Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

(New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2002-10-01), 794

Theodore Roosevelt was a great President, and this is an exciting biography. Reading about him makes you want to jump into action and do something. For me this time around, it was building the Liturgy Bible.

Notes

  • Themes of the First Administration:
    • Monopolies and the Northern Securities case
    • Panama vs Nicaragua for the Canal
    • Conservation: National Reclamation Act
    • Labor relations: Coal Strike
  • "If it has been I who had been shot, he wouldn't have got away so easily...I'd have guzzled him first." (4)
  • "Roosevelt knew little about money—it was one of the few subjects that bored him." (10)
  • Roosevelt read twenty thousand books and wrote fifteen of his own (11)
  • Roosevelt bowed, cleared his throat, and said waveringly, "I shall take the oath at once." He, too, seemed to be fighting tears, but his voice grew rapidly stronger: "And in this hour of deep and terrible national bereavement I wish to state that it shall be my aim—" (here he shook his shoulders and pulled back his head) "—to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, the prosperity, and the honor of our beloved country." This speech, the shortest inaugural anybody could remember, created a profound impression. It struck all present as "pledge, platform, and policy all in one." Roosevelt spoke with characteristic passion, punctuating his words with dental snaps, as if biting the syllables out of the air. (14)
  • Roosevelt held the Monroe Doctrine "in greater reverence than the Nicene Creed." (25)
  • "America was no longer a patchwork of small self-sufficient communities. It was a great grid of monopolistic cities doing concentrated business with one another." (29-32, cf. Rerum Novarum)
  • "Trees were objects of deep spiritual significance to him, especially when they were full of birdsong." (32)
  • William Jennings Bryan: "The extremes of society are being driven further and further apart." (37)
  • "Here is the task. I have got to do it to the best of my ability; and that is all there is to it." (46)
  • Roosevelt was the first President ever to entertain a black man in the White House when he invited Booker T. Washington (52)
  • "You must always remember that the President is about six." (81)
  • "Petitioners visiting the Executive Office learned to keep talking, because the President usually had an open book on his desk, and was quite capable of snatching it up when the conversation flagged." (108)
  • "Don't fritter away your time...Be somebody; get action." (109)
  • "Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own hearts." (138)
  • "The Constitution was made for the people and not the people for the Constitution." (165)
  • In late 1902, the US was on the verge of war with Germany over Venezuela (177)
  • Speak softly and carry a big stick (185)
  • "Roosevelt was too good-natured to be a perceptive judge of people in the flesh." (185)
  • "We are too big a people to be able to be careless in what we say." (210)
  • "The best crop is the crop of children." (224)
  • "California is the loveliest of states." (227)
  • "We infinitely desire peace, and the surest way of obtaining it is to show that we are not afraid of war." (229)
  • "Do not all these things interest you? Isn't it a fine thing to be alive when so many great things are happening?" (258)
  • "The Democratic party can always be relied on to make a damn fool of itself at the critical time." (342)
  • "Roosevelt was not a speculative, nor a spiritual man. He was in too much of a hurry to make the world over." (369)
  • Brokered peace between Russia and Japan at Portsmouth (408), and won the Nobel Peace Prize for it (473)
  • The Strenuous Life (420)
  • Roosevelt was "the most popular President the country has ever had." (430)
  • "Roosevelt understood that the way to manipulate reporters was to let them imagine they were helping shape policy." (430)
  • "I do not represent public opinion: I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public, and the public's opinion of these interests." (434)
  • The Jungle was political: the railroad age had brought the phenomenon of factory foods refrigerated for distant transport and sale, scientifically preserved for long shelf life, artificially flavored for better taste (436)
  • "Never did a President so reflect the quality of his time." (446)
  • The American hydrosystem: " water links communities more effectively than any system of law" (496)
  • Take a stand and stick with it (482); "The point is always to do something quickly, because if you don't, the other fellow will" (522)
  • "How the President does enjoy a fight when there is need of one." (537)
  • "I do not believe that any President has ever had as thoroughly good a time as I have had, or has ever enjoyed himself as much." (540)
  • Heretics by G.K. Chesterton (545)
  • Roosevelt's achievements: "The Monroe Doctrine reaffirmed, the Old World banished from the New World, the great Canal being cut; peace established in the Far East; the Open Door swinging freely in Manchuria and Morocco; Cuba liberated (and returned to self-government just in time for his departure); the Philippines pacified; the Navy hugely strengthened, known literally around the world; the Army, shorn of its old deadwood generals, feeling the green sap of younger replacements; capital and labor balanced off, the lynch rate declining, the gospel of cleaner politics now actually gospel, and enough progressive principles established, or made part of the national debate, to keep legislative reformers busy for at least ten years. But for millions of contemporary Americans, he was already memorialized in the eighteen national monuments and five national parks he had created by executive order, or cajoled out of Congress." (554)

Topic: Biography

Source

New Words

  • postprandial: Following a meal, especially dinner (158)
  • maudlin: Effusively sad or full of self-pity (480)

Created: 2025-10-01-Wed
Updated: 2025-12-23-Tue