In the North Texas town of Frisco, there is a minor league baseball team named the Rough Riders as a tribute to America’s legendary fighting force during the Spanish-American War. One of the team’s mascots is a Ted E. Bear, an ursine version of Thedore Roosevelt, the colorful Colonel of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry popularly known as the Rough Riders. Another mascot is a bull moose, evoking the Bull Moose Party, which was the nickname of Roosevelt’s Progressive Party when he ran for a third Presidential term in 1912. Images of Theodore Roosevelt, decked out as a Rough Rider, abound on various souvenirs in the team shop.
Even though he died more than a century ago (January 6, 1919, to be exact), a cartoon figure of TR (as he was often called, and as I will do here for the sake of brevity) with his walrus mustache, gleaming white teeth, and pince-nez is immediately recognizable. The word “iconic” is overused today, but TR fits the definition. This is not to say that he doesn’t have posthumous critics.
A couple of years ago TR got the iconoclasm treatment in New York City, not just the city of his birth but also where he was once the Police Commissioner (1895-1897). An equestrian statue that stood in front of the American Museum of Natural History has been removed. If the equestrian statue had depicted TR alone, it would still be there. Unfortunately, he is flanked by an American Indian and a black man – on foot. Critics said that the portrayal was symbolic of white domination of minorities. Alternative interpretations of the statue design were of little avail. The statue had to go.
At the time, I wondered what it would take to get TR’s likeness removed from Mount Rushmore – a much more daunting task. In truth, one might wonder what he is doing there with the sainted Lincoln and founding fathers Washington and Jefferson. For one thing, when the sculpting began in 1927, TR was still fondly recalled in the collective memory. Another factor is geography. Mount Rushmore is located in South Dakota and TR was formerly a rancher in the Dakota Territory (which was split into the states of North and South Dakota when they were admitted to the union in 1889). Long after his death in 1919, TR’s Presidential Library is being constructed in Medora, North Dakota.
TR’s sojourn in the Dakota Territory is often mentioned as a turning point in his life. A scion of the eastern establishment (more specifically, he was a Knickerbocker, a descendant of New York’s early Dutch settlers), he had a sickly, asthmatic childhood. At the age of 26, he experienced the death of his mother and his first wife on the same day, February 14, 1884. Much like a Biblical figure, he went off into the wilderness, which was certainly an apt description of the Dakota Territory in 1884. Having visited the area the year before for a buffalo hunt, he knew what he was getting into. He was deliberately opting for roughing it or, as he put it, “the strenuous life.” His nearest neighbor was ten miles distant. Working on the ranch helped him build up his body and the solitude gave him time to think and read. He admitted, “I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”
Despite his best efforts, his ranch could not withstand the brutal winter of 1886-1887, which killed off about 80% of the cattle in the Badlands and put most cattlemen out of business. So he went back east for good. But the experience had transformed him. He had spent the better part of four years in a world that was not just dominated by men but was almost exclusively men. He acquired an admiration for cowboys and ranch hands who would have been considered uncouth and unwelcome in the polite society of his youth. In turn, the Dakotans learned to respect this well-read Harvard dude, who proved to be one tough hombre.
When TR auditioned volunteers for the Rough Riders, he signed up a number of cowboys for the job. But he also chose Ivy Leaguers, Texas Rangers, businessmen – even Indians. Horsemanship was the main criterion, and as Tom Wolfe might have put it, they all had “the right stuff.” Ironically, once they arrived in Cuba, the horses never arrived, so they were essentially infantry.
While TR’s status in American history remains formidable, I recently read about a side of his political philosophy that just might make him persona non grata. No, it’s not that he was a jingoist or that he shot and killed a lot of wildlife. It was his attitude towards women. Now he didn’t come right out and say anything overtly misogynistic or crack dirty jokes or keep a chippy on the side. In fact, his life is remarkably clean when it comes to any sort of off-color behavior. His “crime” is that he implied women had a duty to reproduce.
Comparing today’s below-replacement birth rates with the more robust birth rates during TR’s tenure (1901-1909) as President, it is hard to believe that it was an issue back then, yet “race suicide” was a talking point. In 1903, TR said it was “Fundamentally infinitely more important than any other question in this country.”
TR could sense a trend. When he was born (1858), the population increases per decade were 35.58% (1860), down to 22.63% (1870) thanks to the Civil War, yet back up to 30.16% in 1880. Then a downward trend began: 25.48% in 1890, and 21.01% in 1900, one year before Vice-President Roosevelt assumed the Presidency after McKinley had been assassinated. And this was despite the massive immigration from Europe that took place in the late 19th Century. If TR was concerned about that 21.01% increase in 1900, imagine what he would think about the 7.35% growth from 2010-2020? This was the second-lowest of all-time, save for 1940, which was 7.27% thanks to the Great Depression.
Admittedly, a declining population doesn’t necessarily spell doom for a country. Before the potato famine, Ireland’s population was 8.18 million. Today it stands at 7.1 million. After more than 180 years, they still haven’t recovered. Yet Ireland is still there. TR was essentially correct, however, since you can’t have a country without people. Given his interest in expanding the American footprint around the world, he would probably add that size matters. You can’t become or remain a world power with a declining population. Or can you? Since 1993 Russia has recorded more deaths than births every year save for 2013-2015, yet they are still a force to be reckoned with – just ask Ukraine!
In 1901, when TR moved into the White House, America was still a roomy place. The 1900 census came up with a total of 76,212,168. No one was worried about population explosion or global warming or deforestation. Abortion was a big no-no and contraception, aside from abstinence, was haphazard.
Curiously, TR was an advocate for women’s rights. He was on board with equal pay for equal work and opening up professions to women. And he thought they should be given the vote. Ironically, his famous dictum, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was actually a reworking of a West African proverb that pertained to the handling of women.
TR considered himself a progressive, but don’t confuse him with today’s self-styled progressives. He once said “wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand.” Such sentiments might be the key to his mixed attitudes towards women. Consider the following quotes:
[T]he man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage, and has a heat so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people.
The chief of blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. The greatest of all curses is sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon willful sterility.
Of course, he’s talking about women who don’t need no man, but he’s also inveighing against male slackers. He would not be on board for MGTOW or the Playboy lifestyle any more than he would have looked kindly upon DINK (double income, no kids) couples. I don’t believe he ever addressed the issue of homosexuality, but I can imagine what his thoughts on the subject would have been. As for transsexuals…well, let’s just say the subject never came up in those days.
If we had to classify him today, a good case could be made for putting him in the tradcon column:
If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future.
A man to be a good citizen must first be a good bread-winner, a good husband, a good father – I hope the father of many healthy children.
To show his appreciation for fecundity, TR often sent personal letters to parents of large broods. But TR didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk, having fathered six children, one with his first wife and five with his second. Yeah, the old Rough Rider did a lot of raw-dogging.
It could be argued that the years he spent as a rancher influenced his views on family formation. After all, there is no place for birth control in ranching. Potency and fertility are essential to the enterprise. Perhaps he felt the same was true of nation building. There is no substitute for a high sperm count!
In case you’re wondering, six children is not a Presidential record – not even close. John Tyler, who became President in 1841 after the brief (one month) administration of William Henry Harrison, fathered 15 children! Eight with his first wife, seven with his second – who was only 24 when he married her in 1844 at the age of 54! He fathered No. 15 at the age of 70!
For better or worse, I doubt that TR’s ideas about family size will make a comeback. But if he ever becomes anathema and they erase him from Mount Rushmore, I nominate John Tyler as his replacement!
