Ep. 841: Theodore Roosevelt on Love, Ladies, and Conservation

Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with author of The Loves Of Theodore Roosevelt https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Loves-of-Theodore-Roosevelt/Edward-F-OKeefe/9781982145705 and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library https://www.trlibrary.com/, Ed O'Keefe https://www.trlibrary.com/staff-members/edward-okeefe. Joined by Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: The ladies in Teddy's life; being a sickly child and powering through pain; hunting to study; a tremendous taxidermy collection; a family that founded so many museums; sisters as advisors and confidants; a life-altering Valentine's Day tragedy; when a thick manuscript in your front jacket pocket stops a bullet and saves your life; being the first president to embrace women's suffrage and the right to own property; one of the most beloved in American history; and more. Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:28Steven Rinella?

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• 3:04Steven Rinella?

  All right, man, we're joined by Ed O'Keefe, who's got a new book, The Loves of Teddy Roosevelt. We're going to get into Teddy as a ladies man and a mama's boy.

• 3:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, that would have been a much better subtitle. Ladies man, mama's boy. Instant best seller. No, the loves, the loves of Theodore Roosevelt, the women who created a president. And so everybody knows Theodore Roosevelt as the swashbuckling, you know, adventurer, which is a little weird, like, like, you know, he went all over hunting, hunted in Africa, hunted across the West, became a rancher, wrote a book about ranching. Like, people know him as this sort of like the most macho of presidents, the manly manest of presidents, right? You know, you think of like, you think of like President Trump growing up, you know, he's got like gold stuff everywhere and this guy was kind of comfortable in a cabin at

• 3:59Steven Rinella?

  times. But what you lose sight of, there's a couple of things you lose sight of with Roosevelt. One, extraordinarily wealthy. Like in today's world, him as an outdoorsman would be like a rich kid that like goes to boarding school and gets into Knowles, gets real into like Knowles and like spends his summers in Alaska. Yep. Do you know what I mean? That would be, that's like the contempt and then, you know, eventually he's like a fishing guide or something. But he didn't really actually have to. Like redneck stuff. Yeah, he doesn't depend on the guiding income. Yeah. It's just a lifestyle. Yeah, and like that would have been Roosevelt, but he did it so well. And because of his conservation record, he's sort of held as this like rugged individualist.

• 4:41Steven Rinella?

  But he has this very confusing background and like one of the things that we're going to talk about is, um, this is a guy not shaped by grizzled old. Hunting and fishing uncles that live out in a shack somewhere. He's like shaped by women in his life and like huge impactful relationships.

• 5:02Steven Rinella?

  With his mother. So we're gonna dive into that. Ed O'Keefe. Edward O'Keefe, if you want to be official.

• 5:09Steven Rinella?

  The first thing we're gonna talk about, soon as I do his intros, we're gonna talk about this. So Edward O'Keefe is the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation. So we're gonna kick off by talking about that, because this is a big deal over in North Dakota, the Presidential Library. O'Keefe recently, previously spent two decades in broadcasting digital media at ABC News, CNN, and now this, during which time he received a primetime Emmy Award for his work with Anthony Bourdain, two Webby Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award. What was that documentary about him? No, the movie, Good Night and Good Luck.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Good Luck.

• 5:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, George Clooney.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  And a play.

• 5:50Steven Rinella?

  And a George Foster Peabody Award for ABC's coverage of 9/11. So, all that said, if he bombs today on the show.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  It's been good up till now.

• 6:01Steven Rinella?

  It's not that he didn't have the training in digital media to pull off a podcast appearance. He should kill. A former fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, he graduated with honors from Georgetown University.

• 6:16Steven Rinella?

  All from a, all out of North Dakota.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  North Dakota, that's right. Born and raised.

• 6:21Steven Rinella?

  Born and raised in North Dakota, went on to do all that. So

• 6:26Steven Rinella?

  currently lives in New York with his wife, daughter, and son. All right, tell us about the library.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Well.

• 6:32Steven Rinella?

  Before we get into the book, let's talk about the library.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, great. I mean, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opens on July 4th, 2026, 250th anniversary of America.

• 6:42Steven Rinella?

  Was that just like a coincidence?

• 6:44Speaker 03

  I, you know, I mean, I started in this job October 2019 and

• 6:48Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And so it's been a six-year effort. We've raised almost $400 million to get this baby constructed.

• 6:54Steven Rinella?

  Oh, man.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a, it's, it's gonna, it's 93 acres. It celebrates Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy. So looking, you know, he looked 100 years into the future. And Conservation wasn't even a concept, right? I mean, it was an academic concept, but no politician had paid attention. When TR proposed his first conservation bill, the Speaker of the House literally said, "There will not be one dime for scenery." And that was, that was the attitude. Are you serious? Yeah, I'm serious. I never heard that quote. That was the response, right? Because scenery was like, what are you talking about? You're kidding me, really? Yeah, no, that's 100% true. I feel like I ought to have heard that before. That's 100% true. The Speaker of the House, when he proposed his conservation bill, said, "No way." I mean, I didn't, well, there wasn't a counterargument. It was just, "That doesn't make any sense.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  What are you talking about?" Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, this, when he's talking about the creation of the US Forest Service, when he's talking about national, doubling the park's size, when he's putting 234 million acres of land into the public trust, he is not just ahead of his time, he's light years ahead of his time. And so, what we want to do at the TR Library is, you know, work with the local ranchers to graze the land on the 93 acres. We have a walkable roof where you can go 38 feet tall and look out at the 65 million years of geologic history in the Badlands. And it's filled, 400,000 native plants, all from, yeah, all from 40 miles around. We've been working on it for years, you know, working with North Dakota State University

• 8:24Speaker 03

  to, to bring those plants back, bring, bring the pollinators, bring the bees, bring the birds back to this area, you know? And, and so, you know, you want families to come and to hike and to bike and to horseback ride to the, to the Presidential Library. You know, it's really a place where we want kids to drag their parents. I mean, to get out in nature and do what TR did, you know, to, to find nature as your classroom, to be together as a family, to, you know, celebrate the wondrous beauty of this national park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the only one named for a person, let alone a president. No. You know, everyone else is named for a place. How, how close is the library to the park? Stones throw.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  I mean, you could, so, there's two, there's a West Wing and now the only East Wing. You could, that for...

• 9:15Speaker 03

  We thought that was gonna be a clever ode, but the only one now. And it's a perfectly framed view of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. So you can literally, you can see the park from us and us from the park. Uh, 74,000 acres of backyard to go explore.

• 9:33Steven Rinella?

  Does that, so it borders the park?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  It does. Yeah. It'll, it's the largest private philanthropic project adjacent to a national park in history. Um, the previous was St. Louis Arch. Um, so we're, it's, it's a big effort, you know, it's, North Dakota is not a huge state. We've got people from all over the nation, all over the world, uh, who've contributed because TR, I like to say he's like a Rorschach test. What, what you see in him says more about you than it does about him.

• 10:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Right? And so Republicans, Democrats, independents, people from all 50 states, 12 different countries. You know, we've, we've been really blessed to have incredible support because of this person who's so universally beloved for different reasons.

• 10:16Steven Rinella?

  That's the thing I've, I've mentioned a bunch of times is in, in giving talks is there's not a politician today that wouldn't like to be favorably compared to Roosevelt.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he's Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren's favorite president. Find me one other thing they agree on. All right. I mean, he's Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's favorite president. And it's impossible to find another thing that they agree on.

• 10:44Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  And so what we're doing at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is we don't want to tell you which version of TR you should love. We want you to get out in nature with your family.

• 10:53Steven Rinella?

  Well, I tell people what version.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, you can, but you know, I'm the head of a nonprofit, so I can't. Inside, we have an immersive, almost theatrical experience. I mean, every chapter of TR's life is crazier than the last. I mean, if you, if you wrote this story and submitted it to an editor, they'd reject it. Say like, okay, all right, okay. I mean, we can charge up San Juan Hill and we can have the adventure in the El Coro. But really, we're gonna go to Africa and the Amazon? I mean, these are both gonna happen in the same life. It's just ridiculous, right? So we want people, especially kids, to immerse themselves in these stories. You know, when you're in Roosevelt's childhood, you want to reach inside a tree if you dare. You want to open a book and an extinct species of bird will fly out and join a wall of wonder.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  We want you to feel curious when you're, when you're doing these things. We want to feel courage. We want you to feel the things that TR felt so you can get in the arena of your own life and be the change you want to see in the world. Cause that's ultimately TR's message is, is that if you want to be a part of a successful democracy, you have to participate. You have to be in there. You have to, you have to fight for it. Yeah. It's not just going to happen. And, and whether that's being on the school board or running for a local election, you don't have to be president of the United States to make a difference, but you do have to get involved and, and that's the ultimate message of the TR library. How, how did they, did they find you to do this because you were a North Dakota guy? It was crazy. Like, how did you go from media to doing that?

• 12:24Speaker 03

  I'd, I'm still trying to figure that one out. So I was 20 years in media, as you mentioned, I worked at ABC News. I worked with Tony Bourdain at CNN. Sadly, after Tony died, I, the show ended and I went to Harvard to basically try to figure things out. And I thought, you know, I'm, I want to do the types of programs that we did with Tony in streaming, you know, we, I, I, what was so powerful about working with Tony Bourdain is that, you know, he could go to West Virginia and have a conversation with people who are totally and completely different than him, or I could go to Mumbai and gather them around the table, have a meal and a conversation and, and bring people together.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  I had more people talk about what they learned about the world from watching that parts unknown than practically anything else I did in media. So I was really curious, like, how can we take that, you know, and at the time in 2019, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, et cetera, you know, they said, we're not going to do any news, we're not going to do any live, we're not going to do any sports. They also said they're not going to do any podcasts, they're not going to do any, right? Not going to do short form video, right? They're doing all of it now in 2026, but in 2019, it was like, nope, they're not going to do that. So that's what I was at Harvard to kind of explore is. When we built the studio, we were never going to record. We were never going to do podcasts. Never, never, right? Uh. For Boden.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  No video.

• 13:47Steven Rinella?

  He said. You talked in between two cameras.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  No, as strict. Yes. Well, you you stuck to it, Stephen. That's what I admire about you is when you make a proclamation as a you you stick to it.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  So, yeah, so I I I meet um this group who's trying to raise money for the T R library. It's been an idea for a hundred years since his death and fits and starts in New York and North Dakota and other various places, never succeeded. And, you know, I'm from North Dakota. I'm thinking about what to do with the rest of my life and my professional career. And I was researching a book which became The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt.

• 14:26Steven Rinella?

  Wondering, okay, so I was wondering like chicken or the egg kind of deal.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 14:29Steven Rinella?

  That's not the perfect analogy, but yeah, I didn't know if if your book came out of. So you were already getting into T R land intellectually.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  When you grow up in North Dakota.

• 14:39Steven Rinella?

  You're just in T R land.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  T R is your hero, right? I mean, we we got Roger Maris. And we got, you know, we got Lawrence Welk. I mean, come on, we gotta give it up.

• 14:49Steven Rinella?

