The Joy of Life

The Joy of Life

a biography of

Theodore Roosevelt

By

Mary Beth Smith

Copyright © 2013 by Mary Beth Smith. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

First Electronic Edition: May 2013

Smashwords Edition

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Play should never be allowed to interfere with work, and a life devoted merely to play is, of all forms of existence, the most dismal. But the joy of life is a very good thing, and while work is the essential in it, play also has its place. - Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapters

1. Childhood

2. Youth

3. N.Y. Legislature

4.The Bad Lands

5. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER

6. Police Commissioner

7. Assistant Secretary of the Navy

8. The Rough Riders

9. Governorship

10. The Vice Presidency

11. The Presidency

12. DOMESTIC POLICY

13. Foreign Policy

14. FAMILY

15. World Citizen

16. The Bull Moose Party

17. The River of Doubt

18. World War I

19. Death

20. Epilogue

21. Afterword

Bibliography

Praise for The Joy Of Life

About the Author

Introduction

[History’s] chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature. - Hume

Many people take their physical and mental health for granted. Theodore Roosevelt could not. He experienced severe childhood asthma and was hyperactive both as a child and as an adult. In his early twenties he began to experience mood swings. He talked constantly which is one symptom of bipolar disorder.

He found a way to deal with it all. His father helped him with his asthma. He’d walk the floor with his wheezing child and give him coffee and ipecac to stop the attacks. He also took him to Philadelphia, Saratoga and Oyster Bay for a change of air. After one attack his father could no longer bear it. He had another attack…It used me up entirely to have another attack come so soon after the last…at the moment it seems hard to bear, he wrote.

He called Theodore to him and said, "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.

With a determined grin, Theodore said, I’ll make my body!

From then on he worked out with weights to expand his chest and got more fresh air and exercise. He pushed his body as much as he could. Later he learned to box in order to defend himself. As an adult he went out west on cattle drives. As president he burned off excess energy by going on fast walks through Rock Creek Park with the younger members of his cabinet. He also played tennis with them.

When his father, who was only 46, died he vowed to be the best man he could, physically, mentally and spiritually. This helped him get through his severe depression when his young wife died. He dealt with it by throwing himself into his work and, when that was done, going out west to ranch and ride his horse across the plains. Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough, he wrote. When riding his horse he felt as absolutely free as a man could feel.

In spite of his mood swings he became the best police commissioner New York City ever had. He pioneered the use of forensic science in police work. Later he was appointed assistant secretary of the Navy and worked to prepare the Navy for the Spanish American War. When he was 39 he resigned from that position to lead a group of volunteers to Cuba to fight in the war. Afterwards he wrote an exciting book called The Rough Riders which is still in print today.

After the war he became wildly popular and ran for Governor of New York and won. He did an excellent job as governor but at the end of his term was kicked upstairs into the vice presidency. He felt his career was over and he went on vacation as soon as he could. While he was away President McKinley was assassinated.

He set the tone for the twentieth century Presidency. He preserved wilderness areas for future generations, mediated foreign disputes, had the Panama Canal built and arbitrated a coal strike. He loved being president, but found it troubling at times. For inspiration he read about President Lincoln who presided over much more troubling times.

He refused to run for a third term and instead went on a safari to Africa. He wrote magazine articles about his adventures while everyone else was taking a well deserved rest.

In 1912 he ran for president under the Progressive Party. The platform foreshadowed the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt and was an inspiration to Franklin who idolized his Cousin Ted.

Death came suddenly on January 6, 1919, and caught Theodore sleeping. Had he not been sleeping, it was said, Roosevelt would have given Death quite a fight. He was buried in Young’s Cemetery about a mile from his house. So many people trampled his grave that first year that a tall iron fence was erected around it. Even in death, Theodore Roosevelt was the most famous man in the world.

A timid, sickly and nervous boy had transformed himself into a strong, moral, loving and heroic man.

Theodore was the one unique person, perfectly prepared and positioned in time and place, who could best influence the direction our country would take during the twentieth century.

