Colonel Roosevelt By Edmund Morris

Colonel Roosevelt
By Edmund Morris
Copyright 2011

Edmund Morris wraps up his delightfully insightful and well written three volume biography by chronicling and analyzing the final, unsatisfying years of Theodore Roosevelt’s life after leaving the presidency.

The story picks up with the retired president on safari in Africa. Morris provides a detailed (sometimes excruciating) account of Roosevelt’s exploits in killing lions, rhinos, and other big game in Africa – all in the name of science.

Roosevelt told journalists who were covering his exploits that he was completely divorcing himself of politics whilst on the African continent. But his arrival in Europe upon the completion of the safari saw him inundated with cries of anguish from progressive Republicans angered by the conduct of President William Howard Taft. Chief among those who wept at Teddy’s feet was his old friend, Gifford Pinchot, whom Taft had fired from his position as head of the forestry service.

Taft’s perceived primary offense was a lack of executive action in reigning in trusts. He preferred to let anti-trust cases be settled in court. Far from being idle on the domination of monopolies in the American economy, Taft was militant in attacking them with lawsuits. However, he neither proposed nor enacted any significant anti-trust legislation to the chagrin of progressives like Robert LaFollette who expected decisive action from the man that Roosevelt himself had sold as a true progressive.

Roosevelt was unwilling to attack the current occupant of the White House – adhering to a time honored American tradition. However, he was not above attacking the judiciary which he found entirely too conservative even though most had been appointed by Republican presidents.

When the 1910 elections went badly for the Republicans (sweeping in Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress) Roosevelt became increasingly anxious. Yet he continued to decline overtures to challenge Taft on the Republican ticket. But he always left the door a little ajar, in case he should change his mind.

The break with Taft came, ironically, when the administration filed an anti-trust suit against U.S. Steel which Teddy deemed to be one of the “good” trusts. He allowed his name to be entered into the fray for the 1912 Republican nomination. Unfortunately, Taft’s organization had already secured most of the delegates and Roosevelt did not get the nomination.

However, with the erratic Robert LaFollette breaking down on the campaign trail as the nominee of the nascent Progressive Party, Roosevelt stepped into the void. Rebranding themselves the Bull Moose Party, they hoped to capture progressive Republicans who favored governmental action to regulate commerce, protect workers, and preserve the environment as well as Democrats unhappy with the establishment wing of their party.

What the Progressives did was destroy the Taft candidacy and hand the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson – a Princeton college professor. Roosevelt had no illusions that he was going to win, but he’d hoped to steer the presidency and the country toward a more progressive course.

During the campaign, Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt. A drifter and poet named John Schrank shot Roosevelt in the chest as he was preparing to speak in Milwaukee. Schrank claimed the ghost of William McKinley told him to do it. The bullet hit Roosevelt’s steel glasses case and speech text he was carrying in his breast pocket before entering his chest. He completed the speech before going to a Milwaukee hospital where physicians determined the best course of action was to leave the bullet where it rested.

With what would be his last political campaign behind him, Roosevelt set off on one last great adventure before old age and infirmity would make such an undertaking impossible. He headed for South America where he joined son, Kermit in an expedition to map an uncharted tributary of the Amazon River. The trip was dangerous and cost two men their lives. Roosevelt was injured trying to rescue canoes from washing away. The wound in his leg became infected and he developed malaria.

The two month long ordeal nearly killed the formally indomitable bull moose and he seems to have lost his lust for adventure, although he was quite proud and proud of his son to have been part of such an arduous and historic undertaking.

In his final days, Roosevelt deployed his pen with new invective. As war developed and engrossed all of Europe, he became a staunch advocate for American preparedness and a vocal critic of Woodrow Wilson who was quite adamant about keeping America out of the war. Most of America was on Wilson’s side, despite the fact that Germans kept sinking ships and killing American passengers. He declined to enter the 1916 presidential contest, knowing his views were not popular. He did campaign vociferously for Republican nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, who surpassed the professor in the White House for dullness on the stump.

So enraptured was Teddy with war in Europe that when America finally got around to entering the war, he volunteered to recruit and lead a regiment in Europe. The administration politely declined. Morris doesn’t say so, but the idea of the 60 year old man ravaged by disease and physically out of shape must have struck even his most ardent supporters as sad.