  You got some heavy hitters.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Phil Jackson, we got Phil Jackson. Yeah, all right. There we go.

• 14:53Steven Rinella?

  We tried to get him on the show, remember that?

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes. Yeah.

• 14:56Steven Rinella?

  He looks like fish.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:58Steven Rinella?

  Hey, he lives up in Whitefish.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Right.

• 15:01Steven Rinella?

  Part of the time, I think. If you're listening, Phil. Yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  This is he probably is. He's been following me pretty closely for 25 years. So this is probably your moment.

• 15:10Steven Rinella?

  Listen right now.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean.

• 15:12Steven Rinella?

  He's like, well, that dude's doing it. I'm doing it too, buddy.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Now that Ed has done it.

• 15:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  I Phil Jackson will do it too.

• 15:19Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that would be great.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that would be. I hope that happens for you.

• 15:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, so, yeah, so I the book came before the library. I mean, I was I was in two very different mindsets. I'm in the 21st century, you know, looking at could we do shows like Tony Bourdain and Parts Unknown in the streaming universe? And I'm sneaking away to the Houghton Library where a big part of Theodore Roosevelt's collection is held. And I'm exploring this story and I I, you know, I I know the T R that you all know, right? From Mount Rushmore and this kind of chiseled masculine, crazy, you know, adventurer. And two things can be true at the same time. That exists, right? That is him.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  But what I found remarkable is I'm looking at all these letters and every single decision that he ever makes, he's asking his sisters, or his mom, or his wives for advice. And I'm like, what, where's, I didn't, like, I didn't, he's kind of the quintessential self-made man. I mean, the person who has no doubts, who asks nobody else for their opinion on anything.

• 16:29Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Not true.

• 16:31Steven Rinella?

  It's funny to think like, like Trump being like, I don't know Melania.

• 16:35Steven Rinella?

  What do you think about Greenland?

• 16:39Speaker 03

  I mean, who knows? History will show us.

• 16:43Steven Rinella?

  I don't know. Some researcher. I don't know. Maybe someday there'll be a book.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Maybe Greenland really pissed her off.

• 16:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, maybe she plans that.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Get him. Yep. Yeah. So I, that's, that's what, that was the origin is I was thinking about what to do next. I'm researching the book on Theodore Roosevelt and I've got this, these roots in North Dakota. And North Dakota stepped up by offering a $50 million endowment contingent on the foundation's ability to raise $100 million by the end of 2020, which seemed like a daunting task, but it, it got a lot harder when the pandemic.

• 17:24Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  You know, so, but I, I was like, oh, look, is, they have no money, no architect, no land. What a great prospect. I think I'll dive in. My, my New York wife was really happy with me. She really thought this was a good career move. So, yeah, she was.

• 17:41Steven Rinella?

  So, but you guys haven't, you guys haven't moved, do you still have family in North Dakota?

• 17:45Speaker 03

  I do. Yeah. My, my cousins, my brother, my uncles. Yeah. My, my parents are there most of the year. Yep.

• 17:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So do you, do you rent a place there now? So you can be out for your work?

• 17:54Speaker 03

  I mean, since it's a national prime, we like to say it's a global project with proud North Dakota roots. I mean, I'm everywhere, all the time, talking to people about the project and doing a lot of fundraising. I mean, 400 million in five years, you got to talk to a lot of people about what you're doing and how you're doing it.

• 18:13Steven Rinella?

  And all this is gonna, um, July 4?

• 18:17Speaker 03

  July 4th, 2026. So yes. So your question about was that intentional? I don't think in 2019, we thought, oh, you know what would be a great date to open this.

• 18:26Steven Rinella?

  But at some point you had to be like, I'll buy some time.

• 18:31Steven Rinella?

  Randall, you know fundraising and construction apparently. Yeah, exactly.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, at some point, we said, hey, wait a second. You know, if we can be a part of America's 250th celebration, that will bring, you know, national attention that we wouldn't otherwise get. But also, think about this. So Theodore Roosevelt was president at the nation's 125th birthday. He is exactly between the Declaration of Independence at zero and where we are now at 250.

• 19:03Steven Rinella?

  Oh, wow.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  So, once again, TR makes you think about where are we going to be at America 500? Because right now-

• 19:11Steven Rinella?

  That midway point is interesting.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  We are the midway point of that point in our distant future.

• 19:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  And-

• 19:17Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell my kids something similar, man. I was telling them, like, if the Earth's crust solidified four billion years ago, and the sun's going to burn out in four billion years, like, it's just the Earth's in a midlife crisis right now.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  This is halftime.

• 19:31Steven Rinella?

  This is just the cra- this is like the crazy midlife crisis-

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 19:34Steven Rinella?

  -that we're going through.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 19:35Steven Rinella?

  And that kind of messed them up because they couldn't really conceptualize four billion years. So then they're always talking about one that they're like expecting any second now. Expecting a second now for the sun to go poof.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  Well, they can go on Facebook and find a lot of people who believe the same. They're going to have some real good friends soon.

• 19:52Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, that's a good point, man. Like, yeah, he hit the halfway point.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  He's the halfway point.

• 19:56Steven Rinella?

  Right on the nuts.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  And, and think about this, right?

• 19:58Steven Rinella?

  I never thought about that.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  It's so much eerily similar to where we are now, right? The, the economy is changing. You're going from an agrarian to an industrial society. Like, think about men's worth. I mean, the, the value of a man to a family was how much they could hunt, how much they could gather, how much they could farm, how much, right? And that suddenly becomes, well, how much are you worth? How much are you making? Are you, you have an industrial job, right? You're moving from a rural area to an urban area. Cities are developing. So immigration, immigration was a huge issue in TR's time, right? And then it was Irish and Germans and Italians and Chinese and, you know, it leads to one of the largest crackdowns

• 20:43Speaker 03

  in immigration in US history, right, right after TR's time, where he's a very welcoming presence.

• 20:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like those Italians, they'll never integrate, they're always gonna put family in front of nation.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, Irish need not apply, right? I mean, this was a very, this has happened so many times.

• 21:01Steven Rinella?

  You'll never overcome the Klan mentality of the Irish.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  And technology, think about technology, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt's born in 1858, there's no electricity, there's no cars, there's no airplanes, there's no submarines, he's the first president to travel abroad while in office, he's the first president to send a telegraph by wire, he's the first president to use a telephone in the White House, first president in a motorcade, first president in an airplane, in a submarine, and on and on and on and on the list goes. So technology is uprooting the way people feel about life.

• 21:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  They're scared because it's moving so fast and so changing so quickly, what is this gonna mean? And here's this person who says, I'm embracing this, it's gonna be okay. And he's also one of the great naturalists of our time. So he knows to get out of the car and get on horse and get out into nature and have a tonic to all this technology that is changing everything and every way of American life. So he, I mean, it's all happening again. History doesn't repeat, it rhymes.

• 22:09Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. Totally off, I wanna get back into this, but just, it's just popping in my head. Where was he at in his career when he got shot?

• 22:18Speaker 03

  He was the ex-president.

• 22:20Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  It was October.

• 22:22Steven Rinella?

  So it was like the Bull Moose era?

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Bull Moose, definitely. Yeah, he's, he's running against his, his successor, Taft and Wilson. He's an independent Bull Moose progressive.

• 22:33Steven Rinella?

  And that's when he got winged, yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Or not winged, I mean, have you ever seen, like, we're gonna have that, those pieces, they've never been assembled.

• 22:39Steven Rinella?

  Well, you got them?

• 22:40Speaker 03

  We got them.

• 22:41Steven Rinella?

  Well, tell everybody we're talking about.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  So I've got, so the only thing that saved TR's life, I mean, he took a point-blank shot right in the chest, and it was, he had a double-breasted suit. He had a speech about 50 pages long doubled over in his breastcoat pocket. And then the thing that really saved him, he had his eyeglass case that was steel reinforced. Oh my god. And that's the, that's the one. Seriously? Yep. I didn't know about the eyeglass case. The eyeglass. I always thought he had like a book or something. No, no, it was, all three items really combined to save his life. See, that'd been Lincoln, because the Gettysburg Address was so short. He'd be dead. It'd have punched right through it. Right through it, right. That's why you should write long ass speeches. You got a long speech, that's right, that's right. And so it's crazy, so we're reuniting these items for the first time, they've never been on display together, yeah. You guys got the eyeglass case?

• 23:26Speaker 03

  The eyeglass case, so the bullet. Who had that? The diameter of the bullet hole going in the front part of the case is very wide. I mean, you're like, oh, he's, he's dead. And then it narrows, you could see how much it narrows out the other side, it slowed it down. Hmm. I mean, had it gone through at the velocity that it was intended at point blank range, he's dead. Did you, huh, Randall, don't bullshit me, did you know about the eyeglass case? I did, I couldn't have described the hole to you, but. Well, you gotta come to Midor North Dakota and see it. Who had that? So, the National Park Service had the eyeglass case. Another park had the shirt, so it all got separated through the years. And the revolver, the gun is gone.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  And, and by the way, the assassin was stalking Theodore Roosevelt through several different speeches and looking for the opportunity to shoot him at point blank range. He had a dream, a vision, that William McKinley, the president who was assassinated that allowed TR to ascend to the presidency, had spoken to him and told him that he needed to prevent Theodore Roosevelt from seeking a third term. That he was an illegitimate president and that he had to be killed. Makes sense. I mean, they recently.

• 24:45Steven Rinella?

  That came to him in a vision, a dream.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  I came to him in a dream. I mean, but think about this too, political violence, right? Another thing that was a hallmark of TR's time that we're experiencing again. I mean, this is, three presidents were assassinated in TR's while he's coming up through the system. Right? I mean, including his, the McKinley, who leads to him becoming the youngest president in history. I mean, this was unfortunately routine.

• 25:09Steven Rinella?

  You know, the dude that killed Lincoln, shot Lincoln in a theater.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:13Steven Rinella?

  And then went and hit out in a.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  John Wilkes Booth?

• 25:16Steven Rinella?

  Went and hid in a book depository. There were no.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Now we're, now we're combining two different assassinations.

• 25:21Steven Rinella?

  Hear me out.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Okay. All right. Okay.

• 25:22Steven Rinella?

  The dude that shot Lincoln.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 25:25Steven Rinella?

  Shot him in a theater. And I think they caught him in a book deposit. I'm not joking. Check, look at that.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Oh, and you're saying.

• 25:30Steven Rinella?

  The guy that shot Kennedy. The guy that shot Kennedy, shot him from a book depository. They caught him in a theater.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Do you know that Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy and Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln?

• 25:43Steven Rinella?

  Didn't know that. Back me up. Where's your computer, man? I'm flying blind. Someone looked. I already knew about the glasses case. Booth, look up, where did Booth get caught? I thought he was in a barn. No, no, no, listen, I could be wrong, but check, check this out. We, when we were on, we were just on live tour. Oh, yeah. And we're doing a show in Dallas. And none of us knew this. Like, we had like booked the venue. One of, one of our guys, he's hanging around somehow. He going to get a cup of coffee or something. Wads up out in front of the venue and he's reading some sign and he comes back. He's like, this is where.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  This is where it happened.

