At college in the mid-1960s I minored in history. Ever since, as time permits, my reading often includes biographies and occasionally autobiographies. As I am a slow reader sometimes a lengthy book will take me months to finish. Often, I never finish them; a pattern I suspect is far from uncommon. Unlike less scatterbrained readers, I generally focus on a particular historical period and then move to another. For example, my recent reads have included a 2016 biography of my father’s favorite actor, Jimmy Stewart, and an autobiography of President Theodore Roosevelt. The President that we all know as Teddy published this autobiography in 1913.
As you might expect, I lost interest in the biography of Jimmy Stewart about half-way through, but have found Teddy’s autobiography relevant to many of the issues we are facing today . For example, the proper role of the President. As I have noted in prior columns, President Teddy Roosevelt is my third favorite, after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Two examples illustrate why his public life was extraordinary. He certainly was a man of contrasts.
His Medal of Honor citation when he was posthumously awarded that honor by President Bill Clinton in January of 2001 reads in part: “…distinguished himself by acts of bravery on 1 July 1898, near Santiago de Cuba, Republic of Cuba, while leading a daring charge up San Juan Hill…”
His Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1906, for his work in settling the Russian-Japanese War. He was the first American to win the prize and did so by mediating between representatives of the two countries at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His Nobel lecture given in 1910 contains many words helpful for us today, including the following:
There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships…Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy…No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.
Near and dear to my final twenty years of legal practice as an arbitrator, he also spoke of the value of arbitration:
…all really civilized communities should have effective arbitration treaties among themselves. I believe that these treaties can cover almost all questions liable to arise between such nations, if they are drawn with the explicit agreement that each contracting party…
Read More: Looking back to President Roosevelt for political advice
