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Editorial Reviews
Related Reviews
The only way to really understand what made T.R. tick.
A Great Chronicler of His Own Life and Times
The first half of the book is essentially told chronologically. But when TR gets to his presidency, he tells the tale thematically. There are chapters on conservation, trust busting and other industrial issues, and two chapters on international affairs. Unfortunately, the book ends with his presidency and does not go into TR's world travels or his comeback bid in 1912. TR's dislike for his hand picked successor, President Taft, permeates the presidency chapters.
As with any autobiography, especially a presidential one, TR views himself as always right and his opponents as always wrong. His views on Taft are a good example of that. But that can hardly be viewed as a failing of the book, since that is a standard characteristic of these types of books.
If you want a first hand view of the man in the arena, what he tried to do and how he tried to lead his life, read the book.
The Mother of All Presidential Memoirs
Teddy's _Autobiography_ is a fun, conversational read. The formatting for the Kindle is good, but not great, and a table of contents would be greatly appreciated.
A great man with great insight
5 Stars
The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt
Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt.(Autobio.) .great book
Remember the "Malefactors of Great Wealth"
To confirm my impressions of Thoedore Roosevelt as the direct progenitor of much of the New Deal and of Democratic platforms from Wilson's to Obama's, I turned directly to his Autobiography, published in 1913, after he left the White House and around the time when he abandoned the Republican Party to join the Progressives. Chapter XII - The Big Stick and the Square Deal - or chapter XIII - 'Social and Industrial Justice' - are both good places to start examining Roosevelt's thoughts about America's subjection to plutocracy, about the necessity of a strong labor movement, and about financial regulation in general. Here are some of his words:
"By the time I became President I had grown to feel...that government agencies must find their justification in the way in which they are used for the practical benefit of living and working conditions among the mass of the people.... For this reason I felt that all that the government could do in the interest of labor should be done."
"We passed a good law protecting the lives and health of miners... We provided for safeguarding factory employees... We passed a workman's compensation law...which did not go as far as I wished, but which was the best i could get, and which committed the Government to the right policy. We provided for an investigation of woman and child labor in the United States. Where we had the most difficulty was with the railway companies engaged in inter-State business."
"It is unjust that a law which has been declared public policy by the representatives of the people should be submitted to the possibility of nullification because the Government leaves the enforcement of it to the private initiative... It should be the business of Government to enforce laws of this kind [regulations! Think ahead to the second Roosevelt's issues with the Supreme Court!] Ever since the Civil War very many decisions of the courts...as regards the application of great governmental policies for social and industrial justice, had been nothing more than ingenious justifications of the theory that these policies were mere high-sounding abstractions... The tendency of the courts had been, in the majority of cases, jealously to exert their great power in protecting thsoe who least needed protection and hardly to use their power at all in the interest of those who most needed protection."
"It was an instance of the largely unconscious way in which the courts had been twisted into the exaltation of property rights over human rights, and the subordination of the welfare of the laborer when compared with the profit of the man for whom he labored."
If you have access to this book, I'd also suggest reading Appendix B, Roosevelt's essay "The Control of Corporations and 'The New Freedom'." For John McCain to identify Teddy Roosevelt as his "hero" demonstrates either utter ignorance of Roosevelt's thought or else utter political opportunism and sloganeering.
Roosevelt's Autobiography is spacious, a five-hundred page volume in the somewhat pontifical literary style of his era, but many readers have found it enjoyable and enlightening, myself included. Except for his benighted attitudes concerning race, reflecting the near-universal 'social Darwinist' racism of his era, Roosevelt was economically and environmentally a good deal closer to the positions of Barack Obama than to John McCain. If Roosevelt is to be someone's hero, I claim him for myself.
He Earned His Spot on Mt Rushmore
The timelessness of ideals can be witnessed again and again in Roosevelt's detailed autobiography, and the parallels to modern day America as are striking as they are plentiful.
In one instance of foresight Roosevelt lambastes so-called "party bosses"--those who manipulate a community, "a man who does not gain his power by open means but by secret means and usually by corrupt means." He points out that "in communities where there is poverty and ignorance, the conditions are ripe for the growth of a boss," and this type of reprobate will be "especially common in big cities (because the boss) fulfills toward the people of his district in rough and rowdy fashion the position of friend and protector." From these snippets of his dissertation, it's easy to wonder if somehow President Roosevelt boarded a time machine and met Al Sharpton. A more thorough description of the unordained reverend (and his many counterparts throughout history) cannot be found than this astute indictment.