• 26:17Steven Rinella?

  Oswald. Like, we're in the building where Oswald got caught. Yeah. Yeah. And it's right next to a dispensary called Doobies.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Which everything changes.

• 26:27Steven Rinella?

  Lincoln was a big Doobie Brothers.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Brothers fan. Right? Yeah. He was in the Texas, he shot him from the sixth floor of the Texas book depository. And I think he was caught at a theater. So that's probably what you're, right?

• 26:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, he was caught at the theater.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  He was caught at a movie theater.

• 26:44Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, that's, that's where we were.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  By Tippet.

• 26:46Steven Rinella?

  Oswald was caught in a theater.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Oswald was caught in a theater. Lincoln was shot in a theater.

• 26:50Steven Rinella?

  And it shot, and I, and if I'm not mistaken.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  You're talking about Booth?

• 26:53Steven Rinella?

  The part that needs. Where'd they catch Booth?

• 26:55Speaker 03

  In a movie theater.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  To a far, a rural, a farm in rural North Virginia.

• 27:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. It was a country in a barn.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  In a barn.

• 27:03Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Was someone storing books?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  No, I get where you're going.

• 27:07Steven Rinella?

  Well, I'm going, I mean, I'm just, I think I'm just wrong.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  No, no, no. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from the book depository. It was, it was pretty close.

• 27:17Steven Rinella?

  Oh, barn.

• 27:18Speaker 05

  Well, things are stored there.

• 27:20Steven Rinella?

  I think they were, they must have been having a lot of, just trust me, listeners. That barn packed full of books.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Maybe they started the fire with books.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  They were getting, yeah, that's what I remember.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  I'm going to give you that one.

• 27:33Speaker 06

  It's a cow depository.

• 27:34Steven Rinella?

  There was bull, yeah.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  They thought about, yeah.

• 27:37Steven Rinella?

  It was a hay depository. All right, all right, okay, the book, no.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  We're on track.

• 27:43Steven Rinella?

  No, I want to get into this.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  There's a great book about that, by the way, Manhunt, James Swanson.

• 27:48Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  12 Day Manhunt.

• 27:49Steven Rinella?

  Never read it, but I've seen it.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Is, is, I think it was turned into a series, too.

• 27:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 27:55Speaker 05

  I don't remember, but I can visualize the burning of the barn.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  And the, the series on Garfield's.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Oh, that's amazing. That's Candace Millard, who also wrote The River of Doubt, which, page for page, that is, I mean, that reads like a novel.

• 28:08Steven Rinella?

  And who, who was Hellhound on His Trail was the guy that was the, the, the king assassin? Was that what that book's about?

• 28:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:18Steven Rinella?

  A Hellhound on His Trail or something?

• 28:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:20Steven Rinella?

  You're right. Either way, I want to get into our buddy here, TR.

• 28:25Speaker 00

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• 28:55Steven Rinella?

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• 29:25Steven Rinella?

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• 30:06Steven Rinella?

  That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S company.com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands. It works good. Sickly kid.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:19Steven Rinella?

  Real sickly. Okay, let's get into it. This, this forms like his, like, he has an intense relationship with his mom.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  Yes. The very first words of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt are, from the beginning, Theodore Roosevelt's survival was very much in doubt. And I think this is the part that a lot of biographers miss, is you, okay, he's an asthmatic, sickly kid, but it led his mother to be extraordinarily protective of him, to keep him from going outdoors. It wasn't just the asthma and the smog and the environmental devastation of New York in the 1860s. It was her really thinking that legitimately, he could die if, if he were exposed to too much. And so, you know, here's a woman-

• 31:02Steven Rinella?

  Because of like a bygone thinking, like the, the miasma, or is that like, or is that a legitimate thing?

• 31:07Speaker 03

  It was legitimate thing. I mean, he, he, the doctors did not think he would live beyond four or five years old. I mean, he, he, from the beginning of his life, learned that you need to will yourself through physical and emotional pain. And his mom, who's often derided as having no influence over him, she is a charismatic southerner, right? She, she's from the Bullock family. She's the inspiration for Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. I mean, she's a character. Yeah.

• 31:36Steven Rinella?

  Randall says she dressed him up in little dresses.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  I mean, they did that in the eighties. That was Victorian. She, that was, that, yes, you would, you would, yes, but that was not uncommon.

• 31:47Speaker 05

  That's fair.

• 31:49Steven Rinella?

  It was not uncommon. He put it out like it was uncommon.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  But no, it's, I mean, I always thought it's, it's this interesting, he's not like growing up wearing buckskins and.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 31:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  No, no, no. He is, you said it, Stephen. I mean, he's from the elite of the elite society. He's rich. There's no reason for him to go into politics or to go out into nature, other than, at the time, the doctors would give two different cures. For women, they would say, you need the rest cure, right? If you're afflicted by something, go lie down in bed. For men, they would say, you need the west cure. Go west, go hunting, get out into nature. Do something that will revive your spirits. But as a child, I mean, Mitty, his mother, would literally massage his chest when he was having asthmatic attacks and blood would come out. I mean, that's, that's how often.

• 32:40Steven Rinella?

  That bad.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  That bad. I mean, she, he would have these recurring, he remembers, T R remembers as a child, having recurring nightmares where the devil would come in the middle of the night and steal him away. And I, I mean, and the devil was.

• 32:54Steven Rinella?

  Like he's like contemplating his own mortality and dream.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Yes. And even when he gets, when he's 20 years old, he goes to a doctor at Harvard, and the doctor says, you, you have, you will not live past 60. And he doesn't. I mean, so he decides at that moment in his life, he is going to live to the hilt.

• 33:13Steven Rinella?

  How, how old was he when he died?

• 33:14Speaker 03

  60. He had just turned 60.

• 33:16Steven Rinella?

  I didn't know he was that young.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Right? I mean, it, you know.

• 33:19Steven Rinella?

  You're hitting me with all kinds of T R-ness that I didn't know about.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  That's what I'm here for.

• 33:23Steven Rinella?

  60 years old. I never really liked, yeah, that young.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think of all he accomplished in 60 years.

• 33:29Steven Rinella?

  Super young, you know?

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it is.

• 33:32Steven Rinella?

  When I was a kid, I'd be like, what do you expect, dude?

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, right? You had a good, long life. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, Mitty, let's start with mom, because you always have to start with mom, right? She is a, she's a southerner. She grew up in Georgia. She's willful. She's got this incredible personality. Everybody, she's a great storyteller, right? So, everybody knows that, like, Mitty's the one who will entertain you. And she's got an incredibly refined taste. She marries a New Yorker, and she is in New York during the Civil War, and brings her mother and her sister up from Georgia to live with the Roosevelts. So, you know Roosevelt?

• 34:07Steven Rinella?

  Was she an abolitionist?

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Oh, no. No, no. She was a deep, she was a, she believed in the Confederacy. She would fly the Confederate flag. She refused to have her husband. Fight for the Confederacy because she feared he'd meet her brothers on the field of battle. For the Union. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she and and she, I mean. Hold on, she, okay. She didn't want her brothers to do what? So, Midi Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's mom and Eleanor Roosevelt's grandmother was a Confederate. Through and through. Yeah. Unreconstructed, but she, um, so she forbade her husband. Okay. Theodore Roosevelt's father. Yeah. From fighting for the Union. Okay, alright. So instead, what he did is. For fear that he would be. He would meet.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  Fighting against her family. Exactly, exactly. And so dastardly were his, were her brother's deeds that they were not granted general amnesty after the Civil War. Oh, really? Yes, yes. They lived the rest of their life in Europe, in London and in Liverpool. They were like Forest Bedford types. Yeah, exactly. No, they, they, they were the ones that figured out how to run the blockade. So they would get supplies because the South didn't have steel and didn't have some of the things you'd need for munitions and creating rifles and bullets. And so they were sneaking all of that in very effectively from London to the South. No kidding? And then one of them was thought to have been part of the financing of Lincoln's assassination.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Really? Yes. So, I mean, they weren't just Confederates. They were devout Confederates. I mean, one of her brother's tombstones in Liverpool says, "An American by birth and Englishman by choice." Really? Yeah, yeah. Did T R ever address that kind of stuff later in life? Yeah, I mean, you know, this, he, he was a northerner who had his identity in the East with a southern mother who had this political identity in the West because of his cowboy and ranching days. He was, he was the all-American quintessential, perfect candidate to kick open the door of what would become the American century. Because he had something for everybody, right? What year did his mom die then? His mom died on the same day as his wife, February fourteenth, eighteen eighty-four.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  So did she?

• 36:29Steven Rinella?

  Nineteen years after the Civil War, what was her attitude at that point?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  I mean, she was, according to her son, an unreconstructed.

• 36:36Steven Rinella?

  Remained.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, that she whole life. And think about it. So, I mean, again, I bring up her mother and her sister both lived with the Roosevelts. So he's growing, Theodore Roosevelt's growing up in a house with one brother, two sisters, his mother, his grandmother, and his aunt. He's got a lot of feminine influences in the house, right? And his dad is off with Lincoln often because he can't fight for the Union. He's decided to lead an effort to take part of soldiers' earnings and convince them to send them back to their families. Because they would get paid and they were the primary earners. They were away from the house and a lot of them would blow it on booze and exactly.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Because they could die at any moment. But he was trying to convince them, send this back. This is amazing. I found.

• 37:25Steven Rinella?

  What a complex scenario, though. I was trying to like, like, put a finer point on it. What a complex situation for TR's mother.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:34Steven Rinella?

  Where she's got relatives trying to violate the blockade.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 37:39Steven Rinella?

  And then she's got other close family members like running around, involved at an administrative level with running the, the Union war effort.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Theodore Roosevelt grew up in a house divided, in a nation divided, and he learned from his parents that you can disagree without being disagreeable. You, you can, you can be vitriolically opposed to one another, but you at heart need to love one another. And it's, it's a message he'll carry his whole life, right? He, he really does learn that you need to find a way to bring people together to get the best political result that you want. He's not a divisive figure, in part because of his mother. I mean, when his father dies, so Theodore Roosevelt's father dies when TR is a sophomore in college, he's only 20 years old.

• 38:30Steven Rinella?

  What killed him?

• 38:31Speaker 03

  He had cancer and he didn't, they didn't know necessarily if it was going to be deadly. And so Theodore Roosevelt didn't make it home in time to say goodbye.

• 38:41Steven Rinella?

  What kind of cancer?

• 38:42Speaker 03

  He had stomach cancer and it was excruciating. His brother Elliot, which is a whole nother fascinating dynamic, right? Like the, like. Elliot in the competition that they had, Elliot is handsome and dashing and at first shows a lot more promise than TR academically. He's a fabulous hunter. I mean Elliot is, he's like a sharpshooter. He, there's stories of him shooting elk from 200 yards away without, I mean, and TR couldn't do this. I mean, TR had terrible eyesight. He had to practice. He had to work at it. He had to like fight his way through everything he ever did. And, and so all these family dynamics add up to who he really is. And, and you know, Mitty,

• 39:24Speaker 03

  his mom teaches him two really important things. One, how to tell stories and how to connect with people with empathy. Big, big, big part of how, why he's successful as a politician. And after his father dies, she sits him down, sits all the kids down and says, you need to live for the living and not for the dead. If you do not live a life of purpose, you will dishonor the memory of your father. There it is. I mean, willing himself through physical and emotional pain and this great big personality, both of those things come from his mother. His father's a great man, it can't be denied, but the fact that he died at age 20, when, when TR was 20, really gave this outsized

• 40:07Speaker 03

  importance to his father and Theodore Roosevelt's memory. Because his whole life, he was trying to, you know, honor him and, and be better than him in, in many ways. Fulfill the life that he didn't get to live.

