WATCHING OUR CENTURY REPEAT ITS PAST

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I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit.  It is a biography of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft supplemented with the lives of what were later called “the muckrakers,” and what we would today call investigative journalists.  They included Samuel McClure, Ray Davis, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and William Allen White.  Goodwin writes a compelling narrative and brings to life the Gilded Age which led to the progressive movement as a response to the excesses of the wealthy few and the neglected many.

How bad were those times?  Consider child labor.  It was not thought harmful to send children to fill the coal carts in mine shafts.  No one thought it their concern if the elderly were unable to work because of the infirmities of their bodies or minds.  No one of their employers thought there should be a retirement income for them.  It was their family’s responsibility.  No one of their employers thought there should be a minimum wage.  No one of their employers thought they should be regulated for safe conditions of working (if there was an accident it was the worker’s fault).  If big companies made secret deals with railroads for cheaper rates to force small business competitors out of business, that was just good laissez faire capitalism at work.  If insider trading made the rich richer and the smaller investor broke, that was just good laissez faire capitalism at its best.  Regulate it?  Horrors, that was socialism and big government restraining trade.  If legislation was needed to provide rights of way for the railroads, campaign contributions or outright bribes determined where those rails would be placed and who would benefit.  Bags of money bought jobs – chiefs of police, judges, Senators. 

I loved reading the way the muckrakers did their research for McClure’s Magazine.  When I finished the book I looked up that magazine on the web.  Most of the issues are on-line and free to read. I entered the 1890s and early 20^th century. From Goodwin’s book I reversed my judgments and had more respect for Taft as a President and person than I did for Teddy Roosevelt. Of today’s recent Presidents, Bush the younger is most like Roosevelt in his aggressive actions dragging the US into elective wars.  Obama is most like Taft in trying to negotiate, obtaining as many views as possible, and trying to persuade others without using the spotlight of publicity to harass those differing from him. 

It is depressing to see history repeat itself and I do not doubt that a look back at the Civil War, the Mexican-American War, and the Revolutionary War, would show the same diversity of personalities attracted to government service.  Some seek the fame of being a fighter and conqueror. Some seek to be the peace-makers (but rarely find lasting fame).  Some are corrupt and seek power, money, or prestige.  We try to make government independent of those who govern, and seek laws rather than opinions of those with power and money.  All too often, without regulation or the watchful eyes of muckrakers, our institutions are betrayed by the greedy, the self-deceived, and those who enjoy manipulating others. 

Life Lines 61

TEDDY ROOSEVELT’S ESTATE AT OYSTER BAY


I seldom visit the treasures that abound around us. When I grew up in NY City I did not see a performance of the Metropolitan Opera until I attended Indiana University at Bloomington which has a superb musical school where the Met during off season used to perform. I went to the top of the Empire State Building once. I climbed to the lamp of the Statue of Liberty once. But I saw the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art hundreds of times. I can’t use the argument I used in the Depression years that I could only attend places that were free or affordable for not seeing the Roosevelt estate at Sagamore Hill until recently. It is a remarkable federal park asset that is low in admission price and insists on providing a guided tour only. That gives the visitor a chance to learn a lot of history going from room to room looking at the life of a remarkable person who ranks among our more successful presidents. I knew of him as a military hero, as a conservationist, and as a trust buster. I did not realize how much ill health he had to contend with in his personal life and the terrible tragedy of the death of his first wife after childbirth.

Roosevelt made Americans aware of the natural beauty that would soon disappear if he had not initiated the establishment of national parks. He loved the outdoors and enjoyed exploring in distant countries. He preached the virtues of hard work and high ethical standards and he lived up to those virtues. He was a brave man and put his life at risk, serving as a model for his children. The death of his son in battle during World War I was a crushing emotional blow for him. I am grateful that the American Museum of Natural History honors his memory with a statue of him on horseback facing Central Park. I owe my life long love of studying biology to that museum and thus indirectly to Teddy Roosevelt.

The museum adjoining Roosevelt’s home is filled with photographs, clothing, trophies, and camping equipment he used. It was also a thrill to hear his voice – he was one of the first Presidents to have been recorded. The reproductions of the newspaper articles of the time also make history intimate. My wife Nedra, our daughter Erica, her friend from Florida, and my mother-in-law visiting us from Indiana were on hand for this trip. My mother-in-law enjoyed telling the guide that she was alive when Teddy Roosevelt was still alive. She was five when he died in 1919.

One pleasure you will experience is sitting on a wooden rocking chair on the porch of Roosevelt’s home while waiting for your group to go on tour. It is also the site of the peace treaty Roosevelt negotiated between Japan and Russia to settle the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 and for which he received a Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt dreamed of an international council of nations that would settle disputes by diplomacy instead of war. One hundred years later we have made only a snail’s progress toward Teddy Roosevelt’s goal, the United Nations still lacking the clout and respect such an institution demands.