The old man may not have made it to the battlefields of Europe, but his children did. Quentin was wounded in the leg and his youngest, Kermit, was shot down behind enemy lines and died in a plane crash. His body was interred in France where his plane was downed.

Roosevelt was horribly distraught over Kermit’s death. He’d campaigned hard for Republicans in the 1918 off year elections and helped lead the party resurgence. He was certainly popular enough to stand for the Republican nomination in 1920, but his health would not permit it. He threw his support behind his old friend and comrade in arms, General Leonard Wood. Wood went on to lose the nomination to dark horse, Warren Harding.

But Roosevelt was gone before all that happened. In November of 1918, he became ill with his recurrent fevers and lung ailments that kept him bedridden. He never lost his mental acuity and continued to write up until his death in January 1919 of a heart attack. He was just 60 years old.

Morris wraps up his three volumes of Roosevelt lore with a chronology of Roosevelt scholarship. Upon his death, he was adored by all. His was the first face sculpted into Mount Rushmore. He was feted in eulogy by friend and foe alike.

By the 1930s, when fifth cousin Franklin was president, his Square Deal served as a blueprint for the New Deal. He was still held in high regard for his revolutionary progressive policies.

In the 1960s, when anti-war fever raged in the country, Roosevelt’s place in history sagged. He was derided as a warmonger in popular culture and in scholarship. His “Big Stick” philosophy was derided by scholars of that era as imperialistic.

Modern scholarship (thanks in no small part to Morris himself) has seen Teddy’s image rise dramatically. The notion of a Republican able to balance effective government activism with a sense of how to make business work has appeal in these polarized times.

This third book was the weakest of the three books. A large part of this is because it takes in the most sedate and uneventful years of Roosevelt’s life. In his three volume biography of Richard Nixon, Stephen Ambrose took a similar approach – saving his third volume for Nixon’s post presidential years. However, Nixon’s final years were much more full of intrigue and statesmanship than were TR’s.

The tedious detail with which Morris details Roosevelt’s African safari is mind numbing. The account of the Brazilian expedition was compelling, but again incorporated too many details. Dedicating an entire chapter to Roosevelt’s lawsuit with the head of the New York Republican party was probably more coverage than the event deserved.

Despite a few shortcomings, I’ve enjoyed Morris’ three volumes more than I’ve enjoyed any other presidential biography. Morris is a fantastic scholar who must have dedicated countless hours to examining Roosevelt’s extensive writing and public speeches as well as those of his contemporaries to compose such a thorough and exhaustive chronology of one man’s life.

More importantly, Morris is a great story teller. Many scholars can do the research, analyze it, and report their findings. Just a few historians practice the craft of storytelling. Morris ranks with Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough. His three volume story about the life of Theodore Roosevelt is an American treasure.

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

Theodore Rex
By Edmund Morris
Copyright 2001

Edmund Morris got a bit detoured after publishing The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt in 1979, having agreed to serve as official historian of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Having concluded this gig, he finally got to the second installment of his Theodore Roosevelt trilogy, Theodore Rex. The second book chronicles the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt – a presidency with a fanciful mix of progressivism and old fashioned Stalwart Republicanism.

The book recaps just a little of Theodore Roosevelt’s time between the federal agents finding him at his remote camp ground and his trip to Buffalo. Roosevelt spent little time mourning William McKinley. He wasn’t fond of the man. He was, outraged, however, at McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz – a self professed anarchist. Roosevelt wanted justice – swift and harsh – for Czolgosz. Roosevelt despised anarchists.

Roosevelt first tried to maintain a stable transition of power by declaring that McKinley’s cabinet would be staying on. Slowly, many would be phased out, but credit Roosevelt for having the wisdom to restrain himself and make a slow, gradual transition from the McKinley presidency to his own.

Morris covers Roosevelt’s complex race relations conduct in great detail. Roosevelt had worked hard to cultivate the South. They were never going to vote Republican in Dixie, but southern Republican delegates were important at the convention and Roosevelt entered the presidency with the 1904 Republican nomination on his mind. That is why it is mystifying that one of his first acts as president was to invite a black man to dine at the White House. Booker T. Washington -- America's most prominent black leader at the turn of the last century, had dinner with Roosevelt and discussed race relations, black voting rights, and lynching with the president.

