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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 31, 2011 9:44:08 GMT -5
During the trip to HHD I had an opportunity to finish Edmund Morris's Colonel Roosevelt. Found it a most informative and fitting conculsion to this three part series...
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Post by Allen Wiener on Mar 31, 2011 9:52:55 GMT -5
That has to go on a back burner for me right now. What was your take on TR, after all was said and done? Does he belong on Rushmore?
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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 31, 2011 16:10:41 GMT -5
That has to go on a back burner for me right now. What was your take on TR, after all was said and done? Does he belong on Rushmore? Yes... |
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Post by martyb on Mar 31, 2011 20:55:20 GMT -5
Kevin, I love your answer.
You could have tried to explain a little but I believe you would have had to write a trilogy about what the trilogy was about. One of those, if I gotta explain you'll never understand things. I just got through last week. It was a great read.
Hard to believe but TR and HST are my favorite Presidents...I always particularly liked TR 'cause he was such an 'over the top' alpha character (you know...like you and me).
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Post by Allen Wiener on Mar 31, 2011 23:43:00 GMT -5
I didn't know much about TR prior to my trip to Yellowstone last September; just the standard legends you always hear about him. But, my opinion of him really escalated after that trip. I'm not sure if it was any one thing about him that I learned, or just the fact that Yellowstone and other National Parks exist thanks to him, or that he had incredible nerve and was a great leader, or that there just aren't people like that anymore, or. . . . Well, that's why we like Kevin's answer!
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Post by Kevin Young on Apr 1, 2011 5:39:15 GMT -5
I know-you all are shocked that I actually gave a one word answer...not in keeping, I know! ;D
As you have guessed, it is hard to narrow done the elements that made TR deserve being placed in stone up there with the other guys...and I think the whole National Park legacy is certainly a contributing factor. The last volume deals with what many would consider the decline of Roosevelt...the Amazon trip was certainly a last hurrah that almost killed him. His son's death in WWI also contributed to his dramatic physical decline...but then there are all sorts of little Roosevelt moments as well--the whole incident in Milwaukee, his refusal to be manipulated by either the Pope or the Methodists when in Rome, and such.
Teddy spoke here in Vermilion County during the 1912 run. He had just spoken in Champaign, and took on the local Senator there--and did so in park facing the guys house! In Danville, he spoke on our counthouse square, looking into the faces of many residents of the local Old Soldiers Home, and taking on local Congressional Power House, Uncle Joe Cannon (who had the VA built in his hometown and whose house was up the street from where Teddy was speaking). TR certainly had no problem taking on the devil in his own backyard.
I have always liked TR as a historical figure, and the three volumes do fill in a lot of Roosevelt gaps. Morris did a real good job about rounding out the complex personality that was TR.
Also historically cool that as a child TR sat in his window and watched the Lincoln funeral go by...
By the way, my opinion of Woodrow Wilson gets less with the passing years...
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 1, 2011 8:50:04 GMT -5
Thanks Kevin; certainly an interesting and, in many ways, admirable guy and, really, no more can be said of the other 3 on Rushmore. What TR lacked to be ranked with the greatest presidents was a real crisis to lead the country through.
Ditto on Wilson.
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