Dan Snow's History Hit - Theodore Roosevelt

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919), was an American politician, conservationist and writer. After the assassination of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901 - he won a second term in 1904 and served until 1909.Michael Patrick Cullinane, Professor of U.S. History and winner of the 2018 Theodore Roosevelt Book prize, joins Dan on the podcast. They discuss Theodore Roosevelt’s unexpected path to the White House, his time in office, and the complexity of his legacy.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Teddy Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, distant cousin of the subsequent president, FDR. We're talking about Teddy Roosevelt today, one of the most remarkable presidents who's ever sat in the White House. An interesting figure, a figure that's tough to pin down, had the political views, did things that placed him all over the map of partisan politics. His ideas about the Navy, about the American role in the world, about big business, about the outdoors, are difficult to pigeonhole, but they remain important today. In this episode, we're going to find out all about Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the US of A. We've got Mike Cullinane. He's a historian, professor of US history at the

University of Roehampton. He's written several books on Roosevelt. He's got a podcast called The Gilded Age, The Progressive Era. Go and check that out. It's brilliant. Mike's a legend. You're going to love him. And he's going to talk me through Roosevelt's incredibly colourful life and career. If you want to listen to other podcasts about US history, you want to watch TV documentaries, we've got hundreds and hundreds available, that History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. It's like a specialist history channel, the best history channel in the world for true history fans. There's no aliens on there. No, no, no. There's no sharks on there. Well, there's a few sharks in an episode we did on USS Indianapolis. But anyway, on the whole,

it's just great history. So please go and check it out. If you follow the link that's in the notes for this episode, you will be taken right there. You just click on it, you get two weeks free if you start today. And for a tiny amount of money, you can subscribe forever. You're going to love it. But in the meantime, though, here's Mike Cullinane. Enjoy. Mike, great to have you on the pod. Great be here thanks for having me dan tell me about theodore roosevelt as a young guy what was he doing and what did he think he would do with his life well i don't think that he ever thought that he would be a politician he was a rather sick kid actually he had a terrible asthma and he spent a lot of his childhood looking out of his window at nature and the animals that were around

New York City and then later around Long Island. And I think he thought he was going to be a naturalist. Even when he went to Harvard, he was most interested in languages and natural sciences. And I think he expected that he was going to be a naturalist of some kind, a scientist. And in fact, his first two books that he writes are books about birds in Long Island and elsewhere. Politics also was not in fashion at the time. In the late 19th century, rich and wealthy Americans thought that politics was a sort of a dirty profession and one that you don't sully your hands with. that he was going to be a scientist and that he was going to write books about animals and birds and that he was going to spend time in the field, which is what his real passion was. And we see that a lot throughout his life, that he loves being outdoors and in nature. And he's got that wonderfully American thing, which is grow up in a very wealthy urban setting, but be like an outdoorsman as well. Well, it's funny because you think about Long Island. I mean, I grew up in New

Jersey. New Jersey is like suburbia everywhere. You know, every park is placed strategically near people so it can be used. Long Island is the same nowadays, too. But back in TR's time, where he built his house out in Long Island in Oyster Bay, I mean, it was properly rural. I mean, there was no big farms were out there. I mean, nowadays you can't throw a stone in Long Island without hitting a housing estate. So it's a very different place back when he's growing up. He lived in Manhattan. But even when he lived in Manhattan, he was doing taxidermy in his house. He was killing local animals and stuffing them. He was collecting all sorts of flora and fauna. So he was really engaged with the outdoor space, even in the most urban of areas. So then what happens? Because he does

enter politics quite early on, right? He goes to law school. What goes wrong? All right. Well, he hated law school. I mean, I think that was it. I suspect there's a few other people we could talk about that are the same. But yeah, he gives up on law school. He went to Columbia for maybe the guts of a year and then gave up. And then he realized that he could do good in politics. And he starts as an assemblyman in the New York legislature and then takes a number of jobs over, you know, about 10 years and spending almost as little as a year to two years in these positions. Everything from police commissioner to civil service commissioner, bureaucratic jobs and

