Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 841: Theodore Roosevelt on Love, Ladies, and Conservation

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Ep. 841: Theodore Roosevelt on Love, Ladies, and Conservation · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
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  Speaker 1: first light dot com. That's f I R S T
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: L I T E dot com. All right, man, We're
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: joined by ed O Keith, who's got a new book,
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  Speaker 1: The Loves of Teddy Roosevelt. We're gonna get into Teddy
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: as a ladies man and a mama's boy.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: God, that would have been a much better subtitle, Ladies Man,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Mama's Boy, instant bestseller.
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  Speaker 1: No, the Loves of the Loves of Theodore Roosevelt, the
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  Speaker 1: women who created a president. And so everybody knows Theodore
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  Speaker 1: Roosevelt as the swash buckling you know, adventurer, which is
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  Speaker 1: a little weird, like like you know, he went all
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  Speaker 1: over hunting hundred in Africa, hunting across the West, became
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  Speaker 1: a rancher, wrote a book about ranching. Like people know
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  Speaker 1: him as this sort of like the most macho of presidents,
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  Speaker 1: the manly mannist of presidents. Right, you know you think
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  Speaker 1: of like you think of like President Trump growing up.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he's got like gold stuff everywhere, and this
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  Speaker 1: guy was kind of comfortable in a cabin at times.
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  Speaker 1: But what you lose sight of. There's a couple things
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  Speaker 1: you lose sight of with Roosevelt. One extraordinarily wealthy, Like
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  Speaker 1: in today's world, him as an outdoorsman would be like
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  Speaker 1: a rich kid that like goes to boarding school and
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  Speaker 1: gets into Knowles, gets reel into like Knowles, and like
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  Speaker 1: spends his summers in Alaska. Yep, do you know what
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  Speaker 1: I mean That that's like the contempt. And then you know,
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  Speaker 1: eventually he's like a fishing guide or something. But he
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  Speaker 1: didn't really come off through like redneck stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, he doesn't depend on the guiding income. Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 3: just a lifestyle.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And like that would have been Roosevelt, but he
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  Speaker 1: did it so well. And because of his conservation record,
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  Speaker 1: he's sort of held as this like rugged individualist, but
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  Speaker 1: he has this very confusing background. And like one of
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  Speaker 1: the things that we're going to talk about is this
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  Speaker 1: is a guy not shaped by grizzled old hunting and
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  Speaker 1: fishing uncles that live out in a shack somewhere. He's
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  Speaker 1: like shaped by women in his life and like huge
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  Speaker 1: impactful relationships with his mother. So we're gonna dive into
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  Speaker 1: that at ed O'Keefe. Edward O'Keefe, if you want to
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  Speaker 1: be official, we're the first thing we're gonna talk about.
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  Speaker 1: Soon as I do his introes, we're gonna talk about this.
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  Speaker 1: So Edward O'Keefe is the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt
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  Speaker 1: Presidential Library Foundation, So we're gonna kick off. I talk
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  Speaker 1: about that because this is a big deal over in
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  Speaker 1: North Dakota, the Presidential Library. Okeith recently previously spent two
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  Speaker 1: decades in broadcasting digital media at ABC News, CNN, and
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  Speaker 1: now This, during which time he received a Primetime Emmy
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  Speaker 1: Award for his work with Anthony Bourdain to Webby Awards.
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  Speaker 1: The Edward R. Murrow Award was that documentary about him No,
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  Speaker 1: the movie good Night and Good Luck, Good Luck. George
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  Speaker 1: Clooney had a play and a George Foster Peabody Award
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  Speaker 1: for ABC's coverage of nine to eleven. So all that said,
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  Speaker 1: if he bombs today on the show, it's not that
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  Speaker 1: he didn't have the training in digital media to pull
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  Speaker 1: off a podcast appearance. He should kill A former fellow
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  Speaker 1: at the Harvard Kennedy School, he graduated with honors from
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  Speaker 1: Georgetown University. All from all out of North.
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  Speaker 2: Dakota, North Dakota, it's right, born and raised.
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  Speaker 1: Born and raised in North Dakota, went on to do
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  Speaker 1: all that. So currently lives in New York with his wife, daughter,
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  Speaker 1: and son. All Right, tell us about the library. Well,
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  Speaker 1: before we get into the book, let's talk about the libary.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, great, I mean, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library
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  Speaker 2: opens on July fourth, twenty twenty six, two hundred and
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  Speaker 2: fiftieth anniversary of America. Was that just like a coincidence,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I mean I started in this job October
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  Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, and but really yeah, yeah, And so it's
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  Speaker 2: been a six year effort. We've raised almost four hundred
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  Speaker 2: million dollars to get this baby constructed. Oh man, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it's a it's gonna it's ninety three acres. It celebrates
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  Speaker 2: Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy. So looking you know, he looked
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  Speaker 2: one hundred years into the future, and conservation wasn't even
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  Speaker 2: a concept, right, I mean it was an academic concept,
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  Speaker 2: but no politician had paid attention. When tr proposed his
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  Speaker 2: first conservation bill, the Speaker of the House literally said,
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  Speaker 2: there will not be one dime for scenery. That was
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  Speaker 2: that was the attitude. I'm sorry I heard that was
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  Speaker 2: the response right, because I seen her. He was like,
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  Speaker 2: what are you talking to?
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  Speaker 1: Real? I feel like I have heard that.
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  Speaker 2: That's one hundred per century. The Speaker of the House
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  Speaker 2: when he proposed his conservation Mills said no way. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I didn't well, there wasn't a counter argument. It was
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  Speaker 2: just that doesn't make any sense. What are you talking about? So,
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  Speaker 2: I mean this, when he's talking about the creation of
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  Speaker 2: the US Forest Service, when he's talking about national doubling
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  Speaker 2: the park's size, when he's putting two hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 2: four million acres of land into the public trust, he
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  Speaker 2: is not just ahead of his time, he's light years
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  Speaker 2: ahead of his time. He's and so what we want
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  Speaker 2: to do at the TR Library is, you know, work
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  Speaker 2: with the local ranchers to graze the land. On the
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  Speaker 2: ninety three acres. We have a walkable roof where you
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  Speaker 2: can go thirty eight feet tall and look out at
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  Speaker 2: the sixty five million years of geologic history and the
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  Speaker 2: bad lands, and it's filled four hundred thousand native plants,
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  Speaker 2: all from yeah, all from four miles around. We've been
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  Speaker 2: working on it for years, uh, you know, working with
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  Speaker 2: North Dakota State University to to bring those plants back,
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  Speaker 2: bring bring the pollinators, bring the bees, bring the birds
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  Speaker 2: back to this area, you know. And so you know,
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  Speaker 2: we want families to come and to hike and to
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  Speaker 2: bike and to horseback ride to the to the Presidential Library.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's really a place where we want kids
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  Speaker 2: to drag their parents, I mean, to get out in
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  Speaker 2: nature and do what tr did you know, to to
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  Speaker 2: find nature as your classroom, to be together as a family,
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  Speaker 2: to you know, celebrate the wondrous beauty of this national park,
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  Speaker 2: Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the only one named for a person,
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  Speaker 2: let alone a president. You know, everyone else's names for
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  Speaker 2: the library of the park. Stone's throw, I mean you could.
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  Speaker 2: So there's two. There's a west wing and now the
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  Speaker 2: only east wing. That for We thought that was going
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  Speaker 2: to be a clever ode, but the only one now.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a perfectly framed view of Theodore Roosevelt National Park,
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  Speaker 2: so you can literally you can see the park from
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  Speaker 2: US and US from the park seventy four thousand acres
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  Speaker 2: of backyard to go.
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  Speaker 1: Explore does that so it borders the park?
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  Speaker 2: It does. It gets the largest private philanthropic project adjacent
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  Speaker 2: to a National park in history. The previous was Saint
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  Speaker 2: Louis arch So we're it's a big effort. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it's North Dakota is not a huge state. We've got
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  Speaker 2: people from all over the nation, all over the world
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  Speaker 2: who've contributed. Because tr I like to say he's like
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  Speaker 2: a Rorschach test. What you see in him says more
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  Speaker 2: about you than it does about him.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And so Republicans, Democrats, Independents, people from all fifty states,
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  Speaker 2: twelve different countries. You know, we've been really blessed to
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  Speaker 2: have incredible support because of this person who's so universally
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  Speaker 2: beloved for different reasons.
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  Speaker 1: That's the thing I've mentioned a bunch of times is
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  Speaker 1: in given talks, there's not a politician today that wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: like to be favorably compared to Roosevelt.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, he's Josh Holly and Elizabeth Warren's favorite president.
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  Speaker 2: Find me one other thing they agree on. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: he's Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's favorite president. Is impossible
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  Speaker 2: to find another thing that they agree on. And so
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  Speaker 2: what we're doing at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Libraries, we
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  Speaker 2: don't want to tell you which version of TR you
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  Speaker 2: should love. We want you to get out in nature
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  Speaker 2: with your family. I'll tell people what versions of Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you can, but you know I'm the head of a nonprofit,
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  Speaker 2: so I can't. Inside. We have an immersive, almost theatrical experience.
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  Speaker 2: I mean every chapter of TR's life is crazier than
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  Speaker 2: the last. I mean if you if you wrote this
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  Speaker 2: story and submitted it to an editor, they'd reject it.
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  Speaker 2: Say like okay, all right, okay. I mean we can
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  Speaker 2: charge up San Juan Hill and we can have the
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  Speaker 2: adventure in the Elkhorn, But really we're going to go
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  Speaker 2: to Africa and the Amazon. I mean, these are both
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  Speaker 2: going to happen in the same life. It's just ridiculous, right,
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  Speaker 2: So we want people, especially kids, to immerse themselves in
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  Speaker 2: these stories. You know, when you're in Roosevelt's childhood, you
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  Speaker 2: want to reach inside a tree if you dare, you
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  Speaker 2: want to open a book and an extinct species of
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  Speaker 2: bird will fly out and join a wall of wonder.
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  Speaker 2: We want you to feel curious when you're when you're
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  Speaker 2: doing these things. We want to feel courage. We want
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  Speaker 2: you to feel the things that TR felt, so you
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  Speaker 2: can get in the arena of your own life and
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  Speaker 2: be the change you want to see in the world.
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  Speaker 2: Because that's ultimately TR's message is that if you want
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  Speaker 2: to be a part of a successful democracy, you have
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  Speaker 2: to participate. You have to be in there, you have
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  Speaker 2: to you have to fight for it. It's not just
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  Speaker 2: going to happen. And whether that's being on the school
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  Speaker 2: board or running for a local election. You don't have
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  Speaker 2: to be President of the United States to make a difference,
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  Speaker 2: but you do have to get involved. And that's the
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  Speaker 2: ultimate message of the TR Library.
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  Speaker 1: How they did they find you to do this? As
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  Speaker 1: you were North Dakota guy, it was crazy. How did
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  Speaker 1: you go from media to doing that?
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  Speaker 2: I'm still trying to figure that one out. So I
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  Speaker 2: was twenty years in the media. As you mentioned, I
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: worked at ABC News. I worked with Tony Bourdain at CNN. Sadly,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: after Tony died, the show ended and I went to
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  Speaker 2: Harvard to basically try to figure things out, and I thought,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: you know, I want to do the types of programs
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: that we did with Tony in streaming. You know, I
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: thought what was so powerful about working with Tony Bourdain
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  Speaker 2: is that, you know, he could go to West Virginia
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  Speaker 2: and have a conversation with people who are totally and
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: completely different than him, or he could go to Mumbai
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  Speaker 2: and gather them around the table, have a meal and
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: a conversation and bring people together. I had more people
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  Speaker 2: talk about what they learned about the world from watching
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  Speaker 2: that Part's Unknown than practically anything else I did in media.
