June 26, 2020 • 21 mins
Recently, the American Museum of Natural History asked that the city of New York remove the famous equestrian statue of TR—which also features an African figure and a Native American figure in positions submissive to Roosevelt—from the steps outside its Central Park West entrance. In this special episode, we’re taking a look at the statue: Its history, what the artists intended, and why it’s controversial today. Plus, we’ll revisit Roosevelt’s thinking on race and discuss his views of legacy.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Flaws. One thing that happens when you make a
Theodore Roosevelt themed podcast is that whenever there's tr related news,
you get a ton of messages about it, which is
exactly what happened to me when news broke that the
(00:21):
American Museum of Natural History had asked for the equestrian
statue of tr that stands outside at Central Park West
Entrance to be removed. The request comes at a time
when hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the
streets to protest police brutality and systemic racism. Statues of
historical figures, including those of the Confederacy, and monuments dedicated
(00:42):
to figures who owned or sold enslaved people, are being defaced, removed,
or pulled down entirely, and not just here in the States,
but all around the world as well. Although the museum's
request to remove the statue, which features Tr on horseback
flanked on the ground by one Native American and one
for a configure, was made in light of the current movement,
(01:03):
this particular statue of tr has been controversial for a
very long time. In nineteen seventy one, activist dumped a
can of red paint on Roosevelt's head, in what a
paper at that time called the latest incident against the
Roosevelt statue. Former New York City Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis
said he would support the statue being blasted away from
(01:24):
where it stood unless he noted, Roosevelt got off and
walked with them. Beginning in two sixteen, activists have protested
the statue by organizing marches, covering it with a parachute
and splashing red paint on the base. Removing the statue
was considered as recently as the Mayoral Advisory Commission on
City Art, Monuments and Markers, which was, according to a
(01:48):
report issued in January, committed to a process of historical
reckoning a nuanced understanding of the complicated histories we have inherited,
was split about what to do with the statue. Ultimately,
the city decided to keep the statue where it was
and asked the museum to add context to the work,
which the museum did in its exhibit addressing the statue.
(02:10):
We touched briefly on the statue and on the exhibit
in a larger discussion of Roosevelt's views on race in
the episode History Versus t R. Why was the city
involved in the decision? You ask, because even though many
associate the statue directly with the museum thanks to its location,
Roosevelt's own history with the institution, and things like The
Night of the Museum movies, it's actually part of a
(02:33):
public memorial to Roosevelt located on public land. While some
have issues with the statue because of Roosevelt himself, the
museum has said that its request to move it isn't
about Roosevelt, but rather because of the statue's composition and
what it implies. So in this bonus episode of History Versus,
we're going to talk about the statue, why it's there,
(02:54):
what the artists intended, and why it's viewed as controversial today,
and we'll dive in Roosevelt's own views on legacy. The
statute story begins in nine when the New York State
Legislature established the Roosevelt Memorial Commission. Nine years later, construction
(03:17):
began on a memorial within the museum that, according to
the prospectus of the competition, should express Roosevelt's life as
a nature lover, naturalist, explorer, an author of works on
natural history, The memorial may have ended up at a
m n H because of Henry Fairfield Osbourne, who was
then both president of the museum and the head of
the New York State Roosevelt Memorial Commission. Osborne had also
(03:40):
known Roosevelt, who contributed specimens to the museum and whose
father was one of the founding members personally. The memorial
was designed by architect John Russell Pope and included the
museum's central park, West entrance, it's Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda, and
the Theatore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. In the equestrian statue of
Theodore Roosevelt was commissioned to become a part of that
(04:02):
larger memorial. In Pope wrote that the statue would sit
on a granite pedestal bearing in equestrian statue of Roosevelt,
with two accompanying figures on foot, one representing the American
Indian and the other the primitive African. This heroic group
will symbolize the fearless leadership the explorer, benefactor and educator
(04:23):
sculptor James Earl Fraser, who had created, among other things,
a bust of Roosevelt, a statue of Ben Franklin, and
the Buffalo. Nickel was chosen to create the sculpture, which
was based on a statue by Andrea del Vericio. The
statue was completed in ninety nine and unveiled in nineteen forty.
Fraser said that the figures beside the former president are
(04:44):
guides symbolizing the continents of Africa and America, and if
you choose, may stand for Roosevelt's friendliness to all races.
