Teddy Roosevelt - The Toughest President In US History

Buckle up, folks, for a wild ride through the life and times of America's most boisterous president, Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt! Forget the stuffy history books – we're diving headfirst into the life of this larger-than-life character, complete with charging rhinos, political brawls, and enough stories to make your head spin.

We'll explore Teddy's audacious adventures: from his days as a sickly kid to his transformation into a rugged outdoorsman, complete with bear hunting escapades and a penchant for wielding a big stick (literally!). We'll unpack his presidency, a whirlwind of trust-busting, conservation, and, of course, that time he mediated a peace treaty while wearing his pajamas.

Teddy Roosevelt was more than a politician, he was a bad ass...perhaps the most bad ass politician the United States has ever known. Whether you want to know more about his days as a rough rider, or you want to know how many acres of national parks he gave us, this episode of Dirt Nap City will tame the wild man who was the 26th president of the United States.

Drop us a quick text and we’ll reply in the next episode!

Support the show

Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:07):
Hey, Alex, how you doing? Man, hey, Kelly, Happy
New Year. Man, Happy New Year toyou, 2025
and we don't have flying cars. Iknow isn't that, isn't that
something? Would you havethought in 1980
that 2025 would be so similar.
Yeah. I mean, I was still, I wasstill expecting CD ROMs to be

(00:30):
around, or were they even aroundin 1980 I guess I was still
expecting photo Mac to be here.
But, right, yeah, it's not,yeah, it is. It's so it's so
similar, but so different. Youknow, it seems like there are
these things that have comealong that have really, really
changed and revolutionizedthings everybody's talking about
AI right now. Of course, you andI use it for several parts of
this show, and have talked aboutit before, but it's maybe, it's

(00:54):
just because it's been soincremental. Maybe if you took
somebody from 1980 and broughtthem to 2025 it would feel very,
vastly different. Oh yeah, I'msure. I mean, just phones for
one how much they've changedeverything. But maybe in five
years, we'll be doing an episodeon what was AI.

(01:16):
I hope so. I sure hope so. Well,today I'm going back to the meat
and potatoes, the bread andbutter. You know, the kind of
stuff we love. This is going tobe an episode about an
interesting a dead person, Adam,that's, that's more than bread
and butter, that's, that's like,probably ribs and apples. Oh, I
get, I see what you did there?

(01:41):
No, I want to talk aboutsomebody that was actually born
in 1858, and died in 1919,okay, an American, an American.
All of a sudden, I'm picturing ahandlebar mustache. Oh, you
know, I had a feeling that nomatter what clues I gave you
were going to guess this prettyquickly. Let me I didn't guess

(02:02):
it, but just that time periodimmediately gives me a handlebar
mustache and maybe a ride on oneof those bicycles with a penny
farther, yeah, farther, which,by the way, I'm going to do on a
dead end someday. I swear that'sgoing to happen. Yeah, I really
want to do that, but we'vetalked about him several times
tangentially, yeah, well, well,this guy is very tangential for

(02:25):
us.
He's been mentioned a few times.
He's been mentioned he was asickly child. Drove an ambulance
in World War One. No, he didn'treally, but he was a sickly
child, and he did advocate.
Well, he grew up with asthma,and his parents were kind of

(02:46):
scared by it. He was inManhattan, he was he was from a
well to do family, and hisfamily actually traveled and
gave him a good worldliness. Andhe saw a doctor that told him he
should actually lead a strenuouslife, and that would help make
him stronger.
Hmm. Okay, so some who was heknown for his strength, not his

(03:12):
strength, but just his generalmanliness. Like he's probably
one of the most manly guys, youknow, aside from Evil Knievel
and Andre the Giant. He's, he'sright up there. And his
manliness, his bravery, his, youknow, he did things like he
climbed the Matterhorn.
He he was, he raised cattle androde horses out in Dakotas. Was

(03:37):
he a politician? Yes, yes. Hewas, was he Teddy Roosevelt? He
was Theodore Roosevelt Jr, alsoknown as TR, also known as
Colonel Roosevelt, also known asthe colonel, but known as Teddy.
To his demise. He did not likethe name Teddy. So did I call
him Teddy just now? Yeah, Iapologize.

(03:59):
He's dead. He doesn't care.
So no handlebar mustache, butnonetheless a very iconic bushy
mustache. Yeah, you're right. Itwasn't handlebar but it was, it
was of the age, and theseglasses were very much of the
age, and his general look andmannerisms were very much of the
age. Yeah, very macho, manly,badass, kind of legendary

(04:22):
figure, yeah, well,interestingly, you say the word
macho, I don't actually thinkthat was his vibe. He was kind
of an intellectual. He was veryworldly. He was very well, you
know, well spoken, and he wroteand read. So I don't know if
Macho is the right word, but Ithink he he really tried to push
himself physically because hehad experienced this asthma and,

(04:43):
you know, such a sicklychildhood, and it seemed to
actually do him good. It pushedhim into the, you know, sort of
the fake it till you make itthing physically. But I consider
myself a macho intellectualist,so they're not mutually
exclusive. Wasn't that a song inthe 70s by the Village People?
Macho intellectualist?
FirstAlex has to be one. Well, he was
born to Martha Stewart Bullock,Martha Stewart, Martha Stewart

(05:07):
Bullock and Theodore Rooseveltsenior in Manhattan. He had an
older sister named Anna, whothey called BAMMY, and he had a
younger brother named Elliot,and he had a younger sister
named Corinne, but he wasfairly, you know, debilitated
with asthma as a child and alittle bit later in his life.

(05:28):
You know, he was born in 1858when he was like 11 or 12, he
went on some family trips toEurope and to Egypt, and that
really kind of made him a lotmore interested in the globe as
a as a whole, you know, I thinkmost Americans, I think most
Americans today, don't even havea passport, right? Less than 50%
have a passport, yeah, I'm sure.

(05:49):
I think probably more now thatyou need one to go to Canada and
Mexico, yeah. Then there used tobe, I think it used to be in the
20% so well, he, he was a he wasa well traveled person. He
actually was picked on as a as akid, some boys had bullied him,
and he decided he was going toget into boxing. So he actually

(06:12):
became a boxer. He still boxedwhen he was mayor of New York.
As a matter of fact, I thinkanother constant, a recurring
theme on this show is people getbullied and then they become
notable icons. Yeah, I thinkthat's what happened to us. So,
you know, keep getting bulliedout there, or maybe keep

(06:34):
bullying, you know, if you wantto make somebody strong and
important in world, but bulliesthemselves, I don't think ever
end up on this show. No, no,they don't. They don't. They
just they're these, these boyswho bullied him, who turned him
into a boxer and a wrestler, andhe actually took lessons in
judo. They actually did him afavor, right? He became who he

(06:56):
was. He was also, interestingly,though, very interested in
animals and zoology andconservationism. As a matter of
fact, when he was about, I don'tknow, nine years old, he saw a
dead seal. No, he was seven. Ijust see this in my notes. He
was seven. He saw a dead seal ata market, and he negotiated to

(07:17):
get the seals head, and then hetook that head and he learned
how to do taxidermy, and hetaxidermied the seals head, and
he startedcatching killing or finding dead
animal carcasses and making awhole natural history museum in
his houseinteresting. You ever done any

(07:38):
taxidermy in your life. I neverhave, but I do remember, before
I moved to Sugar Land, I livedin a little town called Huffman
in northeast Houston, and it waspretty it was pretty country out
there. And I remember being infifth grade or sixth grade, and
one of the kids in my class wastaking taxidermy lessons, like

(07:59):
going to taxidermy school insixth grade.
It's a lost art really. Well, Idon't know that it's lost. I
think there's still a lot ofpeople that do it, and Huffman
especially, yeah, yeah. Huffman,I mean, but, but it's, it's
pretty amazing what they whatthey can do with these animals.

