History That Doesn't Suck - 110: Epilogue to the Age of Imperialism

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Greg, Zach, and Kelsi sit down for a chat about America’s surprisingly compact burst of turn-of-the-century overseas expansion (Age of Imperialism). They talk through an overarching overview of the era; highlight some of the things that, while in previous episodes, might have been less obvious (coaling stations, anyone?); and wax eloquent on historical research while sharing a small behind-the-scenes comedy of errors that went down amid the research for an episode. Hope you enjoy it. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Today, however, I'm pleased to share an interview with a special guest versus my normal storytelling. Regular listeners of HTDS know that we do this occasionally to recap and give some broader context of an era explored over a series of preceding narrative episodes. If you're new to HTDS, welcome, and you may want to jump back a couple of episodes to hear the stories leading up to this epilogue. Now, on with the show. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and it's time for an epilogue.

We finished another unit. We're done with the age of imperialism. So I'm here with Zachary Weaver. Happy to be back, Greg. Researcher, writer extraordinaire. Glad to have you here, sir. Happy to be here. Oh, well, thank you so much. And of course, the one and only, well, I always get in trouble when I say that. We know there's a lot of others with the same name, but Kelsey Dines. Hey, y'all. There we go.

We got the y'all back again. That's right. Channeling that Texan husband of yours. Yep. He's very proud. Oh, good. Awesome. We're going to go ahead and dive right into it.

It's late on a Monday night. We've been passing each other like ships in the night of late. I've just gotten back from Los Angeles at a podcast conference. Zach has just gotten back from seeing his second favorite podcast live in Denver. In Denver, Colorado. Yes, yes. That wasn't awkward the way you said second at all when we had this conversation a little bit earlier. Of course, you're welcome to like others.

Good grief. No one wants to bring work home all the time. You're always number one, Greg. Don't you worry. Oh, shucks. Gee, thanks. Hey, we had a good live event ourselves. Yes, we did.

Yes, we did. Yeah. And we'll get into imperialism here, but we'll look forward to doing that more, perhaps later this year and into the next. But all that said, Age of Imperialism, we've gone through some history as, well, comments have come in, be that through social media, emails, what have you. Many have commented on how this is a unit that super got skipped in their education. So we're glad to get it out there. The topic isn't the most heartwarming, but. No, I wouldn't use heartwarming, but I would use interesting.

Interesting, of course. Well, and important. Yeah. You know, this is where we're wanting to fill in the cracks that are often at times they can feel like there are decades depending on how curriculum sometimes go, the way courses go. Anyhow, so we start with Spanish-American War, which then rolled right into the Philippine-American War. Hawaii is just kind of sandwiched between the two of them. We'll get to all of that.

The sandwich islands, sandwiched between the two of them. Will you just see yourself out now after that? Thanks, everybody. It's been a good ride thus far. So, the Spanish-American War, the anti-imperialist war that became an imperialist war. Yeah. Good way to put it. So, let's get into this a little bit more.

To cut to the quick, Cuba had long been an object of the United States eye. That tension has definitely been brewing and building as we get into the late 1890s. And we then get to the USS Maine. Yeah, we were discussing this a bit before the show. But I think that when most people think of the Spanish American War, if you think of the Spanish-American War really at all. But yeah, that's the first story that comes to people's mind is, well, the Maine happened. The Spanish blew up the Maine, and that precipitated the Spanish-American War. And what Kelsey and I were talking about is to say the destruction of the Maine caused the Spanish-American War is the same thing as saying the Boston Massacre caused the American Revolution. Yeah, it's a big deal, and it's very important and central to that narrative leading up to it,

but there's so much other stuff. And so I think having that episode that just discussed the lead up to the war, all the different events, whether it be the Osten Manifesto or the Virginius Affair or kind of deteriorating relationships between the U.S. and Spain, that that's a much more complex story than, oh, remember the main hell was Spain. Well, not that your comparison isn't sufficient, Zach, but I'm just going to go ahead and double down on it. For me, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, 1914, That's what really comes to mind. To call that the start of World War I, which is often done in the quick shorthand of, you know, we're teaching World War I,

we got to get through this unit. What happened? Franz Ferdinand got assassinated and all of Europe went to war. Okay, slow your roll. It seems like a little bit of an overreaction. Just a tinge, right? So there are, when I teach World War I, there's a minimum of a 75 minute lecture just on the way back to the Monroe Doctrine, it really

