How does a madman become president of the United States? A man that didn’t even want to be president? It might suffice to say that fin-de-seile America was mad itself, burgeoning after the Reconstruction and the manic frenzy of invention. America was young, beautiful, talented and ambitious; a teenager that knew where it was going and didn’t show any signs of restraint. Theodore Roosevelt’s eccentric zeal brought out the embodiment of these traits, and with a little luck, that magic wand of destiny, he was raised on a pedestal to light the torch of a century that witnessed the blazon of America’s influence as a great world power for years to come.
Morris’ style is precious and fluent, a contrast to the bombastic personality of Teddy. But it works nonetheless, and is well-deserving of a Pulitzer. It must be said that this volume covers only his rise to presidency. It’s the first of a three-volume series, and since it’s almost 800 pages long, you get the sense of how prolific Mr. Roosevelt was: there isn’t any one profession or activity he sought to cement himself in.
My opinion on Roosevelt during this period is mixed. His charming, energetic, comical persona came off the pages in waves, and you can see why almost everyone he met seemed to like him. He was intelligent, diverse in both mental and physical explorations, with an insanely courageous drive to exalt himself despite the odds. But while he was one of the few politicians of his time to fight corporate corruption (which had infiltrated politics after the Santa Clara County vs Pacific Railroad ruling), he ultimately helped the bigger ones by opening doorways to globalization. He was even a warmonger who played a huge part in the first American expansionist wars: those being the invasions of Cuba and The Philippines. But during his presidency, the U.S. was not involved in any wars, so one might infer that his adventure in Cuba was horrific enough for him to change his mind about warmongering. Another irony was that he claimed to be an environmentalist and established the first Wildlife Refuge in the U.S., yet he hunted animals for sport and agreed to commence deforestation on American soil. Then, early in his political career he was indifferent to the laboring class, but I know that during his presidency he supported the labor strikes of the early 1900s... Then, to be so anti-Jeffersonian, yet stand for many of the same ideas: huh?... I don’t know whether or not he was aware of these ironies, or if he changed later on in life; I’ll have to read volume 2 to find out. These complicated opinions of his are just a few of the many shades of his ambiguous character, making this both an exciting read and a depressing one. If only I could sit down with Teddy and have a soda to clear some things up. The first thing I'd probably ask him is how it feels to be sculpted next to Thomas Jefferson on Mt. Rushmore.