The entire nation was stunned and the South infuriated. This was a time when lynchings were a monthly occurrence in the South and prejudices ran high. Whatever support Roosevelt enjoyed in the South evaporated while northern progressives hailed the move.

Roosevelt was not so progressive in his thinking a few years later when he went to war with Ohio Senator, Joseph Foraker over the Brownsville Affair and 167 black soldiers who were dishonorably discharged for rioting in the Texas town.

After an altercation between a black soldier from nearby Fort Brown and a Brownsville businessman, the city banned all black soldiers from its municipality. On August 13, 1906, a bartender and police office were shot in the town. Residents claimed there had been a riot and that they had evidence – a shell casing – that clearly demonstrated that the murderer or murderers had been soldiers from Fort Brown.

The evidence was thin and none of the more than 100 soldiers questioned would offer testimony. Based on that, the Army dishonorably discharged the soldiers. Blacks and civil rights activists were outraged. Southern whites and bigots in the North were satisfied. Presidential aspirant Foraker saw a wedge issue and sought to exploit it.

Morris correctly leads the reader to believe that Foraker’s motives were not entirely noble. Foraker had two aspirations. First and foremost, he wanted to be the political equal if not superior of Ohio power broker, Mark Hanna who had traction with the White House. Secondly, “Fire Alarm Joe” needed an issue to catapult him to national prominence for a possible presidential run.

The two battled in the press and Foraker tried to press the Senate for committee hearings to look into the matter. But this was the time when the South was developing its dominance of the U.S. Senate and Foraker’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Despite being on the side of the angels, the issue petered out as did Joseph Foraker’s political career. Meanwhile, Roosevelt stood by his decision while providing scant justification.

It is also worth noting that Roosevelt frequently scolded the South for lynching black men. Lynchings during the Roosevelt administration occurred approximately once per month. While he gave the issue lip service, he never enacted any federal legislation nor did he employ the powers of the justice department to stop it.

On the issue of trust busting, Morris’ examination of Roosevelt’s record leads the reader into a much more gray area. Roosevelt has a popular reputation as being a great trust buster. However, Morris’ examination of Roosevelt’s record reveals that it was mixed. Roosevelt was perfectly willing to abide monopolies and make deals with them when it suited his political needs.

Acting on his own, he brokered a settlement between striking coal miners and mine owners in the anthracite coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania. This was one of the early and defining moments for Roosevelt as a leader. The strike threatened the nation’s economic health and the welfare of citizens who relied on that coal to power industry and to heat homes. The bargain he struck won him fans in organized labor and the respect of big business.

He and his attorney general, Philander Knox, took on a huge railroad trust when they took the Northern Securities Company to court under the Sherman anti-trust act. They succeeded in breaking up the railroad monopoly that would dominate and fix rates for the entire American Northwest. But he was unwilling to take on powerbrokers such as J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller and their monopolistic activities continued unabated. The government had come to so heavily rely on Morgan that alienating him would have had dire economic impact. It was Morgan who first came to define the phrase, “Too big to fail.”

When Roosevelt came into office, the fight over the canal through Central America was already being waged in Central America and in the halls of U.S. government. The fight was not over whether or not to build it, but where to build it. Some favored Colombia and others favored Nicaragua. When the Colombian route won out, the Colombians started making unreasonable demands. Roosevelt, who seldom let the interests of others thwart his plans, did all he could – including sending warships into the region – to foster a rebellion in the Panamanian region of Colombia. The revolt was essentially bloodless and the new government let the Americans have their land for a canal.

From the time he entered office, Theodore Roosevelt was eyeing reelection. He was certainly popular nationally, but had rivals within the Republican Party. Chief among those was McKinley’s old friend and mentor, Marcus Hanna. When Roosevelt would take one of his occasional forays into trust busting, it was Hanna that businessmen turned to to dissuade the president, mistakenly believing that Hanna had some influence as he’d had with McKinley.