(08:20):
But he he was actuallyhomeschooled, so he didn't have
a chance to go to taxidermyschool. His his mother never
taught him that, but after beinghomeschooled, he ended up going
to Harvard. And his father said,I thought this was a great quote
from his father, take care ofyour morals, first, your health,
next, and finally your studies.
Hmm, yeah. I like, I like thatorder, yeah, wrong with that. He

(08:41):
was going to study naturalscience, but then his father
died two years after he startedat Harvard, leaving him a lot of
money, $60,000 which was aboutalmost $1.9 million today. But
he he he could have lived onthat. He could have just
coasted, but he decided insteadto write a book while he was at

(09:05):
Harvard called the naval war of1812
he was very into Navy history.
He was very into militaryhistory. Studied that like
crazy. And actually, that navalwar of 1812 book is still
studied today by kidding,military strategist, yeah, a lot
of people don't know he hadseveral published books. We'll
talk about it's amazing. That'sanother thing that's kind of a

(09:27):
constant in the show, is thatpeople doing things at a young
age. Yeah, already hittinghitting their stride at 1617,
years old. Yeah, 1878 he was 20years old, and when this book
came out, he, I think he didgraduate from Harvard, came back
to New York and startedattending Republican meetings at

(09:48):
a place called Morton Hall. Hisfather had been a big
Republican, and he kind offollowed in his footsteps. Now,
the parties were very differentback then. I.
We won't get into all that, butlet's just say that you know,
what you think of as aRepublican today isn't
necessarily what it was backthen. And same thing with
Democrats. But he would go tothese Republican meetings. He

(10:11):
ended up meeting a woman namedAlice Hathaway Lee, and he
married her in 1880 and that'syou know, when he climbed the
Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps wasduring his honeymoon. So could
you imagine on your honeymoon ifyou had said, Hey, honey, I'm
gonna go climb one of the mostdifficult mountain climbing
adventures without you. You stayhere and, you know, spa day or

(10:35):
whatever they did back then.
Have you ever seen a picture ofthe Matterhorn?
I think so, yeah, it's prettymuch just like a straight up
charity kind of thing, sure?
Yeah, it's not, there's no,there's no gentle slope about
it. And I just kind of lookedup, you know, in today's world,
it's still considered one of themost difficult climbs you can
do. Probably can't be home bydinner. No, no. I think, I think

(10:56):
it must have been a longhoneymoon, or else he spent most
of the time doing the littleselfish. Yeah, maybe so, maybe
so,in 1881 he won an election to
the New York State Assembly, andthat's kind of where he
discovered that he likedfighting corruption. So you
know, you know this about him,that he was a big reformer,

(11:18):
yeah, I guess, because there'sso many Roosevelts that are
famous, maybe it's hard to keepup with which one was which and
who did what, but TeddyRoosevelt was really into
reform. He actually kind ofticked a lot of people off
because of that, but we'll getinto that in a minute. In 1884
he he and Alice, his wife had adaughter, also named Alice. And

(11:41):
unfortunately, two days later,his wife died from kidney
failure, which had been she hadhad a sort of kidney problem
that was masked by the birth orby her pregnancy, and she was
only 22 years old. And the sameday his mother died of typhoid
fever. My goodness, yeah, notfrom Mary, though. Let's hope

(12:06):
not. Let's hope nominee, she wasin New York for a while, and if
you haven't listened to theTyphoid Mary episode, you might
want to check that out to learnhow perhaps she had something to
do with the day. Maybe justpause this right now.
Go listen to the entirety ofTyphoid Mary, and then yeah, or
we could just insert it. Wecould just insert that episode.

(12:28):
You make your decision onwhether or not Alice Roosevelt
got typhoid from Typhoid Mary.
What was that? It was that wasactually his mother that that
gotit? Martha Stewart, her so many
Alice's. I, yeah, all right,yeah. So his mother got typhoid.
His wife died from kidney diedfrom kidney failure in

(12:50):
childbirth. So now he's like asingle dad. He's not even a mom
to help out. Well, that's where,that's where his sister BAMMY
came in and took, actually tookhis daughter, took care of his
daughter for the first threeyears of her life. I mean, he
was a mess, right? His his wifeand mother had died. His father
had died not too long beforethat. He kind of used that
grief, I guess, to focus on hiswork. And he started looking,

(13:14):
you know, he had been elected tothe State Assembly, and he
started looking at ways toinvestigate, prosecute and stop
corruption. And that was athing, you know, one of the
things back then was the partysystem, the boss, the bosses,
you know, the party bosses,all of that stuff was starting

(13:35):
to take shape, or was in themidst of going on. And one of
the things he really did at thattime was he went after the
mayor's office. You know, aspart of the state assembly, he
said this, the mayor had toomuch power.
Well, this world's first, sir,yeah, yeah. I guess he listened
to his father. He he was,he was liked by many, disliked
by a lot of other people, but hewas getting noticed, and one of

(14:00):
the biggest things he did was atthe Republican National
Convention. The same year thathis mother and and wife died, he
gave a speech and supported anAfrican American named John
Lynch to be the chair of theConvention, which was Wow, kind
of unheard of back then. Yeah.
What year would that have been?
1884 Wow, yeah, that's amazing.

