Speaker 2: all the guinea pigs who had names like father O'Grady.
Speaker 2: So they were really, really good at naming animals. And
Speaker 2: I feel like if anybody out there needs an animal name,
Speaker 2: just look up what tr named his pets and go
Speaker 2: with it, because they were really good at naming animals.
Speaker 2: So that's one story.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I don't know if I told you this
Speaker 1: or not, but my granddad was one of the heads
Speaker 1: of forestry in India and he had a similar not
Speaker 1: entirely similar, but also ended up shooting animals because yeah,
Speaker 1: you do in the jungles. But but also there was
Speaker 1: a bear that couldn't give milk and wish hot my grandfather,
Speaker 1: but they found because it was attacking like villagers or something,
Speaker 1: and they found the three cubs and so my granddad
Speaker 1: brought him home. And so my mom has no fear
Speaker 1: of animals because she had like a pet bear like
Speaker 1: as a kid. They didn't have a club to walk
Speaker 1: around with, but certainly played with the.
Speaker 2: Fi Oh my god, I can't imagine, like cats are
Speaker 2: about as wild as I can get. Yeah, it just
Speaker 2: seems a little intense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things I had no idea about until
Speaker 1: I heard your podcast was that Roosevelt lived in North
Speaker 1: Dakota for a while. So why does he end up there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he I believe in eighteen eighty three he
Speaker 2: went out to the Dakotas to go hunting for bison.
Speaker 2: So he basically had a list of big game animals
Speaker 2: he wanted to hunt and get rid of of, you know, yeah, yolo,
Speaker 2: And so he went out to the Dakotas to hunt
Speaker 2: bison and he gets one. But while he's out there,
Speaker 2: he is staying with these cattle ranchers, and so he's
Speaker 2: having discussions with them and he decides he's going to
Speaker 2: invest in a cattle ranch pretty impulsively. What does he
Speaker 2: know about cattle ranching, literally nothing, but he's like, whatever,
Speaker 2: I'll just throw some money at this and become an investor.
Speaker 2: So he gets this cattle ranch, and then in eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty four, his wife and his mother died on the
Speaker 2: same day, which was horribly traumatic, as you might imagine
Speaker 2: his first wife, Alice, who is Alice's mother. And so
Speaker 2: he goes back to the New York State Assembly and
Speaker 2: he's got kind of like a rough last term because
Speaker 2: the Mugwumps, which was a faction of the Republican Party,
Speaker 2: wanted him to support the Democratic nominee for governor and
Speaker 2: not the Republican nominee for governor because the Republican nominee
Speaker 2: was super corrupt, and tr made some comment that ended
Speaker 2: up getting out into the press and it was like
Speaker 2: a whole big mess. And so after his term was done,
Speaker 2: he was like, this isn't for me. I'm going to
Speaker 2: move to the Dakotas and become a cattle rancher. And
Speaker 2: so he just like up and moved to the Dakotas.
Speaker 2: He bought another ranch that was more solitary. The first
Speaker 2: ranch he invested in was called the Maltese Cross Ranch,
Speaker 2: and it was sort of on a thoroughfare out of town.
Speaker 2: I mean as much as a thoroughfare as you can
Speaker 2: have in the Dakota's side time, but you know, it
Speaker 2: was pretty People would come by, and you know, he
Speaker 2: was like, I don't want to talk to anybody, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of just want to be by myself. And so
Speaker 2: he heard about this other parcel of land that was
Speaker 2: thirty five miles away from Medoro, which was near where
Speaker 2: his other cabin was, and so he bought the rights
Speaker 2: to that land for four hundred bucks, built a cabin
Speaker 2: out there, and he lived out there off and on
Speaker 2: for a few years. He was never like fully fully
Speaker 2: out there, but he did intend to go out there
Speaker 2: and stay there permanently. It just didn't work out that
Speaker 2: way because people were still pulling him back to New York.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Like when he moved to the Dakotas, he left his
Speaker 2: daughter Alice with his sister baby, and so he would
Speaker 2: go back to see her and sort of take part
Speaker 2: in political things and then he met or reconnected with
Speaker 2: his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kurmit Crow, who had become a
Speaker 2: second wife, and so he was back and forth a lot.