Roosevelt and Hanna – certainly the two most powerful men of their time – did not trust each other. Roosevelt had felt that Hanna held too much sway over McKinley and was determined to not let the Ohio industrialist and senior senator influence policy in his White House. Hanna regarded Roosevelt as somewhat impulsive an immature; prone to act without thinking through the consequences. The two maintained a tense but functional relationship.

Based on what Morris tells us about Hanna, the reader can conclude that Hanna knew he was not physically or mentally up to the job of the presidency. He was chronically pained by gout and a weak heart. Nor did he seem to have a passion for the job. He never overtly or covertly sought the Republican nomination. He seems to have been content to let others throw his name around to curtail the young upstart’s developing progressivism. Hanna would die in 1904 before Roosevelt left office.

The 1904 Republican convention nominated Roosevelt by acclamation and chose Charles Fairbanks of Indiana as his running mate. What is interesting is how little thought went into the selection of Fairbanks, given that the selection of Roosevelt as McKinley’s running mate had turned out to be an important decision four years prior.

Sen. Fairbanks had a lackluster record in the senate as far as high profile issues. He was a yeoman senator, capable of wading into important, but unexciting issues. To Roosevelt, who did not like to share a stage, Fairbanks was the perfect running mate. Roosevelt was grooming several in his cabinet to be his possible successors including Knox, Elihu Root, and William Howard Taft who had emerged as a great leader under terrible conditions in the Philippines during the native uprising and was now serving as Secretary of War. The easygoing Fairbanks would not rival those men. Fairbanks was scarcely seen or heard during the second Roosevelt administration.

The Democrats nominated New York appeals court judge Alton Parker as their candidate who tried to run against the notion of an imperial presidency – a term not yet invented, but a concept embraced by Democrats. The deliberative Parker was no match for the decisive Roosevelt and Roosevelt easily crushed him in the 1904 election.

With a clear mandate and his own ego to drive him, Roosevelt was less deliberative than ever and more prone to taking progressive measures. He enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Morris points out that Roosevelt had a close professional relationship with journalist Upton Sinclair and it was his popular book The Jungle, that drove Roosevelt to clean up meat packing plants in the country.

Roosevelt the conservationist was in full swing as well, setting aside thousands of acres across the country and placing them under the protection of the Department of the Interior to be preserved. This angered oil men, mine owners, railroads, and timber harvesters who relied on cheap or free access to federal lands for their businesses.

As Roosevelt’s second term neared it s end, there was talk of a third term. But Roosevelt would not hear of it. He was a young man in his early fifties and certainly did not appear tired of the job. He seemed to revel in it. But he was not willing to set a precedent for a president serving three terms. He’d come to regret that decision.

He settled on grooming William Howard Taft to be his successor. This remains unexplained in Morris’ examination of Roosevelt because the two men could not have been more different in politics and personality. Roosevelt was gregarious, forceful, energetic. He loved to hunt and play tennis. Taft was affable, needed affection and acceptance, and preferred golf to tennis and lived a sedate lifestyle. Roosevelt secured the 1908 nomination for Taft and quickly realized that Taft was not going to campaign hard for the job. He sent a constant barrage of suggestions to the Taft campaign on how to be more aggressive. Fortunately for the Republicans, the Democrats had recycled William Jennings Bryan whom the nation had twice rejected before. Taft won easily in his own easy going manner.

Morris eludes to Helen Taft’s passion to become First Lady as the driving force behind the campaign to elect Taft. Taft had informed Roosevelt that he wanted nothing more than to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – a lifetime appointment at the head of the judicial branch of government. Teddy was determined to see him as chief executive and so was his wife.

Roosevelt left office in 1909 apparently satisfied with what he’d accomplished and with his own conduct of affairs. He planned to do some big game hunting in Africa and domestically and to pick up his writing career, serving as a commentator on American politics. That is where Morris ends his second volume.

Theodore Rex won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and deservedly so. Seldom is any historical figure and his conduct so closely scrutinized as Roosevelt was by Morris. No detail of Roosevelt’s presidency is left unexamined and thoroughly discussed.