(14:25):
And I think that that earnedhim, obviously, the ire of some
people and the respect ofothers, but you know, he was
choosing his sides. And he also,during the presidential election
of 1884he was not a big fan of this guy
named Blaine, who was theRepublican, the Republican
nominee. Well, he he made itknown that he didn't like Blaine

(14:50):
either. Was another Republicanthat he liked. I forgot the
other guy's name, but there wasa different Republican that he
liked. But then there was thisgroup of Republicans called the
mug once.
I ever heard of these guys? Ithought they were part of the
British invasion. No, they wereactually part of Harry Potter.
Yeah, yeah. It could be eitherone. Couldn't it could be either

(15:12):
one. There were that'd be agreat game show, British
Invasion, band or Harry Potter,spell or political party, or
political party? Well, themugwumps were a group of
Republicans who were veryopposed. They were they were
extreme reformist restream,extremely against political
corruption, and they felt likethis guy, Blaine, was under the

(15:33):
hands or the thumb of thepolitical machine. So they
flipped over and supportedGrover Cleveland, who was a
Democrat,but Teddy saw that as political
suicide and wouldn't do it. Sorather than supporting Grover
Cleveland, he actually just gavespeeches about how bad the
Democratic Party was. Hesupported the Republican Party

(15:57):
and put down the DemocraticParty, but wouldn't talk.
Wouldn't say anything good aboutBlaine. Okay, so the mugwumps
were mad at him. They were like,Hey, man, that's not cool.
You're a reformer. You should bewith us. You should, you know,
go with the right person.
Roosevelt was like, I'm out ofhere. So he he stopped politics
for a little while. He had beento the he

(16:21):
had been to the Dakota territoryto hunt bison the year before,
and he loved it. As a matter offact, when he got out there, a
lot of people looked at him andthought he was just this little,
little man with glasses and kindof punchy and pale and didn't
know, didn't really know whatwas going on. And by the time he

(16:43):
left, he was, he was respectedas a cowboy because he grew the
mustache. Yes, that's the key,if you ever go, if you ever go
to Yellowstone, or, you know, ifyou want to be one of the one of
the cowboys out there. No, heactually said of cowboys. He
said a cowboy possesses few ofthe emasculated milk and water
moralities admired by the pseudophilanthropists, but does, but

(17:06):
he does possess, to a very highdegree, the stern, manly
qualities that are invaluable toa nation that was his take on
cowboys. And of course, theDakotas weren't states yet. No
Dakota territory, yeah, yeah. Soduring that time, after the
death of hiswife and and mother, and after,

(17:30):
you know, he kind of got thisrebuke from the mugwumps in in
the Republican Party, because hewouldn't switch over to the
Democrats to support theircandidate, etc, etc. He started
going back and forth between NewYork and Dakota territories. He
actually built a ranch calledElkhorn ranch in North Dakota,
or what is now North Dakota, andhe learned how to ride western

(17:54):
style. Because I think a lot ofthese guys could ride because
they were gentlemen, but theydidn't know how to ride western
style. It's a little different.
What does western style? Doesthat mean without a saddle? No,
that's bareback. Western styleis different than an English
style. I think most people inthe cities road an English
saddle and a Western saddle hasthe saddle horn because it's
used for working cattle andthings like that. It's a

(18:18):
different kind of saddle, adifferent style of writing.
Western is moremore, I guess, efficient, but
not as showy as he is writingEnglish. But he also learned how
to rope. He learned how to hunt.
He learned about things likehaving to do with the ecology of

(18:39):
the land, like over grazing. Heactually organized the ranchers
to help to help address problemsof over over grazing. He formed
what was called the Boone andCrockett club. You can imagine
who that was named after. Theirgoal was to conserve large
games, animals and theirhabitats. And he became the
deputy sheriff of BillingsCounty, North Dakota, at one

(19:02):
point, even even hunted downsome criminals with posses.
Yeah, it sounds like the life,yeah, yeah. Totally different
than than Manhattan. But in 18861887
he lost his herd of cattle tobecause he wanted to be a cattle
rancher. He lost them toweather, severe weather wiped

(19:23):
out all his cattle, so he turnedhe returned to New York, and
basically he felt like NorthDakota or the Dakota's
territories, had helped himovercome the label that people
saw him as an ineffectiveintellectual like he could back
it up with toughness, yeah, andI'm sure it changes your
perspective just on how big thecountry is, or how big it could

(19:44):
be, and, yeah, what's all outthere conservation. I mean, I'm
sure it changes a man. I thinkit did. And I think Upon
returning, he was reinvigorated,and he was actually asked to run
for mayor of New York City. I.
Which he did, but he lost. Youknow, he was a little still, a
little bit of an unknown at thatpoint, not not as well known as

(20:07):
the other candidates. But afterthat, he spent a little time
writing his second book calledWinning the West. And this was a
four volume set about thetracking of the Western tracking
westward of Americans,basically. And I actually
Googled it and looked for it tobuy an original printing of

(20:27):
this, which sold out when it wasfirst printed. Is like, I don't
know, $3,500for four books. So you bought
it. Yeah, happy birthday.
So in 1988he was appointed by President
Harrison to the Civil ServiceCommission, and he actually
served there for seven years.

(20:50):
And this was another place wherehe was able to put reforms in
place. He kind of fought againstthe spoil system. He demanded
civil service laws, and reallytried to make things better for
workers. Tried to make thingsbetter for consumers. And the
newspapers described him asirrepressible, belligerent and
enthusiastic, hmm, which I guessis what you would want. He's

(21:13):
just doing his job. He was doinghis job, and he he had a little
bit of friction with PresidentHarrison, but President Harrison
actually backed him up like hewas like, yeah, yeah. I realize
he's a bull in a china shop, butyou know he's going the
distance. Well, with all of thatsaid, he his next move after he
finished on the Civil ServiceCommission was to become police

(21:36):
commissioner of New York. Now,again, lots of corruption going
on back then, and he was theperfect man for that, because he
didn't care. He wanted to justradically reform the police
force. He had regularinspections of firearms. He had
physical exams of the policeofficers to make sure they were
up to snuff. He recruited peoplebased on their qualifications,

(22:00):
not on their politicalaffiliation. He established the
idea of meritorious servicemedals. He had telephones
installed in station houses thatdidn't exist before him.
Technology, yeah, he's so he'skind of conservationist, but
also tech guy, yeah, and areformer. One of the things that

(22:20):
he would do is he would walk thepolice beats at night and early
in the morning to make sure thatthe policemen were actually
there on duty. He knew wherethey were supposed to be, and he
would walk around to see if hewere there. And He also fought
against bars and establishmentsbeing open on Sunday. You know,

(22:40):
remember that from theprohibition blue laws? Yep, he
was, he was a, he was anadvocate of the blue laws, not
for any moral thing. It wasjust, it was law. And he was
trying to, yeah, rules arerules. Man, yeah. Well, then
after he was New York CityPolice Commissioner, he became
secretary, oh, I'm sorry,Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
like Dwight Schrute,Assistant to the Secretary of

(23:04):
the Navy, I think the job is alittle more important. He
actually though had a lot ofsay, because the actual
Secretary of the Navy was kindof in poor health, and so he
left a lot of the decisions toRoosevelt. Remember I told you
earlier he had written this bookabout the war of 1812 and the US
Navy, and it still read there,well, Roosevelt actually got

(23:26):
more and more involved in theNavy and had a huge buildup of
naval strength. He made surethat the US built up
battleships, and eventually webecame second only to England
during during Roosevelt's later,during his presidency, we were
second, we were second only toEngland in naval strength,

(23:47):
which, if you think about, likethe Spanish Armada, and, you
know, France and all these othercountries that have been around
a lot longer. We we really builtit up. Yeah, we built it up. We,
you know, like it was likepumping iron for him. He also
believed that there were certainregions like the Caribbean and
Cuba, where we needed moredefense, and that there were