• 40:21Steven Rinella?

  Now, when he was a kid, part, if you read about, if you read about TR from, as a conservationist, a big part of that narrative is that he developed this fascination with wildlife as a kid.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:37Steven Rinella?

  Where he's, he kind of becomes a hobbyist, taxidermist, he's a naturalist, he's engaging in study of wildlife. What, like, to what extent is that going on under? You know, to what extent is that going on with the awareness of his mother? And what is his mother's take on that? Is she supportive of that? Or does that stuff bug her?

• 40:56Speaker 03

  She's extraordinarily supportive of it.

• 40:58Steven Rinella?

  She likes it.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  I mean, even though she's a bit of a germaphobe. She, you know, he stores mice in the refrigerator. And, you know, he, he's got a Roosevelt Museum of Natural History in his room. This is what we're doing at the T R library. We're actually recreating his boyhood room like his imagination. So taxidermy, you know, going to, he, he does, he does these, I've seen the collections at the Smithsonian. It's extraordinary to see, you know, because he's really a dedicated scientist. I mean, conservationists then and now, he's hunting in order to study them. To understand, and he's always creating a series, right?

• 41:41Speaker 03

  So it's not just, you get this thing like, he, he hunted so much, like it's ridiculous amount or the volume of his hunting. He's doing it for scientific purposes, right? He needs one of each type in order to see the variations in them.

• 41:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, there was like, he was like in an era of, of, of cataloging.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. Again, you could see that in, throughout his whole life. I mean, he's a very serious naturalist, even as a young child. You know, he's, he's not just, you know, he's not just hunting. He's then doing the taxidermy, putting the scientific explanations. Another source of tension with he and his brother. His brother would say, good Lord, like, we're on the hunt. Can you just live? Could you just have some fun? Instead, he'd, you know, do catalog and the scientific names and the variations of the species. And, you know, he's a really, I think, but for meeting Alice Hathaway Lee, he probably would have become a naturalist or a scientist. I mean, there were, there were two reasons he didn't in college. One, natural sciences were, were shifting from the outdoors into the laboratory.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  And he, he didn't want to be in a laboratory. He wanted to be out in nature. And two, he met Alice Hathaway Lee.

• 42:51Steven Rinella?

  Uh, did he have a lot of girlfriends like when he's a kid? Do you have, do people have girlfriends back then?

• 42:56Speaker 03

  He did not. He did not because he was a geeky naturalist in whose wake formaldehyde lingered. I mean, he, I mean, he, he had specimens.

• 43:05Steven Rinella?

  He had a formaldehyde stench to him.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  He had a stench. He had, he was an oddball. I mean, the recollections of his college friends are pretty harsh. I mean, his first biographers literally just ignored all that and kept it out of the record. Because they would call him eccentric, half crazy. We, I mean, he lived alone in an apartment. Because who the hell would want to live with him while he's got taxidermy and, and formaldehyde and all these dangerous chemicals that you'd use at the time. I mean, no, he did not have a lot of girlfriends.

• 43:37Speaker 05

  Well, up until, up until he went to Harvard, that was, that was his first time in a classroom, right? I mean, he had had private tutors up until then. Did he have as a kid, did he have much exposure to people outside of his family that were his, of his cohort? Or is, or is his experience in Harvard sort of his first?

• 43:58Speaker 03

  It's a good question. I mean, because his uncles, his mom's brothers were overseas. They take these great trips to Europe.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  And to, to, um, uh, you know, to Egypt.

• 44:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, he did some collecting there.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  And he did a lot of collecting there. And his father would give him rifles for his birthday and for Christmas. And then they'd go on these, I mean, these long, they were gone for a year, 18 months. And that was his first exposure to the larger world.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Um, and certainly the natural world. He meets, he's got a, he's got this extraordinary relationship with Henry Davis Minot. Um, he would be considered sort of his best friend in college and, uh, actually the, the namesake of Minot, North Dakota. And, um, they're, they're constantly talking about like,

• 44:48Speaker 03

  How to, how to be a man, like how, how to show your manliness and in this Victorian era, you know, and, and they go out and they, they, they, his first book, it's not really a book,

• 45:03Speaker 03

  is the, the Birds of the Adirondacks. So they spend the entire summer cataloging all the birds of the Adirondacks and then publish a book of, of their summer studies. I mean, that, you know, it's not, not exactly your normal activity for a wealthy, if feat, person of the time. Did, did, where did the primary, what was the primary wealth on his father's side or on his mother's side? They were both wealthy, but the big bulk of it came from his father's side. So his father- So he was more loaded than his wife? Yeah, he was, he was a partner in Roosevelt and Sons, but his real focus was philanthropy. He was the founder of the American Museum of Natural History. He was the founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He founded the first orthopedic hospital- He was old man did.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  His, yeah, yeah, this is what he did. His, his grandfather, Cornelius Van Shaack Roosevelt was the- Dude, you know that dude's loaded, man. Well, but this is the only one that my kids remember because his initials are CVS.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  They're like CVS, the money came from CVS. I'm like, it, yes, it did, but not the CVS you're thinking of. That's not where he got his money. He was one of the founding directors of Chemical Bank, which then became Chase, Chase Manhattan, that became Chase, that's JP Morgan Chase today. So the Roosevelt family fortune still lives on in the form of JP Morgan Chase. Yeah. With whom he had all kinds of battles- Yeah. And is another great story, you know?

• 46:33Speaker 03

  Okay, so get into the woman that he met. So, yes. How old? So he's 18 and there's a really consequential year in Theodore Roosevelt's life, 1878. February 9th, 1878, he's in his first year in college and his father dies. Someone unexpectedly, he doesn't make it home to say goodbye. He never forgives himself and he never forgives his brother Elliot for not telling him that dad was going downhill. Yeah. Then he goes home, and to your earlier question about did he have any girlfriends? He had one that he had was very close with, who was Edith Carew, his childhood neighbor and his homeschooled playmate. So his mother brought Edith into the fold of the family. And she was three years younger, same age as his younger sister. And everyone thought they were gonna get married.

• 47:19Speaker 03

  Everyone thought inevitably when Edith comes of age at seventeen, which in the Victorian times, you were eligible to wed, they were gonna get engaged. Her birthday comes around.

• 47:28Steven Rinella?

  That wouldn't have been unusual in those days, you would marry someone you were brought up around.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  No, be very common, very common, expected, right?

• 47:36Steven Rinella?

  Cause there was like family connections and yeah.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Yep, but Edith came from a fam- a family whose fortunes were falling and the Roosevelts were incredibly rising. So there was some tension and Edith's, Edith's father was an alcoholic who lost control of the family business. She was a real independent, tough minded, you know, not gonna suffer fools gladly woman. And so August 22nd, 1878 comes and they go for, they go out picking water lilies, they go for a rowboat ride in Oyster Bay and something happens. They have an explosive fight and breakup and they never tell anybody what happened. They only talk about it twice the rest of their lives.

• 48:19Steven Rinella?

  I think you tried to put the moves on her.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Could be, we, we need the Netflix adaptation of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt to really speculate here.

• 48:26Steven Rinella?

  To really find out what happened.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  To really find out what happened on August 22nd, 1878.

• 48:31Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 48:31Speaker 03

  He loses his father, he breaks up with his girlfriend and then he goes back to college. It's his sophomore year and he meets Alice Hathaway Lee and Alice.

• 48:39Steven Rinella?

  And him and Edith are just done, done.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  He's like, who's Edith? Where, where's Edith? Like gone, like he meets Alice, he goes on a mad two year pursuit. I mean, imagine being the object of Theodore Roosevelt's affections and he determines, I'm gonna marry you. Like that's what it was for two years. He gets a horse and he puts a horse in the stable. He rides the horse so often, he lames the horse. Uh, because it's 12 miles to her home at Chestnut Hill from Cambridge. He gets a, a horse and buggy. Once he lames the other original horse, so he can go there. Once he breaks the buggy, he walks. He walks over 50 times, 12 miles round trip to her house to, to see Alice. He is, he's so, he, he thinks that a fellow classmate Charlie Ware is trying to make the moves on her.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  So he challenges him to a duel and calls for French dueling pistols.

• 49:30Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 49:31Speaker 03

  He wants, yeah.

• 49:32Steven Rinella?

  This would be a red flag today. I want to see the comedian.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Red flag, that would be a red flag.

• 49:38Steven Rinella?

  He just keeps showing up. Yeah, for sure, dude. I got, I went to see the comedian Joey Diaz in, uh, years ago. He was talking about how kids got it so easy now, like dating is so easy now with phones. And he's like, when I was a kid, if you wanted to get your, get your, you know, get ahold of your girlfriend, you had to sneak under a window and throw gravel at it.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah. Theodore Roosevelt had to walk 12 miles round trip to see his girlfriend. So he, they, she finally relents, she agrees.

• 50:06Steven Rinella?

  She was being resistant at first?

• 50:08Speaker 03

  She's the most eligible bachelorette in all of Boston. I mean, to set the stage, right? She comes from the Lee and Salt and Stahl family. There's this old Boston toast, and this is good old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the lols talk only to the cabots and the cabots talk only to God. She's a cabot, right? So like, the geeky naturalist in whose wake formaldehyde lingers, going for the most eligible bachelorette in Boston? No way. Like, not gonna happen. And she really, I mean, she puts him off for two years.

• 50:40Steven Rinella?

  And her family probably has a big say in this too, huh?

• 50:42Speaker 03

  That's where the sisters come in. That's where her mom, TR's mom comes in. He, he, he decides, I'm not gonna win her unless she falls in love with my family. She, they have to find, they have to see that the Roosevelts are pretty awesome. So he brings his sisters and his mom out to Cambridge, throws a party. They all love each other. Then they invite the Lees back to New York. And again, that's where it turns. She, I think that Alice Hathaway Lee fell in love. With his sisters and his mom as much as he did TR, the idea of being a part of this incredible family. And she's a spitfire. I mean, Alice is almost the same height as him, very athletic, loves to hike, loves to play tennis. You know, like imagining what his life would have been like.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  And in the four years that they're together, six years total, he writes his first major book, The Naval History of the War of 1812. He's elected to his first public office. He goes to but quits Columbia Law School. If you've ever quit law school, you have something in common with TR. He too did not finish. Like, in his own words, he rose like a rocket. You know, so there's a lot of historical speculation about would he ever been president had his first wife lived? And I think unquestionably, so here's, here's a stunning one, right?

• 51:59Steven Rinella?

