I’m not a political person. I don’t like politics. In my heart I wonder why people deliberately seek out a life that is the near occasion of being shady. Maybe it’s an attempt at chivalry. How much dragon fire can I endure before I succumb?
I wonder if this is what the clever child sees? Are astute children who read wonderful stories of genuinely virtuous people able to turn to TV and watch the frightful assaults made by smiling candidates and see the tarnish on the shields?
In order to understand why someone I admire would go into politics, I’ve started reading biographies of the presidents beginning with the Teddy Roosevelt biographies by Morris.
What I’ve discovered is a magnificent man who not only sought a life of political power, but was in fact a genuine and brilliant knight dedicated like Lancelot to the nation, but unlike Lancelot, he kept all his promises. But it all had to start someplace, and it started in his youth.
Teddy Roosevelt was extraordinarily hyperactive which amuses me to no end. It was obvious by page ten that this child was a ten count hyperactive, a mezomorph whose natural bodily ailments he would not only numbly ignore, but scorn with unusual bravery.
His graying asthma, which nearly killed him on several occasions, was disregarded in favor of twenty mile hikes, mountain climbs and freezing swims in icy rivers and streams. His father once made him inhale cigar smoke to calm his asthma. Then there were the chronic bouts of something he called moribundus. He had chronic diarrhea all his life.
At one point, his father told him that he had a superior mind, but his body was a shambles and needed remaking. So at the ripe age of about fifteen he began to rebuild his body. He put himself to the constant test as many hyperactives do, and enjoyed the spirit of physical endurance.
As President of the United States, Theodore would play a game he called Single Sticks or bats. He and a friend would go at each other with bats with the intent to do bodily harm. He often went to receiving lines limping and unable to use his right arm to shake hands.
At one point, he had a huge infectious mass removed from his leg without any anesthetic. This was done between speeches and other engagements. Just one of many things he did during that particular day.
As a child, he was constantly dragging dead things into his home and performing taxidermy on them. He had more mummies than Egypt. There was always a dead creature on his dresser and its entrails in his drawer. The Roosevelts had trouble keeping hired help.
Theodore had difficulty with people. He was too direct. Hyperactive people often are, and because they have force behind the action, they are often feared. He could be brutally honest and because he was always aimed in a single direction, he came across as a freight train barreling through other men’s ideas with a clarity that was almost frightening.
As a child, Theodore was an avid reader. He read voraciously throughout his life in English, French, and German. The extraordinary discipline it took to do this is astounding.
His love of nature and his ability to think allowed him to publish his first science work in his teens. Theodore published one book after another all his life.
As I read the last of three books on Teddy Roosevelt, by Morris, I am stunned by the immense production of this man’s life. He was a main participant in the Mexican American War; he was a Nobel Prize winner; he was the man who first set National wilderness lands aside for our posterity; he built the Panama Canal; he was President of the United States; he provided the specimens for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural Science; he fathered six children; most of what he wrote was published – just to list the top of the mountain of things he achieved.
Comparing Theodore Roosevelt and the politicians we now have is no comparison, but it does allow this reader to understand more about the life of someone outstanding who is engaged in what we call politics.
