Theodore Rex (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

Many controversial concerns of the era captured my attention: some outstanding ones were how the U.S. presence in the Phillipine Islands made headlines as news of misconduct by U.S. soldiers toward Phillipine guerilla fighters was published in the newspapers. Another headline making event was when Theodore Roosevelt invited Dr. Booker T. Washington (a black man) to dinner at the White House, without consulting anyone or thinking about how this might play out politically (he needed Southern votes for certain issues). Despite being a highly educated man, Theodore Roosevelt had a unique personality that made him jump in feet first and consult later of what the consequences of his actions were. This open and honest personality trait no doubt earned him the respect of the majority of the public.

Some of the most difficult issues of his day involved creating a satisfactory treaty with Columbia regarding the Panama Canal, at the time Panama belonged to Columbia. Nicaragua was the second choice for the canal which would link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and ease up shipment of goods throughout the world ... The revolution in Panama to break from Columbia placed the U.S. in a very delicate position on the world scene ... Roosevelt, his Ambassador to Columbia, and the U.S. Navy circumvented the problems to meet U.S. and global trade interests. The times were indeed very unique but on many levels not too different from today ...

Two other areas thoroughly covered by Morris are the Anti-trust laws which were passed after much heated debate and political clashes. The law prevented the wealthiest men from creating monopolies within certain industries ... mainly the railroads and fuel/oil. Another well rendered account in the book was the coal miner strike in Pennsylvania which could have had very grave consequences for the nation. It mostly affected the northern states, since coal was the sole source of fuel and heat during the winter months.

Overall, this was a highly fascinating book which covered a great deal of important U.S. history as it was lived and created by one of the most flamboyant and energetic U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt. Morris interspersed interesting side-lights about his second wife Edith, eldest daughter Alice, and sons, Quentin and Teddy. Some of Roosevelt's hunting expeditions and visits out West were described. One of the most important ideas espoused by Roosevelt was conservation, to set aside specific public land for future generations to enjoy. We can thank Theodore Roosevelt for preserving the Grand Canyon as a national park. He is the first President who can be properly labelled an "environmentalist" (despite enjoying hunting wild animals). Lastly, Morris does a superb job of describing Roosevelt's relations with some of his selected Cabinet, Elihu Root, Secretary of War, for example, and other political contemporaries, for instance, William Howard Taft, who succeeded him as President. Considering the vast and complex subject matter, this book is an outstanding reading experience.
Erika Borsos (bakonyvilla)

I found the recent David McCullough biography of John Adams as the closest comparable work. Both biographers rely a lot on the subject's own words and those of the people he interacted with. I found three qualities of Theodore Rex to be superior to the Adams biography. First, Mr. Morris has chosen to magnify issues that are of more interest to us today which are often virtually ignored in conventional histories. Some of these subjects involved Mr. Roosevelt's attitudes towards minority groups including African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Jews. Other related subjects included what he chose to say and do about discrimination and lynchings, willingness to address a pogrom in Russia, and atrocities conduced by the Army in the Philippines. Second, Mr. Morris doesn't try to "pretty up" the ugly sides of his subject. In these first areas above, President Roosevelt did some good things . . . but he also did some pretty awful ones. His support for bad conduct dismissals of African-American troops after complaints in Brownsville, Texas, was particularly questionable, coming at a time when he had little at risk politically by doing the right thing and he was outspoken in other areas. Third, Mr. Morris has an eye for detail that makes the scenes come alive to extend beyond the mere words and events being presented. I particularly enjoyed the description of Roosevelt's first few days as president.

The Adams biography is superior in that most of that material came in the form of letters from Abigail and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and the quality of what they had to say was usually a lot more interesting than what President Roosevelt and his cronies and family wrote or said.

The perspective on Roosevelt is almost totally a near contemporary one. This material reads like something we might review now about President Reagan's presidency. For those who are not familiar with U.S. political, social, and economic history prior to and during this time, some of the sections will be hard to fathom. That is a major weakness of the book.

The other major weakness is that the coverage of subjects is unbalanced in length. For example, there is a lengthy section on some gunboat diplomacy to help out two hostages in Morocco, one of whom is thought to be an American. Other than showing that Roosevelt liked to send in the Navy, this material didn't warrant the attention it receives here.

If you are like me, you will enjoy the way that Mr. Morris displays how Roosevelt built a power base by espousing popular issues like trust-busting to wean himself away from political dependency on Senator Mark Hanna. President Roosevelt's ability to work the newspapers to his advantage was astonishingly adroit for an "accidental" president with limited prior experience in public office.

On the personal side, the book is filled with examples of President Roosevelt's love of all forms of physical activity, including eating, and the way that he sought to preserve privacy for his personal life. Late in his presidency, he could not read very well with his left eye due to a boxing injury received in a match while president. Having become president due to the assassination of President McKinley, you will read with interest his own close calls with death and a potential assassin. The vignettes involving his very independent daughter, Alice, will amuse you in many cases. On the other hand, you may be annoyed (as I was) to learn that President Roosevelt's final decision about the Brownsville soldiers was withheld for a few days with the probable motive of helping his son-in-law, Alice's husband, be re-elected to Congress.

The almost total silence on the drawbacks of American geographic expansion through influence over the Philippines, Panama, Puerto Rico, Cuba and some South American countries was also unwarranted. Apparently, the ideology that justified all of this was a form of Social Darwinism.

Having finished the book, I thought about the task of a presidential biographer. We want to learn about the important history of the period. We also want to learn how the president did, compared to the alternatives. We further want to know about the president's character and style. And we want to see all of this in context. Reading this fine biography of President Roosevelt made me realize what a tough task this really is.

How would our world be different today if McKinley had not been assassinated? Probably not as good because the abuses of the trusts would probably have lasted longer, conservation would not have emerged as soon as a social force, and our tradition of encouraging international peace would not be so well established.

Be prepared to encourage others to do the right thing!

One of the strengths of the author's prose is that it never becomes ponderous. Indeed, at times, it approaches oddly lyrical, as when he describes the signing of the canal treaty between newly independent Panama and the U.S.:

"Pens scratched across parchment. Wax melted on silk. Two oceans brimmed closer, ready to spill."

THEODORE REX isn't solely about great affairs of State. Did you know that both Teddy and his eldest daughter, Alice, habitually carried pistols. What would today's anti-gun lobby make of that!

The book also serves to dispel a Hollywood myth regarding the 1904 Perdicaris Affair, in which an American citizen in Tangier was kidnapped by the desert insurgent Ahmed ben Mohammed el Raisuli, an event memorialized in celluloid by the vastly entertaining 1975 film, THE WIND AND THE LION, starring Candice Bergen and Sean Connery. Had the movie been more true to fact, Ms. Bergen couldn't have played the role unless dressed in drag.

With my short attention span and too many books waiting on the shelf, this narrative of Roosevelt's Presidency is just about as good as it gets. At 555 paperback pages, it's long, but not too long to bog me down for weeks. It's detailed, compiled from a nine-page bibliography of sources, but not so detailed as to become tedious. And it's got photographs - one or two in each of its thirty-two chapters. At the book's conclusion, I felt I had a satisfactory appreciation of Teddy the man, and was glad I'd taken the opportunity to pick up this excellent volume. My only criticism is the lack of a brief post-epilogue noting Teddy's abortive 1912 attempt to regain the Presidency at the head of the Bull Moose Party, thus splitting the Republican vote and handing the election to Woodrow Wilson, which would have perhaps better rounded out the saga.

Bully!