Remembering TR

Adam Trueblood Commentary	Index
Remembering TR It is said that many leading members of the Bush administration, including George Bush himself, revere Teddy Roosevelt as an icon of aggressive foreign policy and that his photo is a common sight in the Washington offices of our government’s leading policy architects. Sadly, the neocons grasping for support of their own failed policies in this manner, and in particular George Bush’s desire to emulate the earlier man’s leadership strength, in the end reveal their ability to self-deceive and distort the complete picture in order to serve their limited aims. While it is true that Roosevelt espoused an imperialistic foreign policy and that he revered war as a test of manly courage, Roosevelt would have had little in common with a politician such as George Bush. The legacy of an affinity for the tests of combat is only one aspect of a complicated and remarkable man who towers above the small figure of our current president. Born in 1858, Roosevelt grew up in New York and demonstrated a burning curiosity about the world around him. He was a scientist, naturalist, voracious reader and adventurer who benefited from an auspicious upbringing in a prominent family, yet was eager to carve his own path. At the age of fourteen, as he visited Egypt with his family, Roosevelt wrote: “At eight o’clock we arrived in sight of Alexandria. How I gazed on it! It was Egypt, the land of my dreams; Egypt the most ancient of all countries! A land that was old when Rome was bright, was old when Babylon was in its glory, was old when Troy was taken! It was a sight to awaken a thousand thoughts, and it did.” Roosevelt was an insatiable student, learning all he could about plants, animals, history and sport. An element of kinship with our current president, famous for his lack of curiosity and contemplation, is a far reach at best. Roosevelt’s father died when the son was nineteen, and though there was a small inheritance, Roosevelt apparently lived by his own toil and on his own terms. He made a disastrous investment in land in the Dakota badlands, yet here he bore the consequences individually and was not reliant upon other’s capital. He went to work as a state legislator, then as a member of the federal Civil Service Commission, and eventually assumed the post of Police Commissioner of New York. Roosevelt was known for being plain spoken, honest, and a crusader for good government. A reporter described the young legislator: “’Mr. Roosevelt has a most refreshing habit of calling men and things by their right names, and in these days of judicial, ecclesiastical, and journalistic subserviency to the robber-barons of the Street [Wall Street], it needs some little courage in any public man to characterize them and their acts in fitting terms.’” Roosevelt despised corruption and dishonesty, spending much of his public life seeking to employ his vision of cleaner government and enterprise. It is not hard to imagine how he would view the current president’s history of losing other’s capital in failed business ventures only to be rescued repeatedly by those seeking political favors, or his manipulation of local government resources to enrich himself through the land dealings of the Texas Rangers enterprise, or indeed, his complete subservience to the influence of the money interests that back his political machine. Roosevelt’s fascination with history and nature led to significant achievements and contributions to American culture. He wrote highly regarded books such as “A Naval History of the War of 1812” and “The Winning of the West”. As president he achieved one of our nation’s most remarkable environmental legacies with the creation of the national park system. Though he was a hunter, Roosevelt understood the fundamental importance of environmental preservation and the overriding necessity of balance between nature and man. Bush, on the other hand, is distinguished only by his utter disregard for the environment at a time when issues such as global warming threaten the planet. In the end, Roosevelt’s reverence for the test of war is perhaps too a misguided point of common ground for the Bush administration, as Roosevelt understood the sacrifice involved and was keen to throw himself into the line of fire to prove his own bravery. He insisted on leading men into battle in Cuba, and later had to be prevented from serving in WWI while he was at an advanced age. The chief architects of the current war machine, including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, have never served in battle and in fact have been notable for their ability to avoid offering their own service during times of war. It is enough to make Teddy Roosevelt grimace as he looks down upon them from photos in the White House placed in his honor. December 2004 Quotes supplied by “TR: The Last Romantic” by H.W. Brands.