  Well, I don't get that. I don't get what you're saying.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  Well, because she was written off in history as inconsequential, that the best thing she ever did for TR was die. I mean, that's really literally been written, like, she was sort of from the elite society. She wouldn't have, you know, would he have ever gone west? I mean, there's all kinds of counterfactuals.

• 52:22Steven Rinella?

  I got you.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  About what it would have meant.

• 52:24Steven Rinella?

  Like, he would have settled into this, like, patrician.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Right. Right. Which doesn't, it's not true.

• 52:30Steven Rinella?

  Sitting around on rowboats all the time.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  So, I mean, two, two facts.

• 52:34Steven Rinella?

  Like they do.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, they are, she's expecting their first child when he first comes out to the Dakota Badlands. I mean, that's, that's basically his, his trip before the baby's born.

• 52:44Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  And that's when he invests $14,000, half of his inheritance, in cattle. He never owns land because it's open range, but he invests a huge amount of money in cattle. And then he writes.

• 52:57Steven Rinella?

  How's that, how's that lining up with the idea that if she hadn't died, he wouldn't have gotten into all this stuff?

• 53:03Speaker 03

  It doesn't, but that is a new take. That The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt is the first book that really says Alice Hathaway Lee made TR part of who he is.

• 53:14Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 53:15Speaker 03

  And you have to, in order to appreciate what he later.

• 53:17Steven Rinella?

  And all the people have written her off.

• 53:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:19Steven Rinella?

  Or she's been generally written off historically.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  Very written off. Yes. Like, didn't matter, speed bump on the, on the road to his inevitable success. I think. Losing her played an incredible role in him understanding the fragility of life. That, that, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm rich and I'm, I've been elected to the New York State Assembly. And yet, you know, my father, my mother and my wife have all died in six years.

• 53:50Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  I, that is the moment it turns. He's 25 years old and all of a sudden he has a life wish. He starts doing things that you might think are crazy or.

• 54:05Steven Rinella?

  Well, yeah, I gotta have you back up.

• 54:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:09Steven Rinella?

  At this point in his life, he's already done all that like Maine stuff, right?

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 54:12Steven Rinella?

  Like hunting in Maine all the time.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 54:14Steven Rinella?

  So.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  He's met Sulu and Dow.

• 54:16Steven Rinella?

  When he get, he gets married to Lee.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 54:19Steven Rinella?

  And during that marriage, he does his big trip out to North Dakota.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 54:25Steven Rinella?

  Shoots the first buffalo he shoots.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 54:27Steven Rinella?

  Invest in cattle.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:29Steven Rinella?

  As like an absentee cattlemen.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:32Steven Rinella?

  Right?

• 54:32Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 54:33Steven Rinella?

  Okay. And, and then, and, but line all that up with her death and, and explain how she comes to die.

• 54:38Speaker 03

  Okay. So this is, this is an important part of the story. I'm glad you asked us to back up. So he got engaged on February 14th, 1880, Valentine's Day.

• 54:47Steven Rinella?

  Good.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  They announced it to the world. Four years later, they're expecting their first child. And Theodore was a, he, he was into numerology and things. He, he was a bit of a super, he was superstitious. Um, and he, so he believed that the baby was going to be born on the anniversary of their engagement, February 14th, Valentine's Day. So he goes back to Albany where he's a New York State Assemblyman on February 11th. And he gets a telegram on February 12th, the next day, saying the baby has been born and Alice is only fairly well. But it's too late for him to go. So he makes arrangements to leave Albany and return to New York on February 13th. He gets a second telegram on February 13th.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  We don't know what the telegram said, but he, his face goes ashen white. And he drops the telegram and literally runs from the New York State Assembly. Good. To the train station in Albany. Normally, this trip would take two to two and a half hours. There's a thick, dense fog that has descended over New York City. So thick that you cannot get a handsome cab from Grand Central Station. It takes five and a half hours for him to take the trip from Albany to New York. All the while, not knowing what awaits him on the other side. He walks the 15 blocks through this fog to 6 West 57th Street, where he's told, there is a curse on this house. Mother is dying and Alice is dying too.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  He runs up to the third floor. He holds Alice, his wife, in his arms until 1:30 in the morning, when he's called to the second floor. His whole family is there and his mother, Mitty, dies of typhoid fever. He goes back up to the third floor, holds Alice in his arms for 11 straight hours, until 2:30 in the afternoon on Valentine's Day, when she too dies of Bright's disease, a kidney disorder that was exacerbated by the childbirth. He, he is devastated. He writes an X in his diary and says, "The light has gone out of my life." And the next day, he makes plans to not run for reelection. Hmm. And to head out to the Badlands of North Dakota,

• 57:00Speaker 03

  where he says to his family, "I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to the Badlands? What I shall do after that, I do not know." And what kid was that? That was Alice. They named her after the mom. So she's the first born and the last to die. She was born in 1884, dies in 1980. And she was left in the care of his older sister, Bami. So this is where Bami comes in. Bami, his older sister, is like- The political Svengali, she's the one who, she takes care of the baby for almost three years while he's in North Dakota. She's the one that reunites him with Edith and ensures he'll get married again. She's the one who sells the home at 6 West 57th Street. She oversees

• 57:42Speaker 03

  the construction of Sagamore Hill. It's Bamy that, that arranges for him to have a role in the Harrison administration as civil service commissioner.

• 57:51Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  Bamy says, you know, maybe it would be a good idea to come back to New York and be New York Police Commissioner. Bamy sets up the meeting that leads to him becoming Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I mean.

• 58:02Steven Rinella?

  It's like, it's like in those days, a woman wasn't going to do those roles.

• 58:06Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 58:06Steven Rinella?

  And you had to like, be like, she's like fronting a guy.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:10Steven Rinella?

  Cause she's like, I can't do it.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  She put all.

• 58:11Steven Rinella?

  I would never be able to do it.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  All her effort, all her energy.

• 58:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  So think of this. Eleanor Roosevelt said of Theodore Roosevelt's two sisters, Bamy and Connie, that if you wanted advice, you went to Bamy. If you wanted sympathy, you went to Connie. Because they were very, personalities very, very different.

• 58:29Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Bamy was the one who, like, she saw the political chessboard. I mean, TR was impetuous, emotional, very intelligent, but he could make missteps. You know, he could piss people off. Bamy was the one who's like, you know who you need to talk to is this person or that person, or this is the job you need to go into next. She's the strategist. You know, she's the one convincing him, she's convincing the McKinley campaign that he's not a hothead. I mean, they don't want to put him in to the role of Assistant Secretary because he, of what, exactly what happened.

• 59:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  That as soon, you know, that war came, he left and became the hero of the war. You know, I mean, when he's governor of New York, his sister Connie holds these breakfasts and they invite the political bosses in. And they, they've arranged this in advance. And at some point, the boss is going to say, all right, everyone, get out. I want my time with the governor. And they said, well, certainly my, my sister can stay. I mean, she, she is but a woman and she takes such an interest in my affairs. And so Connie would knit in the corner, listen to everything that they were talking about. And when they left, TR had somebody who'd heard everything and he could talk it all through.

• 59:38Steven Rinella?

  It should help him plot the move.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Exactly. I mean, so involved was Connie in his governorship that Theodore Roosevelt said to his sister, haven't we had fun being governor of New York?

• 59:48Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  Man, it's crazy.

• 59:51Speaker 00

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• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  This is something that's always... I mean, it's really, this is fascinating because I've always had this curiosity about, he's such a headstrong individual and I don't really, there's so many aspects of his life where you think, this guy's not really thinking beyond what's in front of his face and he's just like punching at that, whatever's in front of his face. But then this chapter of his life where he rises to the presidency, it's like he, he checks all these boxes and rises, you know, like it's, it's, it seems like a very different mindset is guiding him at that moment, as opposed to the guy who just goes out west to, to forget about.

• 1:02:45Speaker 03

  And Randall, that the secret sauce is Bami and Connie. It's his sisters behind the scenes saying, hold on now, now you gotta be here, now you gotta be there, now you gotta do this, now you gotta do that. And they support him and Edith comes back into the picture. So the girlfriend that he broke up with on August 22nd of 1878.

• 1:03:02Speaker 05

  After putting the moves on her.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Probably. We don't know.

• 1:03:07Speaker 05

  He no longer smells like formaldehyde.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  He's, yeah, by the way, just so, because I think you and your audience will appreciate this, when he marries Alice, the one thing he's not going to be is a naturalist. I mean, she didn't mind that he went hunting and was outdoors. She would go hiking and such with him, but that's when he donates all of his childhood specimens. That's to the.

• 1:03:26Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  Really? Yeah. He's saying she's, so I can only, I can only imagine the conversation. Be like, hey, you know what's not coming with us to the new house? Donate it all. All the taxidermy's gotta go.

• 1:03:40Speaker 05

  No kidding, man.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  But the bison, interestingly, there's only three photographs of 6 West 57th Street, which was technically his mother, mother and father's home, but he lived there for a while. And that's where the bison ended up. It was, you can see it clear as day that that's the bison that he shot in North Dakota. And then it some, at some point moves to Sagamore Hill, had to be Bami. I mean.

• 1:04:05Speaker 05

  Where is it now?

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  It's in Sagamore Hill to this day.

• 1:04:08Speaker 05

  You guys can't get your hands on it?

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  That one, I, you know, I feel like it, maybe we could for a bit. It would be nice to bring it back home for a, for a bit, but it's such a.

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  Who's the owner of it?

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  The National Park Service. Yeah. So, short version of a long story. Edith outlives TR by 30 years.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Several of her kids have died in World War I and World War II, and Kermit is dead by that point. So there's only two, three, if you include Alice, her stepdaughter. And so they convince her to- There's one dies in the war, and then later one kills himself. Yep, Theodore is the only president- I'm talking about TR's kids. Yeah, yeah, he's the only president to have a son or daughter die in combat, only president to have a son or daughter die in World War I and World War II. Wow. Only one of two fathers and sons to be awarded the Medal of Honor. I mean, his, like, the record of service and sacrifice in this family is off the charts. And they all did it. Ethel was a part of the American Red Cross. I mean, the boys all fought, but

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  the, I mean, the girls were involved, too. Anyway, so they convince Mom, Edith- You're a long way from that kind of stuff nowadays. I mean, well, in the noblesse oblige, they, they had an obligation to fight. They actually felt, you know, what's interesting about TR's rise backing up as a Rough Rider is it's the first time that the country fights as red, white, and blue again. It's the first major battle after the Civil War. Hmm. And so you think about, like, how did he, I mean, yes, it was heroic, and he became the hero of that story, but it, he became the hero of the biggest war since the Civil War. He became the symbol of American unity. And again, has this northern father,

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  southern mother, eastern political identity, and western ranch cowboy image. He's like, perfect. He's central casting. By the way, the journalist who documents all of TR's exploits in Cuba, Richard Harding Davis, introduced to TR by Bami. Oh, really? Yep. Says, you know what would be a good idea is if- You're kidding me. She's like his PR agent. Yeah, yeah. And Connie will do the same. Connie, when he's in the White House, so Edith is very private, you know, she's more circumspect. She's universally known as a better judge of character. He doesn't make a single appointment without talking to Edith. She redesigns the White House, puts her office next to his. I say in the

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  Loves of Theodore Roosevelt that he's in, she's in the room where it happened because she designed it that way. So she's involved, but she doesn't- Love the personal side of politi- actually, she doesn't have politics at all. I mean, when it's over, she says, "I'm so glad it is all over." Um, the presidency. But, but Connie knows that if the American public falls in love with Theodore Roosevelt's family, he'll be more successful politically. So she's the one that leaks the stories of, you know, uh, Algonquin the pony coming up to the second floor, the wrestling matches at four o'clock, the jujitsu and boxing in the White House. Um, you know, she's the one- Cause she knows people are gonna eat that stuff up. Yeah, they're gonna love it. I mean, it makes impersonable. It's like a crazy menagerie of a zoo and this big

• 1:07:21Speaker 03

  family and they're fun and they're active and they're adventuresome and she knows. I mean, she's the one that leaks the story about Emily the snake. Um, you know, she, Alice, the daughter famously wears a green snake around her neck. And when the, they ask like, "What's with the snake?" She says, "Well, this is Emily spinach." And they said, "Well, who's Emily spinach?" She said, "Well, I don't like my Aunt Emily and I don't like spinach, so it's Emily spinach."

