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Roosevelt Book Has Echoes Of Modern Politics
By Carol Guthmiller
Tripp
This has been one of the most beautiful fall seasons I can remember. We all knew it couldn’t last forever. As I write this rain is falling, so there will be no combining today. Maybe that is all right, as everyone has been pushing pretty hard.
The upcoming election concerns continue to plague all of us. That, and the financial collapse back East are enough to make one wonder about the future of our country.
I’ve been reading “Mornings on Horseback” by David McCullough. It is a timely read, featuring the conditions we find ourselves in.
“Mornings on Horseback” is the story of the life of President Theodore Roosevelt. The title of the book comes from his rides on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of our own South Dakota Badlands. I will share a few tidbits I have gleaned from the book.
Theodore’s grandfather CVS Roosevelt was the essence of old fashioned New York.
“Economy is my doctrine at all times,” he told his wife-to-be, “at all events till I become, if it is to be so, a man of fortune.”
He became the family’s initial man of fortune, the first Roosevelt millionaire. Their family business was importing plate glass.
In the Panic of 1837, he bought up building lots “hither and yon,” on the island of Manhattan, all at a good price.
Eventually, he was the founding father of the Chemical Bank, the only bank in New York that had never failed to meet its obligations in gold, even during the Civil War.
CVS became one of the richest men in New York City.
Young Theodore was named after his father. His mother was Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, a Southerner. His father did not have the business acumen as did other members of his family. His interests were in helping the needy. He founded the Children’s Aid Society to help homeless children, various museums including the American Museum of Natural History and an Orthopedic Hospital.
The marriage of Theodore and Mittie brought forth Theodore (who became our president), Anna, Corinne and Elliot (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt).Their family lived the life of a well-to-do Victorian American family in New York City. The book begins in the year 1869.
Young Theodore was a victim of asthma, which he finally outgrew. The treatment for asthma back then was to smoke a cigar or drink black coffee. It seemed to bring relief. The family suffered much in caring for him as a young child.
The book states, “The family of the young Roosevelts was a family of paradoxes: Privileged and cushioned beyond most people’s imagining, yet little like the stereotype of the insular rich; uneducated in any usual formal fashion; ardent readers, insatiable askers of questions, chronically troubled, cursed it would often seem, by one illness or mysterious disorder after another, yet refusing to subject others to their troubles or to give in to despair.”
Young Theodore, whom the family nicknamed Teedie, had an unusual interest in wildlife. He loved to hunt, bring the specimens home, and learned the art of taxidermy. He attended Harvard at the age of 17. He was five feet eight inches tall and weighed 125 pounds. He had spent hours bodybuilding because of his asthmatic condition.
About this time the elder Theodore became involved in cleaning up the scandalous conditions in the city’s asylums for the indigent and the insane. There was a mixing of criminals with the sick and insane.
He stated, “The underlying problem, is politics, the system by which every job is political and no one person can ever be held accountable.”
He was hoping to be appointed to the office of Collectorship. The senate did not approve his nomination. There was corruption back then, too.
In a letter he wrote to his son he said he was relieved he did not get the appointment, but, “I feel sorry for the country, however, as it shows the power of the partisan politicians who think of nothing higher than their own interests. I fear for your future. We cannot stand so corrupt a government for any great length of time.”
This statement was written in 1877.
So, we can’t let the political debates and Wall Street alter our minds too much. It is nothing new.
I will conclude “Mornings on Horseback” in the next column.
The upcoming election concerns continue to plague all of us. That, and the financial collapse back East are enough to make one wonder about the future of our country.
I’ve been reading “Mornings on Horseback” by David McCullough. It is a timely read, featuring the conditions we find ourselves in.
“Mornings on Horseback” is the story of the life of President Theodore Roosevelt. The title of the book comes from his rides on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of our own South Dakota Badlands. I will share a few tidbits I have gleaned from the book.
Theodore’s grandfather CVS Roosevelt was the essence of old fashioned New York.
“Economy is my doctrine at all times,” he told his wife-to-be, “at all events till I become, if it is to be so, a man of fortune.”
He became the family’s initial man of fortune, the first Roosevelt millionaire. Their family business was importing plate glass.
In the Panic of 1837, he bought up building lots “hither and yon,” on the island of Manhattan, all at a good price.
Eventually, he was the founding father of the Chemical Bank, the only bank in New York that had never failed to meet its obligations in gold, even during the Civil War.
CVS became one of the richest men in New York City.
Young Theodore was named after his father. His mother was Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, a Southerner. His father did not have the business acumen as did other members of his family. His interests were in helping the needy. He founded the Children’s Aid Society to help homeless children, various museums including the American Museum of Natural History and an Orthopedic Hospital.
The marriage of Theodore and Mittie brought forth Theodore (who became our president), Anna, Corinne and Elliot (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt).Their family lived the life of a well-to-do Victorian American family in New York City. The book begins in the year 1869.
Young Theodore was a victim of asthma, which he finally outgrew. The treatment for asthma back then was to smoke a cigar or drink black coffee. It seemed to bring relief. The family suffered much in caring for him as a young child.
The book states, “The family of the young Roosevelts was a family of paradoxes: Privileged and cushioned beyond most people’s imagining, yet little like the stereotype of the insular rich; uneducated in any usual formal fashion; ardent readers, insatiable askers of questions, chronically troubled, cursed it would often seem, by one illness or mysterious disorder after another, yet refusing to subject others to their troubles or to give in to despair.”
Young Theodore, whom the family nicknamed Teedie, had an unusual interest in wildlife. He loved to hunt, bring the specimens home, and learned the art of taxidermy. He attended Harvard at the age of 17. He was five feet eight inches tall and weighed 125 pounds. He had spent hours bodybuilding because of his asthmatic condition.
About this time the elder Theodore became involved in cleaning up the scandalous conditions in the city’s asylums for the indigent and the insane. There was a mixing of criminals with the sick and insane.
He stated, “The underlying problem, is politics, the system by which every job is political and no one person can ever be held accountable.”
He was hoping to be appointed to the office of Collectorship. The senate did not approve his nomination. There was corruption back then, too.
In a letter he wrote to his son he said he was relieved he did not get the appointment, but, “I feel sorry for the country, however, as it shows the power of the partisan politicians who think of nothing higher than their own interests. I fear for your future. We cannot stand so corrupt a government for any great length of time.”
This statement was written in 1877.
So, we can’t let the political debates and Wall Street alter our minds too much. It is nothing new.
I will conclude “Mornings on Horseback” in the next column.
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