Book Review: Mornings on Horseback

I'm not sure what exactly got me interested in Theodore Roosevelt this summer. Perhaps it was seeing Robin Williams play a wax-museum version of his character in Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller. Perhaps it was standing below Mt. Rushmore a few weeks ago, looking up at what my girls now call "the heads" (thanks, Sanchez family) and thinking that I know less about President Roosevelt than the other three heads. Perhaps it was a common appreciation for the wilderness that drew me to TR. Whatever it was, I'm glad that I have now finished my third biography by David McCullough.

One might accuse McCullough of venturing a bit too far into the realm of developmental psychology at times, but I can put up with a little of that in my summer reading. Like so many other readers of this book, I fell in love with Teddy's family. Lively, principled, extremely wealthy, popular and often beset with tragedy and suffering, the Roosevelts were a unique clan. There are a number of parallels between the Roosevelt's Victorian-era political family dynasty and the Bush's postmodern-era political family dynasty, and the contrasts are even more striking, but I don't want to pick any fights so I'll stop there.

An extraordinary transformation takes place in this book: Asthmatic and squeaky little boy Teedie becomes one of the most lively and strong-willed leaders our country has ever known. If you want to learn about Roosevelt's presidency, find another book instead. This one is all about the family that raised Teddy Roosevelt and loved him throughout his life. It is a story of a family that has almost as many problems as it has dollars in the bank. Sometimes the Roosevelt's lifestyle leaves me feeling a bit distanced from them. But when they face sickness and death and family problems and failures in business and politics, I find that they are people I can relate to as well.

I loved this quote from TR on the democratic process: "It may be that the voice of the people is the voice of God in fifty-one cases out of a hundred; but in the remaining forty-nine it quite as likely to be the voice of the devil, or, what is still worse, the voice of a fool." [313] But Roosevelt's life goes on to show that while certainly thinks that our political system has its problems, he also believes that it is the best of all the fallen human options we can choose from.

I particularly enjoyed reading Teddy's pre-presidential 4th of July speech to the citizens of Dickenson, North Dakota. It is a classic example of the kind of political speeches I would like to hear more of today...speeches that are short and that talk about virtue, righteousness and justice.

Teddy Roosevelt impacted our country in so many ways, but perhaps his most significant contribution was turning the White House into a "bully pulpit." When asked how he had mastered "feeling the pulse" of the American people, his response was "I don't know the way the people do feel...I only know how they ought to feel." [364]

Sometimes guys like me get a bit discouraged about where they are in life. Reading the stories of men like Teddy Roosevelt and seeing how God changes men over time offers us all a lot of hope. Hurrah!