But the second installment in Morris’ three part biography of Roosevelt is not as well written as the first. While sound on a scholarly level, it lacks that narrative energy of the first. Morris relies heavily on Latin for adjectives. As someone not well schooled in Latin, the words meant nothing to me and mean little to those outside the legal and medical professions. While similes are seldom deployed well in scholarly writing, certainly Morris could have found English alternatives for his adjectives.

The one element of the Roosevelt presidency that was not closely examined was Roosevelt’s deployment of his “press secretary” George Cortelyou. This is remarkable since Morris was extensive in his analysis of Roosevelt’s manipulation of the media while serving as New York police commissioner in the first volume. While historian Margaret Leach correctly points out in her biography of McKinley, In the Days of McKinley, that it was McKinley who first employed the use of presidential aides to respond directly to the press, it is clear that Roosevelt was much more deft in his use of Cortelyou.

Also missing from Morris’ study of Roosevelt is the role Edith Roosevelt played. Morris provides ample narrative of Roosevelt’s interaction with his children and his children’s friends who tarried about the Executive Mansion on a daily basis. He also chronicles the restless life and ribald exploits of daughter Alice. But Edith is all but absent from Morris’ book.

It is true that women did not have the influence they have today, but certainly Edith must have had some affect on Roosevelt’s conduct of the office. Edith was no mouse and certainly asserted herself. We get nothing on that subject from Morris.

These are minor criticisms of an otherwise stellar biography of a larger than life historical figure.

Morris will take us through the tumultuous, unhappy final years of Teddy’s life in the third installment entitled, Colonel Roosevelt.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
By Edmund Morris
Copyright 1979

Edmund Morris’ first volume of his three volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt covers the time from his birth in 1858 to his ascendency to the presidency in 1901 upon the assassination of President William McKinley. Morris’ thorough research and adept writing make for an enjoyable and informative read.

Theodore Roosevelt – or “Teedy” was his older sisters would call him was born to wealthy family in New York City in 1858. When Roosevelt was a toddler the Roosevelt house would become a house divided with the onset of the Civil War. Roosevelt’s father lent his aide to the union cause whilst his southern born mother had family fighting for the Confederacy.

Roosevelt was a sickly child, prone to bouts of asthma, bronchitis, and dysentery. This did not deter him from a love for the outdoors and when the family summered upstate, he spent his time in the woods, studying the wildlife and fauna. He would soon take up the habit of taxidermy, much to the distress of his family for young Teedy was prone to leaving entrails in the most inopportune places.

Roosevelt was home schooled and was a gifted student. He excelled at history and science and authored and illustrated books on nature at a young age. He would eventually enroll in Harvard where he excelled academically.

As an adolescent summering in upstate New York, he’d meet a young woman named Edith Carrow in whom he took a strong interest. Later, however, he would meet another woman who would steal his heart. Alice Lee would become the object of his ardor for the next couple years and he courted her through his time in college.

Alice played coy. Sometimes she would entertain Roosevelt’s gestures of affection. At other times, she would brush him off, much to his distress. While attending Harvard, Roosevelt was very much a young man in love.

It was at Harvard that Roosevelt got his first taste of politics, campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Rutherford Hayes. Teddy was raised in a Republican household and adopted pro-business Republican sensibilities.

Immediately after graduating from Harvard, Teddy Roosevelt did three things that would forever shape the course of his life. He published his first book – a textbook on the naval war of 1812, ran for and was elected to his first political office, and got married.

The Naval War of 1812 was universally regarded as the best book ever written on the subject and became a staple textbook at Annapolis. It would establish Roosevelt as a serious author. He would go on to write accounts of the taming of the west (in which he would later participate), biographies of founding father Gouverneur Morris, legendary U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and a comprehensive history of the city of New York along with several lesser works.

Roosevelt became a force within the New York state legislature almost immediately upon his rival. His forceful, magnetic personality drew people to his causes – chief of which was civil service reform. From the beginning of his career until its untimely end, Roosevelt was a force for good government. He would become minority leader in the New York House in just his second term in office.

Roosevelt established a strong working relationship with New York’s Democratic governor, Grover Cleveland and the pair were able to make some major reforms that would challenge the political machines of both parties. However, when Roosevelt authored and passed a comprehensive reform bill, Cleveland vetoed it.