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  Speaker 2: So I was really curious, like, how can we take that?
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  Speaker 2: You know. And at the time, in twenty nineteen, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: et cetera. You know, they said we're not going to
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: do any news, We're not going to do any live,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: We're not gonna do any sports. Also said they're not
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: going to do any podcasts, They're not going to do
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: any right, not going to do short form video. Right,
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  Speaker 2: They're doing all of it now in twenty twenty six,
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  Speaker 2: but in twenty nineteen it was like, Nope, they're not
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: going to do that. So that's what I was at
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Harvard to kind of explores, we built ale that studio.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We were never going to record, we were never going
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: to do podcasts.
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  Speaker 2: Never right for both no videos? He said, no, that's strict. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: well you you stuck to it, Stephen. That's what I
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  Speaker 2: admire about you when you make a proclamation as you
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: stick to it.
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  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I meet this group who's trying to raise
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  Speaker 2: money for the tr Library. It's been an idea for
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  Speaker 2: one hundred years since his death, and fits and starts
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: in New York and North Dakota and other various places,
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  Speaker 2: never succeeded. And you know, I'm from North Dakota. I'm
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  Speaker 2: thinking about what to do with the rest of my
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: life and my professional career. And I was researching a
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  Speaker 2: book which became The Loves of Theodore.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so I was worn like Chicken or the Egg
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: kind of deal. Yep, that's not the perfect anough but yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know if if your book came out of
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  Speaker 1: so you were already getting into tr Land.
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  Speaker 2: Actually, when you grow up in North Dakota, you're just
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: in tr Land. Tr is your hero, right. I mean,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: we we got Roger Marris, we got you know, we
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: have Lawrence Well, I mean, come on. We got to
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: give it out Phil Jackson.
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  Speaker 1: We got Phil Jackson.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, there we go.
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  Speaker 1: We tried to get him on the show, remember that. Yeah, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: Nelix fished.
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  Speaker 3: He lives up in White here part of the time.
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  Speaker 1: I think if you're listening, Phil, yeah, he probably is.
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  Speaker 2: He's been following me pretty closely for twenty five years.
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  Speaker 2: So this is probably here.
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  Speaker 1: My list right now. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Probably mean he's like.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that dude's doing it.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing now that Ed has done it. Yeah, I
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Phil Jackson will do it too. Oh that would be great,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: that would be I hope that happens for you. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, so the book came before the library. I
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: mean I was in two very different mindsets. I'm in
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  Speaker 2: the twenty first century, you know, looking at could we
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: do shows like Tony Bourdain and Parts Unknown in the
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Streaming Universe? And I'm sneaking away to the Houghton Library,
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  Speaker 2: where a big part of Theodore Roosevelt's collection is held,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm exploring this story and I you know, I
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: know the tr that you all know right from Mount
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Rushmore and this kind of chiseled, masculine, crazy, you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: adventurer and two things can be true at the same
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: time that exists, right, that is him. But what I
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: found remarkable is I'm looking at all these letters and
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: every single decision that he ever makes, He's asking his
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: sisters or his mom or his wives for advice, and
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, where is I didn't? Like, I didn't. He's
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: kind of this the quintessential self made man. I mean,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: the person who has no doubts, who asks nobody else
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: for their opinion on anything. Yeah, not true.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It's funny to think, like like Trump being like, I
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: don't know, Millenia, what do you think about Greenland?
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, who knows history will show us history?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe someday there will be a book.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe Greenland really pissed her off, you know.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe she plans that get them yep.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's that's what that was. The origin is
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about what to do next. I'm researching
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: the book on Theodore Roosevelt, and I've got this these
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: roots in North Dakota and North Dakota stepped up by
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: offering a fifty million dollar endowment contingent on the foundation's
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: ability to raise one hundred million dollars by the end
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty which seemed like a daunting task, but
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: it got a lot harder when the pandemic.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know so.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: But I was like, oh, look is if they have
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: no money, no architect, no land, what a great prospect.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I think I'll dive in. My New York wife was
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: really happy with me. She really thought this was a
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: good career move. Yeah, she was so.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: But you guys haven't it. You guys haven't moved. Do
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: you still have family North Dkota?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I do, Yeah, my cousin's, my brother, my uncle's Yeah,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: my parents are there most of the year. Yep.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So do you rent a place there now so you
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: can be out for your work?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, since it's a national prime, we like to
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: say it's a global project with your proud North Dakota roots.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm everywhere all the time talking to people
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: about the project and doing a lot of fundraising. I mean,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: four hundred million and five years, you got to talk
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to a lot of people about what you're doing and
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: how you're doing.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: It and all this is gonna.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: July fourth, July fourth, twenty twenty six. So yeah, So
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: your question about was that intentional? I don't think. In
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, we thought, oh, you know, what would be
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: a great day to open this point that time Randall
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: you know fund in construction. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, I
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: know at some point we said, hey, wait a second.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: You know, if we can be a part of America's
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty is celebration, that will bring a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: you know, national attention that we wouldn't otherwise get. But
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: also think about this, So Theodore Roosevelt was president at
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: the nation's one hundred and twenty fifth birthday. He is
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: exactly between the declaration of independence at zero and where
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: we are now at two hundred and fifty. So once again,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: tr makes you think about where are we going to
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: be at America five hundred because right now the midway
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: point of that point in our distant future. And I
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: saw my.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Kids something similar. Man, I was telling them, like, if
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the Earth's cross solidified four billion years ago and the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Sun's going to burn out in four billion years, like
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it's just the Earth's in a midlife crisis.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: This is halftime.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: This is just this is like the crazy midlife crisis,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: exactly exact kind of mess. The monks they couldn't really
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: conceptualize four billion years. So then there are they're like
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: expecting any second. Expect a second offered the son to go.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Well, they can go on Facebook and find a lot
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: of people who believe the same. They're gonna have some
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: real good friends.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point, man, Like, yeah, he hit
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the halfway point. He's the halfway And think about this, right, like,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I never thought about that. So much is eerily similar
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to where we are now. Right, the economy is changing.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: You're going from an agrarian to an industrial society. They
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: think about men's worth. I mean, the value of a
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: man to a family was how much they could hunt,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: how much they could gather, how much they could farm,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: how much and right, and that suddenly comes well, how
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: much are you worth? How much are you making? You
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: have an industrial job? Right, You're moving from a rural
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: area to an urban area. Cities are developing. So immigration.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Immigration was a huge issue in TR's time, right, and
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: then it was Irish and Germans and Italians and Chinese,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: and you know, it leads to one of the largest
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: crackdowns in immigration in US history right right after TR's time,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: where he's a very welcoming presence and.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: The Italians they'll never integrate they're always going to put
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: family in front of nation.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, Irish need not apply, right,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, this was a very This has happened many.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Times, the clan mentality of the Irish and technology.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Think about technology. I mean Theodre Roosevelt's born in eighteen
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: fifty eight. There's no electricity, there's no cars, there's no airplanes,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: there's no submarines. He's the first president to travel abroad
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: while in office. He's the first president to send a
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: telegraph by why, He's the first president to use a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: telephone in the White House, first president in a motorcade,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: first president in an airplane, in a submarine, and on
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: and on and on and on the list goes. So
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: technology is uprooting the way people feel about life. They're
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: scared because it's moving so fast and changing so quickly.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: What is this going to mean? And here's this person
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: who says, I'm embracing this, It's going to be okay.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And he's also one of the great naturalists of our time,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: so he knows to get out of the car and
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: get on horse and get out into nature and have
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: a tonic to all this technology that is changing everything
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: in every way. Of American life. So he I mean,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: it's all happening again. History doesn't repeat. It rhymes.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Totally off. So I want to get back into this,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: but just it's just popping in my head. Where was
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: he at in his career when he got shot?
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: He was the X president. It was the bull It
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: was like the bull Moose era Bull Moose. Definitely. Yeah,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: he's he's running against his his successor, Taft and Wilson.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: He's an independent bull Moose progressive.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: And that's when he got winged.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeh, not winged. I mean, have you ever seen like
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: we're gonna have that? Those pieces they've never been we
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: got so I've got so the only thing that saved
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: t R's life and he took a point blank shot
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: right in the chest, and it was he had a
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: double breasted suit. He had a speech about fifty pages long,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: doubled over in his breast coat pocket. And then the
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: thing that really saved him, he had his eyeglass case
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: that was still reinforced. And that's the that's the one.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Seriously, yep, know about the eyeglass. I just thought he
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: had like a book or something.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: No, No, it was all three items really combined to
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: save that had.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Been Lincoln because the Gettysburg address was so short. Dead
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: it punched right through it, through it. Right, that's why
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: you should write long as long.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: So it's crazy. So we're reuniting these items for the
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: first time. They've never been on display together.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys got the eyeglass case.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: The eyeglass case, so the bullet who had the diameter
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: of the bullet hole going in the front part of
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the case is very wide. I mean you're like, oh,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: he's dead, and then it narrows. You could see how
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: much it narrows out the other side. It slowed it down.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, had it gone through at the velocity that
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: it was intended at point blank range, he's dead?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Did you huh Randal, don't bullshit me. Did you know
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: about the eyeglass case.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I couldn't have described the hole to you, but well.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: You got to come to Medor who had there. So
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the National Park Service had the eyeglass case, another park
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: had the shirt. So it all got separated through the
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: years and the revolver the gun is gone. And by
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the way, the assassin was stalking Theodore Roosevelt through several
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: different speeches and looking for the opportunity to shoot him
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: at point blank range. He had a dream, a vision
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: that William McKinley, the president who was assassinated that allowed
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: tr to ascend to the presidency, had spoken to him
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: and told him that he needed to prevent Theodore Roosevelt
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: from seeking a third term, that he was an illegitimate president,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: and then he had to be killed.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, they recently read.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: A dream.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: He came to him, a dream. I mean, but think
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: about this too. Political violence, right, another thing that was
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: a hallmark of TR's time that we're experiencing again. I mean,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: this is three presidents were assassinated in TR's while he's
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: coming up through the system, I mean, including his the McKinley,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: who leads to him becoming the youngest president in history.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, this was unfortunately routine.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: You know, the dude that killed Lincoln shot Lincoln in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: a theater, yep, and then went and hit out in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes booth, went hitting the book depository.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Hear me out. Okay, all right, okay.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: The dude that shot Lincoln shot him in a theater,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and I think they caught him in a book deposit
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not joking. Look at them. The guy that shot Kennedy.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: The guy that shot Kennedy shot him from a book depository.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: They caught him in the theater.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: You know that Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy, and Kennedy's
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: secretary was named Lincoln.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Didn't know that. Bag me up.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Where's your computer?
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Man?