Speaker 2: So he didn't move out there permanently, but he was
Speaker 2: out there for quite some time. And I think one
Speaker 2: of the funniest stories he bought this buckskin suit, fringed
Speaker 2: buckskin suit, and you know, I mean his thinking was, oh,
Speaker 2: it's really soft and comfortable, and you know, you can
Speaker 2: wear it and move through the brush and it's really quiet.
Speaker 2: But people in the Dakota's didn't really wear that kind
Speaker 2: of stage. And so he shows up in this get
Speaker 2: up pretending to be a cowboy basically, and they're like,
Speaker 2: this dude from New York. And he also had glasses,
Speaker 2: which at that time people took as a sign of weakness,
Speaker 2: so they would pick on him and then he would
Speaker 2: just pop them right in the face and they would
Speaker 2: realize like, oh, well, I shouldn't have done that. And
Speaker 2: he was like a boss man out there, and so
Speaker 2: he was never quite I think the cowboy that he
Speaker 2: portray himself to be. But he also wasn't a person
Speaker 2: who was afraid to get dirty. So he would spend
Speaker 2: thirteen hours out in the saddle with the rest of
Speaker 2: his men and work really hard, just like just like
Speaker 2: you know, the men. So they really respected him. They
Speaker 2: came to respect him, not at first, but well efectually.
Speaker 1: That's one of the questions I had, is like where
Speaker 1: does he feel most comfortable, because he's obviously like he
Speaker 1: grows up with well, he goes to an ivyley school,
Speaker 1: he's in the army, he's like, you know, like he's
Speaker 1: in so many different scenes. Like where is he most
Speaker 1: at home?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he always felt the most at
Speaker 2: home in nature. You kind of see a pattern when
Speaker 2: any tragedy occurs in his life where he works himself
Speaker 2: to the point of exhaustion, I think, basically trying to
Speaker 2: keep himself from thinking, and then he just goes and
Speaker 2: he retreats to nature and that kind of heals him
Speaker 2: after every major death in his life. That's the pattern
Speaker 2: he follows. So I think he always felt most at home,
Speaker 2: you know, when he was like in the dirt and
Speaker 2: the mud, you know, doing some kind of physical activity.
Speaker 1: One of the questions gave throughout to me is he
Speaker 1: wanted to know is it true that tr once climbed
Speaker 1: the matterhorn out of spite? True, So what's that strue?
Speaker 1: I saw that question, I was like, what.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So on his first honeymoon, tr heard some British
Speaker 2: climbers in the lobby of the hotel he was staying in,
Speaker 2: basically like bragging about it. And so he just decided
Speaker 2: that he was going to summit the matterhorn to show
Speaker 2: them that he could climb just as well as any
Speaker 2: brit could. And he did it. And the matter horn
Speaker 2: is like, is like a really difficult like many people
Speaker 2: have died. And of course he had guides, but he
Speaker 2: was pretty much an amateur, and he was just like,
Speaker 2: I'm doing it force the personality exactly. And you know
Speaker 2: what's wild is that he was still having asthma attacks
Speaker 2: at this time. I mean, he kind of created this
Speaker 2: myth that he defeated his asthma, which is not true.
Speaker 2: He suffered from asthma for the rest of his life,
Speaker 2: for his whole life. But you know, he basically was
Speaker 2: just like, I'm not going to let this stop me.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to show that I'm weak. Just the
Speaker 2: stories of his physical exertion make me. It's inspiring and
Speaker 2: also exhausting. He would go to Maine and just like
Speaker 2: climb mountains and moccasins when he lost his boot in
Speaker 2: a stream, which is like not an easy thing to do,
Speaker 2: you know, or they he'd hunt caribou for thirty six
Speaker 2: miles in the snow with just like a blanket. He
Speaker 2: was a crazy guy. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Well. One of the things I always hear Doris Kurnce
Speaker 1: Goodwin say about him is that like he wanted to
Speaker 1: be the baby at every you know, risks or whatever,
Speaker 1: and the you know, I feel like he was always
Speaker 1: the center of attention. How did he fare with being
Speaker 1: president and then not being president?