does make sense to frame all of that long history of the United States asserting essentially that the Western Hemisphere is its sphere, right? Carrying on in the identity of liberty in its discussion and framing of Cuba. And then we end up in this war, but it then quickly, you know, it turns imperial. It becomes about building America's overseas empire. Yeah. I think one of the other interesting things for me was that it didn't flip on a dime of, well, no one in America wants to go to war with Spain. And then suddenly the main blows up and everyone all of a sudden wants to go to war with Spain. And one of the main engineers of that idea of going to war with Spain starts well before the main explodes. And that's our dear friend, Citizen Kane himself, William Randolph Hearst. Absolutely. William is a fine piece of proof that the idea of fake news that gets touted in our present discourse

Well, it's a rehash of an It's not a modern phenomenon Exactly Good way to put it And that isn't to negate the significance of that sort of influence in the public sphere But obviously I'm going to think this as a historian. I think it does us a lot of good to realize that while the technology changes,

the way that it's done, these are significant factors and they shouldn't be overlooked, but it's not as though we've changed as a species. There are always those who are willing to do whatever it is, whether it's more clicks or it's more papers sold. That's out there. And it's perpetual.

We use the term fake news. I think one of the other terms that applies to yellow journalism and what Hearst and, to another degree, Joseph Pulitzer are doing here is 24- hour news. That idea that he is, as I helped with the research on this episode, read a lot of newspapers, a lot of New York World and New York Journal. And William Randolph Hearst is talking about Cuba nonstop. If it's not page one, it's page two, like right well before the main explodes, finding any story that he can about Cuba so that this is what people are talking

about. This is the the news of the day. And when they read the morning journal, they see him talking about Cuba. And when they read the evening journal, they see him talking about Cuba, that this is on people's mind for as much of a forgotten era of history it is, the people who were living it, this was the hot topic of the day was America expanding overseas. The anti-imperial war turned into the war for empire. So we do have this exceptionally popular war. It appealed in this feeling very moral between the destruction of the USS Maine and the idea that this was to liberate Cuba. It got off on a strong footing. And then, of course, there's the winning.

And frankly, wars are more popular when you win. When they're splendid and little, as John Hay would say about the war. Exactly right. Okay, let's roll this right on into the Philippines. Obviously, Hawaii chronologically is split in between there. That's how we went ahead and did the main episodes. We'll get to Hawaii. Let's go ahead and just let the seep happen though.

So we'll hit pause on Hawaii for now. I'm one of those people, right? That's, I have no idea what happened in these years between the Civil War and World world war one and so these last couple volumes have been very enlightening which has been great but i'm honestly surprised at how quickly went from one to the other like just jumped right in oh between the spanish american war and the philipp Like, baffles me. I'm like, but they're separate wars.

Well, they are, but... In a way. Yeah, but they definitely... I mean, the Philippine-American War certainly grows out of the Spanish-American War. Suppose we won't spend a ton of time there because I had an excellent conversation, I think, with Professor Vogel. Yeah, I mean, it rolls right in. You know, as we did discuss, Dewey is sent to Manila to basically take out the Spanish squadron so that it can't come threaten the United States.

But then that rolls into, well, we'll also just go ahead and neutralize the Spanish in Manila. And we kind of like this. We'll hold on to it. One thing that we didn't get into the episodes, I think I would like to kind of bring home here now is the growing interest in the trade with China. Yeah. Oh, totally.

So, and we'll circle as well to Hawaii in terms of talking about coaling stations. That's another crucial piece. I'll put a pin in that for just one moment. But we did mention it. I did throw a bone in that for just one moment. But we did mention it. I did throw a bone to the open door policy, but it was only, geez, like half of a paragraph. I was really just kind of trying to hook that in there. So if any listeners heard that and found it interesting,

they would be aware of it and can go look it up. But the open door policy was in short, the United States saying China should be open to everyone, free trade. And that really benefited the United States to pursue that policy. It also fell into the, what's the term I'm looking for? I'm going to remember as soon as we turn the mics off. But, you know, this kind-hearted form of imperialism, right? Benevolent. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Thank you. There it is. Yeah.

