“Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt”, by Aida D. Donald

 

304 pages, Basic Books, ISBN-13: 978-0465010240

I knew I had to be wary of Aida D. Donald’s take on Ole Teddy in her biography Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt when, in her Introduction, she praised Roosevelt for his Big Government Interventionist views:

 

Roosevelt was the only progressive president in the history of the Republican Party [Thank God]. In fact, Roosevelt’s presidency was one of the great forward, or progressive, era in the nation’s history as a whole. His party never again reached such heights in advanced legislation or in the care of the people. No Republican president since had embraced the idea of creating, through active government, the greatest good for the greatest number of people [I repeat, Thank God].

Herein is one of the issues with this book, as Donald takes for granted that bigger government is better government, that increasing the size and scope of the Federal bureaucracy in everyone’s lives by definition is good and necessary and that isn’t it a damn shame that more Republicans didn’t follow in Teddy’s footsteps in doing so. But that is, perhaps, the least of one’s concerns with her bio. At a mere 304 pages, Lion in the White House is, at best, an overview of the life of this colossal personality.

But I still had a lot of “Whys?” that were unanswered as I read the book. As an example, upon returning from the Spanish-American War Roosevelt flirted with the idea of running for governor of New York, an idea that his wife Edith did not relish, but she eventually changed her mind. Why? Don’t know, as Donald never tells us. One day she was opposed and the next she was on board. One would think that if her opposition was important enough to mention in the first place then her ultimate acquiescence is equally important.

Also, while the book is filled with excerpts from Roosevelt’s letters and speeches, some of his best quotes are inexplicably left out. For instance, his 1915 speech to the NYC Knights of Columbus where he dismisses “hyphenated Americans” is not so much as mentioned, nor is his declaration that “[i]t takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose” after the assassination attempt on him during the 1912 presidential campaign. Two of the best quotes in American political history don’t even get a reference in a biography on the man who uttered them.

Not a bad overview, mind, but a book that leaves you wanting to know more about its subject (whether that means I must at last tackle Edmund Morris’ trilogy on the man remains to be seen). If that was Donald’s intent than mission accomplished, but I somehow suspect that no author wishes to merely be the impetus to read further on a subject; they wish to be the principle source of knowledge on the same, and in that case, then she failed miserably. Still a good intro to the life and times of one Theodore Roosevelt Jr., however.