He expounds at some length on the president's scared privilege of dispensing clemency and stresses the there "nothing more necessary from the standpoint of good citizenship than the ability to steel one's heart in this matter of granting pardons." (How he must have spun in his grave at Clinton's going-out-of-business pardon sale.) Talking about the anguished imploring of family members (which caused him great anxiety) and the bumptious attempted influence by friends of celebrated criminals (which caused him great anger), Mr. Roosevelt realized that this presidential prerogative should only be used to advance the cause of justice. The remote possibility that pardoning could be abused (a reality that did not develop at the presidential level until 100 years after his term) made him think that life imprisonment was a poor substitute for the death penalty. In a related vain, he saw the insanity plea as a scurrilous cop out; "I have scant sympathy with the plea of insanity advanced to save a man from the consequences of crime, when unless that crime had been committed, it would have been impossible to commit him to an asylum for the insane."
Spotlight-adoring Senator John McCain routinely invokes the memory of President Roosevelt, presumptiously implying that he is somehow the heir apparent to the early 1900's maverick. Examining Teddy Roosevelt's life shows that those similarities exist almost solely in the Arizona senator's mind. While Roosevelt's unwavering integrity made him unpopular, at times, with many in his own party, McCain fluctuating political postures seem to occur primarily to generate headlines. The former president justifiably felt tremendous self-respect--a byproduct of adhering to probity's rubrics. The Arizona senator self-serving pandering for popularity would be comical were it not so insulting that the philodox so willingly slanders a bona fide American icon to further his own career.
Ironically, this reviewer read Roosevelt's disdainful view of abortion on January 22--the anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous Roe vs. Wade decision. Discussing the crimes where even receiving a request to consider a pardon assaulted his sense of decency, he listed, "rape, or the circulation of indecent literature, ..."white slave" traffic (prostitution), or wife murder, or gross cruelty to women and children, or seduction and abandonment, or the action of some man in getting a girl whom he had seduced to commit an abortion." To President Roosevelt there was no other plausible reason why a woman would kill her unborn child. Some would call him sexist today, but the venom he felt (and the punishment he unhesitantly administered) to the men who committed these crimes should show the fallacy of such a ridiculous accusation.
Topical comparisons can be found in his discussion on the importance of both corporations to maintain ethical practices and for the government to refrain from needless meddling in business matters. Futhermore he offers a reasoned dialectic on immigration, strongly supporting it but trenchantly articulating that establishing tight limits can be sensible rather than xenophobic.
It is also refreshing to know that the irresponsible peaceniks vociferously denouncing America's full-scale war on terrorism have had their equally harebrained doppelgangers throughout history. To all of these possibly well intentioned pacifists, Teddy Roosevelt admonishes "the true preachers of peace...never hesitate to choose righteous war when it is the only alternative to unrighteous peace."
Similarly regarding the current threat America faces, Mr. Roosevelt puts forth some comfort and assurance with an unforeseeable but apt reference to President Bush; "no man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character." Every American should be thankful that the terrorists did not strike during the previous administration and also grateful the example of heroes like Theodore Roosevelt stands as everlasting inspiration to our nation's current and future leaders.
If you're looking for a good book try his biography written by Nathan Miller, "Theodore Roosevelt, A Life." Miller is a far better writer and seems to capture the Roosevelt that we all know and love. I have passed this book on to several friends and they have all come away with a heaping helpin' of respect for our 26th President.
Again, I have to apologize to Teddy but there are just some folks who should not put pen to paper.
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Along with being completely inspired by a man of such high moral values, the factual anecdotes related in this book comfort you in the knowledge that this hero practiced what he preached. In a speech by his own hand, T.R. embodied his own life; "The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;...who strives valiantly...who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat."
T.R. was a naturalist, legislator, cowboy, businessman, soldier, author, conservationist, U.S. President, world explorer, and above all an inspirational "doer of deeds." This book eloquently tells the reader why he felt he needed to perform these deeds and what was going through his mind all the while.