executive positions. He runs for mayor of New York. He never really hits his stride until he goes off to war and becomes a war hero. And he knew that, too. He knew that by going off to war, making a name for himself, he could then return to politics as the sort of the conquering hero. And that is, in fact, what happens. He goes off to war in Cuba. He fights in several important battles. And he publicizes himself when he comes back. He writes a book called The Rough Riders, which is the name of his regiment. One satirist at the time said it

should have been called Alone in Cuba, because, you know, TR is making himself sound like he did this all himself. And when he returns back to the United States at the end of the war in 1899, and there's only one other person that's bigger than him, and that's Thomas Dewey, who's the other big war hero of the Spanish-American War. So he really made his name in 1898 in that war. And although he certainly glamorized his own role, how did he perform? Like, I mean, was he a good leader, conspicuously brave? What was that war experience like? He was conspicuously brave. I mean, foolishly brave, in fact. I mean, there's a number of occasions where, you know, he's on horseback and Spanish gunners are shooting downhill at his regiment. And he decides, you know, to get up on horseback and tell Heights, not San Juan Hill, because they captured the hill

next to San Juan Hill. But, you know, that's a major battle that does turn the tide of the war, at least in terms of the ground offensive in Cuba. So, yeah, I mean, he wins the Medal of Honor posthumously. Bill Clinton gave him the Medal of Honor in 2000. But, you know, it's a deserved award for a man who did lead the regiment successfully and bravely. You guys in the States have got this extraordinary link between military heroes and presidents, right? Starting with Washington, of course, Eisenhower, Grant, Jackson, Taylor, Harrison. From this point on, has he got his eyes set on high office? Is this part of his plan? It's not only part of his plan, it's part of his whole character. He feels that the whole nation is going to be able

to remake itself through that martial spirit. And that actually, he's living that. He's kind of the embodiment of that whole idea. When he returns back to New York in 1899, he gets nominated to run for governor. And running for governor and winning the Albany State House, it's akin to the next step to the presidency. I mean, so many American presidents have been governor of New York, including his cousin, Franklin Roosevelt. So he wins the New York governorship in 1899, and then he becomes vice president, which he thought was actually a step down. And he thought it was going to be the end of his career, but fate stepped in, I guess. McKinley was assassinated in 1900, September 1900. He's shot, and 10 days later, he dies from his wounds.

And Roosevelt then suddenly becomes president of the United States, much to the chagrin of McKinley's people, who thought that TR was a madman. As one person called him, a damned cowboy. So he was unexpectedly hurled into the White House. If they didn't like him, why'd they put him on the ticket? Is this a McCain-Palin sort of echo here? It's not quite McCain-Palin, but that's a good parallel. They wanted him out of New York. So he was making trouble for the big bosses, the big Republican bosses in New York. They were grateful that he won the election in 1899, but then they wanted rid of him because actually Roosevelt turned out to be quite a progressive, and he was aiming to reform business practices in New York. And he was also aiming to conserve a lot of the special places, the special outdoor places in the state as well. And that was becoming a problem for political bosses in New York. So

they think, okay, well, let's make him vice president. That's not a position where he can do any trouble. And McKinley's top aide at the time, a guy called Marcus Hanna, he said, this guy is one heartbeat away from the presidency. He thought it was a terrible idea. And it turned out that Hanna was right, that Roosevelt became president in 1901. So we should talk a little bit about politics, right? Because this is the thing I find so fascinating about Roosevelt. And I know that the political labels that people be familiar with today have changed dramatically. And, you know, the Democrats, particularly the Southern Democrats, are no longer recognisable from what they were back in 1900. But he was a Republican. But how did he differ from his fellow Republicans in his relations? Let's talk about this era, the Gilded Age, big business, super wealthy people and