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  So you were saying that Edith winds up being a good judge of character? She is. Like a better judge of character than TR? Hundred percent, hundred percent. He's exactly as Randall said, like, if he has a fault, it's that he's, what serves him so well, his instincts can turn on him and not serve him well in a political arena. Because he's very trusting of people. He likes everyone. He generally feels that people have good motives. And he, um, he's impetuous. He makes quick decisions and doesn't think about necessarily the consequence. Yep. Edith is the opposite, right? She's slow, she's plotting, she's calculating, she's, um, I like, she's described as parched.

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  Um, he has a, he has a valet, I know. Well, these are the best, the people that quotes that people really love is, is she, um, she describes, um, she describes her grandchildren. She says, "I love to see their little faces, but I prefer to see their backs."

• 1:08:47Steven Rinella?

  You know, I don't know why I make a think of this about talking about like your someone's wife as a judge of character.

• 1:08:55Steven Rinella?

  Years ago, I used to hang out a lot of like, I used to hang out with more writers than I do now. Yeah. Like, I used to hang out with all writers almost. And, uh,

• 1:09:04Steven Rinella?

  one time, I'm not gonna say his name, but I had a certain writer over my house and we had dinner together and he leaves, my wife's like, that guy's never come back in this house again. And I kind of sat on that forever. And the other day, I told a mutual friend that story. And I told my wife, you know, I was telling him about what you said about his buddy. And she was just not happy that I shared.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  But maybe she was right?

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  I thought the outcome of that story was gonna be in.

• 1:09:36Steven Rinella?

  That's the only time, dude, we've had some crazy people over our house, you know? The only time she's ever said, no, no.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  Well, that's kind of.

• 1:09:44Steven Rinella?

  I don't care what he wrote.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Kind of the dynamic with Edith and TR, like she gave him a long leash, but when she pulled it in, she was serious, right? Like, it was like, hey, this, I'm not kidding about this one. For example, 1912, he's contemplating running for president again, he's constitutionally able to, and he's pissed that he gave the reins to, to William Howard Taft. Everybody's like, oh, TR, you gotta do it, you gotta do it, you gotta do it, you're gonna win.

• 1:10:09Steven Rinella?

  You gotta do, do that again for people that don't know this whole history.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  So Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, when he wins election in his own right, makes one of the biggest political blunders.

• 1:10:22Steven Rinella?

  McKinley dies.

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, well, you want to back up there?

• 1:10:25Steven Rinella?

  Just so you don't get bored.

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  McKinley dies.

• 1:10:27Steven Rinella?

  McKinley dies and Roosevelt comes into office off the like that he's the vice president.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:10:32Steven Rinella?

  So unexpectedly, boom, there he is.

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  And says.

• 1:10:35Steven Rinella?

  But then he turns around and earns it on his own.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Yep, he wins elected office in his own right, which was his goal. I mean, he really felt like he was walking in a dead man's shoes.

• 1:10:43Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  And he made a lot of change and that was very risky. He was convinced he was gonna lose. It turns out to be a rout, one of the biggest political victories in US history in 1904.

• 1:10:52Steven Rinella?

  Same for Johnson, right? Like Johnson comes in.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  Yep. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, so he comes in with the, he's got the wind at his back. And he's not restricted to two terms and technically he's picked up part of the term of another president.

• 1:11:08Steven Rinella?

  So, cause, cause that wasn't.

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  It wasn't in the constitution.

• 1:11:11Steven Rinella?

  Term limits wasn't codified yet.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:11:13Steven Rinella?

  It was a tradition, but it wasn't.

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:11:15Steven Rinella?

  So like FDR did three.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  So without consulting his wife, Edith, who's in the room or Bamy.

• 1:11:22Steven Rinella?

  Did FDR do three?

• 1:11:23Speaker 03

  FDR did four, but he died very early into his fourth term. So he won four. Yeah. FDR over learned the lesson that TR didn't learn. He made up for, for his, uh, his distant cousin's deficiency.

• 1:11:37Steven Rinella?

  He's not bound by term limits. But he's got like a term limit under McKinley. He's got McKee, picks up McKinley's term.

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  Three and a half years.

• 1:11:45Steven Rinella?

  Does his own term.

• 1:11:46Speaker 03

  So he's been president, he's going to be president for seven and a half years. But it wouldn't.

• 1:11:49Speaker 05

  It wouldn't have violated the norms to, to.

• 1:11:52Speaker 03

  He would have been the first president to run for a third term and.

• 1:11:56Speaker 05

  But he, he could sort of say, I didn't have a full first term.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. And everybody thought he would. He gets up on election night and announces, I will not stand for election in 1908. He makes himself a lame duck. I mean, every, and Edith was seen to wince and Bamy was like, well, you gotta take it back. I mean, you gotta, you gotta say you, that's not true, that you, maybe you will, maybe you won't.

• 1:12:22Steven Rinella?

  What year did he make that announcement?

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  The election night, 1904.

• 1:12:26Steven Rinella?

  So 1904, he says in eight.

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  This will be my last term.

• 1:12:30Steven Rinella?

  Biden said the same thing, kinda.

• 1:12:31Speaker 03

  Well, and how'd that work out?

• 1:12:33Steven Rinella?

  Well, he tried again.

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

  And did that work out? I mean, you know, you generally don't make pronouncements that you're not, I mean, I think the thing about TR is he says what he means and he means what he says.

• 1:12:45Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Right? He's a straight shooter and so he's, he's, he's observing the tradition. His heroes are Washington and Lincoln.

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:12:53Speaker 03

  I mean, he recalls as a child watching Lincoln's funeral in New York. Like he wants to emulate. Lincoln and Washington.

• 1:12:59Steven Rinella?

  Going on that big ass Africa hunting trip, probably.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  Well, he did. He did want that too. That's true.

• 1:13:05Steven Rinella?

  And let me tell you why.

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  He's pretty, he's pretty excited about that. Yeah. Yeah. So he says, he's not going to run for reelection. All of the women in his life say, this is a disastrous decision. And it was, it was the worst political decision he made in his life.

• 1:13:19Steven Rinella?

  And he regretted it.

• 1:13:20Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 1:13:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Speaker 03

  He, because he was a reformer. He was a progressive and I don't mean progressive in the sense of politics. I mean, he was outside the system, right? He was pushing change and he was pushing the boundaries of what was and what could be. I mean, he, he, so once an agitator is out, they ain't never letting them back in. I mean, Edith knew this, Bami knew this. Like, once you give up power voluntarily, you are never going to get it back. So he sits by, he goes on the African safari for over a year. He's getting reports about what's happening back home. They're not following your agenda. One of the big things was conservation.

• 1:14:02Steven Rinella?

  Did he?

• 1:14:04Steven Rinella?

  Did he pick? Was he successful in picking his successor?

• 1:14:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:14:09Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so he like handpicked, endorsed, and that carried the weight?

• 1:14:13Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 1:14:13Steven Rinella?

  I got it.

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Yes. And it was an odd pick.

• 1:14:15Steven Rinella?

  So he could have won.

• 1:14:17Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:18Steven Rinella?

  I got it.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  I mean, it's not even a entertaining counterfactual. Like, if Theodore Roosevelt had run in 1908, he wins. He wins.

• 1:14:25Steven Rinella?

  And who did Taft beat?

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  Taft, uh, oh, boy.

• 1:14:28Steven Rinella?

  So not a, not a, not a name brand.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, I mean, he, uh, was he against William Jennings Bryan? I'm trying to remember if Bryan, anyway, he,

• 1:14:35Steven Rinella?

  But not someone that became president later?

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  No. No, it wasn't close. And, uh, Tiar regrets it. So, fast forward, one of the issues being conservation, right? He, Taft doesn't do anything on conservation. He decides, like, what are we doing this for? My, we're, I mean, he undoes a bunch of. Some of the things that TR's record includes in the 234 million acres, part of them were coal reserves. He says, we're not going to keep the coal reserves. We're going to use them right now. And I mean, so these things start being undone immediately.

• 1:15:07Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:15:07Speaker 03

  And they irritate TR. He comes back and there's a whole group of people saying, you know, progressive governors saying, you should run. Edith is the only one who comes to him and says, put it out of your mind, Theodore. You will never be president of the United States again. Ouch. I mean, but she, she saw it. She saw the chessboard. She saw the political.

• 1:15:29Steven Rinella?

  Because the way the machine works.

• 1:15:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, they weren't going to let him back. I mean, they weren't going to.

• 1:15:33Steven Rinella?

  The two party.

• 1:15:34Speaker 03

  The sitting president was going to just step aside and you were going to get the Republican nomination again. So he runs a primary campaign. He, he is the first, if you don't like primaries, you got another thing to blame TR for, because he invents them. Um, he says, let the people rule. I know the political system won't give it to me, so I'm going to go out to the people. And he starts campaigning and he, he wins enough delegates to have the nomination, the Republican nomination. They get to the convention and just as Edith predicted, they deny him the nomination. They give it to Taft.

• 1:16:08Steven Rinella?

  He challenges his own handpicked guy.

• 1:16:10Speaker 03

  Correct. Yes.

• 1:16:13Steven Rinella?

  In a primary thing.

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:15Steven Rinella?

  Beats him in a primary.

• 1:16:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:17Steven Rinella?

  So here he is campaigning against the guy, like he hasn't followed through my.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  Which has never been done in history, right? So this is very unusual. This is strange.

• 1:16:24Steven Rinella?

  Then the conventioneers revolt and hand it to the sitting.

• 1:16:27Speaker 03

  And, and part of the problem, not to get too arcane, is that there are other candidates running in the primary. There's fighting Bob LaFollette from Wisconsin, who's more progressive than TR. And so the decision is like Theodore Roosevelt doesn't win the state of North Dakota in the 1912 primary.

• 1:16:47Steven Rinella?

  Good.