1. Childhood

[He] was the heart and soul of all games worth playing, of all mischief worth venturing on, of all talks that had fun and sparkle in them…ordinary-looking…but with a small, eager face, a thin little figure…and a manner of joyous camaraderie that precluded any possibility of bossiness from the start. - Louise Pond Jewell, The Great Adventure

Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858 in a large brownstone in New York City. The house had four floors. The top floor was for the servants. The second and third floors contained three bedrooms each. It had a large porch.¹ His grandmother said that the newborn was as sweet and pretty a young baby as I have ever seen…weighed eight pounds and a half before it was dressed.²

Theodore had an older sister Anna, called Bamie, and had two younger siblings, a brother Elliott, called Ellie, and a sister Corinne, called Conie.

Theodore Roosevelt was, according to his autobiography, an ordinary child. He was described by his aunt as full of mischief and [had] to be watched all the time. At ten he kept a diary of his activities when the family was on vacation in Europe. His diary makes it clear that he and his two younger siblings played all sorts of loud ([we] ran all about with noise)³ and active games which Theodore probably invented himself. He wrote:

In the romp the strings of my jacket and a butten of my pants were torn and Ellie’s butten also besides geting his sore toe hurt badly and a little skin was taken of Corines hand and her head thumped severly. After this we played at keeping a hotel and travelers coming to him. Conie and I were the travelers and went up staircases for mountains with boxes and bags in hand and on back.⁴

Around the same time he wrote:

We then began to chase with gun and sword dogs. We saw 2. We charged rat a tat, rat a tat went our feet, bang, bang went the two guns, crash, crash went the swords, bow wow went the dogs and ran we also.⁵

When all the noise and children overwhelmed him, he would go off by himself and meditate. He didn’t know he was meditating, but he felt a sense of peace while alone and writing in his journal. At age eleven he wrote:

I strayed from the rest and now in the wood around the villa Colata, which is on lake Como with no sound save the waterfall and the Italian breeze on my cheek. I all alone am writing my Journal.⁶

The children sometimes quarreled but were sympathetic when Theodore was sick. He had frequent asthma attacks. His mother was very worried about him and gave him coffee and ipecac to stop the attacks. She’d tell him stories of his ancestors and his uncles who were Confederate war heroes. Conie and Ellie were the kindest kind of brother and sister⁷ when he was ill. Bamie, his older sister, was also such a kind sister and, he added, I have such kind parents.

Make Your Body

When they returned from Europe Theodore continued to have his asthma attacks which he referred to in his diaries as the asmer. His father, Theodore, Sr., would take him to Philadelphia, Saratoga and Oyster Bay for a change of air. Once he wrote, He had another attack…It used me up entirely to have another attack come so soon after the last…at the moment it seems hard to bear.⁸

When Theodore was about 13, his father said:

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.

With a determined grin, Theodore said, I’ll make my body!⁹

This was a turning point in Theodore’s life. He stopped putting himself in the role of the victim and started taking control of his health. He worked out with weights to expand his chest and started on a program of fresh air and exercise. From that moment on, he missed no opportunity to push his body.

He became stronger, but not strong enough to fend off two boys his own age (thirteen) who were taunting him during a stagecoach ride. He knew that together they could beat him and not only that, just one of them could have beaten him. Luckily for him they just teased him. But he made up his mind right then that he would learn to defend himself.

He started taking boxing lessons and practiced boxing for the rest of his life. He said of this decision:

I made up my mind that I must try to learn so that I would not be put in such a helpless position; and having become quickly and bitterly conscious that I did not have the natural prowess to hold my own, I decided that I would try to supply its place by training.¹⁰

His parents encouraged him to read. They suggested books that he ought to read but if he didn’t like those, he was encouraged to read whatever interested him. He liked to read about courageous people and was influenced by stories of the West. He developed an interest in natural history and developed a phenomenal memory by memorizing the little differences between different kinds of birds. His diaries are filled with well-drawn sketches of mice and birds and detailed descriptions of beetles, ants, spiders and dragon flies. His father encouraged him to learn about any subject he was interested in.