And, of course, we're not talking about benevolent assimilation, which was his policy in the Philippines. But that same concept of, like, benevolent imperialism that he's genuinely convinced of, that the United States is doing the good form. We won't mess this up as the Spanish do. Unlike, yeah, the Spanish and the other Europeans. And so China, while not fully colonized the way that, say, the Philippines were by the Spanish, or at this point, Hong Kong is by the British, or Algeria by the French.

And I could keep listing, but let's not do that for an hour. Yeah. The list would be long. China is very much influenced in their kind of spheres, zones, if you will, that various powers have. So the United States sees benefit to really trying to crack those doors open. Hence, we get to the open door policy. OXA rebellion as well. Exactly. Yes. And this is one of the draws to holding on to the Philippines, right? I mean, that's not said in the whole benevolent

assimilation narrative, which needs to frame all of this about it being to the benefit of the Philippine people, but it's there. I think, I think those are kind of the, the things to summarize and distill the Spanish American war and the Philippine American war quickly. Yeah.

We did have a, a fun little incident though that we should probably share yeah yeah oh i'd uh i'd be happy to share this well zach why don't you go ahead and take the lead on this um my beloved greg jackson my uh favorite greg jackson he needed a book in order to write the death of General Antonio Luna, Antonio Luna in, uh, in the episode on the Philippine American war one Oh seven. And this book was, if I recall correctly, nowhere, nowhere. I believe it was in a couple library. As people know, we're based out of Utah. It was in a couple libraries in California and in Arizona, correct? And it was not to be had on any sort of... Digital library site. Nope. Yeah. It was not to be found. It was a rare book.

And luckily, we have an awesome community. So Greg posted about this on the HTDS Facebook page, just saying, hey, we need access to this book, just pictures of a couple of the pages so that I can be able to write the death of this character. And one of the copies was in California. And I have a good friend. His name is Robert, who lives out in California. Well, two, in fact, because there was one at USC and one at UCLA. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my friend Robert lives closer to USC. It was Sunday that Greg needed the book. And the USC library was closed that Sunday. So Robert, who lives maybe 45 minutes

away from UCLA, drives up, is like, you know what? I'll drive up there. I'll go pick up the book for you, Greg. Wait, wait. Is this 45 normal minutes or 45 LA minutes? 45 normal minutes. Okay. So three hours. Exactly. And so he was willing to do it. I texted Greg. I said, hey, my friend is in California. He's willing to do it. And then Greg texted me that one of the fans was also willing to go do it. And he didn't want my friend Robert to have to drive all the way. This would be Brandon, by the way, just shout out and gratitude.

Thank you very much, Brandon. So Greg said that he would keep me updated on kind of what Brandon was doing. But he did say that Brandon had originally intended to go to USC to grab the book. And I, knowing that USC was closed on Sunday, just wanted to make sure that we got this book. So I said, you know what, Robert, go ahead. You know, you can head up to UCLA, grab the book just in case, you know, Brandon gets there and it's closed. Don't don't want him to have to drive out to UCLA. My friend Robert can just do it. Flash forward. Rob makes his way into the UCLA library. I had sent him screenshots of where the book was. It said that it was there and

available. I texted him the page numbers. He gets there, looks around, around, can't find the book, thinks, you know, maybe, maybe it's just me. Maybe the librarian knows where it is. Goes and says, well, I can get your number. I can text you like if it comes back later today or tomorrow, and we can have you come back to pick it up. But yeah, it's not here. Sorry. Someone probably checked it out if it's not on the shelf or someone in the library has it. Naturally. Around this time, I get a call from greg jackson zach you wouldn't believe it brandon found the book at the ucla public library um brandon found the book he sent the pictures to me he just grabbed it off the shelves not five minutes ago i look at robert four minutes ago. I look at Robert four minutes ago saying that he couldn't find the book anywhere and then began the 45 minute drive back down to where he was.

And we are grateful to both of these kind gentlemen for going out of their way on Sunday. The story made it in the episode. Wonderful. Yeah. And I mean, truly though, I mean, nothing but gratitude. I think it's astounding, you know, to think that as I am tracing down source after source, you know, sometimes it's following a footnote to a bibliography in one book, and then following that to yet another book and so forth and trying to get to the source. And here it is so difficult to procure and to know that there are not one, but multiple people so kind and willing nationwide. Absolutely.

No, we've got a great, great community of people. We do. And Robert has no hard feelings other than he won't talk to me anymore or listen to the podcast. That's it. Good.