(24:11):
some hostile, possible host,hostile countries in there, like
Spain. And so he,he really wanted Cuba to be
neutral or independent fromSpain. He didn't like the fact
that Spain was was taking holdthere. So in 1898 there was an
explosion aboard a ship dockedin the harbor of Havana, the US

(24:34):
the USS Maine, it exploded. Theyin, you know, in hindsight, it
said it was probably anaccident. It was probably caused
by a boiler room or somethinglike that. But the American
government immediately blamedSpain. They said, this is
Spanish. This is Spain's fault.
You guys blew up our ship. Andso they tried to for a little

(24:59):
while. McKinley.
Three, the President tried tohave a diplomatic solution, but
Roosevelt was kind of gunningfor war. He wanted to kick
Spain's butt and get them out ofthere, out of Cuba
at that time. So I don't knowhow much you know about the
Spanish American War. Not much.
98 Yeah, I really thought whatyou just said, Well, yeah, this

(25:19):
ship was blown up. War wasdeclared on Spain, and mostly to
get them out of out of our theWestern Hemisphere, you know, to
get them out of our area.
Well, he resigned as theassistant secretary to the Navy,
and he actually volunteered aguy with, along with a guy named

(25:43):
Colonel Leonard Wood, who was aregular army guy, to start a
cavalry regiment. And you knowwhat their nickname became, the
Rough Riders. The Rough Riders,that's right, he was begged by
his wife and his family not to,not to do this. He had never
been in combat before. He'dnever been in the military. Was
a good he was a good horsebackrider. He's a good shot. You

(26:06):
know, he could fire a gun, andyou know, he was a rough, rough
and tough guy. But he had neverdone this. So apparently, it was
pretty common during the SpanishAmerican War for these volunteer
organizations to come togetherand fight alongside what they
called the army regulars. Youknow, people, just regular army
people. They trained in SanAntonio, Texas, and after

(26:28):
several weeks of training, theytook a ship down to Cuba. And
what's interesting about thisgroup of people, the Rough
Riders, they were not only,not only ex military people.
Some of them were Ivy Leagueeducated people. Some of them
were Native Americans. You know,they had native Native Americans

(26:49):
in the group. They had formersoldiers. They had athletes that
he had been friends with, youknow, boxers and football
players that that Roosevelt hadknown that joined he and this
guy, Leonard Wood, put an ad outasking for volunteers, and they
got too many volunteers, almostlike Shackleton when he was
going to the south. Sure. Yeah,yeah, that's everyone wanted to

(27:12):
be a part of the Rough Ridersand the and the nice thing was,
well, first of all, they didn'tcall themselves that. That was
something that was bestowed uponthem by the by the press, but
what a great name, right? Therecould have been a lot worse
names. So did you know thatthere's a minor league baseball
team in Frisco, Texas, justnorth of Dallas, and they are
called The Frisco Rough Riders,and their logo is Teddy

(27:35):
Roosevelt with a cowboy hat andlike a bandana scarf. Oh, nice
with the glasses and themustache, and that's their logo.
That's very cool. It's verycool. It's like an F with Teddy
Roosevelt's face on it. Nice.
Well, so they ended up goingdown into into Cuba, and they

(27:58):
had several charges, andactually they didn't have a lot
of horses, so Roosevelt was oneof the only people that got to
ride a horse. A lot of these menwere on foot, but, oh, as I was
saying before, it was a verydiverse group of people,
racially and, you know, fromeconomic backgrounds. But
according to the information andthe biographies and such about

(28:19):
Roosevelt, they really had a avery open relationship with all
these folks. Like it was one ofthese things where they all
bonded and they were all on acommon mission. They were
Americans first, and whateverelse they were second. So that
was kind of cool. They had a lotof success by taking on this
battle at kettle Hill was one ofthem. And there was also a

(28:41):
battle known as San Juanheights, and they were able to
force the Spanish to retreatfrom those positions. They were
pretty strategic positions onthe island.
So did all the battles of theSpanish American War take place
in Cuba?
That's a great question. I don'tthink anywhere in the US,
because I don't think Spain, Idon't think Spain ever attacked

(29:04):
mainland us, and I don't thinkwe ever attacked mainland Spain.
That wouldn't really make sense.
I think it was about the theislands down there that Spain
had a hold of and that we wanteda hold of, yeah, be like us
taking over Majorca, right? TheUS takes over Majorca, and they
are like, no, no, no, no, that'sour that's our vacation spot. So
digging in the Spanish AmericanWar didn't take place in Spain

(29:29):
or America, right? Well, that'swhat it was against that were,
those were the contenders. Well,that the battles were, you know,
they were, they were intense.
And there was a lot that, youknow, I don't want to just gloss
over. Gloss over it. And by theway, I'm going to tell everybody
I should have said this at theonset. Teddy Roosevelt, there's
a lot to cover, and so I'mtrying to go through things

(29:50):
quickly, but I'm going to leavesome things out, I'm sure. Let's
just know, you know this, theseare the highlights.
Let's just say that about everyepisode that we.
Every day we we should have adisclaimer. Yeah, we only have a
few minutes here, guys. We'renot trying to get give you
everything you need. We're gonnawet your appetite so you want to
go and learn more, that's good.
W, H, E, t sure. Yeah, wet,yeah. So I also was lectured by

(30:15):
Alex about not going too long onthis before we started, before
the tape starts rolling, Alexgives me all the all the rules.
He says, Don't call me out forlecturing you by the in the
episode, by the way, whateveryou do.
And Kelly says, Hey, man, JoeRogan goes three hours. Why

(30:36):
can't we go three hours? Right?
So after Roosevelt had thisbattle at San Juan heights. You
know this? This lasted for aperiod of time. I think it went
from July to August. He wasthere for two months or so. He
called it the greatest day ofhis life that that battle. And
he wanted to be called ColonelRoosevelt or the colonel,

(30:59):
or even Theodore, but he did notlike the name Teddy. And I think
you know how he got the name. Doyou? Do you want to give your
your idea of how he got it, andI can tell you if there's
anything I see differently asfar as what I learned,
I don't know how I mean,I thought just Teddy was a

(31:20):
nickname for Theodore. Oh, thenote, no, okay, I'm, I'm
actually talking about the teddybear. Yeah, I'm talking about
how the teddy bear came to benamed Teddy. Oh, I assumed that
was after Teddy Roosevelt. Itis. And it was probably because
the original, this is my guess.
I think original teddy bearsused to have glasses,

(31:44):
and people thought that that wasbecause Teddy Roosevelt had
glasses. But I'm bet, I'mbetting that your research has
shown that teddy bears existedbefore Teddy Roosevelt. And My
take is because teddy bearsdon't have mustaches, they
couldn't behave anything to do with and
they're not alive. They're notreal,

(32:06):
no. So actually, much of thatdid I get? Right? None of it.
None of it. So the nameoriginated from a incident. It
was the teddy bear came afterTeddy Roosevelt. So teddy bears
came after Teddy Roosevelt. Theywere because of him. He had gone
in 1902 to Mississippi. He wasinvited by the governor to go on