The figures have no names and are below and trail
behind Roosevelt. So we've talked about what the artists intended
when they created the statue. Now let's talk about how
(05:07):
the statue is viewed today. Because a white man is
ahead of an above, an Indigenous American person, and an
African person, many see a clear picture of racial hierarchy
and white supremacy. Others see a monument to colonialism and conquest.
Not only that, but the unnamed figure seemed to be
(05:28):
a hodgepodge of stereotypes and poor research. The Native American
figure appears to be a Plains Indian, but it's a
generic and stereotypical rendering. According to the museum's exhibit about
the statue, the shield on the African figure appears to
be based on the Massai people, whom Roosevelt met during
his time in East Africa, but the museum explains that
(05:49):
the hairstyle and facial scarification on the figure do not
accurately reflect Massid traditions, and the cloth draped around the
body is more akin to a Greek or Roman sculpture
in James Lowen wrote in his book Lies Across America
What are Historic Sites get? Wrong? That some authorities claim
the flanked figures are guides or continents, but visitors without
(06:12):
such foreknowledge internalized the monument without even thinking about it
as a declaration of white supremacy. When the statue went up,
the museum was openly racist. At that time, the museum
had strong ties to eugenics. Under Osbourne's tenure, two conferences
about eugenics were held there. Roosevelt himself also supported certain
(06:35):
aspects of eugenics, especially later in his life. Now about
TR's quote unquote friendliness to all races, If you listen
to the History Versus tr episode of this podcast, you'll
remember just how complicated and sometimes contradictory Tier's views on
race were. But simply put, Tr held white supremacist and
(06:57):
racist views that were shaped by his childhood, the books
he read, his education, and his correspondence with scientists. Roosevelt
developed a theory of the stages of civilization, a racial
hierarchy that put the white English speaking man on top.
According to historian William S. Walker in Controversial Monuments and Memorials,
(07:19):
A Guide for Community Leaders, Frasier's statue is basically a
visual representation of the prevalent thinking about race at that time,
a troubling hierarchy of human groups that places whites above
indigenous peoples and other people of color on a universal
scale of human civilization. He writes, the statute symbolism corresponds
(07:39):
with overtly racist statements Roosevelt made in his writings and
actions he took, such as his wrongful condemnation and punishment
of black soldiers after the Brownsville affair in nineteen o six. Moreover,
the racial imagery of Frasier's statue matches the dominant paternalistic
attitudes that many whites, including Roosevelt, displayed toward people of
color in the early twentieth century. We've covered a lot
(08:03):
of the frankly horrible things Roosevelt said about other races
in previous episodes of the podcast. But right now I
want to look at just a few examples of what
he said about black people to show just how contradictory
is thinking could be. The first is from remarks he
made in February five. Our efforts should be to secure
each man, whatever his color, equality of opportunity, equality of
(08:27):
treatment before the law, as a people, striving to shape
our actions in accordance with the great law of righteousness.
We cannot afford to take part in or be indifferent
to the oppression or maltreatment of any man who, against
crushing disadvantages, has, by his own industry, energy, self respect,
and perseverance, struggled upward to a position which would entitle
(08:47):
him to the respect of his fellows, if only his
skin were of a different hue. Sounds pretty good, right,
But in nineteen oh six, Roosevelt wrote in a letter
to own Wister, the black people as a race and
as a mass are all together inferior to the whites.