I'm glad he got over that. Totally fine. Tell him I own gas money. So let's go ahead and take a break. When we come back, we'll get on into Hawaii. Perfect. Sounds good. We're good.

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Little Queen Lily Ukulani. That pronunciation I was very impressed. Thank you. That episode only took about twice as long to record. Zach, a million thank yous.

You have a number of Hawaiian friends and what was his name? Give him a shout out here. they gave us a lot of places to start and with pronunciation they were right on it super quick getting back to us on how to pronounce things so yeah recordings and stuff that i'm sure you use oh absolutely so as i was recording that episode now this by the way lessons learned from early on i'll tell you what you know is we go go through a script and we try and flag in as much as possible there's always a word or two that fall through the cracks and I'm just searching frantically as I record or making phone calls. But we try to track down all the words that I really need a pronunciation guide for. And this volume, it's especially been

the case where we've been in the Philippines and we've been in Spanish controlled areas of the Caribbean and in Hawaii. Yeah. I'm sitting there with just audio messages from these kind gents. You know, you sent them that list and they just fired back. Actually, that's what Ryan Vogel, I mentioned in our interview that he speaks to Gallag. He did the same thing for me with the Philippines. Super helpful. But Hawaii was the hardest for sure. I mean, Spanish, you know, it's nowhere near my French, but I can handle myself well enough. Man, when we got to Hawaii, I was looking at those and-

Other than Aloha, you were- Oh yeah, no, I was toast. Absolutely. I know that I don't even have enough to make an educated guess. So if it had not been for them. Thank you very much. Yes, a truly sincere, heartfelt gratitude to them.

Yeah, and I think it shows the integrity of the episode that we really cared about that one. Is this unlike the other ones, Zach? No, not at all unlike the other ones. I just think that there's a... I felt as we were researching and writing that there was definitely... There's always a particular reverence for each episode for whatever reason. When we write the Brooklyn Bridge episode, we have reverence for it because we know that the Roebling family gave their life's work to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Well, you want to make sure you're doing justice to these stories and to the people that were involved. And I think that's the big important thing with Hawaii was that it felt like it was a story that I didn't know it. I don't know very many people who knew that prior to when we began researching the episode. And so we wanted to do it justice because this might be, that episode might be a lot of people's first interaction with the story of that annexation. It was mine.

Well, and, and possibly only. Yeah. Right. I mean, not everyone's going to have the, the time go buy books and do deep dives on every single episode.

That's just not the nature of life. Yeah. Yes. And that's part of where throughout that episode, there was a lot of the sources conflict, sources conflict, sources conflict, right?

From the death of Captain Cook, right on up into Queen Liliuukalani being ousted from her throne. And that's the hard work of history that doesn't suck. The fun work is the writing the fun stories and stuff where there's very clear primary sources that don't conflict. And that's always the fun stuff. The trickier stuff is when you have those conflicting narratives.

And this goes back to, we've already mentioned Paul Revere, but this goes back to the Boston Massacre when you have two different accounts of an event. It's frankly the same lesson that we were kind of extracting. I guess if there's a theme that you might even take out of these episodes that isn't imperialism, not that that theme is lessened, but the question of sources and narrative and reporting. And nuance. All of that is packed in there because it becomes so much more pronounced when you're telling stories that really have a duality to it. Right. Where you have two different narratives that are being pushed very hard by different sides.

You know, that isn't even to say that those sources are always on equal footing, but you know, you, any, any diligent historian is going to ensure that they work through them and figure out if there's a source that should be given less credibility. Why is that?

Or recognize, okay, I, I mean, this is kind of small potatoes, but Captain Cook's death really exemplifies that. What exactly went down? You know, the broad strokes, sure. He's dead. Some of his men are dead. Some Hawaiians are dead. A bad breakup, shall we say. But into the nitty gritty, who fired first? Were rocks

thrown at what point? Who's the instigator? What happens with Captain Cook's corpse? Because even on that one, what happens to Captain Cook's corpse after, they both tell the same story but because uh the british explorers don't have the same background as the hawaiians do they don't

understand the hawaiian culture they see what's happening but they misinterpret it even that can be tricky sometimes too and that gets to you know one of the crucial things about, well, history. And you could take that right into just the human experience, even, because that never goes away, misinterpreting what one actor's doing. And this really is a fascinating little corner of what it is to be a historian. You know, we talk about primary sources, well, real quickly, in case anyone is unfamiliar with that term, primary source, that's something written by, say, an eyewitness, someone really close to an event. So a surviving document from, say, the American Revolution today would be considered a primary source. Whereas the early episodes of HTDS, those would be secondary sources because a historian, sure, carefully, yes, with great attention, all that jazz. But I'm writing hundreds of years later.