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I'm flying by.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Someone looked already knew about the glasses. Look up, where
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: did booth get caught? Barn I could be strong, but
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: check this out. When we were on we were just
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: on live tour, ye and we're doing a show in Dallas,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and none of us knew this, Like we had like
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: booked the venue. One of our guys, he's hanging around somehow,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: he's going to get a cup of coffee or something.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Winds up out in front of the venue and he's
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: reading some sign and he comes bags like this is where?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: This is?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Where Wald like we're in the building where.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's right next to a dispensary called Doobies.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Everything changes. Lincoln was a.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Big du right, Yeah, he was in the text. He
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: shot him from the sixth floor of the Texas Book
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Depository and again is caught at a theater. So that's
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: probably what you're right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: He was caught at the theater.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: He was caught at a movie theater.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Ye, my tip it in the theater.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Oswald was caught in the theater. Lincoln was shot in
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: the theater.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: And and if I'm not about where to catch booth.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And at the movie theater to a rural a farm
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: in rural North Virginia.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, books.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Storing book I get where you're going.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I think I'm just wrong.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, Lee, Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from the
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: book deposit. It was was pretty close barn.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Well, things are stored there.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I think they were. They must have been having a
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: lot of book Just trust me, listeners, that full of books.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe they started the fire with books they were getting. Yeah,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: that's what I'm going to give you. That one depository
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: they thought about depositor.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're on track.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: There's a great book about that, by the way, Manhunt
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: James Swanson Twelve Day Manhunt.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Never read it.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: By seeing it is I think it was turned into
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: a series. I don't know.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I remember I can visualize the burning of the barn. Yeah,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: and the series on Garfields. Oh, that's amazing.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: That's Candice Millard, who also read The River of Doubt,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: which page for page that is, I mean that reads
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: like a novel.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And who was the hell Hound on his Trail? Was
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the guy that was the King Assassin? Was that what
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: that books about? Yeah? Hell hound on his Trail or something? Yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: you're right either way. I want to get into our
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: body here tr.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Sickly kid, yeah, yeah, beyond real.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Sickly, Okay, get into it. This forms like his like
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: he has an intense relationship with his mom.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, the very first words of the Loves of Theodore
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt are from the beginning, Theodore Roosevelt's survival was very
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: much in doubt. And I think this is the part
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: that a lot of biographers miss. Is you, okay, he's
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: an asthmatic, sickly kid, but it led his mother to
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: be extraordinarily protective of him, to keep him from going outdoors.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just the asthma and the smog and the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: environmental devastation of New York in the eighteen sixties. It
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: was her really thinking that legitimately he could die if
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: he were exposed to too much. And so you know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: here's a.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: One because of like a bygone thinking like the miasma
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: or is that like legitimate thing?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: It was legitimate thing. I mean he the doctors did
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: not think he would live beyond four or five years old.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I mean he he he from the beginning of his
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: life learned that you need to will yourself through physical
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: and emotional pain. And his mom, who's often derided as
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: having no influence over him, she is a charismatic Southerner, right,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: She's from the Bullock family. She's the inspiration for Scarlett
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: O'Hara and Gone with the Wind. I mean she's a character.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Ramball says, she dressed him up in little dresses.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I mean they did that in the age that was
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Victorian She that was that, Yes, you would, you would, yes,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: but that was not uncommon.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: That's fair, It was not uncommon. He put it out
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: like it was on But no.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: It's I mean I always thought it's it's this interesting.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: He's not like growing up wearing buckskins and oh no, yeah, no, no,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: no he is. You said it, Stephen. I mean he's
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: from the elite of the elite society. He's rich.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: There's no reason for him to go into politics or
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: to go out into nature other than at the time
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: the doctors would give two different cures. For women, they
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: would say, you need the rest cure, right, if you're
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: afflicted by something, go lie down in bed. For men,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: they would say, you need the West cure. Go west,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: go hunting, get out into nature, do something that will
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: revive your spirits. But as a child, I mean MIDI
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: his mother would literally massage his chest when he was
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: having as asthmatic attacks and blood would come out. I
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: mean that's all.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: That's how often that bad?
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: That bad? I mean she he would have these recurring
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: he remembers her remembers as a child having recurring nightmares
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: where the devil would come in the middle of the
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: night and steal him away. And I mean and the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: devil like.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: He's like contemplating his own mortality.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And yes, yes, And even when he gets when he's
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: twenty years old, he goes to a doctor at Harvard
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: and the doctor says, you have you will not live
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: past sixty, And he doesn't. I mean, so he decides
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: at that moment in his life he is going to
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: live to the hilt. How old is he when dead sixty?
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: He had just turned sixty. Yeah, I was that young, right,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I mean it, you know, you hit me with all
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: kinds of te arnists that I didn't know about. That's
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: what I'm here for.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Sixty I never really like. Yeah, that young.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think of all he
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: accomplished young, you know.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is like, what do you expect, dude?
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean right, yeah, long life. Yeah yeah, So
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I mean Middy, Let's start with mom, because you always
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: have to start with mom.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: She is a She's a Southerner, she grew up in Georgia.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: She's willful, She's got this incredibly personality. Everybody she's a
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: great storyteller, right, so everybody knows that, like Middy is
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the one who will entertain you. And she's got an
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: incredibly refined taste. She marries a New Yorker, and she
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: is in New York during the Civil War and brings
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: her mother and her sister up from Georgia to live
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: with the Roosevelts. So the Indo Roosevelt.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: She's an abolitionist.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, she was a. She was a
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: She believed in the Confederacy should fly the Confederate flag.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: She refused to have her husband fight for the Confederacy
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: because she feared he'd meet her brothers on the field
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: of battle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she and she, I.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Mean she didn't want her brothers to do what.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: So Middy Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt's mom and Eleanor Roosevelt's grandmother
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: was a Confederate through and through unreconstructed, but she so
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: she forbade her husband, Theodo Roosevelt's father from fighting for
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the Union. Okay, all right, So instead what he did
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: he would meet her family exactly exactly, and so dastardly
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: were his were her brother's deeds that they were not
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: granted general amnesty after the Civil War?
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, they lived the rest of their life in Europe,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: in London and in Liverpool.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Forest Bedford types.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. No, they were the ones that figured out
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: how to run the blockade so they would get supplies
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: because the South didn't have steel and didn't have some
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: of the things you'd need for munitions and creating rifles
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: and bullets, and so they were sneaking all of that
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: in very effectively from London to the South. And then
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: one of them was thought to have been part of
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: the financing of Lincoln's assassination. Really yes, so I mean
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: they weren't just Confederates, they were devout confederates. I mean
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: one of her brothers tombstones in Liverpool, says an American
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: by birth and Englishman by choice. Really yeah, yeah.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Did tr addressed that kind of stuff later in life?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean you know this. He he was a
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Northerner who had his identity in the East with a
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Southern mother, who had this political identity in the West.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Because of his cowboy and ranching days. He was the
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: all America quintessential perfect candidate to kick open the door
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: of what would become the American Century because he had
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: something for everybody.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Right. However, he did his mom die? Then?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: His mom died of the same day as his wife,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: February fourteenth, eighteen eighty four.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: So did she nineteen years after the Civil War? What
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: was her attitude at that point?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I mean she was, according to her son, an unreconstructed remain. Yeah,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: that's your whole life, and think about it. So, I
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: mean again, I bring up her mother and her sister
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: both lived with the Roosevelts. So he's growing Theodore Roosevelt's
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: growing up in a house with one brother, two sisters,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: his mother, his grandmother, and his aunt. He's got a
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: lot of feminine influences in the house, right, and his
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: dad is off with Lincoln often because he can't fight
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: for the Union. He's decided to lead an effort to
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: take part of soldier's earnings and convince them to send
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: them back to their families because they would get paid
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: and they were the primary earners. They were away from
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the house, and a lot of them would blow it
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: party with the movies and exactly because they could die
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: at any moment. But he was trying to convince him
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: send this back. So this is amazing.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I found what a complex scenario though, I was sort
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of like put a finer point on what a complex
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: situation for Ti R's mother. Yeah, where she's got relatives
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: trying to violate the blockade yep, and then she's got
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: other close family members like running around involved at an
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: administrative level with running the Union war effort.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Theodore Roosevelt grew up in a house divided, in a
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: nation divided, and he learned from his parents that you
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: can disagree without being disagreeable. You can you can be
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: vitriolically opposed to one another, but you at heart need
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: to love one another and it's it's a message he'll
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: harry his whole life. He really does learn that you
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: need to find a way to bring people together to
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: get the best political result that you want. He's not
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: a divisive figure in part because of his mother. I mean,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: when his father dies. So Theodre Roosevelt's father dies. When
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: tr is a sophomore in college, he's only twenty years old.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: He had cancer and they didn't know necessarily if it
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: was going to be deadly, and so Theodore Roosevelt didn't
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: make it home in time to say goodbye.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: What kind of cancer?
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: He had? Stomach cancer, and it was excruciating. His brother, Elliott,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: which is a whole other, fascinating dynamic, right Elliot in
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the competition that they had, Elliott is handsome and dashing
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: and at first shows a lot more promise than Tr.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: And academically he's a fabulous hunter. I mean, Elliott is.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: He's like a sharp shooter. There's stories of him shooting
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: elk from two hundred yards away without I mean, and
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: tr couldn't do this. I mean tr had terrible eyesight.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: He had to practice, he had to work at it,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: he had to fight his way through everything he ever
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: did and so all these family dynamics add up to
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: who he really is. And you know, Midy, his mom
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: teaches him two really important things. One how to tell
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: stories and how to connect with people with empathy, big, big,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: big part of why he's successful as a politician. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: after his father dies, she sits him down, sits all
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: the kids down, and says, you need to live for
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: the living and not for the dead. If you do
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: not live a life of purpose, you will dishonor the
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: memory of your father. There it is, I mean, willing
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: himself through physical and emotional pain and this great, big personality.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Both of those things come from his mother. His father's
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: a great man, it can't be denied. But the fact
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: that he died at age twenty when Tiarra was twenty,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: really gave this outsize importance to his father in theodo
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt's memory, because his whole life he was trying to,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you know, honor him and and be better than him
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: in many ways, fulfill the life that he didn't get to.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Live now when he was a kid. Part of if
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: you read about if you read about tr From as
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: a conservationist, a big part of that narrative is that
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: he developed this fascination with wildlife as a kid, where
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: he's he kind of becomes a hobbyist, taxidermist. He's a naturalist.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: He's engaged in study of wildlife. What like, to what
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: extent is that going on under you know, to what
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: extent is that going on with the awareness of his
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: mother and what does his mother's take on that? Is
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: she supportive of that or does that stuff bugger?
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: She's extraordinarily supportive of likes it. I mean, even though
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: she's a bit of a germophobe. She you know, he
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: stores mice in the refrigerator, and you know, he he's
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: got Roosevelt Museum of Natural History in his room. This
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: is what we're doing at the tr Library. We're actually
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: recreating his boyhood room, like his imagination, so taxidermy, you know,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: going to he does these. I've seen the collections at
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: the Smithsonian's extraordinary to see, you know, because he's really
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: a dedicated scientist, I mean conservationists then and now he's
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: hunting in order to study them. To understand. He's always
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: creating a series. Right, so it's not just you get
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: this thing like he hunted so much, like its ridiculous
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: amount or the volume of his hunting. He's doing it
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: for scientific purposes, right, he needs one of each type
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: in order to see the variations in them.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was like he was like in an era
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: of cataloging exactly.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: And you could see that throughout his whole life. I
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: mean he's a very serious naturalist, even as a young child.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: You know, he's not just you know, he's not just hunting.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: He's then doing the taxidermy, putting the scientific explanations is
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: another source of tension with he and his brother. His
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: brother would say, good lord, like, we're on the hunt.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Can you just live? Could you just have some fun
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Instead he you know, do catalog and the scientific names
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: and the variations of the species. And you know, he's
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: a really I think but for meeting Alice Hathaway Lee,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: he probably would have become a naturalist or a scientist.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: I mean there were there were two reasons he didn't
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: in college. One, natural sciences were shifting from the outdoors
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: into the laboratory and he didn't want to be in
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: a laboratory. He wanted to be out in nature. And
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: two he met Alice Hathaway Lee.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Uh, did you have a lot of girlfriends? Like when
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: he's a kid, Did you have Do people have girlfriends?