(32:26):
a hunting trip. They were goingto hunt for bears, American
black bears. And they were partof a large group of hunters who
were all competing, you know,whoever got the biggest animal
would win. I guess it's whatthey did back then. And so
they're going around. He's gothis his entourage with him.
Well, his entourage cornered,clubbed and tied a black bear to

(32:48):
a tree after it had been chasedby the hounds. And this was, by
the way, a cub. So it wasn'teven a full size bear. It was a
it was a bear cub. And whenRoosevelt got there, they
encouraged him to shoot it. Youknow, they were going to untie
it briefly and let him shoot itso that they could say, oh, he
killed a bear. Roosevelt said,Nope, I don't think that's

(33:09):
sporting. I think it'sunsportsmanlike to kill this
bear, or for me to shoot thisbear, but we should kill it
anyway, because you beat it sobadly that it's going to suffer.
So they, they ended up killingthe bear. But the The Washington
Post got a hold of this, and innovember of 1902 they published
a political cartoon that showedTeddy Roosevelt not killing the

(33:33):
bear, basically saying, No, Iwon't kill the bear. And that
led to the idea by this guynamed Morris Mick Tom, who saw
that cartoon, he owned a shop,and he put a
plush bear cub with glasses inthe window of his shop and

(33:54):
called it Teddy's bear, and soldthem. And it caught on with
bigger toy manufacturers andeventually became a whole thing.
So people did call him Teddy,then they called him Teddy.
Yeah, Teddy was not because ofteddy bears. He was he was
called Teddy, and he didn't. Hedidn't like that. I don't think
he minded teddy bears. I don'tthink he liked the name Teddy,
though. So tell me why thelingerie item the Teddy was

(34:19):
named after.
You know that never came up,that never came up. I mean, it
couldn't have been. I mean, hishoneymoon didn't probably
involve any teddies. Well, hewas out climbing mountains,
right? So I'm saying so, I'msaying so he's probably never
seen a teddy I don't even know.
I don't even know if that'sstill a thing. We'll have to do
some research. But then clearyour browser history. After you

(34:42):
do that research, you don'tthink that that Victoria Secret
sells Teddy's anymore. You thinkthey call it something else. Is
there even still Victoria'sSecret? Is that still a thing?
Okay, all right. Well, we'llfind out. We'll find out, but I
have no idea. But that's wherethe teddy bear.
Bear comes from? Was from thisincident in Mississippi where he

(35:03):
didn't shoot the bear. Andthat's an awful, graphic story.
If a kid asks you, Where doesthe name teddy bear come from? I
would skip that story aboutwell, or maybe just tell him
that Roosevelt didn't, didn'tshoot the bear himself. But say
the word himself after the kidsalready left, Roosevelt didn't
shoot the bear, and then wait,kid walks out of the room. You
say himself right? Because itwas bad, because it was because

(35:26):
it had been clubbed so badly. Sohe ended up after this, this
thing with the Rough Riders, hedecided to run for governor of
New York, and he wanted to dothis in cooperation with the
political machine to somedegree, because he had to, you

(35:47):
know, they in order to get thenomination, he had to, he had to
cooperate to some degree. Buthe, you know, he was a reformer
at heart. He ended up winningthe governorship of New York by
1% it was that close. And thisis where he talked about one of
the first times he mentioned theidea of the square deal. So the

(36:09):
square deal was mentioned in afew cases, one time where he was
negotiating with labor, but hesaid in this case, the rules
were, if he was going to begovernor, that he had to have
honesty in public affairs. Hehad to be equitable and his
society in New York, people inNew York, had to be equitable in

(36:31):
the sharing of privileges andresponsibility, and he had to
subordinate the party, theRepublican party to the
interests of the people in thestate. Wow. Morals first, yeah,
we could use some of that.
Always. Keep that in mind,folks, if you run for office,

(36:52):
Square Deal.
He was one of the first peopleto ever do a press conference,
really. Yeah, he did that, bothas a as a governor as well as as
the president. I guess hiselectronic media was just
starting then. Well,no, it had more to do with he
saw the value of letting thepress in and tell their story.

(37:15):
He wanted to be in the news. Hewanted and he also kind of,
apparently, there was a timewhen he was president. This was
later he wasn't president foranother several years after he
was governor, but there was atime when he actually let the
press in because they were allstanding out on the White House

(37:36):
lawn, and he let them come infrom the cold, and he actually
gave them a room. He said, We'llgive you a room, and that's how
the modern press room, pressbriefing room, came to be.
That room is very small. Haveyou ever heard? Have you ever
heard or seen that? I have onlyseen, you know, from from press
conferences. It doesn't lookthat small, but maybe it's
smaller than it looks. Yeah,they say it's like Mission
Control at NASA that it muchsmaller. Areas, very tiny. Yeah,

(37:59):
I think it's only about 10chairs across. Oh, wow, that's
why it always looks so crowded.
Yeah, I just crowded. Well, hedid things as governor like he
pushed the franchise tax bill.
He made sure thatcompanies who were actually
doing business in the state,paid taxes to help with the

(38:22):
infrastructure that allowed themto do business, you know. And
this is kind of getting intosome politics here.
New York, at the time, was themost populous state in the
union, and so he had a lot ofresponsibility. I mean, if you
think about it today, being thegovernor of New York or
California is a lot differentthan being the governor of
Montana or New Mexico, right?
Sure, no offense to Montana orNew Mexico, but just fewer

(38:46):
people. Yeah.
He then was asked to run forvice president, to be nominated
because vice president GarrettHobart died and
Garret Hobart had beenthe vice president under

(39:10):
McKinley, and when he died, theyput Roosevelt on the ticket. He
won, he and McKinley won, and hewas bored. He actually really
hated being vice presidentbecause he felt like there
wasn't a whole lot to it. He didthat for a short period of time,
and then on September 6, 1901McKinley was assassinated in

(39:33):
Buffalo New York. And when hewas actually, I should say, he
was shot in Buffalo New York. Hesurvived.
Roosevelt came back to see him.
He seemed to be getting better,and then he took a turn for the
worse and died. And that madeRoosevelt president, wow, his
first, his first time in office,wasn't through election. It was

(39:54):
well, he was elected as vicepresident, but he took over for.
McKinley, and what year wasthat? That was in 1901
when he became president inseptember of 1901 one of the
things he did that was prettyinnovative for the time I had
mentioned earlier aboutnominating a person of color to

(40:17):
the Republican conventionschair. He invited Booker T
Washington to the White House.
Oh, right, which was prettyradical at the time, and
certainly ticked off a lot ofpeople in the segregated south.
He ended up he had dinner withBooker T Washington, and that

(40:38):
made such a stink among peoplewho you know shouldn't,
shouldn't have made a stink, butdid, and he decided to stay
friendly with Booker T but onlyin business appointments rather
than dinner. I think that's whatticked the southern is off, was
that they let a black man sit atthe table

(40:58):
so but good on good on TeddyRoosevelt for doing that, right,
of course, man, and probably waymore interesting to have dinner
with than any of those. It'sprobably usually I would, I
would agree, just speculating.
But he, he became a trustbuster. I think we talked a
little bit about the ShermanAntitrust Act and how that broke