• 1:16:48Speaker 03

  You know, he like, he, he, so his, his strength is in the West and in the battlegrounds of the East. And, you know, the battlegrounds are New York, right? It's hard to imagine today, but that's the battleground. He never won another southern state in his political career after having Booker T. Washington to the White House. He was the first.

• 1:17:10Steven Rinella?

  You serious?

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  Yep. He's the first president to have a black man dine at the White House. Uh, there were threats on his life. There was a senator who said, uh, nothing bad would have happened if a bomb would have gone off under the table, killed the president and killed Booker T. Washington. Um, there was a fight that broke out on the senate floor when that senator made those remarks. TR banned, uh, that senator, Senator Tillman of, uh, racist from the south, uh, from ever coming back in the White House again while he was president. I mean, you know, so when I talk about political violence, like, it was real.

• 1:17:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  At the time. And so TR knew he couldn't win the south. He had to win a combination of the east and the west.

• 1:17:47Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  And, and so then he, he is the first president to embrace suffrage. Um, he makes suffrage a part of his 1912 platform. I was gonna mention it earlier, just quickly rewinding, one of the biggest influences Alice had is his senior thesis in college. So Theodore Roosevelt writes a senior thesis when he's graduating.

• 1:18:08Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:08Speaker 03

  He endorses suffrage. He endorses, uh, a woman's right to own property. He endorses the idea that women could be doctors, lawyers, and judges. He says women shouldn't necessarily take their husband's name upon marriage. That should be their choice.

• 1:18:21Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  Very progressive for 1880. That's all Alice. And then when she dies, that kind of that light.

• 1:18:27Steven Rinella?

  He's like, what should my next paragraph be?

• 1:18:29Speaker 03

  I'm not a good idea. You're still gonna marry me, right? Like, I could keep some of the taxidermy. It's like, maybe my favorites? I can keep the bison, right?

• 1:18:39Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 1:18:41Speaker 03

  Anyway, so he's this very progressive platform in 1912.

• 1:18:44Steven Rinella?

  When they pass him by and give it back to Taft.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Steven Rinella?

  He then says, screw y'all.

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:18:50Steven Rinella?

  And does his independent bid, the Bull Moose Party and all that.

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  Yes. So here's the key moment, right? So Edith has said, no way. This is not gonna happen. They go out for a horseback ride in Oyster Bay. A car starts and startles her horse. And she was a very accomplished horsewoman. I mean, she, she was a good rider. She gets bucked from the horse. She lands on her head unconscious. I mean, she has undoubtedly what today would be a traumatic brain injury. She is out cold for several days.

• 1:19:19Steven Rinella?

  Ooh.

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  Yes. Yes. That is when Connie and Bamy work with seven progressive governors to publish a letter that encourages TR to run as an independent, as a bull moose, and TR says, I'll throw my hat in the ring. My hat is in the ring.

• 1:19:39Speaker 06

  While Edith wakes up and says, what did I miss?

• 1:19:45Steven Rinella?

  He's like, oh, what else happened?

• 1:19:47Speaker 06

  You signed off on this right before the horse.

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  Right? You were saying something as the horse was bucking you off. I think it was run? I think it was run. That's what I heard. I heard run. Run as an independent. That's what I heard.

• 1:20:00Speaker 06

  That's too good to be true.

• 1:20:02Speaker 03

  So that tells you anything about their dynamic, that he had to wait till she was out cold to make the decision to run as a bull moose progressive. She's so pissed that she gets on a trip to the Caribbean with her daughter Ethel, and there's reporters gathered where they're bringing on their luggage, and they say, you know, reporter says, you know, is the president with you? No, he's not coming on this journey. You know, is that a hat box? And they say, yes, that's a hat box. They said, is that hat going in the ring? And she says, no, we left that one at home, too.

• 1:20:34Speaker 06

  I don't understand.

• 1:20:35Speaker 03

  He said, I throw my hat in the ring. That was his famous quote. So they're basically saying like, you know, that one, you want to go, go talk to Teddy about hats in the rings. We're going to go to the Caribbean and cool off.

• 1:20:47Speaker 06

  She's pissed.

• 1:20:48Speaker 03

  She was not happy. And she was, and she eventually came around. I mean, they all came around and helped him. And, you know, then you have the assassination attempt. And for a brief moment, it kind of looks like, holy cow, because he, I mean, the man knew how to create a moment. He knew how to create a spectacle. And so he is shot. He delivers the speech for over an hour. He begins by saying, I don't know if you know, but I have just been shot, and opens his coat, and it is caked in blood.

• 1:21:19Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  To this day, when you see the shirt at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, like, the outline of the blood, he was bleeding, but he coughed into a, you know, he coughed and he didn't have any blood coming out of his lungs, so he said, you know, "I'm going onstage." And they were like, "You gotta get offstage." I mean, several times, they tried to interrupt him and get him to the hospital.

• 1:21:41Steven Rinella?

  People thought that, that, the fist pump, after Trump got shot through the ear, was badass.

• 1:21:47Speaker 03

  This is, this is that in 1912.

• 1:21:49Steven Rinella?

  This is like, next level badass.

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  Right? And then he's, he's in the hospital.

• 1:21:51Steven Rinella?

  He's giving the speech still.

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  And he says, and he says, you know, "The thing that killed all these prior presidents who got shot was not the bullet, it was the surgery. It was the exploration, looking for the, you know, then they'd get gangrene, or they'd get, you know." So, he's like, "Leave it in there. It's fine. If it didn't kill me, it ain't gonna kill me." And so, he doesn't have surgery, and two weeks later, he gives a big speech at Madison Square Garden. And it's like, "Oh, my God. He's gonna win." You know, he could, he could do it. And, and there's like, a brief flicker of hope, but they split the vote, you know, Taft and Roosevelt split the vote. Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, is elected. I mean, you think, if he, if TR is elected in 1912, there's a decent chance, the United States

• 1:22:37Speaker 03

  does not get into World War I. I mean, he, he knew all of the leaders of all the countries that eventually got into World War I.

• 1:22:44Steven Rinella?

  God, imagine, too, that we wouldn't be stuck in this bullshit two-party system that we had to live under.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  Yep. He would, I mean, he's the most successful third-party candidate in US history.

• 1:22:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, imagine if that had happened, and you wouldn't have to do this dumb thing that we have to do.

• 1:23:02Speaker 03

  Well, that's another reason I think he's popular across the political spectrum, is, you know, when his own party betrayed him, or he felt they weren't doing what he thought should be done, he left it. And he ran as an independent.

• 1:23:14Steven Rinella?

  You know what I just found out, dude, that was kinda surprising, is, um...

• 1:23:19Steven Rinella?

  This gives me an opportunity to bring up my honorary PhD.

• 1:23:21Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:23:22Steven Rinella?

  If you noticed over my shoulder there.

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:23:25Speaker 05

  He's got the big one in the frame.

• 1:23:26Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:23:27Steven Rinella?

  It was, I was just reading that the press, so the president.

• 1:23:29Speaker 05

  Mine is below that.

• 1:23:30Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 1:23:31Speaker 05

  It's the small one.

• 1:23:31Steven Rinella?

  The president of the university. Yeah, Randall's that little dinky thing.

• 1:23:38Steven Rinella?

  Anyhow, I just like a way that I was, that's a way that I could flex. Yeah, please. When I was there doing that, I had dinner a couple of times with the president of University of Montana. Guy named Seth Bodnar, who's a Green Bray. I was just reading, I had no idea. I was reading last night, Bodnar is resigning from, uh, is resigning from being the president of the University of Montana to, to launch a third party bid for Montana's senate seat.

• 1:24:09Speaker 03

  Wow. Wow. Well, you know, it feels like, again, we talked.

• 1:24:14Steven Rinella?

  Which is a death sentence.

• 1:24:15Speaker 03

  Well.

• 1:24:16Steven Rinella?

  Cause you can't.

• 1:24:18Speaker 05

  But you don't have to win, you don't have to win a majority.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  No, that's right.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  I mean, that's the, that's the difference with the presidential election is like, there's a structural obstacle to a third party winning. Uh, but I think like a third party senator could.

• 1:24:33Speaker 03

  Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, there's several.

• 1:24:35Steven Rinella?

  It's more plausible, but it's just, we just don't, marriage don't play that game.

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  I feel like we're going through a political realignment. I mean, what, what we knew as a Republican when we were kids is now a Democrat, what a Democrat was is now more of a Republican. And.

• 1:24:54Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Speaker 03

  It feels.

• 1:24:55Steven Rinella?

  Like the Republicans, like you, when I was a boy, you were free trade.

• 1:24:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:00Steven Rinella?

  Right? You were hawkish. Now it's like, you're sort of like a protect, you like protectionist.

• 1:25:06Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:25:06Steven Rinella?

  There's a fat, there's a pacifist wing, you know?

• 1:25:09Speaker 03

  And this, this is what happens throughout US history is, and it happened during TR's time, right? They, there, there was a, uh, a change in what a Republican was and, and whether the Republican party wanted to be that. And what the Democratic party, who was, you know, aligned with, with slavery, right? I mean, they, they didn't hold office for, on the federal level for, what I mean, until. It was 25 years, you know, I mean, so they were in the wilderness for quite a long time trying to restore their identity and it's really until FDR comes along and sort of steals the playbook from Theodore Roosevelt and says, hey, you know, all those ideas that

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  he was trying to convince Republicans to do, why don't the Democrats do them?

• 1:25:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  I mean, you think about the history of conservation, right? I mean, it's fascinating. It's almost like there's four phases. You've got this first phase where Theodore Roosevelt, the first politician to really appreciate what academics were talking about in conservation, then put it into legislative action. The federal government, state governments are going to do something related to nature and lands. And then you have FDR who picks up that baton and puts it on steroids. I mean, right? I mean, the CCC and the Works Progress Administration and that just explodes into, I mean, he's probably one of our most underrated conservation presidents because so much else happened.

• 1:26:35Steven Rinella?

  Like taking unemployed people, putting them in big camps to do conservation work.

• 1:26:39Speaker 03

  Exactly. Right? And so that's TR's idea manifold 40 times, right? And then you, now you've got these lands, now you've got these agencies, now you've got these rules and laws and regulations. And then there's kind of an era of, of regulation, right? There's awareness of environmental protection and degradation and pollution and that's kind of your, you know, Endangered Species Act and Nixon, Nixon, another great conservation is, right?

• 1:27:09Steven Rinella?

  This is like, it's almost over observed. We talk about it all the time, but like EPA, um.

• 1:27:17Speaker 03

  NEPA.

• 1:27:19Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So, yeah, Endangered Species Act, NEPA, what else came in under Republicans?

• 1:27:25Speaker 03

  All those in the, in Nixon's time, I mean, it was, that was a flurry of, I mean, pretty much all the federal regulations that you're still dealing with. And so it kind of begs this question, it's why I love the timing of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It's like, What's old is new again. We're at this crux point. We're at this inflection. We're at this midpoint where what is that fourth stage of conservation? What is the future of that conversation? You know, it's one of those issues that shouldn't necessarily be partisan or political. Sure gets that way often, but you've had throughout history, Republicans, Democrats,

• 1:28:06Speaker 03

  independents embrace this idea. And that's one of the, I mean, I think like what the Reagan Library has done on defense, I feel like TR Library can do in conservation, right? Create a place of convening and civic conversation to bring people together to talk about these things, to have a, I mean, every, I've talked to so many different people of different political backgrounds, from different states and countries, rural, urban, you name it. And they all say kind of the same thing, using different words.