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: He did not.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: He did not because he was a geeky naturalist in
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: whose wake for meldehyde lingered. I mean, I mean, yeah,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: he had a stench. He had. He was an oddball.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: I mean the recollections of his college friends are pretty harsh.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, his first biographers literally just ignored all that
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: and kept it out of the record because they would
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: call him eccentric, half crazy. I mean, he lived alone
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: in an apartment because who the hell would want to
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: live with him while he's got taxidermy and from elde
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: hyde and all these dangerous chemicals that you'd use at
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: the time. I mean, no, he did not have a
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: lot of girlfriends up.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Until up until he went to Harvard. That was his
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: first time in a classroom, right, I mean, he had
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: had private tutors up until then. Did he have as
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: a kid, did he have much exposure to people outside
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: of his family that were his of his cohort or
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: is his experience in Harvard's sort of his first.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: It's a good question. I mean, because his uncles, his
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: mom's brothers were overseas. They take these great trips to Europe, right,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: and to uh, you know, to Egypt. Yeah, he did
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: some collecting and he did a lot of collecting there,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: and his father would give him rifles for his birthday
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: and for Christmas, and then they'd go on these I
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: mean these long they were gone for a year, eighteen months,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: and that was his first exposure to the larger world
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: and certainly the natural world. He meets, he's got a
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: he's got this extraordinary relationship with Henry Davis may Not,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: who would be considered sort of his best friend in
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: college and actually the namesake of mine not North Dakota.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: And they're they're constantly talking about like how to how
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: to be a man, like how how to show your
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: manliness and in this Victorian era, you know, and and
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: they go out and they they they His first book,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: it's not really a book, is the Birds of the
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: aut around ACKs. So they spend the entire summer cataloging
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: all the birds of the aut around ACKs and then
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: publish a book of of their summer studies. I mean
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: not you know, it's not not exactly your normal activity
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: for a wealthy defeat person of the time.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Did did where did the primary what was the primary
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: wealth on his father's side, or on his mother's side.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: They were both wealthy, but the big bulk of it
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: came from his father's side, So his father.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So he was more loaded than his wife.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah he was. He was a partner in Roosevelt and Sons,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: but his real focus was philanthropy. He was the founder
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: of the American Museum in Natural History. He was the
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He founded the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: first orthopedic hospitals. Yeah, yeah, this is what he did.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: His his grandfather, Cornelius van Check Roosevelt was loaded man. Well,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: but this is the only one that my kids remember
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: because his initials are CVS. Like CVS the money came
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: from CVS. I'm like it, Yes it did, but not
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: the CBS you're thinking of. That's not where he got
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: his money. He was one of the founding directors of
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Chemical Bank, which then became Chase Manhattan. That became Chase.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: That's JP Morgan Chase today. So the Roosevelt family fortune
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: still lives on in the form of JP Morgan Chase,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: with whom he had all kinds of battles and is
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: another great story.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, so get into the woman and he met.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: He's how old, So he's eighteen, and there's a really
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: consequential year in Theodo Roosevelt's life eighteen seventy eight. February ninth,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventy eight. He's in his first year in college
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: and his father dies someone unexpectedly. He doesn't make it
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: home to say goodbye. He never forgives himself, and he
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: never forgives his brother Elliot, for not telling him that
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: dad was going downhill. Then he goes home. And to
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: your earlier question about did he have any girlfriends, he
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: had one that he was very close with, who was
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Edith Carrow, his childhood neighbor and his homeschooled playmate. So
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: his mother brought Edith into the fold of the family
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: and at she was three years younger, same age as
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: his younger sister, and everyone thought they were going to
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: get married. Everyone thought, inevitably, when Edith comes of age
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: at seventeen, which in the Victorian times you were eligible
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: to wed, they were going to get engaged. Her birthday
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: comes around.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: That wouldn't have been unusual in those days that you
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: would marry someone you were brought up around.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Now be very common, very common expected, right.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Because there was like family connections.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but Edith came from a family whose fortunes were
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: falling and the Roosevelts were incredibly rising, so there was
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: some tension. And Edith's father was an alcoholic who lost
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: control of the family business. She was a real independent,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: tough minded, you know, not going to suffer fools, gladly woman.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: And so August twenty second, eighteen seventy eight comes and
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: they go for they go out picking water lilies, they
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: go for a rowboat ride Oyster Bay, and so happens.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: They have an explosive fight and break up, and they
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: never tell anybody what happened. They only talk about it
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: twice the rest of their lives.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: I think you have to put the moves on her.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Could be we need the Netflix adaptation of the Loves
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: of Theodore Roosevelt to really speculate here, to out to
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: find out what happened on August twenty second, eighteen seventy
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: He loses his father, he breaks up with his girlfriend,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: and then he goes back to college. It's his sophomore year,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: and he meets Alice Hathway Lee and Alice.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And him and Edith are just done down.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: He's like, who's Edith, Where's Edith? Like gone Like. He
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: meets Alice. He goes on a mad two year pursuit.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, imagine being the object of Theodore Roosevelt's affections,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: and he determines, I'm gonna marry you. Like that's what
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: it was. For two years. He gets a horse and
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: he puts a horse in the stable. He rides the
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: horse so often he lames the horse because it's twelve
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: miles to her home at Chestnut Hill from Cambridge. He
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: gets a horse and buggy. Once he lames the other
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: her original horse, so he can go there. Once he
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: breaks the buggy, he walks. He walks over fifty times,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: twelve miles round trip to her house to see Alice.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: He is he's so. He thinks that a fellow classmate,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Charlie Ware, is trying to make the moves on her,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: so he challenges him to a duel and calls for
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: French dueling pistols.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Really, he yes, I want.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: To see Theeah.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: He was showing up. Yeah for sure, dude, I got
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I want to see the comedian Joey Diaz and uh
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: years ago he was talking about how kids got it
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: so easy now, like dating is so easy now with
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: phones He's like, when I was a kid, if you
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: wanted to get your get your you know, get a
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: hold of your girlfriend, you had to sneak under a
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: window and throw gravel at him.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, Theodore Roosevelt had to walk twelve miles
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: round trip to see his girlfriend. So she finally relents.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: She agreed she was being resistant at for her.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: She's the most eligible bachelorette in all of Boston. I mean,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: to set the stage right, she comes from the Lee
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: and Saltanstall family. There's this old Boston toast, and this
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: is good old Boston, the home of the bean and
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the cod, where the lulls talk only to the cabots
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: and the cabots talk only to God. She's a cabot, right,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: So like the geeky naturalist in whose way form meldehydelingers
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: going for the most eligible bachelorette in Boston, no way,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: like not gonna happen. And she really, I mean, she
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: puts him off for two years.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: And her family probably has a big saying this too.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: That's where the sisters come in. That's where her TR's
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: mom comes in. He decides, I'm not gonna win her
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: unless she falls in love with my family. They have
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: to find they have to see that the Roosevelts are
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: pretty awesome. So he brings his sisters and his mom
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: out to Cambridge, throws a party. They all love each other.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Then they invite the Lees back to New York. And
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: again that's where it turns. She I think that Alice
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Hathaway Lee fell in love with his sisters and his
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: mom as much as he did tr the idea of
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: being a part of this incredible family. And she's a spitfire.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, Alice is almost the same height as him,
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: very athletic, loves to hike, loves to play tennis, you know,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: like imagining what his life would have been like. And
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: in the four years that they're together six years total,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: he writes his first major book, The Naval History of
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: the War of eighteen twelve. He's elected to his first
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: public office. He goes to but quits Columbia Law school.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: If you've ever quit law school, you have something in
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: common with tr He too, did not finish like he
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: in his own words, he rose like a rocket, you know.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of historical speculation about what he
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: ever been president had his first wife lived and I
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: think unquestionably. So here's here's a stunning one.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, I don't get that. I don't get what
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: you're saying.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Well, because she was written off in history as inconsequential
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: that the best thing she ever did for tr was die.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: That's really literally been written like that, like she was
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: sort of from the elite society. She wouldn't have you know,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: would he have ever gone west? I mean, there's all
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: kinds of counterfactuals about what.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: He would have settled into this like patrician, right, right,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: which doesn't it's not a rowboats all time. So I
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: mean two facts they do. Yeah, so they are.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: She's expecting their first child when he first comes out
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: to the Dakota Badlands. I mean that's that's basically his
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: trip before the baby's born. And that's when he invests
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: fourteen thousand dollars half of his inheritance in cattle. He
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: never owns land because it's open range, but he invests
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: a huge amount of money in cattle.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And then how's that giant? How's that lining up with
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the idea that if she hadn't died, he wouldn't have
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: gotten into all this stuff.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: It doesn't, but that is a new take that The
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Loves of Theodore Roosevelt is the first book that really
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: says Alice Athaway, Lee made tr part of who he is,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: and you have to in order to appreciate later off.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, or she's been generally written off historically.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, very written off. Yes, like didn't matter speed bump
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: on the on the road to his inevitable success. I
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: think losing her played an incredible role in him understanding
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: the fragility of life. That you know, I'm I'm rich,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: and I've been elected to the New York State Assembly,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: and yet you know, my father, my mother, and my
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: wife have all died in six years. I that is
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: the moment it turns. He's twenty five years old and
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden he has a life wish. He
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: starts doing things that you might think are.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Crazy or yeah, I gotta have you back up. Yeah.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: At this point in his life, he's a already done
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: all that like Maine stuff, right, yep, Like hunting in
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Maine all the time.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Yep. So when he when.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: He gets he gets married to Lee, and during that
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: marriage he does his big trip out to North Dakota.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Correct shoots the first buffalo he shoots. Correct, invests in cattle. Yes,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: as like an absentee cattleman. Yes, right, yep, okay, and
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: then but line all that up with her death and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: explain how So comes to die.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, So this is this is an important part of
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: the story. I'm glad you asked us to back up.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: So he got engaged on February fourteenth, eighteen eighty, Valentine's Day.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: They announced it to the world. Four years later, they're
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: expecting their first child, and Theodore was a he was
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: into numerology and things. He's a bit of a super
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: he was superstitious, and he so he believed that the
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: baby was going to be born on the anniversary of
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: their engagement, February fourteenth, Valentine's Day. So he goes back
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: to all but where he's a New York State assemblyman
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: on February eleventh, and he gets a telegram on February
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: twelfth the next day saying the baby has been born
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: and Alice is only fairly well, but it's too late
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: for him to go, so he makes arrangements to leave
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Albany and return to New York on February thirteenth. He
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: gets a second telegram on February thirteenth. We don't know
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: what the telegram said, but his face goes ashen white,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: and he drops the telegram and literally runs from the
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: New York State Assembly to the train station in Albany.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: Normally this trip would take two to two and a
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: half hours. There's a thick, dense fog that is descended
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: over New York City, so thick that you cannot get
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: a handsome cab from Grand Central Station. It took five
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: and a half hours for him to take the trip
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: from Albany to New York, all the while not knowing
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: what awaits him on the other side. He walks the
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: fifteen blocks through this fog to six West fifty seventh Street,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: where he told there is a curse on this house.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Mother is dying and Alice is dying too. He runs
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: up to the third floor. He holds Alice, his wife,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: in his arms, until one thirty in the morning, when
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: he's called to the second floor. His whole family is
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: there and his mother Midi dies of typhoid fever. He
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: goes back up to the third floor, holds Alice in
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: his arms for eleven straight hours until two thirty in
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: the afternoon. On Valentine's Day, when she too dies of
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Bright's disease, a kidney disorder that was exacerbated by the childbirth,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: he is devastated. He writes an x in his diary
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: and says, the light has gone out of my life.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: And the next day he makes plans to not run
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: for reelection and to head out to the bad lands
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: of North Dakota, where he says to his family, I'm
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: going to I'm going to the bad lands. What I
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: shall do after that, I do not know.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: And what kid was that?
