For the past few days I have been reading William J. Bennett’s America: The Last Best Hope. This would be excellent reading for America’s current leaders. Many current issues, such as foreign relations and tariffs, are discussed. Ineffective or detrimental actions taken by our nation’s past leaders can be examined to help our current leaders avoid those same pitfalls.
Bennett includes throughout his work anecdotes about historical figures that keep the volumes interesting.
One of our nation’s former presidents was a rather versatile individual. He was second of four children in a socially prominent family of foreign ancestry. His mother came from a wealthy, slave-owning plantation family. He experienced frail health as a child and was tutored privately. (While president, he sent his own children to public school in Washington, D. C.) He graduated from Harvard and studied briefly at Columbia Law School. His health weaknesses steered him toward physical exercise to strengthen and preserve his body and he developed a lifelong love of activity which extended from his personal into his political life.
Both his first wife and mother died on the same exact day—Valentine’s Day—in the same year. Though he remarried and fathered five children with his second wife, Valentine’s Day was never mentioned in his presence.
He grew to become a writer, rancher, naturalist, conservationist, soldier, game hunter, and Nobel Prize winner. During his life of public service, he served as state assemblyman, Republican Convention delegate, member of the U. S. Civil Service Commission, president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, U. S. Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York, and Vice President and President of the United States. He was the youngest man at that time to become president. He changed the name of The Executive Manion to The White House.
He strongly opposed corrupt politics. According to Britannica online, “he expanded the powers of the federal government in support of the public interest in conflicts between big business and labor and steered the nation toward an active role in world politics, particularly in Europe and Asia.” The phrase “speak softly and carry a big stick” became a trademark for his political approach.
What kind of president was he? According to Britannica online, he

relished the power of the office and viewed the presidency as an outlet for his unbounded energy. He was a proud and fervent nationalist who willingly bucked the passive Jeffersonian tradition of fearing the rise of a strong chief executive and a powerful central government. “I believe in a strong executive; I believe in power,” he wrote to British historian Sir George Otto Trevelyan. “While President, I have been President, emphatically; I have used every ounce of power there was in the office.…I do not believe that any President ever had as thoroughly good a time as I have had, or has ever enjoyed himself as much.”*

As is probably true with every president, there are those who did not enjoy his being president as much as he enjoyed the office. Consider another quotation from Britannica online. This president

moved precipitously and high-handedly to punish a regiment of some 160 African American soldiers, some of whom had allegedly engaged in a riot in Brownsville, Texas, in which a man was shot and killed. Although no one was ever indicted and a trial was never held, [the president] assumed all were guilty and issued a dishonorable discharge to every member of the group, depriving them of all benefits; many of the soldiers were close to retirement and several held the Medal of Honor. When Congress decried the president’s actions [he] replied, “The only reason I didn’t have them hung was because I could not find out which ones…did the shooting.” This incident, along with his establishment of independent agencies within the executive branch and his bypassing of Congress and expanded use of executive orders to set aside public lands beyond the reach of the public, is why some historians see in Roosevelt’s presidency the seeds of abuse that flowered in the administrations of later 20th-century presidents.*

There are times that Americans become alarmed at actions taken by some of our nation’s leaders. While this can be frustrating and even frightening, comfort can be taken in a study of American history. A lot of what is new and feared catastrophic by current Americans occurred in a bygone era, and our nation survived. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV)
All presidents were/are men who had good and bad qualities, relatively speaking. Though the incidents just related demonstrate perhaps the less pleasant aspects of this man’s presidency, consider this endearing incident. While president, he participated in a hunting trip that was not proving successful. Some of his party purposely wounded a bear cub, trapping the poor animal for the president so he could successfully kill it. Whether from humanitarianism or pride, the president refused to harm the defenseless animal more than it had already suffered. This led a toymaker to name a stuffed bear for him, and 103 years later teddy bears are still owned and loved by untold millions of children all across the nation.
The teddy bear, namesake of America’s 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. “And now,” as Paul Harvey would have said, “you know the REST of the story.”

*(Source consulted: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Theodore-Roosevelt/Last-years-as-p…, Retrieved March 12, 2025)

ANSWER TO QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 53
Why did the moon skip dinner? (ANSWER: It was full.)

QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 53
What do you call a chicken at the North Pole? (See next week’s article in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.)