And in nineteen sixteen he wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge,
(09:09):
I believe that the great majority of Negroes in the
South are wholly unfit for the suffrage, extending them that right,
he said, could reduce parts of the South to the
level of Haiti. Historian Thomas Dyer breaks down trs thoughts
on a number of races in depth in his book
Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, and if you
(09:29):
want more information than I'll ever be able to deliver here,
you should definitely pick it up. Dire notes that while
Roosevelt didn't support segregation or disenfranchisement of Black Americans, and
while he championed specific black individuals like Mini cos, there's
no question that Roosevelt felt that black people as a
whole were inferior to white people, and he believed it
(09:51):
was the white man's job to help the black man
become as civilized as the white man, a process that
he believed would take an extremely long time. However, according
to Dire, Roosevelt shouldn't be lumped in with the deeply
racist politicians of the Deep South, but instead was associated
with a group of theorists who promoted the vision of
racial equipotentiality, and with those politicians who publicly deplored the
(10:15):
oppression of American Blacks yet opposed social equality dire rights. Thus,
although Roosevelt may have been a moderating force in an
age of high racism. He nevertheless harbored strong feelings about
the inferiority of blacks, feelings which suggest the pervasiveness of
racism and the harsh character of racial moderation in turn
(10:35):
of the century America. Though these may have been prevalent
views at the time, and while one could try and
justify Roosevelt's racist views by saying that he was a
product of his time, there were plenty of people at
that time, like Jane Adams and William English Walling, who
did not agree with these views, who were much more
progressive on this particular issue than Roosevelt was. We'll be
(10:57):
right back right around the time the museum's addressing the
statue exhibit went up. In July, I spoke with David
Hurst Thomas, Curator of North American Archaeology, Division of Anthropology
(11:17):
at a m n H. Here's what he had to
say about the statue and the exhibit. It was put
up by the State of New York, demoralizing a governor
who went on to become a president. And our entire
Western facade is dedicated to the career Theodore Roosevelt. And
as you walk along there you know there their sculptures,
they are all sorts of things. But this standalone one
(11:39):
on Roosevelt on the horse with with the African and
the Native American walking along sent one message in the
nineteen thirties when it was put up, and it sends
a different message today too many people. So we're trying
to come to grips with that. What are the different
points of view here? What does that tell us about
where we were then and where we are now. In
(12:00):
the exhibit, the museum grappled with what it called Roosevelt's
troubling views on race and its own imperfect history, saying
that such an effort does not excuse the past, but
it can create a foundation for honest, respectful, open dialogue.
In a recent statement, the museum said it was proud
of the exhibition, which helped advance our and the public's
(12:22):
understanding of the statue and its history, and promoted dialogue
about important issues of race and cultural representation. But in
the current moment, it is abundantly clear that this approach
is not sufficient. While the statue is owned by the city,
the museum recognizes the importance of taking a position at
this time. We believe that the statue should no longer remain,
(12:43):
and have requested that it be moved. Theodore Roosevelt, the
fourth Tierra's great grandson and a museum trustee, supports the
statue's removal, as does New York City Mayor Billed A. Blasio,
who said in a statement that the city supports the
museum's request. It is the right decision and the right
time to remove this problematic statue. It hasn't yet been
(13:04):
decided when the statue will be removed or where it
will go, and the museum isn't completely cutting ties with
tr Instead, it will name its Hall of Biodiversity for Roosevelt,
in honor of his role as a leading conservationist. It's
possible that Roosevelt would have preferred this memorialization to any statue.
(13:24):
Michael Cullinane, the historian and author of Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost,
who I interviewed for this podcast, wrote in a recent
op ed for The Washington Post that Theodore Roosevelt never
wanted a statue. Long before he died, he left strict
instructions to his wife and children that no likeness of himself, equestrian,
or otherwise appear in stone or Bronze. He even fought
(13:46):
a memorial group that sought to preserve his birthplace in
New York City. As a historian, Roosevelt knew that the
past necessarily gets rewritten. He anticipated an ever changing legacy.
Clay Jenkinson, who I interviewed or several episodes, also emphasizes
this point in a new book of essays he co
edited called Theodore Roosevelt Naturalist in the Arena. He points
(14:08):
out that when North Dakotan's wanted to erect a statue
to tr Roosevelt suggested that a pioneer or pioneer family
would be more appropriate, and in nineteen sixteen, Roosevelt wrote
a letter against building monuments to the dead, saying, there's
an occasional great public servant to whom it is well
to raise a monument, really not for the man himself,
(14:29):
but for what he typified, a monument to Lincoln or
Farragut is really a great symbolic statue to commemorate such
qualities as valor and patriotism, and love of mankind, and
a willingness to sacrifice everything for the right. As for
the rest of us, who with failures and shortcomings, but
according to our lights have striven to lead decent lives.
(14:50):
If any friends of ours wish to commemorate us after death,
the way to do it is by some expression of
good deeds to those who are still living. Surely a
dead man or woman who is a good man or
woman would wish to feel that his or her taking
away had become an occasion for real service for the
betterment of mankind, rather than to feel that a meaningless
pile of stone, no matter how beautiful, had been erected
(15:13):
with his or her name upon it in an enclosure
crowded with similar piles of stone. For such a tomb
or mausoleum often bears chief reference not to the worth,
but to the wealth of the one who is dead.
