T. R., ARDENT AMATEUR
Hesseltine, William B.
T.R., Ardent Amateur THE LETTERS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Vols. I and II: The Years of Preparation, 1868-1900. Selected and edited by Elting E. Morison. Illustrated. Harvard University Press. 1,549...
...Perhaps in the 20th Century he could be classified as a "publicist...
...Tolstoi and Harvard professors were alike decadent, and "our peace at any price men . . . are rendering war more likely because they encourage England to resist [Venezuela boundary controversy...
...1,549 pp...
...Perhaps such a career could only have been possible for a man who was essentially an amateur—and in each field of endeavor he displayed the spirit, the energy, and the enthusiasm of an amateur...
...Through them, as his energetic letters reveal, he was essentially an amateur playing the game of sport, and literature, and war, and politics...
...But his reforming tendencies irked the professional politicians, and Boss Platt elevated the reluctant amateur to the Vice Presidency...
...It was the biggest game he had ever bagged—and he probably regretted that he could not mount the head at Sagamon Hall...
...II But the amateur spirit of Theodore Roosevelt was not solely the result of his economic independence...
...He wrote histories, but he had only contempt for the professional scholars who delved in documents and wrote after careful research...
...I believe nothing would give them greater pleasure than a chance with their rifles at one of the mobs...
...Here are gathered letters from the time that the exuberant Teddy, aged 10, was collecting bugs, white mice, mocking-bird feathers, and battlefield trophies, to the day when the exulting Theodore, Vice Presidentelect at the age of 42, closed the Governor's desk at Albany to go West to hunt mountain lions...
...He inherited enough money to keep from having to do that...
...Although he studied law, he was no lawyer...
...When it came, he scorned to remain safely at home...
...He ardently promoted the war with Spain...
...in the long run this means a fight...
...He administered the office with the same vigor, enthusiasm, dramatic sense, and publicity that had characterized his other activities...
...For all of his vigorous speech and apt phrases—and these letters have affection, charm, and even a literary touch to them— Theodore Roosevelt was no thinker...
...Later still, observing Germans in Illinois and Wisconsin joining the Populists, he sighed, "I wish the cholera would result in a permanent quarantine against most immigrants...
...Personally I rather hope the fight will come soon...
...He was playing it with enthusiasm—and without a professional's sense of responsibility...
...If he had a profession, it was that of a writer—but he did not write for a living...
...As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt worked diligently to promote the Spanish war...
...In 1896 he found "all the men who pray for anarchy, or who believe in socialism, and all the much larger number who have not formulated their thoughts sufficiently to believe in either, but who want to strike down the well-to-do," together with "organized labor in the worst unions," voting for Bryan...
...He was elected to three offices and held two appointments, yet he scorned the professional politicians like Sen...
...Roosevelt's political thinking was closely akin to his social ideas...
...Piatt...
...The Bryan movement was, he concluded, "fundamentally an attack on civilization...
...In 1889 he hoped for "bit of a spar with Germany...
...Most of the important letters have been printed before, but brought together for the first time they present an amazing character of extraordinary energy and accomplishments...
...In 1886, when Knights of Labor strikes produced riots and dynamite in Chicago, Roosevelt compared the rioters with the "hardworking, laboring men" on his ranch, "who work longer hours for no greater wages than many of the strikers, but they are Americans through and through...
...By 1896 he was interested in promoting a war with Spain...
...He was a doer of deeds, and the zeal of his actions hid the lack of critical analysis in his thoughts...
...He was sure that the "futile sentimentalists of the international arbitration type" produced a "flabby, timid type of character which eats away the great fighting features of our race...
...In the years between 1880 and 1900 Roosevelt graduated from Harvard (where he taught Sunday School and "made" Parcellian), married (he finished writing his Naval War of 1812 on his European honeymoon), studied law, served in the New York legislature, ran a cattle ranch in "Dacotah," lost his wife, married again, fathered six children, made hundreds of speeches, wrote dozens of articles and eight books, headed the U. S. Civil Service Commission, was New York Police Commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, lieutenant-colonel and colonel of the "Rough Riders," Governor of New York, and Vice President-elect of the United States...
...In these three interesting decades Roosevelt wrote thousands of letters...
...an appeal to the torch...
...A case in point is Theodore Roosevelt, and the question becomes pertinent with the publication of the first two volumes of a projected eight-volume collection of his letters...
...The 1,400 pages of them presented here (with a minimum of editorial comment or explanation) were addressed to his sisters, his business-manager brother-in-law, his literary acquaintances, his political associates, and his nearest friend, Henry Cabot Lodge...
...With the enthusiasm of an amateur sportsman he rushed into service, led his regiment up San Juan hill, and boasted ever after that he had killed a Spaniard with his own hand...
...He did not spend enough time on his Dakota ranch to be a professional rancher...
...His letters were filled with thoughts of war...
...These were the years of Theodore Roosevelt's "preparation" for the Presidency...
...He was a reformer because he believed the Republicans should be cleaned from the inside, and he scorned the Mugwumps, the Inde-pendents, and the "Goos-Goos" (Good Government League...
...The clamor of the peace faction has convinced me that this country needs a war...
...There ought to be a war," he told Henry Cabot Lodge...
...Out of his energy, his amateur sportsmanship, and his social and political concepts, rose Roosevelt the Jingo...
...From the war he emerged a hero and won the governorship of New York...
...He was a belligerent and dramatic exponent of the copy-book maxims...
...In social thinking, Roosevelt was a patriot, and his reactions to social problems were couched in terms of a fervent Americanism...
...I would rather welcome a foreign war," he wrote his sister...
...A few years later, he passed judgment on education: "We want to make our children feel," he declared, ". . . that the mere fact of their being American citizens makes them better off than if they were citizens of any European country...
...It was mostly the reflection of an amateur mind...
...20 a set...
...The letters emphasize the problems of classifying their author, but they do not resolve it...
...in the 19th Century he was a magnificent amateur...
...He was an emphatic Republican because he knew that the Republican Party was the party of patriotism...
...Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine THE LINE between the amateur and the professional is sometimes hard to draw...
...He was a polo player, an historian, a big game hunter, a reformer, an expert on the taxonomy of mammals and on naval gunnery...
Vol. 15 • June 1951 • No. 6