Speaker 2: Oh? Not well, not well at all. One of the
Speaker 2: experts that I spoke with, Clay Jenkinson, who's the founder
Speaker 2: of the Theodore Roosevelt Center, was basically, just like after
Speaker 2: he left the presidency, he was the most unpleasant guy
Speaker 2: because he just he felt like he should be the guy.
Speaker 2: What happened was in his second term, early on he said,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to run for reelection for a third
Speaker 2: term because people will be tired of me, and you know,
Speaker 2: two terms is enough. And it's like a very stupid
Speaker 2: thing to do, because people loved him and he could
Speaker 2: have had a third term, but instead, you know, he
Speaker 2: said early on that he wasn't going to run again,
Speaker 2: and so at the end of it he was like, nope,
Speaker 2: I said, I wasn't going to run again. I'm done.
Speaker 2: And then you know, Taft kind of didn't keep up
Speaker 2: his reforms in conservation, he went after us steel. I
Speaker 2: think he also sort of apologized to the Colombian government
Speaker 2: for helping Panama pull off a coup so that the
Speaker 2: Panama Canal could happen. He was just furious, furious, and
Speaker 2: he really hated Woodrow Wilson like so much. His entrance
Speaker 2: into the nineteen twelve presidential race is what led to
Speaker 2: Woodrow Wilson becoming president. And then he just hated Woodrow
Speaker 2: Wilson for being a pacifist. So you know, he just
Speaker 2: was bitter, bitter, so bitter, so mad. Yeah, he just
Speaker 2: really wanted to be president. You know, he always thought
Speaker 2: that he could do a better job, and I mean
Speaker 2: maybe he could have.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I liked that you refer in one of
Speaker 1: your shows to his political style is big stick energy,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really funny. I feel like that
Speaker 1: belongs on a T shirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't take credit for that. My researcher, Michael
Speaker 2: Salgarolo came up with that and he was like, please
Speaker 2: use that, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna so,
Speaker 2: thanks Michael.
Speaker 1: He wins a Nobel along the way, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was the first American to win a Nobel
Speaker 2: prize of any kind, and it was partly for his
Speaker 2: mediation between the Japanese and the Russians during the Russo
Speaker 2: Japanese War, which some people call World War Zero because
Speaker 2: it was like an early mechanized war and they were
Speaker 2: killing each other in huge numbers. It had the potential
Speaker 2: to really sort of unsettle things in the Pacific, and
Speaker 2: so he stepped in and he was sort of a
Speaker 2: neutral mediator, sort of not There's this one great scene
Speaker 2: where he calls the Russian diplomat over to Sagamore Hill
Speaker 2: to tell him how he thinks he should negotiate, and
Speaker 2: he's playing tennis, and he doesn't stop playing tennis while
Speaker 2: he's talking to this Russian diplomat, you know, like in
Speaker 2: breaks from the game. He comes over and he says, well,
Speaker 2: here's what I think you should do. Here's what I'd recommend,
Speaker 2: and then he goes back to play. Some of the
Speaker 2: tennis and then he comes back and this went on
Speaker 2: for like ninety minutes, and I have to imagine what
Speaker 2: the Russian diplomat was thinking. He was like, this guy's crazy.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, But you know that was his style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I do want to hear it. Do you
Speaker 1: know anything about that Doctor Sue's story.
Speaker 2: I do so. I can't remember the exact date. I
Speaker 2: feel like it was nineteen eighteen, but Theodore Roosevelt went
Speaker 2: to this small town where he was going to hand
Speaker 2: out awards to boy scouts who had sold one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars worth of war bonds, and Theodore gaise El doctor Seuss,
Speaker 2: was one of those boys. All the boys are standing
Speaker 2: up on stage, there are ten of them. Tier only
Speaker 2: has nine medals. Somebody messed up, and so you know,
Speaker 2: he's pinning medals on the lapels of all these kids
Speaker 2: and he gets to Theodore guys all he doesn't have
Speaker 2: a medal, and he says, what's this boy doing here?
