Teddy Roosevelt Speaks

“One day they read aloud an advertisement in huge letters on a distant billboard, and then I realized that something was the matter, for not only was I unable to read the sign but I could not even see the letters. I spoke of this to my father, and soon afterwards got my first pair of spectacles, which literally opened an entirely new world to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until I got those spectacles.”

-Theodore Roosevelt An Autobiography

One of TR”s traits I can certainly identify with is being hampered with lousy vision. Myopia, nearsightedness, having the trait of being blind as a bat. We were about the same age when we both received our first pair of spectacles. Mine, heavy and awkward, could not compare to young Thee’s glasses.

Young Theodore’s glasses were of undoubtedly of the style he would become famous for wearing as an adult, the pince nez.

Appearing around 1840, the modern pince nez reached their peak of popularity around 1900. That’s why in later pictures or TR you see him wearing glasses with earpieces. Their name comes from the French pincer to pinch and nez for nose, and as their name would suggest, they are quite painful to wear.

Perhaps the most painful thing to an owner of glasses, other than wearing them,  is losing them. Even Baseball mascots are not immune to this optical tragedy.

                                                        Has anyone seen my glasses?

“They took arms not to destroy, but to save liberty; not to overthrow,
but to establish the supremacy of the law.”

An excerpt from TR’s 1904 Memorial Day speech in Gettysburg Pennslyvania:
“But the soldiers who won at Gettysburg, the
soldiers who fought to a finish the Civil War and
thereby made their countrymen forever their debtors,
have left us far more even than the memories of
the war itself. They fought for four years in order
that on this Continent those who came after them,
their children and their children s children, might
enjoy a lasting peace. They took arms not to destroy,
but to save liberty; not to overthrow, but to
establish the supremacy of the law. The crisis
which they faced was to determine whether or not
this people was fit for self-government and, therefore,
fit for liberty. Freedom is not a gift which
can be enjoyed save by those who show them
selves worthy of it. In this world no privilege can
be permanently appropriated by men who have not
the power and the will successfully to assume the
responsibility of using it aright. In his recent
admirable little volume on freedom and responsibility
in democratic government, President Hadley of
Yale has pointed out that the freedom which is
worth anything is the freedom which means self-
government and not anarchy. Freedom thus conceived
is a constructive force, which enables an
intelligent and good man to do better things than
he could do without it; which is in its essence the
substitution of self-restraint for external restraint
the substitution of a form of restraint which
promotes progress for the form which retards it.
This is the right view to take of freedom; but it
can only be taken if there is a full recognition of
the close connection between liberty and
responsibility in every domain of human thought and action.
It was essentially the view taken by Abraham
Lincoln, and by all those who, when the Civil War
broke out, realized that in a self-governing
democracy those who desire to be considered fit to enjoy
liberty must show that they know how to use it
with moderation and justice in peace, and how to
fight for it when it is jeoparded by malice domestic
or foreign levy.”
Happy Memorial Day

I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than Vice-President.     —Theodore Roosevelt

The Vice-President. Next in line.  A heartbeat away from being leader of the free world.  But until relatively recently the VP had little to do.

As President of the Senate  the VP can vote, but only to break a tie. That has happened only 244 times in our nation’s history. Theodore Roosevelt admitted to sleeping through Senate sessions  and enrolled in law school while Vice President because of boredom.

Harry Truman said the Vice-President was “about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.” John Nance Garner, a VP under the other Roosevelt, called the office “ a spare tire on the automobile of government.”

In keeping with tradition, TR gave his second in command, Charles Fairbanks of Indiana, little to do. In part, because of different political ideologies, but also due to Fairbanks’ downright aloofness. He could, at times, be so remote and reserved the press dubbed him “The Indiana Icicle.”

But perhaps TR knew what he was doing when it comes to letting the Vice-President represent the administration. Click this link from today’s  The Washington Post  and read how current Vice-President Joe Biden invokes and compares the legacy of TR to President Obama…sort of.

Worth a listen, a recording of TR’s voice as he campaigns for President one hundred years ago. If he were alive today instead of “Big Bosses” he would probably be talking about special interest groups and PACs.

Contact us to schedule a visit from TR.  (810) 845-0132 or brianrhaggard@hotmail.com.