business interests. Well, I mean, in many ways, he's a traitor to his class, because Roosevelt is an aristocrat, an American aristocrat. He comes from wealth. His family would have started the biggest banks in New York. But what he felt was that the United States and all of its people deserved what he called a square deal. And that has echoes in later years, like FDR's New Deal sounds a lot like that too. But effectively, what he meant by that was that everyone deserved a chance to make a life for themselves that was free from any impositions. And I think his policies around corporate governance, you know, he started the Department of Commerce and Labor. He started the Bureau of Corporations, which regulated big business. He went after Standard Oil, which at the time was, I mean, the anti-competitive measures that Standard Oil was

practicing at the time, we would think were absolutely heinous today. I mean, we could talk about P&O ferries, right, firing 800 staff members. I mean, it wasn't too dissimilar to what things were like back in the early 20th century. So Roosevelt brought in a number of measures, everything from trust busting to rethinking how corporations can act, and also rethinking the way unions get attention from corporations. So there was a big coal strike when he started as president, and he made sure that the unions got what he called a square deal from those negotiations. So it's a real step change for the way the federal government intervenes in business and commerce. And that's the same now today as it was back then, but it was

really Roosevelt that started that. Right. And that's why you hear him talk about the moment in regards to breaking up big tech firms or whatever it is in the States. People summon the spirit of Roosevelt. That's right. And there's so many other things that are summoned as well, for good or ill. I mean, Roosevelt did start the whole publicity of the presidency. I mean, the reason why we have celebrity presidents now is because Roosevelt was that kind of

character. And the reason why he did that was because he believed if he could speak directly to the people about political issues, he could move them, that he could effectively get them to see it his way. So he put in the White House a correspondence bureau, the first time that reporters are actually housed in the White House. He was very fond of using film and sound recordings. So, you know, it's a very modern approach to the presidency. He was also very fond of creating commissions and other sort of executive,

temporary executive organizations that would push for reform. And none of this was done under previous presidencies. A lot of the previous presidents, they allowed Congress to effectively have more oversight over what the president did. What about foreign policy? He didn't get his big great power war, but what's he up to? Well, in fact, he probably stops two major wars. I mean, one he gets the peace prize for in 1904, 1905, Russia and Japan go off to war, the Russo-Japanese War, hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Not too dissimilar to what we're seeing now, actually, in Ukraine and Russia, you know, two powers fighting hundreds of thousands dying, and Roosevelt steps in and mediates that war, wins the Peace Prize for his efforts. And it was genuinely a well-deserved Peace Prize. But also a little known episode in Morocco in 1906,

between France and Germany could have started the First World War because it was really that serious. Roosevelt steps in and also through back channels arbitrates. So he's got a really strong record, despite being known as a saber rattler, he's got a really strong record of intervening in global affairs with the aim of bringing peace and mediation. In fact, mediation was the big change that he brought in American policy. So he would have been at the forefront of arbitration and mediation processes throughout his time as president. You listen to Dan Snow's history, we talk about Theodore Roosevelt, more coming up.

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and to understand them all is vital to continuing your culture and continuing your survival. Subscribe to The Ancients on History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. To be continued... Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. How about race? This is the issue that dogs, well, US history, but where is he on his treatment of African Americans? I mean, it's such a mixed bag. And, you know, his statue has come down recently in front of the American Museum of Natural History,

in part because it shows a racial hierarchy. He's on horseback and there's a Maasai warrior on one side and there's a Native American on the other. He had a pretty low estimation of non-white races, whether that's Native Americans or African Americans or Africans. However, what he believed in terms of his racial ideology was that all races could rise to the place that what he saw the English-speaking people being. He didn't think that it was a static pyramid of a hierarchy of races. He believed that Africans could reach what he classed as civilization. I mean, in terms of what he did as president, he had Booker T. Washington over to the White House, which so many people talk about. I mean, that's a major moment.