In fact, after Tier's own death, Jenkinson notes that his
family was lukewarm, sometimes outright negative about commemorative statues. That's
(15:34):
not to say he was against being honored altogether. Jenkinson
notes that Roosevelt was thrilled when, in nineteen eleven a
damn in Arizona was named after him. I do not
know if it is of any consequence to a man
whether he has a monument. I know it is a
mighty little consequence whether he has a statue after he
is dead. Roosevelt said, if there could be any monument
(15:55):
which would appeal to any man, surely it is this.
You cannot have done anything which would have pleased and
touched me more than to name this great damn, this
reservoir site after me. The unmistakable sense one gets from
reading Roosevelt on this subject is that he wanted his
historical memory to be tied to civic, even civilizational achievement,
(16:17):
Jenkinson writes, and that the giant Cyclopean dam in the
Arizona Desert named in his honor for his vision, his Americanism,
his legislative mastery, and his love of the American West
appealed to him as the right way to pay tribute
to his life and work. If the Theater Roosevelt Facebook
group I'm in is any indication opinions about the statues
(16:39):
removal are heated to be frank Most people in there
are quite angry, But I, for one, think it could
be a good thing. Hear me out. Though I'm fascinated
by t R. It's probably clear by now that he
was not without his flaws. He was obsessed with his
image and wasn't above asking his friends to gloss over
(17:00):
the facts, to paint his life and his accomplishments in
the best light. He felt he knew what was right
and did not often want to admit when he'd been wrong.
He could be as bitter and as nasty as he
could be kind. And his views on race range trum
deeply paternalistic to openly racist, but understanding those views is important.
(17:23):
As historian and assistant professor at the University of Virginia
Justine Hill Edwards said when I interviewed her, we live
in a country that from the very beginning has been
polarized along shoes of race, and so yes, it is
important to understand our public figures and political figures perspectives
on race because it's such an important part in my
(17:44):
my mind of what it means to be American. Thinking
about these questions, because it's an indelible part of the
American story, it would be like not understanding, you know,
the Civil War or the American Revolution, or participation in
World War one or two. Like many historical figures, t
R was a person, an incredibly complex person. He did
(18:07):
both good things and bad things, and those things should
be considered together. Here's Edwards again, he did amazing things
for idealizing and realizing the beauty of America's natural landscapes
right for ideas of um conservation. That's really important, and
(18:28):
we don't have to detegrate that legacy with his more
problematic legacy on race. And so I think it's important
to view historical figures as they were. There complex people
with complex inner workings of their lives, and it's just
important to understand that human complexity. In order to even
(18:52):
get close to a full picture of tr we need
to consider all of the sides of him, rather than
picking the parts that support the vision of him that
you prefer. History like TR is complicated. I think the
statue's removal spurs us to grapple with all of that,
as well as with America's own racist history, and that's important,
(19:14):
which is why I hope that even if the statue
will one day be gone, a m n H will
keep its exhibit about the work around so visitors can
learn from it for decades to come. As Colinane wrote,
the statue indicates nothing of Roosevelt's environmental legacy. Rather, it
symbolizes the least appealing aspect of his natural history. Philosophy.
(19:36):
I think Colinane nailed it when he said, if we
honor complex figures, we should make sure we do so
in ways that emphasize their enduring contributions, not their worst failures.
As Jenkinson points out, Here's legacy isn't in a single statue.
In fact, it's all around us. Theodore Roosevelt's monumental footprint
(19:57):
can be found in nearly every state in America, Jenkinson writes.
While some of it is appropriately visible, still more is
quietly enshrined in the U. S. Navy, in the National
Park Service, in the modern identity of the American presidency,
and in countless landscapes, parks and forests across the Western hemisphere.
No other president has such a legacy. No other president
(20:21):
even comes close. I'll leave you with something t R
expressed to Cecil spring Rice in on the occasion of
his Secretary of State John Hayes death. It is a
good thing to die in the harness, at the zenith
of one's fame, with the consciousness of having lived a long,
honorable and useful life, he wrote, After we are dead,
(20:43):
it will make not the slightest difference whether men speak
well or ill of us but in the days and
hours before dying, it must be pleasant to feel that
you have done your part as a man and have
not yet been thrown aside as useless, and that your
children and children's children, in short, all those that are
dearest to you, have just caused for pride in your actions.