It's secondary. It's not primary. But that said, just because it's primary, it doesn't mean that it's always accurate. And sometimes it's because people lie. Sure, that absolutely happens. I mean, someday historians are going to look at our social media feeds and honestly, it's going to be used to write history. I know.

See my Facebook. It's happening. Just been thinking about that. And historians are going to sit there and go, okay, this has been curated. It's being put before a specific audience. They know it's public or it's to a friend group. These are all things that are going to go through the historian's mind.

And they're going to know not to take a post at face value if they're doing their job right. And so similarly, a historian today, well, you know, to whom is the letter being written? Why is it being written? What's the purpose behind it? And then even when you get past just all those potential intentional misrepresentations, then we get into the sincere misunderstandings.

Well, because you have no idea what that person's life has been like and why they view events the way they do. Right? Because of their past experience that you have no way of knowing about well and like think of the lead up to the battle of lexington and conquered well i i give more than one account of that lead up. Paul Revere's version, even if he is, you know, being altogether honest, there's a freaking building blocking his view. He hears guns fire, there's smoke and their buildings. He can't see.

So he doesn't know exactly what, even though he's so close to this event, right? Yeah. But he cannot take us all the way there. Well, then you've got British soldiers who swear that they're not instigating this. And then you've got the account of, there's a reverend that I believe I cite in episode six,

his firsthand account. And he's sure that this has been done by villainous, evil, cruel. Rascal. Yeah. All of them are eyewitnesses all of them are as i interpret it all of them are actually giving sincere accounts and yet they differ we can i can take you back a long time to real history to 10th grade Zach Weaver, his AP world history class, um, where my teacher prepared us, uh, with what she called the WASP method for historical sources, which is, uh, when was the

source written author who is the author of the source or the creator of the monument or the sculptor or the painter or whatever the subject of it. And then finally is the purpose. And she was like, always keep an eye out in the purpose for how what they're doing benefits them. So you could say with the WASP method, William Randolph Hearst publishes newspapers about Clemencio Arango. And you could say his purpose is to shed light on the suffering that's happening in Cuba. Or you could say that his purpose is to help prod the United States into a war with Spain over Cuba. Always keep your eye out for the purpose of what these people's sources are, what they're trying to get out of it, who they're trying to convince, all those different things. And then there's other

primary sources that are one of the stories we told in the Hawaii episode was Queen Liliu's first day at school. And so stuff like that is less he said, she said, one primary source fighting another primary source where Lily was probably one of the only people that remembers how she felt on the first day of school. She tells that story. And then we need to just verify some of the facts in her story using outside primary sources. Was the school really there when she was that old? Check.

It was. Was she going to school at that age? Were most Hawaiian students going to school at that age? They were, or at least in the upper class, which she was part of. And so it's really fun to look at primary sources to see why people are writing it or to fact check someone cool, someone famous, like Queen Liliu to hundreds of years later be like, no, I'm going to fact check your story here. And turns out she was right. But sometimes people, in order to advance their purposes or because they're forgetful or for whatever reason, they might not be so right.

I will say that I will recommend my favorite primary source for that episode. I would also recommend to add to your pantheon of autobiographies you get to read is Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen, by Queen Lili'uokalani. It was a fascinating read for me. She's a good writer. She's a phenomenal writer. The prose is excellent.

And in fact, she's an excellent poet. Yeah, she really is. She wrote, this I think made it into the deep dive for the Patreon. Yeah, not into the main episode, but patrons got it. The famous song that most people associate with Hawaii, which is Aloha Oe. In English, that translates to farewell to thee. That's famously written by Queen Liliuokalani as a kind of love romance song. But it also means a lot to the people of Hawaii that it's written by

the final monarch of the kingdom of Hawaii. And it translates from being this love song to a song of farewell to the great kingdom of Hawaii before it's taken by the United States. And so I think that her writing blew me away in a way that I didn't expect it to i expected more autobiographical stuff that was just you know dry and hers is just such an engaging narrative so i i recommend that strongly for anyone interested so well and i guess to kind of round out a few things on hawaii my mind does turn to pearl harbor yeah and i think it's crucial to remember that this world dominated by ships. And frankly, I don't know that we always remember just how crucial shipping still is in the 21st century. When so many of us travel by plane, you know, we tend to just think, oh, yeah, that's how things get around now.