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: That was Alice. They named her after the month. So
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: she's the first born and the last to die. She
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: was born in eighteen eighty four dies in nineteen eighty
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: and she was left in the care of his older sister, Bammy.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: So this is where Bami comes in. Bammy, his older sister,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: is like the political Svengali. She's the one who she
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: takes care of the baby for almost three years while
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: he's in North Dakota. She's the one that reunites him
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: with Edith and ensures he'll get married again. She's the
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: one who sells the home at sixth West fifty seventh Street.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: She oversees the construction of Sagamore Hill. It's Bammy that
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: arranges for him to have a role in the Harrison
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: administration as Civil Service Commissioner. Bammy says, you know, maybe
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: it would be a good idea to come back to
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: New York and be New York Police Commissioner. Bamy sets
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: up the meeting that leads to him becoming Assistant Secretary
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: of the Navy.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I mean it's like in those days, a woman wasn't
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: going to do those roles correct and you had like
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: be like, she's like fronting a guy, yes, because I
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: can't do it.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: She put it all.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: I would never be able to do.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: It all her, all her energy. So think of this.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Eleanor Roosevelt said of Theodore Roosevelt's two sisters, Bammy and Connie,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: if you wanted advice, you went to Bammy. If you
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: wanted sympathy, you went to Connie. Because they were very
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: personality is very, very different. Bammy was the one who,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: like she saw the political chess board. I mean t
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: R was impetuous, emotional, very intelligent, but he could make missteps.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: You know, he could kiss people off. Bamy was the
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: one who's like, hey, you know who you need to
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: talk to is this person or that person, or this
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: is the job you need to go into next. She's
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: the strategist, you know, she's the one convincing him. She's
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: convincing the McKinley campaign that he's not a hothead. I mean,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: they don't want to put him into the role of
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: assistant secretary because of what exactly what happened that as
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: soon as you know that war came, he left and
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: became the hero of the war, you know. I mean,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: when he's governor of New York, his sister Connie holds
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: these breakfasts and they invite the political bosses in and
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: they they've arranged this in advance, and at some point
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: the boss is going to say, all right, and everyone
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: get out. I want my time with the governor. And
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: they said, well, certainly, my sister can stay. I mean,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: she she is but a woman, and she takes such
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: an interest in my affairs. And so Connie would knit
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: in the corner, listen to everything that they were talking about.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: And when they left, tr had somebody'd heard everything and
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: he could talk it all through its move exactly. I mean,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: so involved was Connie in his governorship that Theodore Roosevelt
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: said to his sister, haven't we had fun being governor
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: of New York? Hmm, man, it's crazy.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: This is something that's always I mean, it's really this
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: is fascinating because I've always had this curiosity about he's
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: such a headstrong individual and I don't really there's so
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: many aspects of his life where you think this guy's
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: not really thinking beyond what's in front of his face,
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: and he's just like, yeah, yeah, paunching at that whatever
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: is in front of his face. But then this chapter
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: of his life where he rises to the presidency, it's
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: like he he checks all these boxes and rises, you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: like it's it's it seems like a very different mindset
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: is guiding him at that moment, as opposed to the
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: guy who just goes out west to forget about.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Randall that the secret sauce is daily and counting. It's
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: his sisters behind the scene saying, hold on, now, now
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: you got to be here, Now you got to be there,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: Now you got to do this, Now you got to
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: do that, and they support him, and Edith comes back
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: into the picture, so the girlfriend that he broke up
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: with on August twenty second of eighteen seventy eight.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: After putting the moves on her.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Probably we don't know.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: He no longer smells like formaldehyde.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: He's yeah, by the way, just because I think you're
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: and your audience will appreciate this. When he marries Alice,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: the one thing he's not going to be as a naturalist.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, she didn't mind that he went hunting and
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: was outdoors. She would go hiking and such with him.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: But that's when he donates all of his childhood specimens
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: to the Really, yeah, he says, she's so. I can
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: only I can only imagine the conversation be like, hey,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: you know what's not coming with us to the new house.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Do all all the taxidermy's gotta go? But the bison. Interestingly,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: there's only three photographs of six West fifty seventh Street,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: which was technically his mother, mother and father's home, but
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: he lived there for a while and that's where the
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: bison ended up. It was you can see it clear
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: as day that that's the bison that he shot in
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: North Dakota, and then it some at some point moves
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: to Sagamore Hill. Had to be bammy. I mean it's
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: in Sagamore Hill to this day.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: You guys can't get your hands on that one.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: I you know, I feel like it. Maybe we could
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: for a bit. It would be nice to bring it
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: back home for a for a bit, but.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: It's such a who's the owner of it?
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: The National Park Service. Yeah, so, short version of a
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: long story. Edith out lives tr by thirty years. Several
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: of her kids have died in World War One in
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: World War Two, and Kermit is dead by that point,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: so there's only two three if you include Alice or
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: step daughter, and so they convince her.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: To one dies in the war and then later one
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: kills himself.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Yep, Theodore is the only.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: President I'm talking about tr kids. Yeah.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the only president to have a son or
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: daughter die in combat. Only president to have a son
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: or daughter die in World War One and World War Two,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: only one of two fathers and sons to be awarded
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: the Medal of Honor. I mean his like, the record
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: of service and sacrifice in this family is off the charts.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: And they all did it. Ethel was a part of
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: the American Red Cross. I mean the boys all fought,
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: but the I mean the girls were involved too. Anyway,
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: So they convince Mom Edith were.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: A long way from that kind of stuff nowadays.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, well, and the no blessed oblige, they had
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: an obligation to fight, they actually felt. You know what's
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: interesting about t R's rise back up as a rough
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: rider is it's the first time that the country fights
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: as red, white, and blue again. It's the first major
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: battle after the Civil War. And so you think about, like,
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: how did he I mean, yes, it was heroic, and
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: he became the hero of that story. But he became
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: the hero of the biggest war since the Civil War.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: He became the symbol of American unity and again has
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: this Northern father, Southern mother, eastern political identity, and western
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: ranch cowboy image. He's like perfect, he's central casting. By
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: the way, the journalist who documents all of TR's exploits
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: in Cuba, Richard Harding Davis, introduced to TR by Bammy.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Oh really yep, says you know what would be a
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: good idea is if.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Your kid and she's like his pr agent.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and Connie will do the same Connie when
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: he's in the White House. So Edith is very private,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: you know, she's more circumspance. She's universally known as a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: better judge of character. He doesn't make a single appointment
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: without talking to Edith. She redesigns the White House, puts
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: her office next to his. I say in The Loves
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: of Theodore Roosevelt that he's in she's in the room
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: where it happened because she designed it that way. So
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: she's involved. But she doesn't love the personal side of
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: politic Actually she doesn't have politics at all. I mean,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: when it's over, she says, I'm so glad it is
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: all over the presidency. But but Connie knows that if
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: the American public falls in love with Theodore Roosevelt's family,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: he'll be more successful politically. So she's the one that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: leaks the stories of Algonquin, the pony coming up to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: the second floor, the wrestling matches at four o'clock, the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: jiu jitsu in boxing in the White House. You know,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: she's the one she eat this. Oh yeah, they're gonna
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: love it. I mean, it makes him personable. It's like
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: a crazy menagerie of a zoo and this big family
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: and it. They're fun and they're active and they're adventuresome.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: And she knows, I mean, she's the one that leaks
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: the story about Emily the snake. You know, Alice the
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: daughter famously wears a green snake around her neck, and
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: when they ask what's with the snake, she says, well,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: this is Emily Spinach. And they said, well, who's Emily Spinach?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: She said, well, I don't like my aunt Emily, and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: I don't like Spinach, so it's Emily Spinach.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: So you were saying that Edith winds up being a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: good judge of character.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: She a better judge of character than Trundred percent. He's
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: exactly as Randall said, like, if he has a fault,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: it's that he's what serves him so well. His instincts
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: can turn on him and not serve him well in
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: a political arena because he's very trusting of people. He
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: likes everyone. He generally feels that people have good motives,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: and he he's impetuous. He makes quick decisions and doesn't
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: think about necessarily the consequence. Edith is the opposite, right,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: She's slow, she's plotting, she's calculating. She's I like she's
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: described as parched. He has a he has a valet.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: I know, well, these the best the people that quotes
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: that people really love is she she describes she describes
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: her grandchildren. She says, I love to see their little faces,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: but I prefer to see their backs.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know why I make think of this.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about like your someone's wife as a judge
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: of character. Uh. Years ago, I used to hang out
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of Like I used to hang out with
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: more writers than I do now. Yeah, like, I used
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: to hang out all writers almost And uh, one time,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say his name, but I had a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: certain writer over my house and we're had dinner together
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: and he leaves. My wife's like, that guy's never come
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: back in this house again. And I kind of sat
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: on that forever. And there day I told a mutual
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: friend that story, and I told my wife, you know,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: I was telling him about what you said about his buddy.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: She's just not happy that us share.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: But maybe she was right. I found coming that story
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: was going to be in vincation.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: That's the only time, dude, we've had some crazy people
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: over our house, you know, all the time she's ever
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: said no, no, well that's kind I don't care what
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: you're right.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Kind of the dynamic with Edith and tr like, she
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: gave him a long leash, but when she pulled it
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: in she was serious, right, Like it was like, hey, this,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: I'm not kidding about this one. For example, nineteen twelve,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: he's contemplating running for president again. He's constitutionally able to,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: and he's pissed that he gave the reins to William
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Howard Taft. Everybody's like, oh, tr you gotta do it,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: you gotta do it, you gotta do it. You're gonna win.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: You got to do that again for people that don't
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: know this whole history.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: So Theodore Roosevelt in nineteen oh four, when he wins
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: election in his own right, makes one of the biggest
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: political Okay, well you want to back up.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: There so you don't get bored. McKinley dies and and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt comes into office off the like that he's the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: vice president. Yep, and the unexpectedly boom, there he is
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: and says, he turns around and earns it on his
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: own Yep.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: He wins elected office in his own right, which was
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: his goal. I mean, he really felt like he was
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: walking in a dead man's shoes. Sure, and he made
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of change, and that was very risky. He
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: was convinced he was going to lose. It turns out
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: to be a route one of the biggest political victories
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: in US history in nineteen oh fourth.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: The same for Johnson, right, Like Johnson comes in yep, yeah.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. I mean, so he comes in with
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: the he's got the wind at his back, and he's
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: not restricted to two terms, and technically he's picked up
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: part of the term of another president.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: So because because that wasn't it wasn't wasn't codified yet. No,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: it was a tradition, but it wasn't exactly So like
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: FDR did three, So without consulting his wife, Edith, who's
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: in the room, far three, FDR did four.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: But he died very early into his fourth term. So
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: he won four. Yeah, FDR overlearned the lesson that t
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: R didn't learn. He made up for for his his
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: distant cousin's deficiency.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: He's not bound by turn bound, but he's got like
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: a term limit under mckintle. He's got McKie and a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: half years does his own term.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: So he's been president. He's going to be president for
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: seven and a half years. Been close than to two
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: fold turn violated the norms to he would have been
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: the first president to run for a third term, and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: but he almost he.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: Could sort of say I didn't have a full first term.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, yeah, and everybody thought he would. He gets
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: up on election night and announces I will not stand
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: for election in nineteen oh eight. He makes himself a
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: lame duck. I mean, every and Edith was seen to WinCE,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: and Bammy was like, you got to take it back.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, you got to you got to say you
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: that's not true, that you maybe you will, maybe you won't.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: What year did he make that announcement the election night
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: nineteen oh four.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: So nineteen oh four, he says in eight, this will
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: be my last, the same thing kind of well, and
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: how'd that work out? Well? He tried again, and did.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: That work out? I mean, you know, you generally don't
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: make pronouncements that you're not going to. I mean, I
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: think the thing about tr is he says what he means,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: and he means what he says.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: He's a straight shooter, and so he's he's he's observing