His Father

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. was the son of a multimillionaire. He made it his vocation to help the poor. Appalled by the tenements where thousands of people lived in filth, and where smallpox, scarlet fever and typhus raged, Theodore, Sr., became the founder or supporter of every humanitarian effort in the city. Good fortune… must be balanced with productive work and service, he said. Founder of the New York Orthopedic Hospital, the Children’s Aid Society, the American Museum of Natural History and the State Charities Aid Association; the guiding force in the YMCA and the Newsboys’ Lodging House, he literally went about doing good. My Father…was the best man I ever knew, his son often declared.¹¹

The Newsboys Lodging House which he supported offered a clean bed and a warm room for five cents. The Children’s Aid Society returned homeless children to their families, or, failing that, the children would be sent to farms in the Midwest. At least 100,000 children were sent West.¹²

At a dinner the Western governors gave for Theodore Roosevelt years later, Governor Brady of Alaska said to Governor Roosevelt of New York:

Your father picked me up from the streets in New York, a waif and an orphan, and sent me to a Western Family, paying for my transportation and early care. Years passed and I was able to repay the money which had given me my start in life, but I can never repay what he did for me. It was through that early care and by giving me such a foster mother and father that I gradually rose in the world, until one day I can greet his son as a fellow governor of a part of our great country.¹³

Theodore, Sr., visited hospital wards, talked to prison inmates and lobbied for better care in insane asylums. He gave money and time, often working at his desk until two in the morning. He had great physical endurance and great powers of concentration. He made everything look easy. There was something glamorous about him. I can see him now, in full evening dress, serving a most generous supper to his newsboys in the Lodging House and later dashing off to an evening party in Fifth Avenue, a friend said.¹⁴

His son said his father got great joy out of life and performed every duty wholeheartedly.¹⁵

Corinne, his youngest daughter, later said he could dance all night and drive his four-in-hand coach so fast that the old tradition was ‘that his grooms frequently fell out at the corners!’ ¹⁶

Theodore Sr. had a plan that would enable Civil War soldiers to voluntarily send home a percentage of their pay on a regular basis. This required that he lobby in Washington for his plan and that he be away from his family, off and on, for two years. He attended White House receptions and became friendly with the Lincolns, sharing their pew in church and going shopping for bonnets with Mrs. Lincoln. As a result of his efforts, millions of dollars were sent to soldiers’ dependents.¹⁷

He lived every moment to the fullest and was a sympathetic, understanding father.

His Mother

Theodore, Jr.’s mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, was a beautiful Southern woman. She had fine black hair with a slight russet shade and her skin was the purest and most delicate white, more moonlight-white than cream-white, and in the cheeks there was a coral, rather than a rose, tint.¹⁸ Her two brothers were Confederate War heroes. She loved to tell Theodore of their adventures. Theodore said later, It was from the heroes of my favorite stories, from hearing of the feats performed by my southern forefathers and kinsfolk, and from knowing my father [that] I felt great admiration for men who were fearless…and I had a great desire to be like them.¹⁹

Arthur Cutler

Theodore, Sr., decided to send Theodore to Harvard. Theodore had never developed the idea that learning was separate from real life. To Theodore, learning was a very important part of being alive. He read constantly. However he was deficient in areas he did not like to read about, such as mathematics and the classical languages.²⁰ Arthur Cutler, a young Harvard student, was hired to prepare Theodore for the entrance exams. When Theodore wasn’t studying he was classifying and mounting specimens, working out in the gymnasium, boxing, wrestling and ice skating.²¹ His tutor noted that his day was arranged with system from the hour of rising until he retired and that the hours devoted to sport were as definite as those devoted to study.²² Also he said, Every leisure moment would find the latest novel, some English classic, or some abstruse book on Natural History in his hand.²³

Family habits of reading and studying at all hours of the day or night, his native curiosity and the trips to Europe had been highly educational. Theodore was, according to Carleton Putnam, a paragon of perennial self-education.²⁴

Asthma was less of a problem now and at seventeen Theodore was a wiry 5’8" 124 pounds.

2. Youth

See here, Roosevelt, let me talk, I’m running this course. - a Harvard professor

ADD or The Artistic Temperament?

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) can be severe enough to make it difficult for a child to learn. But generally, it makes a person more interesting and creative. Writers, composers and artists have it and so do countless others who find ways to perform their jobs creatively and efficiently. For the purpose of this book, ADD will be referred to as the artistic temperament, since it may not really be a disorder. It is a type of brain chemistry and structure that millions of people have. The artistic temperament may include mood swings. Theodore Roosevelt had the artistic temperament.