But ships are vital and especially at that point. And so notice that another thing that if you kind of connect the dots across each of those episodes, we talk about Guantanamo Bay. Why? Coaling Station. Pearl Harbor. Why? Coaling Station. Again, Philippines, a few different locations discussed, but why?

Coaling Station. There it is. All right. So this is a crucial component. It kind of sets us up to really talk a little bit more about imperialism generally, which also takes us into the election. But before we do that, just go ahead and take one more break and then we'll bite off that massive, massive piece. Perfect. Was the Sphinx 10,000 years old? Were there serial killers in ancient Greece and Rome?

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Imperialism as a whole is a driving factor as we go into the turn of the century election for the U.S. presidency of 1900. We get our William v. William going on once again. A rematch. Right, a little throwback. For those who recall, I'm not going to try on that one,

which, whatever, episode 98? I guess I am going to try, apparently. 98, that sounds right. 98, I feel, 98, election of 1896. That sounds about right. We'll ballpark it. I'm not dying on that hill. So, yeah, it's a rematch.

And William James Bryan is still ringing his silver bell. Ah! You see what I did there? Oh, gosh. That was terrible. I should see myself out. You two can wrap this up, right?

So that's still a factor. And in fact uh some analysis out there some historians say that's actually part of what perhaps cost him the election is that the party was ready to really push anti-imperialism william james bryan was like yes anti-imperialism but also silver have we talked about silver i'm still here to talk about silver. Yes. The silver tongue, silverite is back. That's right.

That was the hill he wanted to die on. That, frankly, it was. And, you know, we'll round that piece out briefly. I gave a nod to this in the episode,

but I think it's, it's really kind of a fascinating connection of a lot of HTTPS episodes here. When you think all the way back to the Alaska episode, right? And it really shows, geez, how much is going on in this era, right? That, well, as you said, Kelsey is often kind of forgotten about or overlooked, but we have been kind of treading ground in the late 19th century for quite a while. And the old Alaska episode where we had the Klondikers, the gold rush going out to the Yukon, all that massive influx of gold, it changed the US economy. It kind of solved the minting issue.

As it goes, of course, the seat president, it's the sort of Domicles, you know, dangling, always ready to punish the president for things that might not be the fault of that executive. Yet there's also the reward for things that go right. And William McKinley, you know, we'll get more into the imperialism side of things, is definitely a capable administrator. He's an intelligent person, so I'm not trying to take anything from him, but it's not like he did this. The gold rush happened to clear up the issue of the 1896 election, at least enough to where it just wasn't pressing for a lot of Americans. And there's the old joke that it's the economy stupid, that people, the high-minded rhetoric of William Jennings Bryan in this election about the morality of imperialism for a lot of Americans was less real than the economic benefits that imperialism was starting to bring to the United States at the turn of the century. And I know, Greg and Kelsey, you guys can hear my heart go pitter-p patter for William Jennings Bryan, but I actually don't want to focus too much on him as much as, and he's come up in every episode this volume, we haven't talked about him too much yet,

the elephant or bull moose in the room. Oh yeah. Theodore Teddy T.R. Roosevelt. That's right. The rough rider himself. He's about to bulldoze into HTDS. Not that he hasn't been present. You're right, right? He's just been kind of making these jabs and hooks as a man of the boxing club, Harvard Boxing Club will do. He is not about to let William Jennings Bryan beat him as the young, handsome, dashing speaker par excellence who is barnstorming the United States, touring to all these places. One of my favorite

stories in this entire volume of fun battles and cool different locations, One of my favorite stories is Teddy Roosevelt not only giving a speech, giving it in Nebraska where William Jennings Bryan is like the hometown hero and drawing this massive Republican crowd because Teddy Roosevelt is just that darn good. Because he's that good of a speaker, so eloquent, and he brings an energy to American politics that, no offense to Grover Cleveland or Benjamin Harrison, but is unmatched. It hasn't been felt, really, in so many ways since Lincoln. Yeah. And it's part of why, well, some presidents face enormous struggles. You know, part of what makes Washington one of the greats in terms of, you know, when historians rank presidents is the great challenge of just it being an unprecedented role.

