Obviously my interest in our wild places has increased in the last ten years or so. Lately, I’ve become increasingly concerned about overdevelopment, conservation, and the environment. I’ve always heard about Theodore Roosevelt and his great support for conservation, but I realized I knew very little about him or his conservation principles.
I’d also been told about the amazing author that is David McCullough. When I found out he wrote a book on TR, I was all over it. Mornings on Horseback covers the early life of Theodore Roosevelt II (the 26th President of the United States) until 1886.
I took into my reading a few preconceived notions about TR. First, I knew he had suffered with asthma as a child, but to what extent, I did not know. I also knew he was a Republican who was from New York and from an extremely wealthy family. And I knew was one of the first to bring ideas of conservation to America’s consciousness.
While reading Mornings on Horseback, it would be easy to judge him by today’s standards as a number of people have. "He was rich, so he much have been greedy and had everything handed to him on a silver platter" or "he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth."
While certainly his wealth made his life easier, the world has its ways of evening things out. TR’s fights with asthma were far more serious than I ever anticipated. As TR’s family described them, they were far, far worse than my own bouts with childhood asthma. His father (Theodore Roosevelt I) told him someone around 1870:
Theodore, you have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. …You must make your body…. It is hard drudgery to make one’s body, but I know you will do it.
His father, though he was very wealthy, was very involved in philanthropy, particularly for orphans and street children. TR got his tireless work ethic from his father.
To suggest that TR never had hardships because he wealthy is simply irresponsible and inaccurate. For an example, one only need look to February 1884. On the 12th, TR’s wife of three years, Alice, gave birth to his first daughter. On the 14th, at 3am, his mother died. On the same day, February 14, 1884, at 2pm, Alice died as well. Bright’s disease they said. That day shook TR for years.
Before modern Republicans ever coined the phrase "compassionate conservative," TR was one. During his time in the New York state assembly, TR pushed through a bill that ended cigar-making in homes. Not for health reasons mind you. The practice of the day was for companies to hire immigrants to make cigars in company-sponsored housing. When they didn’t produce what the company thought they should, they kicked them out on the street.
TR’s real breakout in politics occurred at the 1884 Republican National Convention in Chicago. TR engineered an unsuccessful bid to nominate George Edmunds over James Blaine. And though he failed, the event burst him onto the stage of national politics. After failed, he wrote to his older sister Bamie:
It may be that the voice of the people is the voice of God in fifty-one cases out of a hundred, but in the remaining forty-nine it is quite as likely to be the voice of the devil, or, what is still worse, the voice of a fool.
–June 8, 1884.
Perhaps TR really broke out of his "rich man" mold during his time in the Badlands of North Dakota. Sure, he was a gentleman rancher and expected hard work from those in his employ. But he also worked hard. During the spring cattle roundups, he even stood night watch and worked to end a nighttime stampede.
I’d had never read any David McCullough books before and I knew very little about Theodore Roosevelt. I’m certainly no expert at either now, but this read was well worth the time and effort. McCullough frequently quotes the family correspondence which by modern standards is incredibly thorough. Apparently the Roosevelts considered letter writing to be quite important.
In my opinion, Mornings on Horseback is a must read!