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: the tradition. His heroes are Washington and Lincoln. I mean,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: he recalls as a child watching Lincoln's funeral in New York,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: like he wants to emulate. Does he know what he's.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Going on that big ass Africa hunting trip.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Well he he did that too, that's true.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: And let me tell you why.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: He's pretty pretty excited about that. Yeah. Yes, So he
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: says he's not going to run for reelection. All of
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the women in his life say, this is a disastrous decision.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: And it was.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: So it was the worst political decision he made in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: his life because he regretted it on because he was
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: a reformer. He was a progressive. And I don't mean
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: in the sense of politics. I mean he was outside
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: the system, right. He was pushing change, and he was
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: pushing the boundaries of what was and what could be.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: I mean he he so once an agitator is out,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: they never letting him back in. I mean, Edith knew this,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: Bammy knew this. Like once you give up power voluntarily,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: you are never going to get it back. So he
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: sits by. He goes on the African Safari for over
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: a year. He's getting reports about what's happening back home.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: They're not following your agenda. One of the big things
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: was conservation.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Did he did he pick Was he successful in picking
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: his successor?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, so he hand hand picked indorsed and that carried
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: the weight.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: It, yes, and it was an odd pick, so he
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: could have won absolutely. I mean, it's not even an
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: entertaining counterfactual, like if Theodore Roosevelt had run in nineteen
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: oh eight, he wins, he wins better. Taffy Taft, Oh boy,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: so not a name Brandy, Yeah, no, I mean he
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: was he against William Jennings Bryan. I'm trying to remember
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: if Brian anyway? He no, No, it wasn't close, and
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: tr regrets it. So fast forward. One of the issues
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: being conservation, right he Taft doesn't do anything on conservation.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: He decides, like, what are we doing this for? We're
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, he undos a bunch of some of the
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: things that TR's record includes in the two hundred and
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: thirty four million acres part of them we're coal reserves.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: He says, we're not going to keep the coal reserves.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: We're going to use him right now. And I mean,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: so these things start being undone immediately, and they irritate TR.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: He comes back and there's a whole group of people saying,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: you know, progressive governor saying you should run. Edith is
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: the only one who comes to him and says, put
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: it out of your mind, Theodore, you will never be
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: president of the United States again. Ouch. I mean, but
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: she he saw it, She saw the chessboard, she saw.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: The political because the way the machine works.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they weren't going to let him back. I mean,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: they weren't going to chance the two parties. The sitting
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: president was going to just step aside, and you were
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: going to get the Republican nomination again. So he runs
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: a primary campaign. He is the first. If you don't
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: like primaries, you got another thing to blame tr for
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: because he invents them. He says, let the people rule.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: I know the political system won't give it to me.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to go out to the people. And
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: he starts campaigning, and he wins enough delegates to have
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: the nomination, the Republican nomination. They get to the convention
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: and just as Edith predicted, they deny him the nomination.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: They give it to Taft.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: He challenges his own hand picked guy, correct, yes in
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: a primary thing, Yes, beats him in a primary.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: So here he is campaigning against the guy like he
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: hasn't followed through.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: My which has never been done in history, right, so
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: this is very unusual. This is strange.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: But then the conventioneer's revolt and handed to the sitting down.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: And part of the problem, not to get to arcane,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: is that there are other candidates running in the primary.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: There's fighting Bob LaFollette from Wisconsin, who's more progressive than
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: tr and so the decision is, like Theodore Roosevelt doesn't
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: win the state of North Dakota in the nineteen twelve primary,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: you know he like so his strength is in the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: West and in the battlegrounds of the east. And you know,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: the battlegrounds are New York, right, It's hard to imagine today,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: but that's the battleground He never won another Southern state
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: in his political career. After having Booker T. Washington to
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: the White House, he was the first yes, yep, he's
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: a first president to have a black man dine at
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: the White House, there were threats on his life. There
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: was a senator who said nothing bad would have happened
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: if a bomb would have gone off under the table,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: killed the President and killed Booker T. Washington. There was
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: a fight that broke out in the Senate or when
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: that senator made those remarks, tr banned that Senator, Senator Tillman,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: of a racist from the South, from ever coming back
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: in the White House again while he was president. I mean,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: you know, so when I talk about political violence like
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: it was real at the time. And so tr knew
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: he couldn't win the South. He had to win a
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: combination of the East and the West. And so then
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: he is the first president to embrace suffrage. He makes
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: suffrage a part of his nineteen twelve platform. I was
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: going to mention it earlier, just quickly rewinding. One of
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: the biggest influences Alice had is his senior thesis in college.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: So Theodore Roosevelt writes a senior thesis when he's graduating.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: He endorses suffrage. He endorses a woman's right to own property.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: He endorses the idea that women could be doctors, lawyers,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: and judges. He says women shouldn't necessarily take their husband's
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: name upon marriage. That should be their choice. Very progressive
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: for eighteen eighty. That's all Alice. And then when she
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: eyes that kind of that light is.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: What's my next paragraph?
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: Right? I could keep some of the taxidermy. It's like
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: maybe my favorites and keep the bison, right, huh. Anyway,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: so he's just very progressive platform.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: They pass when they pass and by and give it
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: back to Taft.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: He then says screw y'all, yes, and does his independent
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: bid the bull Moose party and all that.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. So here's the key moment. Right, so Edith has said,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: no way, this is not going to happen. They go
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: out for a horseback ride in Oyster Bay. A car
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: starts and startles her horse. And she was a very
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: accomplished horsewoman. I mean she she was a good rider.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: She gets bucked from the horse. She lands on her head, unconscious.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: I mean she has undoubtedly what today would be a
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: traumatic brain injury. She's out cold for several days. Yes. Yes,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: that is when Connie and Bammy work with seven progressive
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: governors to publish a letter that encourages TR to run
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: as an independent as a bull Moose, and t R says,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: I'll throw my hat in the ring. My hat is
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: in the ring.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: This is when I miss, you're signed off on this.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Right before the horse right, you were saying something is
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: the horse was bucking you off. I think it was run.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: I think it was run. That's what I heard. I
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: heard Run Run is an independent. That's what I heard.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: It's too good to be true. That tells you anything
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: about their dynamic that he had to wait till she
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: was out cold to make the decision to run as
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: a bull moose progressive. She's so pissed that she gets
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: on a trip to uh the Caribbean with her daughter
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: Ethel and there's reporters gathered where they're bringing on their
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: luggage and they say, you know, reporter says, you know,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: is is the president with you? No, he's not coming
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: on this journey. You know, is that a Is that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: a hat box? And they say, yes, that's a hat box.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: They said, is that hat going in the ring? And
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: she says, no, we left that one at home too.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: He said, I throw my hat in the ring. So
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: they're basically saying, like, you know that one, you want
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: to go go talk to Teddy about hats in the rings.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: We're going to go to the Caribbean and cool off.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: She was not happy, and she was and she eventually
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: came around. I mean they all came around and helped him,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: and you know, then you have the assassination attempt, and
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: for a brief moment it kind of looks like Holy cow,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: because he I mean, the man knew how to create
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: a moment. He knew how to create a spectacle. And
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: so he is shot. He delivers the speech for over
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: an hour. He begins by saying, I don't know if
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: you know, but I have just been shot, and opens
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: his coat and it is caked in blood. I mean,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: to this day, when you see the shirt at the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: Theodre Roosevelt Presidential Library, like the outline of the blood.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: He was bleeding, but he coughed into a you know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: he coughed and he didn't have any blood coming out
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: of his lungs. So he said, you know, I'm going
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: on stage, and they were like, this is you gotta
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: get off stage. I mean several times they tried to
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: interrupt him and get him to the hospital.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: People thought that that the fist pump after Trump got
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: shot through the ear was bad ass.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: This is this is that nineteen And then he's giving
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: the speech still and he says and he says, you know,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: the thing that killed all these prior presidents who got
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: shot was not the bullet. It was the surgery. It
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: was the exploration looking for the you know, then they
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: get gangreen or they get right. So he's like, leave
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: it in there. It's fine. If it didn't kill me,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: it ain't gonna kill me. And so he doesn't have surgery.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: And two weeks later he gives a big speech at
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden and it's like, oh my god, he's
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: going to win. You know, he could, he could do it.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: And there's like a brief flicker of hope. But they
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: split the vote, you know, taft In Roosevelt split the vote.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, is elected. I mean, you think
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: if he, if tr is elected in nineteen twelve, there's
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: a decent chance the United States does not get into
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: World War One. I mean, he knew all of the
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: leaders of all the countries that eventually got into World
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: War One.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: God imagine too, that we wouldn't be stuck in this
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: bullshit two party system that we had lived under.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: Yep, he would. I mean he's the most successful third
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: party candidate in US history.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine if that had happened and you wouldn't have
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: to do this dumb thing that we have to do.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: Well, it's another reason I think he's popular across the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: political spectrum is you know, when his own party betrayed
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: him or he felt they weren't doing what he thought
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: should be done. He left it and he ran as
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: an independent. I mean, you know what I just found out, dude,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: to this kind of surprising is this gives me an
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: opportunity to bring up my honor ay PhD.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: Shoulder there. Oh wow, he's got the big one. I
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: was just reading that the press.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: The president is below that is it?
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: The small one? The president, the university, that little dinky
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: thing anyhow, just like a way, a way that I
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: could flex. Yeah. Please. When I was there doing that,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: I had dinner a couple of times with the president
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: of University Montana, guy named Seth Bodner, who's a green bray.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: I was just reading. I had no idea. I was
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: reading last night Bodner is resigning from UH is resigning
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: from being the president of the University of Montana to
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: launch a third party bid for Montana's Senate seat.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: Wo wow. Well, you know it feels like I can't.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Which is a death sentence. Well, because you can't.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: But you don't have to win.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: You don't have to win a majority, That's right. I Mean,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: that's the that's the difference with the presidential election is
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: like there's a structural obstacle to a third party winning.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: But I think like a third party senator could I mean,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: there's several.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: Ef it's more plausible, but it's just we just don't
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: don't play that game.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're going through a political realignment. I mean,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: what what we knew as a Republican when we were
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: kids is now a Democrat. What a Democrat was is
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: now more of a Republican.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: And it's like the Republicans, like when I was a boy,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: you were free trade, yeah right, you were hawkish. Now
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: it's like you're sort of like a protect you like protectionist.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: So there's a fact there's a pacifist wing, you know.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: And this this is what happens throughout US history is
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: and it happened during TR's time, right, there was a
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: change in what a Republican was and and whether the
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: Republican Party wanted to be that and what the Democratic
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: Party who was, you know, aligned with with slavery. Right,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, they didn't hold office on the federal level
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: for what I mean, it's until it was twenty five years,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: you know. I mean, so they were in the wilderness
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: for quite a long time. Trying to restore their identity.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: And it's really until FDR comes along and sort of
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: steals the playbook from Theodore Roosevelt and says, hey, you
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: know all those ideas that he was trying to convince
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: Republicans to do, I don't want the Democrats do them.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: I mean you think about the history of conservation, right,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: I mean it's fascinating. It's almost like there's four phases.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: You've got this first phase where Theodore Roosevelt the first
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: politician to really appreciate what academics we're talking about in conservation,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: and then put it into legislative action. The federal government,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: state governments are going to do something related to nature
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: and lands. And then you have FDR who picks up
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: that baton and puts it on steroids. I mean right,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: I mean the CCC and the work's probably Riss administration.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: And that's just explodes into I mean, he's probably one
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: of our most underrated conservation presidents because so much.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: Else taking taking unemployed people, putting them big camps to
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: do conservation work exactly right.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: And so that's t r's idea manifold forty times right.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: And then you now you've got these lands. Now you've
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: got these agencies. Now you've got these rules and laws
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: and regulations, and then there's kind of an era of regulation. Right,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: there's awareness of environmental protection and degradation and pollution, and
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: that's kind of your you know, Endangered Species Act and
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: Nixon Nixon another great conservation is right, like it.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Was almost over observed. We talked about it all the time,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: but like, uh, e p A, Yeah, the environment in
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: Dangered Species Act. But what else came in under Republicans?