Teddy Roosevelt was a man of big ideas and big pictures. Cleveland was a man of detail. Roosevelt’s bill contained sweeping ideas, but was not well written and contained many contradictions. The detail oriented Cleveland – given to reading the minutia of legislation – noted these conflicts and declared he could not in good faith sign a bill that contradicted itself. Morris does not cast aspersions on Cleveland’s motive and Cleveland biographer, H. Paul Jeffers, also substantiates Cleveland’s true views on the bill.

The dispute put asunder a strong, bipartisan partnership that served the people of New York well. Although Cleveland and Roosevelt would be together again politically, the friendship would never be reestablished. Roosevelt took the rebuke personally.

Roosevelt was selected as a Republican delegate to the 1884 Republican presidential convention. It was there that Roosevelt would capture the attention of Republicans on a national level and cement a political friendship that would benefit him for the rest of his life.

Roosevelt and Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts led the effort to place reform candidate, George Edmunds at the head of the Republican ticket. They had behind them many young, but inexperienced Republican Mugwump delegates. They feared that the nomination of party stalwart, James Blaine – who was known to be politically corrupt and held a poor national reputation – would spell doom for the party in 1884 and perhaps beyond.

The effort failed badly and Blaine was nominated. He would go on to be defeated that November by Grover Cleveland. But Roosevelt’s friendship with Lodge was cemented and the influential and wealthy patrician politician would be Roosevelt’s political sponsor and backer through the rest of his career.

Roosevelt’s home life during his years in the New York Assembly were joyous. He was deeply, passionately, and madly in love with Alice Roosevelt. Shortly after they were married, Alice became pregnant. The storybook romance was to be doomed by this pregnancy.

Roosevelt was in Albany with the New York Assembly when Alice went into labor. Teddy had planned to catch a train to be back at his home in New York in time for the baby’s expected birth on February 14. A telegram arrived from Teddy’s sister telling him that the baby had been born, but that Alice was in poor health. Teddy raced home.

What he found was a tragic scene beyond the scope of comprehension for most mortal men. By the time Roosevelt arrived, Alice was delirious with fever and headed toward her end. Meanwhile, his beloved mother was also ill and near death in a bedroom on the lower floor. Teddy stayed at Alice’s bedside in her final hours until she died. He was then informed that his mother had also passed.

Roosevelt was devastated beyond comprehension. He made a single, poetic journal entry that day remembering his young wife that ended, “. . .and the light went out of my life forever.” He would not look upon his infant daughter, Alice He needed to get away. Right after the funeral, Teddy Roosevelt headed west.

Morris speculates that Teddy and Alice Roosevelt were a marital mismatch. Based on contemporary accounts, Alice, while beautiful and socially graceful, was no intellectual. She was not going to grow intellectually as Roosevelt would. She would not have been happy with her intellectually advanced husband and Teddy would have grown bored with her average intelligence and lack of intellectual curiosity.

The Badlands of the Dakotas were just the therapy Teddy Roosevelt needed. He wanted to graduate from grouse and pheasant hunting to killing some big game like buffalo and bear. He arrived in Medora, North Dakota in the summer 1884, shortly after the defeat of reform forces at the Republican convention. He was immediately recognized as a dude because of his spectacles.

He would soon make believers out of the rough settlers of the American Badlands who regarded him as a rich, weak easterner. He had the money to establish himself with a ranch and he had the gusto to make it work. He gloried in being in the saddle and in hunting big game. He killed buffalo, a couple grizzly bears, mountain lions, and sundry other creatures. He was slowly able to put the Alice’s death behind him.

For almost two years, Roosevelt inhabited the Badlands and at one point, served as sheriff of a small section of territory. But he felt the need to return home. He recognized his fatherly responsibility to young Alice – now almost two years old and in the care of his sister, Bamie. There was also the allure of politics.

When he returned home in 1886, he soon emerged as a candidate for mayor of New York City. He ran as a reformer and hoped to draw enough reform votes from Democrats and independents to defeat the nearly omnipotent Tammany Hall. Alas, it was not to be as Roosevelt finished third.