Everyone to begin with, is mentally ill, neurotic, from teenage years on. Our job in this life is to outgrow our mental illness. So Theodore may have had anxiety attacks as a teenager but he spent his whole life working on his mental and physical health, just like the rest of us have to do. His life is sort of an allegory, which we can use as a map in order to trace how to live our own life.

The person with the artistic temperament is the type of person who is so sane that he puts the normal person to shame.

He is considered by Buddhists to be very holy - a person very close to enlightenment.

People accused of having the artistic temperament include past and present presidents, composers, painters, writers and other creative types.

The person is very efficient. He doesn’t waste time just exercising. He exercises and conducts business meetings simultaneously. As President, Theodore played tennis with his cabinet and diplomats. He also was shaved, wrote letters and read a book all at the same time.

Theodore said the evil are efficient also. But the evil are only aware of the material world while the good have some higher purpose in life. (Thus the good are stronger.)

The person with artistic temperament dares to go up in an airplane and down in a submarine. He hunts lions and tigers, reads and writes incessantly, explores new lands, pioneers new air routes and parachutes out of a perfectly good airplane.

The person with artistic temperament needs constant practice in order to learn but once she learns something, she becomes truly inspired, touched with divine fire. He is always studying, always learning.

The person with artistic temperament is forgetful. If he is lucky he has a partner, to find his lost keys and eyeglasses, and to keep him grounded in time and space. The self actualized person with this disorder is the torch bearer, the trail blazer, the pioneer who leads future generations in the right direction.

Who are they? They are Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin, too (often the artistic people marry each other), Gandhi, St. Therese of Lisieux, George Washington, John Adams and many, many others who followed in their footsteps.

The person with the artistic temperament often acts as if he must cram a lot of activity in to a very short life span. He acts as if he must do many, many things before he dies.

Buddhists say these are old souls, near the end of their Karmic cycles. They say that these souls have many, many things to accomplish before they can merge into the oneness of what we would call God. This, they tell us, is a person very close to becoming enlightened. Their lives are very difficult but it is the difficulties of such lives that help purify the soul.¹

Theodore had the artistic temperament, but as a child he had trained himself to pay close attention to bird and animal life, thus helping to partially correct his condition. He had trained his memory by memorizing the tiny differences between species of birds and learning their Latin names. One biographer said that as President, Theodore could sit all afternoon, silent and alone, to observe an unfamiliar bird. The ability to do this must have made his artistic temperament much easier to deal with. It may be possible to actually change the chemistry and maybe even the structure of the brain by practicing some such exercise as this.

Harvard

Theodore was hyperactive. With his thick glasses, New York accent and nervous energy he did not fit in. He was described by fellow students at Harvard as nervous, fidgety, odd, even mentally unbalanced. The rich boys parted their hair in the middle and carried gold watch fobs.² It was not considered good form to move at more than a walk, said one, but Roosevelt was always running.³

Theodore was incapable of sitting quietly in class. Fellow students said he livened up dull courses with his questions. ⁴ See here, Roosevelt, let me talk, I’m running this course, said one professor.⁵

Roosevelt was always talking, always active, always in a hurry. The students liked him and found him funny. He joined many clubs, took boxing lessons, dancing class and wrestling. He got excellent grades.

He could read in a noisy room, Carleton Putnam wrote, oblivious to all that was going on around him….[reading] with such absorption that three friends rough-housing and bumping into his chair did not distract him, and only the smell of the soles of his boots burning before the fire finally got his attention.⁶

Roosevelt had the ability to work in spurts. He could concentrate intensely at odd moments.⁷ Whenever I have any spare time I can immediately take up a book, he wrote. He turned taking advantage of the odd moment into an art form.⁸

Theodore still collected specimens and labeled them. His rooms often contained snakes, lizards, salamanders and even a tortoise.⁹

He had a photographic memory and said once, I remembered a book that I had read some time ago, and as I talked the pages of the book came before my eyes, and it seemed as though I were able to read the things therein contained.¹⁰ Because his time was