It's the first time an African-American dines with the president at the White House. It was a sign of social equality. However, he gets a lot of grief from Southern politicians and he never invites Booker T. Washington back again. And there's also the famous case of Brownsville, where he dismissed a number of soldiers. I think it's over 100 soldiers, African-American soldiers, who were accused of getting involved in a riot and looting in Brownsville, Texas. They didn't do it. I mean, Roosevelt, by the end of his presidency, was pretty sure that they didn't do it, and he dismissed them anyway. And it was seen as being blatantly racist. Just some stuff that I was reading yesterday shows, too, that Roosevelt was very much opposed to lynching, which was becoming popular at the time. But he had made some strides to oppose lynching from a federal point of view. You know what, Michael, I forgot to talk about the most tragic moment of Roosevelt's life and

one that is one of the most tragic diary entries I've ever seen. Could you talk about the loss of his wife and child? Yeah, sure. That's a terrible story. So it was Valentine's Day. He's coming back from Albany. He knows that his wife is about to give birth, and he's just heard on the train journey back that she's also quite sick. So he rushes home to see her, and then when named Alice, his wife passes away. And if the grief of that on Valentine's Day, or any day for that matter, isn't bad enough, a few hours later, his mother passes away. So on that day, he writes in his diary, just a big, dark X and says, the light of my life has gone out forever. He basically absconds to North Dakota to start a ranching career to get away from the pain. And he writes, Black care knows no rider whose pace is fast enough.

In other words, if I just keep on working, I can escape this sort of torture and torment of the loss. That's right. It was his wife and mother, as you say. Is it true that he says that thing, like, I can either be president of the United States or keep control of my daughter. I cannot possibly expect her to do both. He does. He does. She is such a handful. She's a handful for all of her life, though. Alice is a really remarkable character, better known as Mrs. Longworth, because she would marry Nick Longworth, who is the Speaker of the House. So she was a real power broker. And her other nickname was the Other Washington Monument, because she was so involved

in Washington affairs, really up until Reagan's presidency. So I mean, imagine the longevity of that sort of influence. I'd like to ask about the Navy stuff, because he decides that he's going to kind of turn the USA into a naval power. Yeah, he always believed in that. And he was very much a student of Alfred Sayre Mahan, who was the captain and the educator of the Naval Academy. He believed firmly that a strong Navy, and he was right, I mean, throughout the 20th century, a strong Navy did equal military might. So he was in some ways ahead of his time. He was assistant secretary of the Navy. And I think he liked the wonky business of the Navy. He was really interested in personnel. He was really interested

in gun sizes and the maneuverability of ships, which is something that his cousin also, Franklin Roosevelt, was also quite into, inspired by Theodore. So that was something that was a big part of his thinking as president was about power and the Navy was a real instrument of power. What happens to him post-presidency? So he wins a landslide in 1904. And so he served two terms, basically then. But he's not term limited. Is he? What happens then? He's not term limited. After he wins in 1904, he stupidly says, and I say stupidly because we've seen other politicians do this. He says he's not going to run again, which automatically makes him a lame duck. Now, TR didn't act like a lame duck, but politicians knew

that he was limited by his own word. He gives, and I mean this, he does give the presidency to his friend William Howard Taft, because Peter Roosevelt was so popular in 1908 that he could have picked anyone. And there are people that he did prefer over Taft. He wanted Elihu Root, who was the Secretary of State, to run. But as he said, Elihu Root couldn't be elected dog catcher. Taft was more likable. And so he pushed for Taft. And he did like Taft. But Taft lets him down. And he begins to make some personnel changes and some policy changes that Roosevelt disagrees with. And he goes on this long safari and journey through Europe to meet the crown princes of Europe and queens of Europe.