He also reestablished his acquaintance with Edith Carrow. The two fell in love and made plans to elope to Europe to be married. Teddy feared that it would be regarded as scandalous for him to remarry so soon after the death of his first wife.

Teddy seamlessly went from defeated municipal candidate to the national stage with Henry Cabot Lodge having secured for him an appointment in the administration of Benjamin Harrison. There, he would serve as the head of Civil Service reform – a major issue in that era following the death of President James Garfield at the hands of a deranged job seeker.

As he did with everything else in his life, he threw himself into the job with gusto and soon became a pain in the ass to his bosses. He brought postmasters up on charges of selling positions. He raged against partisan purges in various federal offices. Harrison and his cronies indulged the young, idealistic reformer, but did little to assist him.

Roosevelt was not enamored with Benjamin Harrison whom he thought was a cold, dull man. Most Americans agreed. Harrison was not the warmest of personalities. When it came time for Harrison to run for reelection in 1892, Roosevelt dutifully campaigned for him in New York, but his heart was not in it. Nor was the president’s whose wife would die during the campaign. With the notorious McKinley Tariff in effect and consumer prices high and getting higher, Harrison and many Republicans were swept from office.

Surprisingly, Grover Cleveland – now in his second term as president – kept Roosevelt on in the civil service department. Their friendship, nurtured over the issue of civil service reform, was over. But apparently the mutual respect still existed.

During his early days in Washington, Roosevelt became a strong proponent – bordering on fanatic – of U.S. expansion. He wanted the U.S. to drive Spain out of Cuba and America to support the rebels there. Harrison, who had known the horrors of war during the Civil War, had no interest in pursuing an unprovoked war of conquest. Cleveland, bedeviled by horrible economic depression, had his hands full with the nation’s sagging economy. It would be several years before expansionists would gain political traction.

During this time in Washington, Roosevelt was forced to deal with family problems as well. His younger brother Elliott, with whom he'd been close as a child, had lapsed into severe alcoholism. He carried on affairs with other women and fathered at least one child out of wedlock. He abused his family and his misbehavior was an embarrassment to the family and offended the puritanical Theodore.

Theodore tried to help his younger brother by getting him home from Europe and into a sanitarium for treatment of his alcoholism. He paid hush money to his mistresses. But it was all for naught. Elliott tried to commit suicide by jumping from a window. He survived the fall, but died of a seizure just days later.

Roosevelt grew bored and restless in his job in Washington and looked for an avenue of return to New York politics. He found it when he was appointed to the four member New York Police Commission. It was the perfect post for the reform-minded Roosevelt because New York had a notoriously corrupt police department.

In his early days on the commission, he was fantastically successful in reform. He forced the resignation of the department’s corrupt chief and his subordinates. He weeded out corrupt cops – often taking to the streets at night looking for cops sleeping on the job or spending their shifts drinking. He cultivated relationships with reporters and became exceptionally popular. But he went too far when he started enforcing the city’s law regarding Sunday beer and liquor sales. Roosevelt was not a prohibitionist, but the law was on the books and he was determined to have it enforced.

He won the battle. The saloons were shut down on Sunday in the city. But he lost the war when the public and other members of the police commission turned against him. Suddenly, the man who single handedly forced through sweeping reform, could not even manage to process police promotions. Two of his fellow commissioners – one of which was the son of President Grant – refused to attend meetings, denying him a quorum.

Once again bored, Roosevelt looked for a new position with the Republicans back in power in Washington upon the election of William McKinley in 1896. Henry Cabot Lodge secured for him the position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Given his fascination with all things naval, Teddy was delighted.

He emerged as the de facto secretary of the navy when the real Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long, frequently absented himself on long vacations. During one of these breaks, Roosevelt issued orders preparing the nation for war in Cuba following the explosion of the battleship, U.S.S. Maine, in Havana Harbor.

Roosevelt had lusted for war and also lusted to fight in a war. He dreamed of leading a group of his cowboy buddies from the Dakotas into battle. He formed a regiment nicknamed the Rough Riders. Morris points out that history has forgotten that almost half of the Rough Riders were Ivy Leaguers, but the name served its purpose.

