Dead Presidents
By Anthony Bergen
E-Mail: bergen.anthony@gmail.com
On the night of March 18, 1917, several hundred Republican leaders gathered in the Union League Club in New York City. With German U-boats engaging in unrestricted warfare and sinking American ships on the high seas despite United States neutrality in World War I, the Republicans demanded that President Woodrow Wilson declare war against Kaiser Wilhelm II’s belligerent empire, infuse fresh warriors into the stagnant European war, and prove that the U.S. was a truly international power that was only getting stronger in the midst of the American Century.
After the meeting, three of the nation’s most influential and powerful Republicans sat down to dinner in a nearby cafe. Charles Evans Hughes was a former New York Governor, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and had narrowly lost the 1916 Presidential election to President Wilson four months earlier in one of the closest elections in American history. Theodore Roosevelt was also a former New York Governor, had served as President from 1901-1909, and his third party challenge for the Presidency in 1912 had split the GOP, sabotaged the re-election chances of his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, and ensured Wilson’s first Presidential election victory. Elihu Root, 72, had stepped away from the Senate two years earlier, had previously served as Roosevelt’s Secretary of War and then Secretary of State, and was frequently mentioned as a potential Presidential contender.
As they discussed the crisis at hand and envisioned American entry into the war, Roosevelt — a vicious critic of President Wilson, who disliked TR just as strongly — passionately spoke of his hope to lead American soldiers into battle in Europe much like he had done nearly 20 years earlier with the Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. At 58 years old, Roosevelt was overweight, nearly deaf, blind in one eye, and had never fully recovered from a near-fatal bought of malaria that he contracted during a seven-month-long expedition in unexplored jungles of Brazil a couple of years earlier. Partly due to his age, but mostly due to their contentious relationship, it was unlikely that President Wilson would grant Roosevelt his wish. But with tears welling in his eyes and his voice breaking, the former President told Hughes and Root how badly he hoped to serve his country one last time. ”I must go,” said Roosevelt, “but I will not come back.”
Roosevelt’s emotional declaration dramatically silenced his fellow Republican statesmen at the table. Hughes, who would later become Secretary of State and then Chief Justice of the United States, solemnly looked at Roosevelt (who had once said that the sober, reticent Hughes was a “bearded iceberg”) without saying anything. It was Root, who had served in Roosevelt’s Cabinet throughout almost all of TR’s Presidency, who finally spoke up.
“Theodore, if you can make Wilson believe that you will not come back, he will let you go!”
tdperrin Asks:
deadpresidents Said:
Awesome job working the plug in there for Tributes and Trash Talk!
I’ve always found the JQA/Jefferson relationship fascinating. Obviously, the John Adams/Thomas Jefferson relationship is one of the most historic and interesting dynamics ever, especially since a lot of it is recorded through their letter to each other or about each other to others.
With JQA, though, what is interesting is that there was a great respect between them and must have been some sort of affection because John Adams, in one of his last letters to Jefferson, half-jokingly referred to JQA, who was President at that point, as “our John” and said that “I call him our John, because, when you were at the Cul de sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine.”
Like you said, there must have been some animosity on JQA’s part because Jefferson defeated his father. George W. Bush openly admitted to feeling the same way after Bill Clinton beat HIS father for the Presidency. Yet, there were many things that JQA and Jefferson agreed on politically and Jefferson’s protege, James Monroe, was half-mentor, half-partner to John Quincy Adams when Monroe was President and JQA was Secretary of State. Most interesting to me is that, in his personal diary shortly after Jefferson died, JQA eviscerated Jefferson while savagely critiquing Jefferson’s autobiography. It’s a strange relationship - more of a rollercoaster ride, in my opinion, than the off-and-on relationship between JQA’s father and Jefferson.
TR was an especially brutal critic of Jefferson. It’s kind of ironic that the incredibly wealthy Roosevelt saw Jefferson as something of an elitist. I think Roosevelt’s biggest issue was he despised hypocrites and he saw Jefferson as one of the most glaring hypocrites of them all because of slavery. There’s also the fact that Roosevelt looked down on men who didn’t fight when there was a battle to be joined. As Governor of Virginia, Jefferson fled when it appeared the British were on their way to capture him, and Roosevelt saw that as cowardice — even though Jefferson probably couldn’t have lasted 60 seconds in a battle in which he would have been vastly outnumbered by the British and likely would have been summarily executed for treason if he had been captured. Jefferson, as head of government in Virginia, made the right move by fleeing, but Roosevelt couldn’t forgive that or see it as anything but weakness.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
26th President of the United States (1901-1909)
Full Name: Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Born: October 27, 1858, 28 East 20th Street, New York City, New York
Term: September 14, 1901-January 20, 1909
Political Party: Republican
Vice President: Charles Warren Fairbanks
Died: January 6, 1919, Sagamore Hill estate, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York
Buried: Young’s Memorial Cemetery, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York
Theodore Roosevelt is one of those Presidents that you know is great, but very few people can name specific accomplishments that occurred during the Roosevelt Administration. TR, despite being a bombastic leader, guided the country through a relatively peaceful, prosperous time and helped calm the country in the wake of President McKinley’s assassination even though he was the youngest President in history. Because of his personality, Roosevelt helped expand American influence and power, and was something like a promoter for the American brand as this country became the great power of the 20th Century. TR’s Progressive shift modernized industry, politics, civil rights, and immediately made the 20th Century seem like an advanced time, even in comparison to the 1890s. Building the Panama Canal and mediating the peace talks between Japan and Russia (which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize) expanded American influence just as much as the Great White Fleet. Where would TR be on this list if he had never made the pledge not to run in 1908? It would have changed a lot of things, and possibly put TR in office as World War I broke out rather than Woodrow Wilson.
PREVIOUS RANKINGS:
1948: Schlesinger Sr./Life Magazine: 7 of 29
1962: Schlesinger Sr./New York Times Magazine: 7 of 31
1982: Neal/Chicago Tribune Magazine: 4 of 38
1990: Siena Institute: 5 of 40
1996: Schlesinger Jr./New York Times Magazine: 6 of 39
2000: C-SPAN Survey of Historians: 4 of 41
2000: C-SPAN Public Opinion Poll: 3 of 41
2005: Wall Street Journal/Presidential Leadership: 5 of 40
2009: C-SPAN Survey of Historians: 4 of 42
2010: Siena Institute: 2 of 43
2011: University of London’s U.S. Presidency Centre: 5 of 40
Anonymous Asks:
deadpresidents Said:
For the longest time, I thought it was “Ruse-a-velt” because many historians say that we’ve pronounced it incorrectly. However, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt both pronounced it as “Rose-a-velt”, so I’m going to stick with the way they do it. I know that if someone told me, “You’re pronouncing your name wrong”, I would strongly disagree. I’ll go with TR’s pronunciation.