He kills a lot of animals on that trip. He kills 11,000 animals on that trip. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's worth saying, you know, because they're not killed needlessly. He kills 11,000 animals. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's worth saying, you know, because they're not killed needlessly. He brings all of them back. It's a Smithsonian expedition. I mean, he kills a whole family of elephants. Can you imagine that? He kills a whole family of elephants in one go. All of them are still in the Museum of Natural History in New York. So this is not just a sort of bloodlust that he's got. It's really going back to the

scientific understanding of nature that he has. But yeah, he goes on that long trip. And when he returns, he decides that Taft has effectively done things differently, or not the way he would have done them. And he decides to run for president again in 1912. Against his old buddy Taft, he has to form a new party, though, which is always difficult. Absolutely. And as we know from third party candidates, they almost never win. Roosevelt was probably the one who had the closest chance. He does try to run in the Republican primaries for the first time in 1912. He wins most of them, but the party decides to go with Taft. And so he walks across the street and he says famously, in quite religious terms, we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord. And he forms the

Progressive Party, which in many ways is still around today. But he comes in second place. He beats Taft. But of course, we know Woodrow Wilson becomes president only by plurality. And it's the most successful third party run in, well, modern, I wouldn't want to go back to the early 19th century, but like in modern times, right? I think ever. I mean, in terms of share of the vote, and in terms of popularity, there's no third party candidate that's ever been or ever was as popular. And it must have been difficult for him, as it was for everyone, when the First World War breaks out in 1914 in Europe and then America is making a decision about whether or not to enter. He must have been desperate to get back into the White House. Well, he was. And he was

also desperate to get America into the war. He's the foremost interventionist. And the Europeans love him for that. Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, they talk about Roosevelt as if he is their political soulmates. And he pushes for this. He even starts a preparedness campaign to get Americans trained for the war because we don't have a standing army in 1914. And Wilson doesn't get the United States into the war until 1917. So it's a long wait. And really, after the invasion of Brussels and after the sinking of the Lusitania, he only gets louder and more right, I think, probably,

in terms of, you know, eventually the United States is going to get involved in the war. He's a pain in the neck then, surely, for serving politicians. You've got this super charismatic former president just gallivanting around. He's a pain for sure. He's also, probably during the war, he's probably seditious the way he's talking about Wilson. And when he dies, Wilson gets the news on an ocean liner going over to Europe. And his face goes through a number of contortions. First surprise, but eventually it settles on happiness because he doesn't have to deal with Roosevelt anymore, who is a giant pain in the butt for him. And so it's funny when we talk about the norm breaking Donald Trump to criticizing Biden at

times of war. And in fact, maybe it's not so unusual. Maybe Roosevelt and attacks on Wilson are a good kind of example of this. Wilson and Roosevelt have this rivalry that is epic. Roosevelt wanted to raise a division of troops during World War I. And I mean, he probably shouldn't have been. He was half blind in one of his eyes and then deaf in one of his ears at that stage. Physically, he wasn't fit. I mean, all those adventures and exploits had kind of caught up to him by around 1917. And of course, we know he's going to die three years later. But Roosevelt should have been allowed to raise that troop probably because it would have been a big morale booster. Clemenceau even writes an open letter to Wilson in the New York Times asking him to allow Roosevelt to raise a troop just to boost the morale. But Wilson, who can't stand this guy, shuts the whole thing down and won't allow him to do it. but youngish nowadays. Well, how old was he? 60? 60. Yeah. Yeah. And this is in what? 1919? 1919, January 1919. He just goes to sleep one night and doesn't wake up. Famously, the vice president said that death had to take him in his sleep because otherwise there would have been a fight. And I think that's rather fitting, but it doesn't tell the story, I guess, of really a decade of poor health. I mean, he had gotten malaria in Cuba back in 1899.

He gets it again when he travels to Brazil on another expedition that's really remarkable as well. And really on that expedition, he told his son to just leave him in Brazil to die. That's how sick he was. He comes back about 60 pounds lighter. He's never right after that. So for really about five years, his health had been in a free fall. He spent a couple of months in the hospital before he died. And he comes home for Christmas in 1918. And his kids sort of feel like he's a shell of a man at that stage. And he dies quite quietly. I find Roosevelt is such an interesting figure today.