(21:09):
History Versus is hosted by me Aeron McCarthy. This episode
was written by me, with fact checking and additional research
by Austin Thompson. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas,
and Tyler Clang. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. The
show was edited by Dylan Fagan and Low Berlante. To
learn more about this episode and Theodore Roosevelt, check out
(21:31):
our website and Mental flass dot com slash History Versus.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Floss. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
(21:53):
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Flaws. One thing that happens when you make a
Theodore Roosevelt themed podcast is that whenever there's tr related news,
you get a ton of messages about it, which is
exactly what happened to me when news broke that the
(00:21):
American Museum of Natural History had asked for the equestrian
statue of tr that stands outside at Central Park West
Entrance to be removed. The request comes at a time
when hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the
streets to protest police brutality and systemic racism. Statues of
historical figures, including those of the Confederacy, and monuments dedicated
(00:42):
to figures who owned or sold enslaved people, are being defaced, removed,
or pulled down entirely, and not just here in the States,
but all around the world as well. Although the museum's
request to remove the statue, which features Tr on horseback
flanked on the ground by one Native American and one
for a configure, was made in light of the current movement,
(01:03):
this particular statue of tr has been controversial for a
very long time. In nineteen seventy one, activist dumped a
can of red paint on Roosevelt's head, in what a
paper at that time called the latest incident against the
Roosevelt statue. Former New York City Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis
said he would support the statue being blasted away from
(01:24):
where it stood unless he noted, Roosevelt got off and
walked with them. Beginning in two sixteen, activists have protested
the statue by organizing marches, covering it with a parachute
and splashing red paint on the base. Removing the statue
was considered as recently as the Mayoral Advisory Commission on
City Art, Monuments and Markers, which was, according to a
(01:48):
report issued in January, committed to a process of historical
reckoning a nuanced understanding of the complicated histories we have inherited,
was split about what to do with the statue. Ultimately,
the city decided to keep the statue where it was
and asked the museum to add context to the work,
which the museum did in its exhibit addressing the statue.
(02:10):
We touched briefly on the statue and on the exhibit
in a larger discussion of Roosevelt's views on race in
the episode History Versus t R. Why was the city
involved in the decision? You ask, because even though many
associate the statue directly with the museum thanks to its location,
Roosevelt's own history with the institution, and things like The
Night of the Museum movies, it's actually part of a
(02:33):
public memorial to Roosevelt located on public land. While some
have issues with the statue because of Roosevelt himself, the
museum has said that its request to move it isn't
about Roosevelt, but rather because of the statue's composition and
what it implies. So in this bonus episode of History Versus,
we're going to talk about the statue, why it's there,
(02:54):
what the artists intended, and why it's viewed as controversial today,
and we'll dive in Roosevelt's own views on legacy. The
statute story begins in nine when the New York State
Legislature established the Roosevelt Memorial Commission. Nine years later, construction
(03:17):
began on a memorial within the museum that, according to
the prospectus of the competition, should express Roosevelt's life as
a nature lover, naturalist, explorer, an author of works on
natural history, The memorial may have ended up at a
m n H because of Henry Fairfield Osbourne, who was
then both president of the museum and the head of
the New York State Roosevelt Memorial Commission. Osborne had also
(03:40):
known Roosevelt, who contributed specimens to the museum and whose
father was one of the founding members personally. The memorial
was designed by architect John Russell Pope and included the
museum's central park, West entrance, it's Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda, and
the Theatore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. In the equestrian statue of
Theodore Roosevelt was commissioned to become a part of that
(04:02):
larger memorial. In Pope wrote that the statue would sit
on a granite pedestal bearing in equestrian statue of Roosevelt,
with two accompanying figures on foot, one representing the American
Indian and the other the primitive African. This heroic group
will symbolize the fearless leadership the explorer, benefactor and educator
(04:23):
sculptor James Earl Fraser, who had created, among other things,
a bust of Roosevelt, a statue of Ben Franklin, and
the Buffalo. Nickel was chosen to create the sculpture, which
was based on a statue by Andrea del Vericio. The
statue was completed in ninety nine and unveiled in nineteen forty.
Fraser said that the figures beside the former president are
(04:44):
guides symbolizing the continents of Africa and America, and if
you choose, may stand for Roosevelt's friendliness to all races.
The figures have no names and are below and trail
behind Roosevelt. So we've talked about what the artists intended
when they created the statue. Now let's talk about how
(05:07):
the statue is viewed today. Because a white man is
ahead of an above, an Indigenous American person, and an
African person, many see a clear picture of racial hierarchy
and white supremacy. Others see a monument to colonialism and conquest.