Morris’ account of the Spanish American War is brief but adequate to demonstrate how poorly managed it was and how ill prepared the United States was for warfare. Poor logistics and poor quartermaster preparations left the men in precarious positions with nothing in the way of rations.

When the Rough Riders finally went ashore in Cuba, the Spanish were holding the high ground of San Juan Heights. There plan was to allow the Americans to lay siege, then let Malaria and attrition of war slowly wear down the Americans. Their plan almost worked. But superb planning and daring by Roosevelt and other commanders on the ground thwarted the Spanish.

I won’t go into the blow by blow account of the Rough Riders’ assault on Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill. Suffice it to say that they endured Yellow Fever, food poisoning from rancid meat supplied by the government, and wickedly accurate Spanish snipers. They would assault and defeat the Spanish on both hills and the Spanish would be forced to vacate the heights and eventually surrender. For his valor, Roosevelt was nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor which would be denied him until long after his death. He finally received the honor posthumously in 2001.

Roosevelt returned to New York a national hero and was a favorite to run for New York governor in 1898. He won easily. Republicans were interested to see how reformer Roosevelt would work with New York Republican boss, Thomas Collier Platt. The relationship was surprisingly smooth. Roosevelt, more mature now, learned how to work and manipulate the boss to get what he wanted. Platt, a veteran of the give and take of politics, knew when to let Teddy have what he wanted and knew where to stand his ground. When a spot opened on the national ticket as President McKinley’s running mate, Platt worked hard to secure the spot for Teddy.

Roosevelt was conflicted about taking it. His friends assured him that it was the quickest route to the presidency for him. Roosevelt knew it was a meaningless, pointless job. He would not commit to accepting the nomination publicly, but refused to kill the nomination at the convention. McKinley remained neutral, allowing the convention to pick his running mate. Despite feverish maneuvering by Republican Party Chairman and the master of McKinley’s political rise, Marcus Hanna, Roosevelt was nominated. He and McKinley would go on to defeat William Jennings Bryan in 1900.

Roosevelt served as vice president for six months, but according to Morris, only carried out his duties as President of the Senate for four days. Congress recessed for the summer and Roosevelt returned to New York. Word reached Roosevelt that President McKinley had been shot while he was at his summer home in Oyster Bay. Assured that the president was on the mend, Roosevelt went mountain climbing further upstate. However, as he and his guide descended the mountain, a park ranger delivered a telegram to Roosevelt. The president was near death. Roosevelt rushed to Buffalo where President McKinley lay dying.

Early on the morning of September 14, word reached Roosevelt on his train that the president had died. He arrived in Buffalo that afternoon and was sworn in as president there. That is where Morris’ first volume ends.

Morris’ book is one of the finest biographies ever written. Morris combines extensive and exhaustive research with brilliant writing to create a book that is well endowed with information, illustrative anecdotes, and a compelling story. This first volume of three won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979.

In his research, Morris relied extensively on Roosevelt diaries. This obviously aided a great deal in the preparation of the biography and lends it much of its texture. It is easier for the biographer to bring to life a long dead historical figure by using his own words and we are fortunate that Roosevelt and his family preserved his journals and correspondence. So many presidents such as James Monroe and Millard Fillmore made a strong effort to destroy their personal papers, leaving them to be defined only by the impressions of contemporaries.

Morris also took the time to read most, if not all, of Roosevelt’s published works. Morris points out that all of Roosevelt’s writing was tinged with his own personal perception of the world and current events – even when writing about history.

Morris is a brilliant writer and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt reads very much like a novel with Teddy Roosevelt as its hero. The narrative is textured. His citations pertinent and not overly long. He fleshes out peripheral characters, giving them context within Roosevelt’s life. Morris has few rivals as a writer among his fellow historians.

Ronald Reagan read this book upon its publication in 1979 and was so moved by it that he decided that Edmund Morris would be his personal biographer were he to be elected to the presidency in 1980. Reagan won and Morris received that treasure denied to but just a few historians: direct access to a president, his White House, and the day to day workings of the administration.

The resulting book was a disappointment, but not the subject here. His work and the two volumes that followed, Theodore Rex and Colonel Roosevelt, stand as some of the finest non-fiction writing chronicling our nation’s history and the life of any man or woman.