Like, he's a huge president, right? But you don't hear people citing him or drawing, like FDR, Lincoln, the founding fathers, although they've got a more difficult legacy. And yet Roosevelt, has he drifted from view a little bit to Americans today? It's a great way of putting it. I think he probably drifts in and out of view. And the four presidents that you mentioned there, other three presidents that you mentioned, Washington, Lincoln, FDR, they regularly top the charts as the greats. And Roosevelt tends to be in that next tier down. So, you know, fourth or fifth place of near great presidents. And Roosevelt would tell you that's because he never had a war. He never fought as a commander in chief in a war. He never

deployed armed forces in the way that, you know, Lincoln had to or that FDR had to in World War II. So come the hour, come the man was his thinking. But I think when we look back at the achievements of his administration, we can see there are many. There's many failures as well, too. And I'm happy to talk about those. But in terms of the achievements, there's probably no president that made the presidency a modern institution. And what I mean by that is that the presidents that we know today of the 20th and 21st century, they all draw their inspiration from Theodore Roosevelt. The kind of charismatic leadership, media age. Also, is he slightly orphaned politically? Modern Republicans aren't super

into him and modern Democrats, he wasn't one of them. Is that a problem for him? Well, actually, I don't think he's orphaned at all. I think he's claimed by both sides now. OK, interesting. That wasn't always the case, though. I mean, there was times when the Democrats obviously had their Roosevelt and that was FDR. And the other Roosevelt, the Republican Roosevelt, was forgotten.

But really, since the 1990s, you have Democrats and Republicans eagerly claiming that TR is their man. So Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both did this regularly. To us Brits, there is more than a little bit of Churchill about the guy. Quite politically maverick, filled with a sense of his own destiny, right? And a kind of warrior, a guy who writes, who does all sorts of things, and then hits his stride in politics. He grows up in his wealthy family. Did he like Churchill as a school kid? Was he like going, my destiny is to be president? He famously disliked Churchill. Oh, did he? I didn't know that. He did. Yeah, he didn't like Churchill at all. He thought that he was a showman. And that he was, I mean, this is funny, because he disliked Churchill, because he

was so like himself. Yeah, you know. So there's a real connection there. But Roosevelt didn't find too many British politicians to his liking generally. He didn't really get on with Arthur Balfour when he was prime minister. Later on, he did get on with him. But he actually liked the sort of ambassadorial level and diplomats that he could work with that were more, I suppose, of his kind. So people like Cecil Spring Rice were his close buddies. Thomas' legacy, how is he remembered?

Well, it's up and down. I think the way we remember things is based on how we're feeling at the present time. I mean, we could talk about Joe Biden and Donald Trump and the political controversies that are going on there. I mean, we tend to see past political figures through the prism of our current context. So for Roosevelt, you know, in the 1920s, he was a hero. I mean, there was no biography that was written that was negative about him. But by the time Franklin Roosevelt comes along, he's almost a forgotten figure. And nowadays, he's seen as nonpartisan. You know, he's claimed by the right and the left equally. His legacy in different areas changes too. I mean, in terms of race, he's

sometimes seen as being a paternalistic and racist. At other times, he's been seen as more forward thinking on race issues and social justice. So it really depends on where we are at our present moment. Roosevelt changes all the time. Dude, thanks so much, Mike. What's the latest book about Roosevelt? Well, the latest one out is called Remembering Theodore Roosevelt. It's an oral history. Every historian wants to find something new. I found seven magnetic reel-to-reel tapes, recordings that were made in the 1950s that no one listened to. And they're published now in this book, Remembering Theodore Roosevelt. There are some incredible stories, including some from Alice Roosevelt Longworth, three hours of tape from her alone with her incredible old school New York accent.

I mean, it's really great stuff. That's amazing. What a discovery, as you say. Everyone dreams of that. Congratulations, man. Thank you very much for coming on. Okay, Dan. Thanks a million.

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