Not only that, but the unnamed figure seemed to be
(05:28):
a hodgepodge of stereotypes and poor research. The Native American
figure appears to be a Plains Indian, but it's a
generic and stereotypical rendering. According to the museum's exhibit about
the statue, the shield on the African figure appears to
be based on the Massai people, whom Roosevelt met during
his time in East Africa, but the museum explains that
(05:49):
the hairstyle and facial scarification on the figure do not
accurately reflect Massid traditions, and the cloth draped around the
body is more akin to a Greek or Roman sculpture
in James Lowen wrote in his book Lies Across America
What are Historic Sites get? Wrong? That some authorities claim
the flanked figures are guides or continents, but visitors without
(06:12):
such foreknowledge internalized the monument without even thinking about it
as a declaration of white supremacy. When the statue went up,
the museum was openly racist. At that time, the museum
had strong ties to eugenics. Under Osbourne's tenure, two conferences
about eugenics were held there. Roosevelt himself also supported certain
(06:35):
aspects of eugenics, especially later in his life. Now about
TR's quote unquote friendliness to all races, If you listen
to the History Versus tr episode of this podcast, you'll
remember just how complicated and sometimes contradictory Tier's views on
race were. But simply put, Tr held white supremacist and
(06:57):
racist views that were shaped by his childhood, the books
he read, his education, and his correspondence with scientists. Roosevelt
developed a theory of the stages of civilization, a racial
hierarchy that put the white English speaking man on top.
According to historian William S. Walker in Controversial Monuments and Memorials,
(07:19):
A Guide for Community Leaders, Frasier's statue is basically a
visual representation of the prevalent thinking about race at that time,
a troubling hierarchy of human groups that places whites above
indigenous peoples and other people of color on a universal
scale of human civilization. He writes, the statute symbolism corresponds
(07:39):
with overtly racist statements Roosevelt made in his writings and
actions he took, such as his wrongful condemnation and punishment
of black soldiers after the Brownsville affair in nineteen o six. Moreover,
the racial imagery of Frasier's statue matches the dominant paternalistic
attitudes that many whites, including Roosevelt, displayed toward people of
color in the early twentieth century. We've covered a lot
(08:03):
of the frankly horrible things Roosevelt said about other races
in previous episodes of the podcast. But right now I
want to look at just a few examples of what
he said about black people to show just how contradictory
is thinking could be. The first is from remarks he
made in February five. Our efforts should be to secure
each man, whatever his color, equality of opportunity, equality of
(08:27):
treatment before the law, as a people, striving to shape
our actions in accordance with the great law of righteousness.
We cannot afford to take part in or be indifferent
to the oppression or maltreatment of any man who, against
crushing disadvantages, has, by his own industry, energy, self respect,
and perseverance, struggled upward to a position which would entitle
(08:47):
him to the respect of his fellows, if only his
skin were of a different hue. Sounds pretty good, right,
But in nineteen oh six, Roosevelt wrote in a letter
to own Wister, the black people as a race and
as a mass are all together inferior to the whites.
And in nineteen sixteen he wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge,
(09:09):
I believe that the great majority of Negroes in the
South are wholly unfit for the suffrage, extending them that right,
he said, could reduce parts of the South to the
level of Haiti. Historian Thomas Dyer breaks down trs thoughts
on a number of races in depth in his book
Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, and if you
(09:29):
want more information than I'll ever be able to deliver here,
you should definitely pick it up. Dire notes that while
Roosevelt didn't support segregation or disenfranchisement of Black Americans, and
while he championed specific black individuals like Mini cos, there's
no question that Roosevelt felt that black people as a
whole were inferior to white people, and he believed it
(09:51):
was the white man's job to help the black man
become as civilized as the white man, a process that
he believed would take an extremely long time. However, according
to Dire, Roosevelt shouldn't be lumped in with the deeply
racist politicians of the Deep South, but instead was associated
with a group of theorists who promoted the vision of
racial equipotentiality, and with those politicians who publicly deplored the
(10:15):
oppression of American Blacks yet opposed social equality dire rights. Thus,
although Roosevelt may have been a moderating force in an
age of high racism. He nevertheless harbored strong feelings about
the inferiority of blacks, feelings which suggest the pervasiveness of
racism and the harsh character of racial moderation in turn
(10:35):
of the century America. Though these may have been prevalent
views at the time, and while one could try and
justify Roosevelt's racist views by saying that he was a
product of his time, there were plenty of people at
that time, like Jane Adams and William English Walling, who
did not agree with these views, who were much more
progressive on this particular issue than Roosevelt was. We'll be
(10:57):
right back right around the time the museum's addressing the
statue exhibit went up. In July, I spoke with David
Hurst Thomas, Curator of North American Archaeology, Division of Anthropology
(11:17):
at a m n H. Here's what he had to
say about the statue and the exhibit. It was put
up by the State of New York, demoralizing a governor
who went on to become a president. And our entire
Western facade is dedicated to the career Theodore Roosevelt. And
as you walk along there you know there their sculptures,
they are all sorts of things. But this standalone one
(11:39):
on Roosevelt on the horse with with the African and
the Native American walking along sent one message in the
nineteen thirties when it was put up, and it sends
a different message today too many people. So we're trying
to come to grips with that. What are the different
points of view here? What does that tell us about
where we were then and where we are now. In
(12:00):
the exhibit, the museum grappled with what it called Roosevelt's
troubling views on race and its own imperfect history, saying
that such an effort does not excuse the past, but
it can create a foundation for honest, respectful, open dialogue.
