“The old lion is dead.”
Archie Roosevelt, cable to his brothers after the death of their father.
Roosevelt has always been one of my favorite presidents.
Most presidents are smaller than their great office. A precious few, Washington and Lincoln for example, loom larger than the office. TR was in this class. The phrase bully-pulpit came about to describe how TR used the presidency as a giant mega-phone to get his views across to the American people and persuade them. He had a deep patriotism and a belief in the greatness of this country that resonated with the country. Some presidents debase us and some ennoble us, and none were better at ennobling us than TR. He understood that life is a grand adventure. Sometimes it is a hard adventure and sometimes a joyous adventure, but always an adventure. TR imparted this sense of wonder and grandeur to many of his contemporaries. As one of his worst enemies once said about him, “Someone would have to hate him a lot, not to like him a little!” This quotation from him is key to understanding him and why he is in the very forefront of our presidents:
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
In his foreign policy I believe Trump, especially in his emphasis upon our hemisphere, is emulating Roosevelt. Times change of course, but on the whole I think Roosevelt’s policies, most of them, are still wise ones when it comes to our relations with foreign nations.
Interesting. I keep hearing that Trump’s presidential behavior is more Jacksonian.