What is a Teddy Roosevelt presidential library doing in North Dakota?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Born sickly, he dedicated his early years to re-forming his body.
Born into wealth, he joined the Army and commanded in combat. By all accounts both incredibly -stupidly and -bravely.
Raised in the populous east (NYC), he set out for the barren west and tried to build himself a profitable enterprise there.
Connected to power brokers in industry and politics, he nonetheless spit in their eye when they transgressed his morals (in the NY state legislature, as governor of NY, and as president).
An avid hunter, he became a leading conservationist.
At all stages of his career, he wrote and published books and articles constantly, on a diverse array of topics.
Already a conservationist, he then shot his way across Africa and populated a chunk of the Smithsonian's natural history collection (11,400 specimens!). [0]
After giving up the presidency because he believed in the idea of presidential term limits (then not law), he ran a third party campaign in 1912 against his picked successor (Taft) because he thought him ineffective.
That's a lot to cram into an early-20th century life! Much less at the begining of modernity. (Mass mechanization, urbanization, corporate centralization, etc.)
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian%E2%80%93Roosevel...
His opening remarks: "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."
Presidents used to be made of much tougher stuff.
In 1907, Teddy Roosevelt shook 8,500+ hands in one day.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_New_Year%27s_Rec...
After he got out of surgery an aide told him that the government was running normally and he said "What makes you think I’d be happy about that?"
A regular Henny Youngman.
Yeah, like the mass murder of civilians in the Philippines to quash their attempts at independence from colonialism.
On September 28, 1901, 51 American soldiers were killed in a surprise attack on Samar, and Roosevelt gave the order to pacify the island.
This led to Jacob Smith [0], who had been promoted by then-civilian-governor Taft (with appalling lack of common sense) issuing genocidal orders which clearly violated US military general orders at the time [1].
The orders were only uncovered during Smith's subordinate's war crimes trial [2], which unfortunately led to Smith being forcibly retired (instead of hung).
But it's a bit of a stretch to put that on Roosevelt, halfway around the world in 1901 and having just suddenly inherited a presidency.
Of course, there are also the subsequent atrocities [3], most of which are unfortunately still repeated in modern times as militaries are used to perform counterinsurgency operations.
Of final note during Roosevelt's presidency would be the 1906 action at Bud Dajo [4], with the assault ordered by Leonard Wood [5] (Roosevelt's CO over the Rough Riders), in which ~900 Moro rebels (including substantial numbers of civilians) were slaughtered by naval gunfire.
However, among the reasons they were rebelling, and one of the reasons they were assaulted instead of being besieged, was their desire to continue taking slaves and their raiding nearby villages to do so, which the US government had banned.
So... suffice to say, the Philippine campaign was a clusterfuck, echoed in essentially every counter-guerilla campaign since, and probably can't be blamed conveniently on Roosevelt, given the communications/command capabilities of the day.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Promotion_to_...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieber_Code
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littleton_Waller#Philippine%...
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes#Phi...
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Bud_Dajo#Bac...
[5] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Wood#Philippines
To be fair, he was a product of his time, and it could be argued that humanitarian missions can be treated the same. Was American carpetbombing of Germany (killing untold numbers of people) even when it saved millions of Jews and Romas being genocided? Or, using a less loaded example - directly intervening in the Yugoslav Civil War and bombing Belgrade but also ensuring the Dayton Accords were created and preventing further conflict between Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Albanians.
There's no right or wrong answer. The world isn't black or white.
Roosevelt's actions in the latter of those colonies, Cuba, are more worthy of criticism ("I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth"). His bloodlust for personally killing Spanish soldiers in a war he helped to engineer lasted the rest of his life, and the corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that he gave his name to has fueled the US embargo of Cuba that has been imposed for 65 years and counting.
Amongst all the other positive points I don’t like how you paint this as a positive. It’s the worst thing on the list and is pretty hypocritical.
Did I? It's a fact.
There are obvious pros and cons to the particular endeavor.
He gave a drunk speech once where he said “I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are”. As an Indian myself (dot, not powwow), I take grave offense.
We gotta lighten up.
Let's enjoy our differences. The past was a different time with its own mores. Taleb's "Anachronistic Fallacy" [1]
Also: my private thoughts would put me in jail thousands of times over. Crimes of passion have fewer penalties than pre-planned ones. So I choose to forgive what people say when they're drunk.
[1] https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1013828722783383553?lang=...
[2] as for others... I choose not to speak.