In a recent statement, the museum said it was proud
of the exhibition, which helped advance our and the public's
(12:22):
understanding of the statue and its history, and promoted dialogue
about important issues of race and cultural representation. But in
the current moment, it is abundantly clear that this approach
is not sufficient. While the statue is owned by the city,
the museum recognizes the importance of taking a position at
this time. We believe that the statue should no longer remain,
(12:43):
and have requested that it be moved. Theodore Roosevelt, the
fourth Tierra's great grandson and a museum trustee, supports the
statue's removal, as does New York City Mayor Billed A. Blasio,
who said in a statement that the city supports the
museum's request. It is the right decision and the right
time to remove this problematic statue. It hasn't yet been
(13:04):
decided when the statue will be removed or where it
will go, and the museum isn't completely cutting ties with
tr Instead, it will name its Hall of Biodiversity for Roosevelt,
in honor of his role as a leading conservationist. It's
possible that Roosevelt would have preferred this memorialization to any statue.
(13:24):
Michael Cullinane, the historian and author of Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost,
who I interviewed for this podcast, wrote in a recent
op ed for The Washington Post that Theodore Roosevelt never
wanted a statue. Long before he died, he left strict
instructions to his wife and children that no likeness of himself, equestrian,
or otherwise appear in stone or Bronze. He even fought
(13:46):
a memorial group that sought to preserve his birthplace in
New York City. As a historian, Roosevelt knew that the
past necessarily gets rewritten. He anticipated an ever changing legacy.
Clay Jenkinson, who I interviewed or several episodes, also emphasizes
this point in a new book of essays he co
edited called Theodore Roosevelt Naturalist in the Arena. He points
(14:08):
out that when North Dakotan's wanted to erect a statue
to tr Roosevelt suggested that a pioneer or pioneer family
would be more appropriate, and in nineteen sixteen, Roosevelt wrote
a letter against building monuments to the dead, saying, there's
an occasional great public servant to whom it is well
to raise a monument, really not for the man himself,
(14:29):
but for what he typified, a monument to Lincoln or
Farragut is really a great symbolic statue to commemorate such
qualities as valor and patriotism, and love of mankind, and
a willingness to sacrifice everything for the right. As for
the rest of us, who with failures and shortcomings, but
according to our lights have striven to lead decent lives.
(14:50):
If any friends of ours wish to commemorate us after death,
the way to do it is by some expression of
good deeds to those who are still living. Surely a
dead man or woman who is a good man or
woman would wish to feel that his or her taking
away had become an occasion for real service for the
betterment of mankind, rather than to feel that a meaningless
pile of stone, no matter how beautiful, had been erected
(15:13):
with his or her name upon it in an enclosure
crowded with similar piles of stone. For such a tomb
or mausoleum often bears chief reference not to the worth,
but to the wealth of the one who is dead.
In fact, after Tier's own death, Jenkinson notes that his
family was lukewarm, sometimes outright negative about commemorative statues. That's
(15:34):
not to say he was against being honored altogether. Jenkinson
notes that Roosevelt was thrilled when, in nineteen eleven a
damn in Arizona was named after him. I do not
know if it is of any consequence to a man
whether he has a monument. I know it is a
mighty little consequence whether he has a statue after he
is dead. Roosevelt said, if there could be any monument
(15:55):
which would appeal to any man, surely it is this.