Speaker 2: The boy scouts master, which is didn't say anything. He
Speaker 2: just like ran guys all off stage. And then apparently
Speaker 2: that gave doctor Seuss stage fright for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. I know and horrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like it makes sense. It would be
Speaker 2: so humiliating. And you know, it wasn't his fault, wasn't
Speaker 2: TR's fault. It was just just a thing that happened,
Speaker 2: and uh and there were there were implications.
Speaker 1: So tell me, have you been inspired by Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: to change your life in any way or have you
Speaker 1: taken any sort of uh inspiration from all these stories?
Speaker 2: I really want to try to be more productive and
Speaker 2: sort of block out my time. Like I'm a big
Speaker 2: believer in a to do list, but apparently that's not enough.
Speaker 2: That doesn't help you be productive enough. So I think
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, I'm going to start blocking out my
Speaker 2: time and seeing how how that goes. Or maybe I'll
Speaker 2: take up Judo. We'll see.
Speaker 1: I like that. But no carrying a badger around.
Speaker 2: Or no, no, no, no, no, Chuck no. I mean
Speaker 2: my cats they're about all I can handle. I mean,
Speaker 2: Pearl kind of looks like a badger, So Pearl Woolfie,
Speaker 2: it looks like a badger.
Speaker 1: So Ada tell everyone where they can find the show
Speaker 1: and what episode they should start with.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I personally think you should start from
Speaker 2: tir versus Weakness, which is the first one because it
Speaker 2: kind of lays the groundwork for everything that comes next.
Speaker 2: But in terms of my favorite episode, Tier versus Time
Speaker 2: is a big one. I like Tier versus Language just
Speaker 2: because it gets into the whole simplified spelling debacle, which
Speaker 2: is one of my favorite stories of all time. Tear
Speaker 2: versus Corruption is really fun because I think you get
Speaker 2: a really good sense of the unusual style he used
Speaker 2: to take on corruption. They're all kind of close to
Speaker 2: my heart, to be honest, and.
Speaker 1: It's crazy everything he's involved in, from like everything football,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Mean, like there's so much we couldn't even get into,
Speaker 2: you know, like I could go forever. But you know,
Speaker 2: every time I said, like let's add an episode, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: Yler and Dylan were like, Aaron, you're crazy stuff. Tear
Speaker 2: versus Nature is I don't know, they're all fun. They're
Speaker 2: all fun in their own ways, and I mean, I think,
Speaker 2: what's children. I can't to make the choos, But you know,
Speaker 2: I think what's good about this is that you know,
Speaker 2: you read the biography is about tr and everybody kind
Speaker 2: of focuses on the thing that they want to focus
Speaker 2: on doing a podcast like this in this format has
Speaker 2: kind of allowed us to drop in and out of
Speaker 2: his life, to feature different things, and I think it's
Speaker 2: actually allowed us to get into some of the not
Speaker 2: so great stuff, you know, and explore that in a
Speaker 2: way that I hope is enlightening and thoughtful. So you know,
Speaker 2: we'll see people respond.
Speaker 1: It's a really excellent series and really really fun. And
Speaker 1: you can get History Versus for Mental Class everywhere from
Speaker 1: iHeart to Spotify, the Stitcher to wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: But what's next for the series.
Speaker 2: So we are looking at an explorer for the second season.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say who, I don't want to
Speaker 2: spoil it, but not the explorer you're probably thinking of.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: So that's fun. And then for the third season, I
Speaker 2: have an author i'd like to feature. Awesome, and we'll see.
Speaker 2: And there's kind of a Theodore Roosevelt connection to all
Speaker 2: to both of those nice I mean, of course there is.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, like he was involved in literally everything.
Speaker 1: Well, Aaron McCarthy, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: That's it for Part Time Genius this week. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with an episode on elevators. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be great, I promise, And in the
Speaker 1: meantime from Will Gabe Lolami, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 2: Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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