No One Asked Me But… (April 5, 2023)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… It was nice to see that someone reads my column. Last week a letter to the editor politely corrected a comment about Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite presidents of all time.
In an earlier column, I alluded to the fact that Roosevelt cowboyed up in South Dakota. Some North Dakotans took umbrage to this statement clarifying the fact that his ranch was actually in North Dakota. My bad. I was not aware that there were badlands in North Dakota as well as South Dakota. What do you expect of an old Iowa boy?

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, came to the Badlands of what is now North Dakota for the first time in 1883 while it was still a territory that included Wyoming and Montana. Theodore Roosevelt established two ranches in the badlands of North Dakota: one called the Maltese Cross seven miles south of the Northern Pacific Railroad (1883) and the other called the Elkhorn, 35 miles north of the village of Medora, North Dakota (1884).

On February 14, 1884, at Roosevelt’s home in New York City, both his mother died of typhoid fever, and his young wife Alice died of Bright’s disease. The tragic loss of Roosevelt’s wife and mother on Valentine’s Day, 1884, drove an emotionally crushed man to the Badlands to mourn, reflect, and reenergize.

His adventures in the Badlands are the stuff of legends beginning with a successful ranching operation he ran from the comforts of the Elkhorn Ranch cabin in 1885, and 1886. As a Billings County deputy sheriff in 1886, Roosevelt and two ranch hands chased down three boat thieves on the Little Missouri River.

He lost more than half his cattle in the long hard winter of 1886-87, and by the early 1890’s he abandoned the Elkhorn Ranch site returning to the Maltese Cross Ranch. He sold his last stock in 1898, and returned to politics and other adventures.

Roosevelt was sworn into office as the 26th President on Sept. 14, 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley. He was elected to a full term in November, 1904, and afterward returned often to visit North Dakota.

Throughout his life, he continued to visit the Badlands to feel the freedom of the west again. By the time of his death at home in 1919 at the age of 60, Roosevelt had become the legend that lives on today throughout America.

The dynamic force of his presence, together with his awesome energy, made Teddy stand out in many people’s minds. Everything about him seemed bigger than life. He drank his coffee with seven lumps of sugar in a coffee cup his eldest son Teddy Jr. said was “more like a bathtub.” When Teddy went on walks, those who wished to keep up often had to jog. During a fox hunt in 1885, he fell off his horse and broke his arm. He remounted, finished the hunt, went to dinner in the evening and the next day walked through the woods for three hours.

At the age of 24, he leaped into politics as a crusading Republican state assemblyman from New York City determined to clean up the politics of both parties. As the New York police commissioner, he carried a pistol and patrolled the city streets to keep an eye on his policemen.

The brashness of this young politician infuriated many of the old-line politicians of the day. Mark Hanna, the Republican National Chairman, always referred to Roosevelt as “that damned Cowboy.” When the party selected him as the Vice-Presidential candidate with President McKinley in 1900, Hanna exclaimed “Don’t any of you understand there’s only one life between that madman and the Presidency?”

When McKinley was assassinated in September of 1901 “the “madman” became president at the age of 42, the youngest man to ever serve in the office.

As President, he arbitrated labor disputes, and pushed through the pure food and drug law. The tree huggers would have loved him as he set aside 148 million acres of forest land to form national parks.

He carried a “big stick” in foreign affairs as he battered down obstacles to insure the completion of the Panama Canal. Teddy was elected on his own in 1904, by the largest plurality amassed up to then.

Theodore Roosevelt was an avid reader. He read as many as three books a day. He authored 24 books himself. He wrote histories, biographies, description of cattle ranching, big game hunting, scholarly studies on natural history, speeches, magazine articles, and newspaper editorials.

Sometimes his writings took on a moralistic tone. A friend once told him “If there is one thing, more than any other for which I admire you, Theodore, it is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.”

Teddy was very much a family man. There were baseball games on the White House lawn, tag in the hallways, and a menagerie of assorted pets that included dogs, rabbits, flying squirrels, a badger, and a small black bear. Rather than restraining his six children, he engaged them in wrestling bouts, pillow fights, and football games.

On a trip through Hartford, Connecticut on August 22, 1902, Roosevelt was the first President to ride in a car.
In 1905, he was the first President to submerge in a submarine the USS Plunger.
In 1910, after leaving office, he was the first President to take an airplane ride.

He was the first President to visit a foreign country while in office when he went to Panama for three days in 1906.
Also in 1906, he was the first American to receive a Noble Prize. This was for his service in crafting a treaty of peace between Russia and Japan ending the Russo-Japanese War.

There was an assassination attempt on Roosevelt’s life when he split the Republican Party in the 1912 election. When he left his hotel to deliver a campaign speech during his “Bull Moose” campaign,

Roosevelt was shot in the chest. The bullet passed through his coat and a folded copy of his speech. With his shirt covered with blood, Roosevelt continued on to the auditorium and delivered his speech declaring it would take more than this to stop a bull moose. He spoke for 50 minutes and then went to the hospital.

Where is the Teddy Roosevelt today when we need him?

Thought of the week … The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
– Theodore Roosevelt