You cannot have done anything which would have pleased and
touched me more than to name this great damn, this
reservoir site after me. The unmistakable sense one gets from
reading Roosevelt on this subject is that he wanted his
historical memory to be tied to civic, even civilizational achievement,
(16:17):
Jenkinson writes, and that the giant Cyclopean dam in the
Arizona Desert named in his honor for his vision, his Americanism,
his legislative mastery, and his love of the American West
appealed to him as the right way to pay tribute
to his life and work. If the Theater Roosevelt Facebook
group I'm in is any indication opinions about the statues
(16:39):
removal are heated to be frank Most people in there
are quite angry, But I, for one, think it could
be a good thing. Hear me out. Though I'm fascinated
by t R. It's probably clear by now that he
was not without his flaws. He was obsessed with his
image and wasn't above asking his friends to gloss over
(17:00):
the facts, to paint his life and his accomplishments in
the best light. He felt he knew what was right
and did not often want to admit when he'd been wrong.
He could be as bitter and as nasty as he
could be kind. And his views on race range trum
deeply paternalistic to openly racist, but understanding those views is important.
(17:23):
As historian and assistant professor at the University of Virginia
Justine Hill Edwards said when I interviewed her, we live
in a country that from the very beginning has been
polarized along shoes of race, and so yes, it is
important to understand our public figures and political figures perspectives
on race because it's such an important part in my
(17:44):
my mind of what it means to be American. Thinking
about these questions, because it's an indelible part of the
American story, it would be like not understanding, you know,
the Civil War or the American Revolution, or participation in
World War one or two. Like many historical figures, t
R was a person, an incredibly complex person. He did
(18:07):
both good things and bad things, and those things should
be considered together. Here's Edwards again, he did amazing things
for idealizing and realizing the beauty of America's natural landscapes
right for ideas of um conservation. That's really important, and
(18:28):
we don't have to detegrate that legacy with his more
problematic legacy on race. And so I think it's important
to view historical figures as they were. There complex people
with complex inner workings of their lives, and it's just
important to understand that human complexity. In order to even
(18:52):
get close to a full picture of tr we need
to consider all of the sides of him, rather than
picking the parts that support the vision of him that
you prefer. History like TR is complicated. I think the
statue's removal spurs us to grapple with all of that,
as well as with America's own racist history, and that's important,
(19:14):
which is why I hope that even if the statue
will one day be gone, a m n H will
keep its exhibit about the work around so visitors can
learn from it for decades to come. As Colinane wrote,
the statue indicates nothing of Roosevelt's environmental legacy. Rather, it
symbolizes the least appealing aspect of his natural history. Philosophy.
(19:36):
I think Colinane nailed it when he said, if we
honor complex figures, we should make sure we do so
in ways that emphasize their enduring contributions, not their worst failures.
As Jenkinson points out, Here's legacy isn't in a single statue.
In fact, it's all around us. Theodore Roosevelt's monumental footprint
(19:57):
can be found in nearly every state in America, Jenkinson writes.
While some of it is appropriately visible, still more is
quietly enshrined in the U. S. Navy, in the National
Park Service, in the modern identity of the American presidency,
and in countless landscapes, parks and forests across the Western hemisphere.
No other president has such a legacy. No other president
(20:21):
even comes close. I'll leave you with something t R
expressed to Cecil spring Rice in on the occasion of
his Secretary of State John Hayes death. It is a
good thing to die in the harness, at the zenith
of one's fame, with the consciousness of having lived a long,
honorable and useful life, he wrote, After we are dead,
(20:43):
it will make not the slightest difference whether men speak
well or ill of us but in the days and
hours before dying, it must be pleasant to feel that
you have done your part as a man and have
not yet been thrown aside as useless, and that your
children and children's children, in short, all those that are
dearest to you, have just caused for pride in your actions.
(21:09):
History Versus is hosted by me Aeron McCarthy. This episode
was written by me, with fact checking and additional research
by Austin Thompson. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas,
and Tyler Clang. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. The
show was edited by Dylan Fagan and Low Berlante. To
learn more about this episode and Theodore Roosevelt, check out
(21:31):
our website and Mental flass dot com slash History Versus.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Floss. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
(21:53):
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.