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: All those in the in Nixon's time. I mean, it
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: was that was a flurry of pretty much all the
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: federal regulations that you're still dealing with. And so it
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: kind of begs this question, is why I love the
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: timing of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It's like, what's
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: old is new again. We're at this crux point, We're
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: at this inflection, We're at this midpoint where what is
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: that fourth stage of conservation? What is the future of
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: that conversation? You know, it's one of those issues that
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: shouldn't necessarily be partisan or political. C forgets that way often,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: but you've had throughout history Republicans, Democrats, independents embrace this idea,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: and that's one of the I mean, I think, like
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: what the Reagan Library has done on defense, I feel
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: like tr Library can do in conservation right, create a
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: place of convening and civic conversation to bring people together
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: to talk about these things, to have a I mean,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: every I've talked to so many different people of different
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: political backgrounds, from different states and countries, rural, urban, you
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: name it, and they all say kind of the same
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: thing using different words. It's the words that put them
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: in different camps or sides or parties. And I don't know,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: maybe it's naive, but that thought of like an independent
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: just he's somebody that brings people together.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: She say that that Edith lived thirty years longer.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, he died thirty years look like for her fascinating
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: because she never wanted to be at Sagamore Hill. On
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: the anniversary of his death January sixth, she did.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: The original six Man.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of eerie parallels here.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get that wrong in the future and make
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: it seem more like you're.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: Gonna get You're gonna Kennedy Oswald like Lincoln.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: That thing you he booked.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: Driving in Dallas. There was a book depository. There's riots.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: It was crazy. She lived her best life.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Was she public?
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: She tried not to be. She would gather with you know,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of people would come up to Sagamore Hill,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: want to talk with her, want to remember tr She
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: would go. She went on her own adventures. She wrote
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: this fabulous book with Kerbitt, and her chapter is Odyssey
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: of a Grandmother and she, I, Ca'm not gonna remember
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: the I know right well, she but she kind of
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: goes to that quote, like I love to see the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: little faces, but I prefer to see their backs. She
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: traveled the world. She went to thirty forty different countries.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: She kind of became this global ambassador.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: She lived.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: She she it's interesting because she lived as long. You know,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: she knew him for fifty seven of his sixty years.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: They met when he was three years old and they
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: were married for about thirty years. So she lived without
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: him as long as they were married and kind of
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: had this amazing life and adventure. She I mean a
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: lot of sadness too. I mean Quentin, her youngest son,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: died in World War One. He's the only World War
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: One soldier now buried at Normandy alongside his brother, Ted Junior,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: who died in World War Two. Kermit, as you mentioned,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: died by suicide. But they didn't tell her. They lied.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: They said, you know, he died of a heart attack
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: because I didn't want I mean, so three of her
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: sons died before she did. You know, she did endorse.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: So then you have Fdr who comes along in he
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: runs for governor in New York. Then he runs for
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: president in nineteen thirty two, and Edith comes out of
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: her self imposed isolation and endorses Hoover. She and there's
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: a big split in family. Connye yep, yep. So Bami
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: had died by this point. She died in nineteen thirty one.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was going to ask if they remained like operators,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: like political operators, or if that passion was just under
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: There was.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: A really fascinating dynamic between Connie the younger sister and
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: Ted Junior. So, I mean, imagine being Theodore Roosevelt junior,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: like almost impossible. But he has a remarkable life. I mean,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: he runs for governor and he is unsuccessful. He's taken
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: down by the teapot Dome scandal, which it's involved the
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: Department of Interiors speaking of conservation. It was base, I
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: mean boiled down in its greatest simplicity. It was the
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: Secretary of the Interior selling oil leases illegally, and Teapot
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: Dome was a place in Wyoming that had oil leases,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: and he was doing it off the books, and somehow
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: Ted Junior, even though he really didn't have anything to
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: do with this, gets embroiled in the scandal. Eleanor Roosevelt
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: campaigns against him. The Hyde Park and Oyster Bay branches
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: of the family really begin to divide after the death
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: of TR. FDR emulated tr loved him, I mean really
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: modeled his whole career on his distant cousin. I mean,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: he was assistant Secretary of the Navy, He was governor
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: of New York, He was in the New York State Assembly.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: He of course ran for president. I mean there's a
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: direct line. He even FDR cast his first vote for
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: president for tr in nineteen oh four. Yeah, and when
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: he was asked, well, why you know, because he's a Democrat,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: why'd you vote for the Republican? And he said, well,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: I thought he made a better Democrat than the Republican.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: Pretty good, right, you kid.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's a split in the family. Connie really
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: becomes a public figure. She's publishing books, she's giving speeches,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: she's she becomes the first woman to speak at the
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: Republican National Convention. In nineteen twenty, a lot of people
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: thought that Theodore Roosevelt was going to be the presidential nominee.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: He'd sort of made amends with the party. He said
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: if he declined to run for governor of New York again,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: because he said, if I've got one last fight in me,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: it's going to be for the presidency. In nineteen twenty.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, he knew he was sick, and of course
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: the family knew he was sick, but it was a
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: stunner when he died. I mean, he was the leading
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: candidate for the presidential nomination in the Republican Party when
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: he died, and I mean so much so that they
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: were trying to soften his support out West and running hits, running,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: you know, negative campaigns already on him, trying to make
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: sure that he wouldn't succeed. You know, it's it's imagine
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: what happens were he to live and win in nineteen twenty,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: you know, again, a whole different world. He gives us
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: the last speech Theodore Roosevelt ever gave in his life
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: is on November two, nineteen eighteen. It's at Carnegie Hall
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: in front of a mixed race audience. W. E. Du
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: Bois is on stage. The educator and Theodore Roosevelt says
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: that he endorses equality amongst black and white and says
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: justice with me is not a mere form of words.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, had he won in nineteen twenty, he was
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: going to take aim at Jim Crow forty five years
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: before the Civil Rights Act. I mean this progressive tarn Again.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: I don't mean it politically. I mean that he saw
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: black soldiers fight alongside white soldiers in World War One,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: and it changed, he evolved, It changed his outlook. He
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: was constantly like, what's next, What's the next battle? What
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: do we as a country going to face? And he
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: thought racism. I mean he was always anti peonage, he
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: was anti lynching. He was very you know, he made
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: some mistakes, some big mistakes. But the NAACP on his
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: death ran an incredible memorial talking about how we have
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: lost a friend. He was on the board of the
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: Tuskegee Institute. He was on the board of Howard University.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: I mean you know, these are like things people don't
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: even like, how do you But it's because he was
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: so I don't know, He's like a man from the
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: future sent back in time, you know, how he saw
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: what our next battle was going to be.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. It's like during the height of the Wolkesters.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: I remember, like I sit on the board of the
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and like at the height of
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: the Wolkester's power, they were like pushing TRCP like disavow him. Yeah,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: what's interest when you get into what some of his
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: stances were in the twenties.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean we took possession of the equestrian statue
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: that stood outside of the Yeah. Yes, yes, it is
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: a safe and secure location in North Dakota. It will well,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: it's the trick. It's it's one hundred and sixty eight
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: thousand pounds sixteen feet yeah. Yeah, no, it's not an
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: easy object to move. So by the time we took possession,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: our plans were well in motion. We will do something
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: with it. We will have it on public display at something.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: But I think it's you're not the first person off
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: Just get a dolly, but a new haul shouldn't be
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: a big deal.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: It was. That's kind of the quintessential example, though, Steve.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: It's excuse doctor Ranella. It is bronze, it's hollow bronze,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: and the pedestal is enormously heavy. I mean, that's a
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: granite from Connecticut that's considered park side.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: Can't.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: I wish it were that simple, but but it's the I.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: But it's a quintessential.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: Example understanding of the complexity the wait.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: And it's bisected. It's actually so in order to move
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: it out of the move it into the city in
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty, it had to be bisected along the saddle.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: Let's say.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's some pieces that need to pay.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: You don't even tell me the number. But hasn't been appraised.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: There was an appraisal, yes, before we was a come
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: in it significant significant, yes, yes, not insignificant, but it was.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: It's a perfect example of what you're talking about. Right.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: So Theodore Roosevelt dies in nineteen nineteen that there's a
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: there's a fierce competition between Albany and New York City
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: to be the site of the official New York State
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: Memorial to tr and by this time there is a
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: undoubtedly racist head of the American Museum of Natural History.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: I mean he's he is working with Addison Grant, who's
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: talking about, you know, the theories that will eventually inform Hitler.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: And it's not it's not talking about our buddy Horna Day,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: are you.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: No, No, no, no, I'm not talking about Horna Day. No. No, no, no,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: not horna Day. No Horna Day. There's a great book
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: by Darren Lunde since there body.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: But no no, but Horneay did have a couple of
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: little well it's odd thoughts, not like this.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: This was yeah, this was like convening people to talk
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: about racial hierarchy in right. And so he pitches the
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: idea that the front entrance, this new entrance builds, build
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: a new entrance. If you've been to the American Museum
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: of Natural History in New York, you know the entrance
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: is on seventy seventy seventh, right, So if you go,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: there's an old entrance that's been there forever. And the
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: pitch was, let's make a new entrance on Central Park West.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: This and it is it's Boone and Crockett and the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: other's four figures up top. There's quotes from tr there's
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: quotes on nature and conservation. The family's very involved in this.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: They win the competition to basically make the American Museum
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: in Natural History the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: And what's fascinating about it is when they're working with
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: their family, Bammy, Connie and Edith, in particular, what do
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: you want to be remembered. We want to remember him
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: as a naturalist, we want to remember as a conservationist,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: and we want this entire memorial to reflect who his
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: heroes were. So you know it's Boone, Crockett, Lewis and Clark.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah he's up, I mean, way up on the top.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: You really got But this is what slave owner well
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: I mean. So then later the president of A M
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: and H says, let's I want We're going to commission
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: this statue. Theodore Roosevelt explicitly said statues do not test
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: last the test of time. If there's one thing I
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: don't want, it's a statue of myself. I mean, one
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: of the few things he didn't want of all the
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: honors that he got. And so it's not.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: Can't mean that it doesn't live the test of time.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly what happened. I mean that sometime, at some point
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: in the future, there's going to be an interpretation that
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: doesn't meet the intent of it, of a its original creation.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: And that's what he was getting at.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, his that his legacy would be intertwined with something
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: that he never had any part of. And that's true.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what happened. That's what I find like again,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: he's like a man from the future sent back in
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: time to say, don't do this or this is what
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: the next fight will be. I mean it's eerie when
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: you think of I mean, you know, nineteen oh seven,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: the economy collapses, he works with JP Morgan to create
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: what will become the FED. Football is in danger. He
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: calls the presidents of elite universities to the White House.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: They create what becomes the NCAA and save the game
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: of football. You know, meat packing and meat inspecting are
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: killing people. He's the one who's reading Upton, Sinclair and others,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: and he creates the FDA, right, I meant.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: Shore Bird Yep.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he creates Pelican Island, creates Pelican Island. You'll love.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: In the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, there's a special section
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: in the presidency on his conservation legacy, and it talks about,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: you know, of course the land and the waters and
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: the irrigation projects and everything. But there is a statue,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: a bronze statue that we are creating of tr and
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: it's a recreation of the famous image of him with
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: his hand on the globe. And then and we have
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: a pelican.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: But he said statues, I know, but we cheated.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: We're gonna but we put we we did one that
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: is a recreation of his of a photo. And then
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: I think the grace note here is the pelican, because
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: you know, if you know, you know, and if you don't,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: that's pretty good. And then it'll be kind of a
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: cool to see who discovers.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: That you're you're literary man, you might know the answer
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: to this. What was Philip Roth's novel? Was it the
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Plot against America? Does he do a novel where he
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: imagines that Charles Lindberg wins?