(41:19):
up Standard Oil yeah, see theRockefeller Rockefeller episode.
For that one, he actually duringhis presidency, he brought 44
antitrust lawsuits to you knowabout he enforced 44 antitrust
antitrust suits during thepresidencies of the three

(41:41):
predecessors. That's BenjaminHarris, Grover, Cleveland and
William McKinley. They had 18combined. He did 44 by himself,
and they did six each. So youcould see he was definitely a
trust buster. Yeah, for sure.
Not a Ghostbuster. No. He, as Imentioned before, he was part of
a labor dispute with the coalminers in in the US 1902 and

(42:06):
this was another place where hetalked about a square deal. He
said my action on labor shouldalways be considered in
connection with my action asregards to capital, as regards
capital, and both are reductibleto my favorite formula, a square
a square deal for every man.
So he was on the labor side, orhe was just trying, trying to

(42:27):
negotiate, or he was able tostrike a balance. He he said, I
mean, that's the point of thatquote. Is he saying it's in
connection with regards tocapital, meaning capital, as in
commerce and money. So he'strying to strike a balance
between the growth of the nationand the things that need to
happen, the labor that needs tobe done, the money that needs to
be generated, along with theactual workers. And so it's one

(42:52):
of those things where it soundslike he was probably hated by
both sides, yeah, but I think hesaw it as what was the most
fair. He was actually the firstpresident to settle a labor
dispute. Wow. You know, peoplethat put morals first and their
principles First are usuallyhated by both sides. That's
true. That's true. So what theykind of say sometimes is a

(43:13):
compromise is, you know, bothsides, if both sides are
unhappy, then you've got a goodcompromise, right?
Yeah, something like that.
Although you and I, you know, wehad our time today. We had it
set for one thing. There wasanother time suggested we met in
the middle, and here we are,dude, yeah,
you're just, I'm I'm likeRoosevelt, and you're like
McKinleywithout getting shot, right? He

(43:34):
also reformed the US railroadsthrough a thing called the
Hepburn Hepburn Act, he was oneof the first people to actually
look for Pure Food and Drugs.
You know, with the eventual FDAthat came out of his original
Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,a lot of people were opposed to

(43:57):
it because it was sort of antibusiness. You know, we didn't
want government meddling in thefood and drugs. But the book the
jungle, which came out in 1906really galvanized support. Upton
Sinclair, you ever read thatbook? Oh, man, I really think
about the book a lot, actually.
Oh yeah, that's that's a awful,awful

(44:19):
tale of the way things used tobe in this country, and I think
it changed. I think it changedthe world, and influenced
Roosevelt to have the guts toput out this Pure Food and Drug
Act, which again, the easiestthing to do, because his cronies
would be against it, becausethey, you know, the money comes
from these companies, would benot to do it. But he established

(44:40):
the United States ForestService. He signed the creation
of five national parks. Hesigned the 1906 Antiquities Act,
where they proclaimed 18 USnational monuments. He
established bird sanctuaries for51
Different bird sanctuaries, heestablished four game preserves

(45:04):
and 150national forests. Wow. You
wonder what this country wouldbe like if he hadn't come
around, if somebody like himhadn't come around, if there
would just be hotels on thosespots, and if there wouldn't be
national parks, and if there wasnobody to champion those areas
and kind of keep them preserved,you wonder 100 years later what

(45:25):
things would look like,probably, probably not as
pristine as they do in a lot ofplaces today. Yeah, and we've
certainly screwed a lot of stuffup and over developed in a lot
of areas, but at least we havethose things that I think are
pretty, pretty much established.
You know, I think it would takea lot to overturn any of that. I
mean, of course, there'spolitical, you know,

(45:46):
conversation on both sides aboutdrill, baby, drill, and all that
sort of thing, but sellingnational land, yeah? Well, he
was unapologetic about it, andat the end of his tenure, he had
230 million acres that he hadpreserved
that's a lot, you know, smallpart of the country, but still
much better than than, I think,what people had done before

(46:09):
that. Of course, it was also, aswe modernized and technology got
better, and more and morefactories and cars and all that
sort of thing, it was becoming abigger problem right before
that, maybe there wasn't a needfor it as much, yeah, and but we
are also, we were also expandingwestward into some of those
areas that where a lot of thosenational parks exist now too, a

(46:32):
lot of them are in the West.
That's right. That's right.
Well, he also was involved in apeace negotiation between Japan
and Russia, and thatconversation won him the Nobel
Prize.
Essentially, there was someconcern from Japan and Russia

(46:53):
about annexation of places like,Well, we actually annexed Hawaii
right in 1898 and there was alot of conversation about the
Philippines and who shouldcontrol that? And you know, it
was one of those things whereRoosevelt was able to
successfully negotiatea truce between Japan and

(47:14):
Russia, which I think is prettycool. He also was a major driver
behind the Panama Canal. Did youknow that
that's great, that was all. Butyou know what it was done in the
in the why it was done?
National security? Oh, sure,sure. And it was a naval thing.

(47:38):
It enabled us to get ships fromone ocean to the other much more
quickly, which gave us a bigadvantage. As a matter of fact,
there was a lot of concern aboutthe presence of other countries
in Latin America at the time,and the US really wanted to make
sure that we could have thatcanal built. Well, it was

(47:59):
something where they werelooking at putting it through a
couple of different places. Theywere actually talking about
Nicaragua at one point. And atthe time, Panama was actually
part of Columbia. Well,Roosevelt supported some
Panamanian rebels, you know,kind of on the down low. I don't
know how this was done, butPanama became its own country,

(48:21):
because Roosevelt gave them theability to break away from
Colombia, and then that enabledus to build the canal there.
Now, so is that not the thinnestpart of Central America? I think
there were a couple of placesthat would have worked, but yes,
I think it probably it was theoptimal place to make the canal.
He was the first president tomake a trip out of continental

(48:46):
US on a diplomatic mission,which is what he did when he
went to Panama and Puerto Ricoin 1906
and he very much was seen asnegotiating that deal with
Panama very well, because it iteven though we gave them a lot
of money and a lot of technologyand a lot of things that helped
them out, it really establishedus as a dominant naval force in

(49:11):
the Western Hemisphere. Becauseof that pass through. Otherwise,
you got to go all the wayaround, right? You got to go all
the way down and around,yeah, for sure.
Well, this was, you know, kindof 1906 1907 he his second term
in office was started in 1904and he didn't have the kind of

(49:31):
support in the second term ashe'd have in the first term. He
was kind of considered a lameduck because he said he wasn't
going to run for a third term. Idon't think there was a rule or
a protocol or an amendment atthat time that said he couldn't,
but he said, you know, in theinterest of not being a
dictator, I will not run for athird term. Well, he picked out

(49:52):
Taft to be his I think WilliamHoward Taft to be his successor.
That's who he was. Friends.
Taft. They he had been RooseveltSecretary of War, and Taft was
kind of a made man. He wasfighting against Williams,
William Jennings Bryant, who wasthe Democrat, and Taft ended up

(50:17):
winning the election. But thenit turned out he wasn't nearly
as good of a politician or anegotiator as Roosevelt had
been, and really kind offell out of favor with most of
the Republicans, as well asRoosevelt himself.
So it was, it was one of thosethings where he, you know, he

(50:37):
thought he could trust Taft todo what he wanted, but he
didn't. So after leaving officein 1909 he went on safari, and
he did that in under the thesort of umbrella of the
Smithsonian. So believe it ornot, a lot of the
artifacts in the Smithsonianwere brought back by expedition

(51:01):
from Theodore Roosevelt. So theSmithsonian already existed. The
Smithsonian existed. And AndrewCarnegie was behind a lot of the
financing of this. He paid for,he paid for this expedition to
put all these artifacts into theSmithsonian in Washington, DC.