Iirc he tried to join the army but they wouldn’t let him. He then went home, got his friends, made their own uniforms and went into battle themselves. I think that’s where “teddy’s roughriders” came from.
My favorite story of him was when he passed away the vice president said “Death had to take him sleeping. For if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.”
Edit: pbs has a great documentary series on the Roosevelt family. Teddy was by far my favorite, such a character.
Roosevelt, who stayed nearly three years, found renewal and purpose in the area’s stark beauty. “I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota,” he later wrote. It was here “that the romance of my life began.”
Wasn't aware he found inspiration again in ND. Cool.
Roosevelt routinely used his position as U.S. President to help the New York Zoological Society and the American Bison Society secure land, procure buffalo and promote bison reintroduction projects. President Roosevelt even mentioned his concern for bison in his annual message to Congress in 1905. The first three premier bison restoration projects supported by President Roosevelt and the ABS included Wichita Mountains Reserve, Wind Cave National Park and the National Bison Range. As President, Theodore Roosevelt harnessed his passions into deliberate action and thereby changed the manifest destiny of the United States to ensure that there will always remain wild lands and wildlife, including the new National Mammal - the American bison.
It was ceded to Native Americans by treaty as a reservation, then the land in the middle of the reservation "bought" back (disputedly) for less than market value, set aside as a bison preserve, managed by the federal government (Fish and Wildlife?), management duties transfered back to the tribe, then back to the federal government, now finally back to the tribe.
Specifically, his wife and mother both died of unrelated causes on the same day - and it was Valentine's Day.
Talk about a shitty holiday.
From the hunters I've interacted with, there's a sort of convenient split. One has a lot of gear, pheromones, covers a lot of ground with trucks or atvs. Personally, I don't find this particularly sporting, but it's not really my place to judge. Some folks do (well, did, when I was a kid) this because that meat would save them a lot of money.
The other kind of hunter will only take 3-5 bullets, but tell you if they use more than one, they messed up.
From everything I've read, Roosevelt was very much the second kind. Go out in the woods. look around. Try to really understand what's going on, and figure it out. It shows in his legacy, the national parks, the conservation movement, heck, Teddy Bears are named after him.
The gear cost equation is dramatically out of sync with “saving money on meat” any more. You can buy years worth of beef for a family of four for the cost of a crappy used ATV. Now ATVs are fun, and shooting nicer weapons is fun, and there is a lot of cool gear and hunting and fishing can be a very very fulfilling hobby and use of time, but “saving money” is just a rationalization.
Let me clarify a little bit. I think there are some folks that just like killing. And some of those folks have the money to spare.
I can think of a family or two that didn't have a lot. But a truck and a spotlight, not to hard to come by. One guy driving and another shoots from the bed of the truck at 3 in the morning. Is that sporting? is it fun for them? Did the meat go to waste? Maybe they just like killing too. But internally I give a little more leeway.
A beat-up rifle and 3 bullets is incomprehensibly far from no rifle and no bullets.
A $x0,000 custom AR isn't that far from the beat-up rifle.
To me, that's what time in nature is -- resetting our baselines.
Without that periodic reset, it's easy to get subjectively out of whack and a bit crazy.
Archery also has seen the most applications of technology the past 20 years. My newest bow cost more than my newest rifle.
You are somewhat right that hunters are not "saving money on meat." Some years we do and some years we don't. But a big attraction is just knowing where your food comes from (at least some of it). Processing it yourself.
for example: "It is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird. Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals -- not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at last it looks as if our people were awakening." [1]
I'd accept he liked killing, and the 10,000 animals is a fantastic indicator of that. I do think there's a bit more texture an nuance, given the time and technology. I'm not a fan of the "great man" model of history. I think a lot of his reforms would have come around anyway. But he really was an interesting character.
1. https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roose...
I've visited your southern neighbor, and would love to explore ND too.
PS: I assume the ND perspective on TR is the typical western 'Decent fella, nice to have friends with money, but born in city is born in city.'
I grew up in North central ND by the Turtle Mountains (they're not mountains, just hills). It's nice up there, but I don't know about nice enough to go out of your way to visit. Further east there are a couple of state parks that are nice, Icelandic State Park and Turtle River State Park, but again, not worth traveling from out of state in my opinion.
I've lived in Fargo for most of the past 15 years and it's a perfect small city to me. There's enough art and music stuff and outdoors events (in the summer) to stay interesting. Small enough you can get from one side of town to the other in 20 minutes. 3.5 hour drive to Minneapolis for any big city stuff.
And in regards to Teddy Roosevelt, I think most people here just don't even have an opinion on him.