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: Charlesberg is so popular he runs in nineteen forty and wins,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: and basically sympathizer basically says, let's make peace with Germany,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: let them take what they like.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: And that's the plot against America. Yes, yeah, there should
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: be there should be a novel. There should be a
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: novel that that Theodore Roosevelt wins in nineteen twenty at fabulous.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: Right, it's a it's you know, he he was tired.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: He would be like a real happiness cut this out.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: It was a strenuous life. Yeah, it was just you know,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think he had the fight and the energy
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: left in him, obviously since he was very close to death.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: But it is pretty extraordinary to wonder what would have happened.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: I mean that that's the tr that I know. I mean,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: that's in the loves of Theodore Roosevelt. I'm discovering this
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: person that had great instincts and could make mistakes. But
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: the real takeaway from me was, if we are all
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: fortunate in life, we have mother, a brother, a sister,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: a friend, a colleague, somebody who picks us up and
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: pushes us forward when we're really down, and.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: Well I have someone that kicks me forward.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Well that's what you need sometimes, right, and tr was
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: no different. I mean, he's up there on Mount Rushmore.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: He seems kind of, I don't know, inaccessible. He's larger
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: than life. Can't you can't meet these feats of strength
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: and adventure and accomplish And I think what I appreciated
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: in doing this research and building this library is that
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: he's he's a little more like all of us than
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: we realized. And maybe that's a good thing. It makes
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: you think you can do that too. You know, he
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: had struggles, he had pain, he had setbacks, and there
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: was an infrastructure. There were people there to keep him
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: moving and make the right decisions and keep fighting for
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: what he saw as right in the world. And you know,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: that's what I think the ultimate lesson. He never deferred
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: a problem to tomorrow. Right. He talks about this, especially
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: with regard to conservation. This is for our children and
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: our children's children, for all those who will come after us. Well,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of problems that we're kicking the
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: can down the road on in America today. And I think,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: what if you can take one lesson from this person
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: who attracts Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, it's that you
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: got to sit down and deal with the problems that
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: are in front of you, or they are just going
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: to reverberate through the generations. It's one of the big
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: lessons of his life.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: Man you're the right man for the job to run
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: that library. Hope, though, give you a chance to have
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: like you know, when you walk around there's like an
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: old man like doing interpretive stuff.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: That's my future.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like dress up like TV, you're like wander around.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: And the story about nineteen round, he's unbelievable.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: Talk to Manella about its way back in six if
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 4: you just wanted by President Manella, whoa, I saw it
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 4: coming before you did.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, what but like U in all seriousness, man,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: what a situation you landed and like you know, I mean,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean to have the book and
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: to have the position and just be like all that and.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: The moment, the moment, I think I didn't necessarily anticipate, No,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: but I mean it's yeah. I mean I think we
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: could all use a little more tr right now.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: You're given to you're bringing it right now, You're.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: Going to bring it, and I think the nation needs it.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: I think the world needs it needs reminding of you know,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: do what you can with what you have where you are.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a person is the best thing you
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: can you know, in a moment of decision, the best
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: thing you can do is make the right decision, the
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: next best thing is the wrong decision, and the worst
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: thing is nothing like again and again, his philosophy just
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: reverberates in a way in the arena. I mean, one
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: of the special experiences of the TR Library is going
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: to be surrounded by that incredible paragraph in the arena speech.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: You know, it is not the critic who counts. And
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: it's fifteen feet tall, it's nine feet you know, it's
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: nine feet high. It's We're going to have different voices
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: different you know, one time you walk in it'll be
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: President Clinton or Bush, and the next time you walk
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: in it'll be you know, Leonardo DiCaprio or Lebron James.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: And and the whole idea is that you know, you
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: then are asked, what what do you want to dare
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: greatly to do in this life? You know, this one
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: chance that you have to make a difference in the world,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: What do you care enough about to commit to action.
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: So I've always thought that, you know, the past really
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: teaches you about the present in order to make a
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: better future. And so if we can look back to
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: t R and understand a little something about our world
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: and maybe just maybe bond together and make something better,
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: then this will all have been worth it.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: You know, this is really inspiring too, because like me
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: and Randall have been really struggling with whether we want
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: to take on the task trying to learn how to
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: make gas station hot dogs and deer meat, and sometimes
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: it seems too daunting and they're going to do it.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: But after you're hearing this, now be the difference.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: In the world.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: You want the.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: Area you know, past six years just came to full fruition. Yeah,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: that you can get deer meat, hot dogs and gas
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: stations is It's not what I envisioned in twenty nineteen,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: But here we are.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: Someday when we figured that recipe out, you'll be able
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: to be like me. I make that happen. We have
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: a Wyoming based company who is going to send us
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: a SAM I guess we can just kick it.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 3: Aspired they were inspired by your show.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Turns out there's already someone in the arena. It's not
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: on the market, it's just for us.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 3: They're fans of the show.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: So are you going to be there? I mean you'll
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: obviously be present for the grand opening. I'm thinking about
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: head of the grand What.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: Does the grand opening look like? Is there like a
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 3: week of activity.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, should stay?
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 3: Should people put it on their calendar.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: Well, we we have invited all living presidents to join
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: us at the grand opening room. If they all join us,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: we won't need fireworks, So that'll be fun, we we. Well,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: let's see, we've got Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. This is
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: four and then the current president five.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: What's a normal amount of living presidents?
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: That's about I think I feel like that's about what
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: It's five. Just a great a year every year going
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: back to the beginning, and how many we're alive at
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: that time.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we can blow the Washington zero yep.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: And then he'd be like, you know, on down the line.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: Yep, nobody came to his party. He was the only
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: invited all the presidents, and we're all here, yeah here,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: since you, since you clearly assassination conspiracy line, Every president
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: from eighteen forty until Reagan in nineteen eighty either died
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: or was killed in office every twenty years. Again, so
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: every twenty years from eighteen forty to nineteen eighty, the
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: president died or was killed in office. So eighteen forty,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: eighteen sixty, eighteen eighty, nineteen hundred nineteen twenty, nineteen forty,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty. Yeah, and Reagan was shot but did not die.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: So you a curse. I'm going to hit you with
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: a weird one.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: I saw into the writer Selena Zito, she just wrote
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: that book. Butler, Yeah, bought the assassination attempt on Trump.
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: She was like, we're talking and she said, he's not
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: the first president to be shot in.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: Butler, Oh what seriously?
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: Well, during the French like in the sort of like
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: out like in the complications of the French Indian War,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: George Washington as a British rw military guy.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: Right, he was shot there. He was shot like right
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: that county. I would not have put that together to
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: get that one. And I believe, like you could the
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: clothes that he was wearing, you could see where the
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: bullets went through. I think that they were preserved. And
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: there's a crazy story about like just how close he
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: came to being killed.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: That was in that county. They had had a meeting.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: We'd come in and try to tell the French what's up, yep,
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: And they had a little meeting and then they take
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: off and they sent an assassin in his wake. I
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: think I could be screwing it up. They sent an
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: assassin in his waight to go take a pot shot
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: at him. Yeah, yeah, I think it's how it went.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: And that was the county coming up for that. That's crazy.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: So it was bad. Where's everybody where? The hell's everybody in?
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: Stay well, because you guys are in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: We're in the middle of everywhere, Steve, I don't need
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: to tell you center of North America.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: It's gorgeous. That wasn't meaning it as a hit, but
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: there's just not like a huge there's not a huge
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: urban area with thirty hotels.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: So there are seven hundred hotel rooms in the itself,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: and then in Dickinson, thirty miles away, there are over
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: three thousand. And there's camping, RV's and clamping and all
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: the things that have now become very commonplace around. Well,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: we're going to hit a max for sure. I mean,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: so if the President visits, likely to be early in
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: that that week of festivities, then we hope to have
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: a couple of days where we're really focused on a
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: lot of the people that have made this possible. I mean,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: four hundred million dollars raise, we've got a lot of
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: benefactors we want to honor, and we hope that July
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: fourth will really be an incredible celebration, a community day.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: You know, we want as many people as we can
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: to get up and see the site and see the museum.
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: It's going to be pragmatically challenging, logistically challenging, but we're
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: going to do we can.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: We also, I think I want to take my kids
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: out there. I think I'm oh, yeah, man.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's fabulous. It's if not for the opening,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: then shortly thereafter because it's a great place to get
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: out into the National Park.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: You guys can touch off a couple of fireworks.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: On So we are going to do a drone show.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: We've got so that the folks that did I don't
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: know if you saw this Grace for the World on Hulu.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: They did an amazing concert and then above the Vatican
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: they recreated Leonardo da Vici's works as well as several
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: images in drones. It's stunning, Yeah, stunning, stunning. So we're
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: going to do like a fourteen to eighteen minute life
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: of Theodore Roosevelt in the sky as a drone story.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: Really well, yeah, because in part we don't want to
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: burn down the building that we just built.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: But July July and then.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't need to. Let's see what happens. Hey,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: we get to do it all again. Maybe we'll inspire
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: another deer meat discovery.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do want to go to that. I mean,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: I've been kicking around going too. I hadn't thought about
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: the possibility. Bring them kids, prob go over. Reserve me
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: a hotel room.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: Man, you know a guy. We can help you out,
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: Doctor Rinella. We'll make it happen. I'll sleep in broom closets.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: Man. That was great having you on.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: That's wonderful to be with you. Thanks for all you do.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're good. You're a good kind of guest where
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: you just kind of know the story in and out.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: Due, Well, I've been living it for six years, so
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just you. I gotta I gotta warn
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: your listeners out there. They go down the tr rabbit hole.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: It's very hard to get back out.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: It's a deep pit.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: It's deep. It's a deep one.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: Well again, everybody, the lives of Theodore Roosevelt, the women,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: the loves. What am I saying? The look like I
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: had like an in arguably you know fast the loves
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: of Theodore Roosevelt, the women who created a president Edward
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: O'Keefe Ryder, and what is the president CEO CEO of
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opening soon. Thanks for coming
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: on man, great to be with you. Great appreciate it.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much,