(51:22):
Now, they went to East Africa.
They traveled to the Congo. Theywent up the Nile, and they ended
up in what's today, Suzanne,Sudan, this group. It was a
large group. It was a hugeexpedition, you know, lots and
lots of people. Just take aguess how many specimens they
brought back that were eithertrapped or killed. Just, just
give me a number, man,especially a taxidermist like

(51:44):
that.
Oh, man, they probably broughtback. I don't know 100 higher.
I don't know 211,400 Wow, 11,400it seems excessive. Well, you

(52:04):
know, it included 1000 largeanimals, 512 512 big game
animals, six rare white rhinos.
So maybe like, yeah, likeelephants and rhinos and
giraffes and everything, all ofthat, all of that, and also

(52:24):
moles and and insects andhippopotamus to bring to the
Smithsonian dead. They weresalted carcasses and skins when
they were sent to Washington.
But here's what Roosevelt had tosay. Here's what he had to say,
let's let's hear what he had tosay for himself, I can be
condemned only if the existenceof the National Museum, the

(52:44):
American Museum of History, ofNatural History, and all similar
zoological institutions are alsocondemned.
Well,he's got a point. I mean, a lot
of those have live animalsthough.
Well, I mean, we're talkingabout museums, not zoos. Well,

(53:06):
you said the zoological Well, Ithink zoological, yeah, that's
okay, fair, but showing adinosaur is different than
showing an elephant that wasjust minding his own business.
Yeah? Yeah. I agree. Maybe11,000 was excessive. But
apparently, all of thoseanimals, or a vast majority of
them, did end up in some placewhere people could see them, you

(53:29):
know. And okay, did wecontribute? You can look at it
in one hand. Did he contributeto the extinction of these
animals, or did he preserve themfor humans to gawk at and and
study and study, right? Allright. Well, we'll get off that
soapbox. Yeah, yeah, complicatedman. So he comes back from his

(53:52):
Safari, and he he chills out alittle bit, but he realizes that
Taft has gone in a direction hedoesn't like, and he knows, he
said, I won't run for a thirdterm, but what he meant was a
third consecutive term. So heends up running for president
again. He said, I'm really sorryfor Taft. I'm sure he means
well, but he means well feebly.
He does not know how he isutterly unfit for leadership,

(54:17):
and this is a time when we needleadership. So he said, If the
people make a draft of me, Ishall not decline to serve in
1912 so the people made a draftof him, but the problem was,
Taft got theTaft got the Republican
nomination, so that wasn'tavailable to him. He was, he was
relegated to a third party.

(54:42):
Well, he's out, you know, he'sgonna split the Republicans.
He's gonna do this thing. He'sgonna run. And while he was
campaigning in Milwaukee, hegets shot by a shopkeeper. This
guy shoots a bullet into hischest, penetrates his eyeglass
case. Fortunately, he.
A folded, 50 page copy of hisspeech in his jacket, and that's

(55:05):
what saved him. This was calledprogressive cross greater than
any individual. Was the name ofthe speech.
Well, good thing, it was 50pages. Well, it did go into his
chest and it but it was sloweddown enough that it was actually
lodged and Roosevelt, because hehad experience with hunting and

(55:25):
that sort of thing. He knew thatif he wasn't coughing blood, it
hadn't reached his lung, and sohe knew he could survive after
he shot. First of all, he saysto the crowd, don't hurt this
man, because they were gonnathey were gonna murder him right
there. They were gonna stringhim up, but he says, don't hurt
this man. Had the police takehim away, and then he gets up

(55:45):
and gives a 90 minute speechafter he's just been shot. That
is being a badass.
That is the definition ofbadass, right there. So he
finally finishes his speech, hegoes to the hospital. Turns out
that it lodged in his muscle,and the doctor said, You know
what, we're not even going totake this bullet out, because it

(56:07):
would do more harm than good toremove the bullet. So he lived
with that bullet in his chestthe rest of his life. You know,
if I get shot before one ofthese podcast episodes, I
probably reschedule. No, ifyou're coughing up blood, you
can reschedule. But if you'renot coughing up blood you had to
go on. I hope you have a I hopeyou have an eyeglass case and 50
page notes in your pocket,though.

(56:30):
Yeah. So always, there was some,there was some discussion about
whether he was fit to run.
And the doctor said, or maybehe, no, I know what it was. He
said to a reporter, I'm as fitas a bull moose. And that is
where they got the name BullMoose Party, this third party,

(56:51):
which was progressive, they hadthe symbol of the bull moose.
And he spent two weeksrecuperating, and he ended up
running for president, and hegot 27% of the vote. Taft got
23% of the vote, so they splitthe party. Woodrow Wilson got
42% of the vote and won theelection.

(57:15):
So he decides again, what's hegoing to do after this? He's
going to travel. He goes toLatin America, South America,
and he's going to go down thereand do a research expedition.
They're they're canoeing,they're in they're in boats, and
some of the boats had actuallybroken free, and we're going to
smash against some rocks. Sowhat does this guy do? He jumps

(57:37):
in the water, tries to save theboat, smashes his leg, ends up
getting a flesh wound, nothingmajor, but guess what? It gets
infected. He gets tropicalfever, and he is sick as a dog,
and to the point where he saysto the rest of the rest of the
crew that's with him, includinghis son. His son's name was

(57:58):
Kermit, he says, Guys, I'm gonnajust kill myself with morphine.
You guys, go on. He was ready todo that. He was ready to ingest
a bunch of morphine, die and letthem continue. But they said no,
especially his son. You know, heloved his son. His son loved
him, and he didn't. So he gotback home, but at that point he
had lost, I think he lost like40 or 50 pounds because of the

(58:21):
sickness, and he actually saidthat he had cut 10 years off of
his own life, like he said thatto a friend, and it ended up
being true. Wow, for the restof his life, he had a lot of
problems with flare ups fromthat will illness. Well, World
War One comes along in 1914 hesupported the allies. He wanted

(58:42):
to be harsh against Germany. Hewas very interested in, like,
what they were doing submarines.
And felt like that was, youknow, unfair and unjust because,
but because we had a big navy.
Obviously, we were able to dosome good things in World War
Two or not good things. But, youknow, win the fight. He got
sicker and sicker, and in 1919,he was having breathing

(59:05):
problems. And apparently hislast words were to the family
servant, James Amos, and hesaid, put that light out, James.
Or please, put the light out,James. And then he died.
And when he died, one of hissons, Archibald, telegraphed his

(59:26):
siblings and said, the old lionis dead. Oh, man. How old was
he?
Let's see that was 1919,and he was born in,
he was born in 1858,so doing a little quick math
here 1971 see that oldbe be 42 plus 1961 i.