Right. He's trying to hold this thing together. Lincoln's facing a civil war. And, you know, we'll later get to other wartime presidents. I mean, that's always a just special challenge, right? So FDR faces that. Then you have those presidents that really do bring in and manage to assert significant change, some sort of real driving leadership. I guess you could say the

difference between someone who's more of a leader and more of just a manager, a caretaker sort of presidency. And you really haven't seen a president that with nothing but respect to a lot of the brilliant presidents. I feel like Chester Arthur doesn't get his fair shake. James Garfield for his short tenure. Right. Brilliant man. And geez, poor Grant. The dude just could not catch a break.

It's like everything that could go wrong while he was in the White House went wrong. Yes, he was too trusting. But anyhow, his presidency was better than has often been remembered, in my humble opinion. You have to go back to Lincoln to find someone who has the energy, charisma, and ability to truly bring a vision and execute that vision to the White House. And obviously, we're kind of getting a little bit ahead in a way, but that's the energy that Teddy's bringing to this election. And, you know, it is interesting to think about it's the economy stupid, right? Did he even need to tour?

Because here's McKinley. He's like, you know what I'm going to not do? Campaign. Yeah. Campaign's won. We won it in Cuba and in the Philippines. I mean, yeah, it's scoreboard, right? The economy's rocking. We're crushing it in war. Boom. And in many ways, I think McKinley was quite right in that.

Historically, that had been the case. This is America on the rise. It's ascendant. There are many reasons for voters to... Dawn of the American century. Right. And he is the architect of the American century. So nonetheless, Teddy charging out there... Like the bull moose that he is. That's right. Even if it wasn't necessary, he is nonetheless getting himself out there more. And he's always been good at that.

You know, whether it's charging up Kettle. Not San Juan. Not San Juan. Not San Juan Hill. Or it's charging across the United States. You know, he shows himself as a truly dynamic figure, even though, you know, we need to remember that the vice presidency is not the role that it is. Well, at Teddy's time, it's not the role then that is in our 21st century America. He's nominated for vice president with the idea that he'll stay out of politics. Exactly, right?

This is, oh, we'll shut him up, right? I am going to make one more revolution nod. Here we go. John Adams, right? As he complained about being vice president, that there had never been a more pointless position, ballpark. John Adams doesn't have a real job anyway. Yeah, as Lin-Manuel puts it. And he's riffing off of one of John Adams' own quotes.

So all that said, Teddy is demonstrating his dynamic nature. And I think setting himself up, because we've had VPs become president, right? We've had assassinations, we've had death, but he's setting himself up to come in as a true powerhouse, not to be this placeholder until we can have another election. He's set himself up in the election to be seen as this dynamic leader so that when assassination takes out the president, you know, he steps in a very forceful way. There's a former president, his name escapes me exactly which one it is. Basically, what he said is that what he wants in a president is someone who on the outside is warm and gregarious and fun to be around. But also when the tough decisions need to be made can be cold and calculating and logic-based and reasonable and stuff. And I think that the president, post-Lincoln, pre-Teddy, a lot of those presidents had the cold calculating part down where they made

decisions and they were logical or reasonable to benefit the country as they saw fit. But that warm energy of a president, that's a Theodore Roosevelt thing. When you, he is, as we will get more into him as we move forward with American history, but he is, everyone who meets him falls in love with him. Everyone who, he's the president you want to grab a beer with. He is so much fun to be around. And when he's there, you feel him. Like it's not just a president giving a speech kind of thing. When you're in that room with him, you feel electrified by him. William Jennings Bryan has a bit of that. Always back to WJB for me. Absolutely. But there is definitely an electricity and an energy that as you start

making your way towards the modern era of presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is kind of the beginning, at least for me, of that really electric, almost celebrity quality to a president. I'd agree. We need to wrap up. Thank you, Zach, Kelsey. Appreciate you sitting down with me. Appreciate being able to talk through this volume.

And we look forward to getting into the progressive era. That's going to be exciting. It will. All right. So we'll do this again down the road and join me in two weeks where I'd like to tell you a story. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode description. My gratitude to you kind souls providing additional funding to help us keep going, and a special thanks to our members whose monthly gift

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