(01:00:00):
Yeah, 6161yeah, not, not a very, not a
very old dude. You know, there'speople that lived, but talking
about a big life, right? So, hewas Eleanor Roosevelt's uncle,
right? Yes, yes, he was EleanorRoosevelt's uncle, and Franklin
Delano was like a distantcousin, yeah, so because they,

(01:00:20):
you know, they were kissingcousins, as we know. But he was
so like his, who, who'swhose daughter was Eleanor
Roosevelt, like his, one of hissiblings daughters, yes, I
believe so.
He obviously big, big presence.
And one of the things too, hewas often about the strenuous

(01:00:43):
life. Like I said, he reallywanted people to push
themselves. As a matter of fact,he was very into watching
football. And I don't know ifyou know this, but in the early
1900s football was very violent.
People died, people got maimed.
People got, you know, and it's,it's, we had this whole
controversy in a in a gamerecently, I won't mention the

(01:01:06):
game, but you know which one I'mtalking about, with targeting,
whether it was targeting or not.
And I remember sitting therewith my nephew, my daughter, my
son, and my wife, and talkingabout how, when we were younger,
you and I, you know, the host ofthe show that was just called a
good hit, right? I mean, but I'mnot, I like, I like the fact
that we're trying to be safer.
Butironically, this guy who, sort

(01:01:29):
of, you know, didn't like peopleto be wimps, he wanted them to
be have the strenuous life. Hedid actually encourage the
Harvard and Yale football teamsand some of the more famous
football teams at that time, totalk to their players about
playing fair, about playingclean, and to not hurting each
other so that they wouldn't haveso many violent injuries. Yeah,

(01:01:52):
they were talking people woulddie during games. I think you
said that, but they were talkingabout banning football back
then. Yes, yes. I think there'sactually a movie called or a
short film, or a Vox orsomething, because this is how I
found this out, called How, howTheodore Roosevelt saved
football. So might be somethingworth watching. He also was

(01:02:12):
famous for the saying, Speaksoftly and carry a big stick,
yeah, which has been translatedand spoke all over the place.
He's on Mount Rushmore. He's thesecond one from the right, along
with George Washington,Jefferson and Lincoln. Lot of
people kind of, I think he's notquite as famous as those other
three guys, I don't think to thegeneral public, but to me, it

(01:02:34):
seems like just even him, havingdone the the the parks, you
know, being such a big part ofthe preservation it's sort of
fitting for him to be on theside of a mountain, right? I
agree, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Several warships named afterhim, stamps, all of those, you
know, honors have been bestowedupon him. And what's I'll leave

(01:02:57):
you with this, which I think ispretty cool, he was actually one
of the very first presidents, orhe was the first president.
Maybe he wasn't the first, butone of the first presidents to
have their voice recorded, andso you can actually listen to
some of his speeches that wererecorded and hear his actual
voice. Oh, that's cool, yeah. Sonext time you're clutching your

(01:03:18):
teddy bear late at night andyou're camping in a national
park, or you're looking at yourtaxidermy lion, or if you're in
Africa and wonder why there's noanimals left.
Thanks, Teddy.
All right. Hope you enjoyed it.
Happy 2025 everybody. We'relooking forward to an awesome
season.

(01:03:40):
The great fundamental issue now,before our people can be taken
it is, are the American peoplefit to govern themselves, to
rule themselves, to controlI believe they are. My aborts,
do not I believe in the right ofthe people. I believe that the
majority of the plain people ofthe United States will, day in
and day out, make sure mistakesin governing themselves than any

(01:04:03):
smaller class or body of men, nomatter what their training will
make in trying to govern. Ibelieve, again, that the
American people are, as a whole,capable of self control and of
learning by their mistakes. Ouropponents, they lift lawyers to
this doctrine, but they showtheir real beliefs by the way in
which they champion every deviceto make the nominal rule of the

(01:04:25):
people a sham.
I am not leading this fight as amatter of esthetic pleasure. I
am leading because somebody mustlead or else the fight would not
be made at all.
I prefer to work with moderates,with rational conservatives,
provided only that they do ingood faith, strive forward

(01:04:46):
towards the lack but when theyFalcon turn their backs to the
right fit. Mr. Scorners on thepiece of reaction that I must
pass company with, we the peoplecannot turn that or a must be
steady wise from.
It would be well if all peoplewould study the history of the
crystal all the woes of Francefor a century in a warrant had

(01:05:07):
been used to the polygamoussplitting into the two camps of
unreasonable conservatism andunreasonable radicalism. Had
free revolutionary Francelistened to men like Durga and
backed them up, all would havegone well, but the beneficiaries
of privileged the formerreactionaries, the short sighted
Ultra conservatives, turned outto go then found that instead of

(01:05:29):
him, they had obtained from hisfamily, they gained 20 years
freedom from all restraint andreform at the cost of the
whirlwind of the Red Terror. Andin there turned the unbridled
extremists of andera in use ofblind reactions, and so with
convulsion and oscillation fromone extreme to another, with
alternations of violentradicalism and violence,

(01:05:49):
urbanism, the French people wentthrough misery. God, a shattered
soul.
May we profit, but theexperiences of our brother
Republicans across the water andgo forward steadily avoiding all
wild extremes. They are ultraconservatives. Remember that the
rule of the forbids thrown onthe revolution. They are would
be revolutionaries. Rememberthat no bourbon was ever such a

(01:06:11):
dangerous enemy of the peopleunder freedom as a professed
friend of both rubbish there.
There is no danger of arevolution in this country that
there is grave, it's content andunrent, and in order to remove
them, there is need of all thewisdom and property and peace he
gives faith in and service workwith humanity. We have in our
command,friends, our task as Americans
is to strive for social andindustrial justice achieved

(01:06:35):
through the genuine rule of thisis our end, our purpose, the
methods for achieving the end,the merely experience to be
finally accepted or rejected,according as actual experience
shows that they work well loyal.
But in our hearts, we must havethis lofty purpose with the
strive for it in all earnestnessand sincerity for our work.

(01:06:55):
Welcome to them. In order tosucceed, we need leaders of
inspired idealism leaders towhom are granted great vision,
who dream greatly and strive tomake their dreams come true, who
can kindle the people that thefire from their own brain.
The leader for the time being,whoever he may be, is but an
instrument refused until brokenand dead, can be cast as I and

(01:07:18):
if he is worthy assault, he willcare no more when he is broken
and a soldier cares where he issent, where his life is profit
in order. That's a victory in 81in the long fight for
righteousness. The watch world,for all of us, is spending.