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:39Speaker 03

  It's the words that put them in different camps, or sides, or parties. And I don't know, maybe it's naive, but that thought of like an independent, just he's somebody that brings people together.

• 1:28:51Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

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• 1:30:47Speaker 03

  Yes, he died in 1919.

• 1:30:49Steven Rinella?

  What did that 30 years look like for her?

• 1:30:51Speaker 03

  Fascinating, because she never wanted to be at Sagamore Hill on the anniversary of his death, January 6th. She did mourn.

• 1:31:00Steven Rinella?

  He was J6er?

• 1:31:03Steven Rinella?

  He's the original J6. Man, there's a lot of eerie parallels here. I'm gonna get that wrong in the future and make it seem more like...

• 1:31:10Speaker 03

  You're gonna get, you're gonna, you're gonna Kennedy Oswald, Nick Lincoln that thing.

• 1:31:15Steven Rinella?

  You know, he died in a book depository.

• 1:31:19Speaker 03

  He was driving in Dallas, there was a book depository, there's riots, it was crazy.

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  She lived her best life.

• 1:31:29Steven Rinella?

  Was she public?

• 1:31:31Speaker 03

  She tried not to be.

• 1:31:33Steven Rinella?

  She tried not to be a public figure.

• 1:31:34Speaker 03

  She would gather with, you know, a lot of people would come up to Sagamore Hill, want to talk with her, want to remember TR. She would go, she went on her own adventures. She wrote this fabulous book with Kermit. And her chapter is Odyssey of a Grandmother. And she, I can't, I'm not gonna remember the, I know, right? Well, she, but she, uh, it kinda goes to that quote, like, I love to see their little faces, but I prefer to see their backs. She traveled the world. She went to thirty, forty different countries. Um, she kinda became this global ambassador. She, uh, lived, she, she, it's interesting, cause she lived as long, she knew him for fifty-seven of his sixty years. They met when he was three years old.

• 1:32:17Speaker 03

  And they were married for about thirty years.

• 1:32:20Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:32:20Speaker 03

  So she lived without him as long as they were married. And, and, um, kinda had this amazing life and adventure. Uh, she, I mean, her sad, a lot of sadness, too. I mean, Quentin, her youngest son, died in World War One. He's the only World War One soldier now buried at Normandy alongside his brother, uh, Ted Junior, who died in World War Two. Um, Kermit, as you mentioned, died by suicide, but they didn't tell her. They lied. They said, um, you know, he died of a heart attack. Cause they didn't want, I mean, so three of her sons died, uh, before she did. Um, you know, but she did endorse, so then you have FDR who comes along.

• 1:33:00Speaker 03

  And he runs for governor in New York. Um, then he runs for president in nineteen thirty-two. And Edith comes out of, um, her self-imposed isolation and endorses Hoover. She, and there's a big split in the family. Connie, yep, yep. So Bami had died by this point. She died in nineteen thirty-one.

• 1:33:21Steven Rinella?

  I was gonna ask if they remained like operatives, like political operatives, or if that, if that passion was just under.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  There was a really fascinating dynamic between Connie, the younger sister, and Ted Junior. So, I mean, imagine being Theodore Roosevelt Junior.

• 1:33:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  Like, almost impossible. Um, but he has a remarkable life. I mean, he, he runs for governor and he is unsuccessful. He's, uh, taken down by the Teapot Dome scandal, um, which it's, it involved the Department of Interior, speaking of conservation. It was, I mean, boiled down in its greatest simplicity, it was the, uh, Secretary of the Interior selling oil leases illegally. And Teapot Dome was a place in Wyoming that had oil leases, and he was doing it off the books. And somehow Ted Jr., even though he really didn't have anything to do with this, gets embroiled in the scandal. Eleanor Roosevelt campaigns against him. So the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay branches of the family really begin to divide after

• 1:34:21Speaker 03

  the death of TR. FDR emulated TR, loved him. I mean, really modeled his whole career on his distant cousin. I mean, he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was Governor of New York. He was in the New York State Assembly. He, of course, ran for president. I mean, there's a direct line. He even, FDR cast his first vote for president for TR in 1904. Was that right? Yep. And when he was asked, well, why, you know, because he's a Democrat, why'd you vote for the Republican? And he said, well, I thought he made a better Democrat than the Republican. Pretty good, right? You're kidding me. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there's a split in the family. Connie really becomes a public figure. She's publishing books. She's giving speeches.

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  She's, she becomes the first woman to speak at the Republican National Convention in 1920. A lot of people thought that Theodore Roosevelt was going to be the presidential nominee. He'd sort of made amends with the party. He said if I've, he declined to run for Governor of New York again because he said, if I've got one last fight in me, it's going to be for the presidency in 1920. I mean, he knew he was sick and of course, the family knew he was sick, but it was a stunner when he died. I mean, he, he was the leading candidate for the presidential nomination in the Republican Party when he died. And I mean, so much so that they were trying to soften his support out West and running

• 1:35:50Speaker 03

  hits, running, you know, negative campaigns already on him, trying to make sure that he wouldn't succeed. You know, it's, it's. Imagine what happens were he to live and win in 1920. Again, a whole different world. He gives us the last speech Theodore Roosevelt ever gave in his life is on November 2nd, 1918. It's at Carnegie Hall in front of a mixed race audience. W E B Du Bois is onstage, the educator. And Theodore Roosevelt says that that he endorses equality amongst black and white. And says, justice with me is not a mere form of words.

• 1:36:32Speaker 03

  I mean, had he won in 1920, he was going to take aim at Jim Crow 45 years before the Civil Rights Act. I mean, this progressive TR, again, I don't mean it politically. I mean that he saw black soldiers fight alongside white soldiers in World War I. And it changed, evolved, it changed his outlook. He was constantly like, what's next? What's the next battle? What are we as a country going to face? And he thought racism. I mean, he was always anti peonage. He was anti lynching. He was very, you know, he made some mistakes, some big mistakes. But the NAACP on his death ran an incredible memorial, talking about how we have lost a friend.

• 1:37:16Speaker 03

  He was on the board of the Tuskegee Institute. He was on the board of Howard University. I mean, you know, these are like things people don't even like, how do you? But it's because he was so, I don't know, he's like a man from the future, sent back in time. You know, how he saw what our next battle was going to be.

• 1:37:35Steven Rinella?

  It's interesting, it's like during the height of the wokesters. I remember like I sit on the board of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. And like at the height of the wokesters power, they were like pushing TRCP like disavow him.

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:48Steven Rinella?

  What's interesting when you get into what some of his stances were in the 20s.

• 1:37:52Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, we took possession of the equestrian statue that stood outside of the. Yeah.

• 1:37:57Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you got that?

• 1:37:58Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, it is in a safe and secure location in North Dakota.

• 1:38:03Steven Rinella?

  On display.

• 1:38:04Speaker 03

  It will, well, the trick, it's 168,000 pounds, 16 feet. Yeah, yeah, no, it's not an easy object to move. So by the time we took possession, our plans were well in motion. We will do something with it. We will have it on public display at some point.

• 1:38:22Steven Rinella?

  We'll put that bad boy out front here if you want.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  You're not the first person to offer that.

• 1:38:27Steven Rinella?

  Just get a dolly from U-Haul. Shouldn't be a big deal.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  It was, that's kind of the quintessential example, though, Steve. It's, excuse me, Dr. Nella. Um, it is bronze, it's hollow bronze, and the pedestal is enormously heavy. I mean, that's a granite from Connecticut that's considered part of it.

• 1:38:44Steven Rinella?

  Park it outside, can't you?

• 1:38:46Speaker 03

  I wish it were that simple, but, but it's, the, I, but it, it's a quintessential example.

• 1:38:51Steven Rinella?

  I'm not understanding the complexity.

• 1:38:53Speaker 03

  The, the weight. And it, it's bisected. It's actually, so in order to move it out of the, move it into the city in 1940, it had to be bisected along the saddle, let's say. Yeah, so there's some pieces that need to be repaired.

• 1:39:10Steven Rinella?

  You don't need to tell me the number, but has it been appraised?

• 1:39:12Speaker 03

  There was an appraisal, yes, before we moved it. Significant. Significant, yes, yes.

• 1:39:20Steven Rinella?

  Not insignificant.

• 1:39:21Speaker 03

  But it was, uh, it's a perfect example of what you're talking about, right? So Theodore Roosevelt dies in 1919, that there's a, there's a fierce competition between Albany and New York City to be the site of the official New York State Memorial to TR. And by this time, there is a undoubtedly racist head of the American Museum of Natural History. I mean, he, he's, he is working with Addison Grant, who's talking about, um, you know, the theories that will eventually inform Hitler, and it's not, it's not good.

• 1:39:57Steven Rinella?

  Our buddy Hornaday, are you?

• 1:39:58Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, I'm not talking about Hornaday. No, no, no, no, not Hornaday. No, Hornaday, there's a great book by Darren Lund.

• 1:40:03Steven Rinella?

  I shouldn't say our buddy, but.

• 1:40:04Speaker 03

  No, no, but he's.

• 1:40:05Steven Rinella?

  I think Hornaday did have a couple little, he had some odd thoughts.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  Not like this.

• 1:40:09Steven Rinella?

  Okay, this guy's next.

• 1:40:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, this was like convening people to talk about racial hierarchy in.

• 1:40:16Steven Rinella?

  I see.

• 1:40:16Speaker 03

  AM and H, right? And, um, so he pitches the idea that the front entrance, this new entrance, let's build a new entrance. If you've been to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, you know, the entrance is on 70. Seventy seventh, right? So if you go, there's an old entrance, it's been there forever. And the pitch was, let's make a new entrance on Central Park West. And this, and it is, it's Boone and Crockett and the others, four figures up top. There's quotes from TR, there's quotes on nature and conservation. The family's very involved in this. They win the competition to basically make the American Museum of Natural History, the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. And what's fascinating about it is when they're working with their family, Bami, Connie,

• 1:41:01Speaker 03

  and Edith in particular, what do you want to be remembered? We want to remember him as a naturalist, we want to remember as a conservationist, and we want this entire memorial to reflect who his heroes were. So, you know, it's Boone, Crockett, Lewis, and Clark. Boone's not still up there, is he? Yeah, he's up, I mean, way up on the top, he really got, but this is what- Boone was a slave owner. Well, I mean, and so then later, the president of AM and H says, let's, I want, we're going to commission this statue. Theodore Roosevelt explicitly said, statues do not test, last the test of time. If there's one thing I don't want, it's a statue of myself. I mean, it was one of the few things he didn't want of all the honors that he got. And so it's not him-

• 1:41:45Speaker 03

  What does he mean that it doesn't live the test of time? Exactly what happened. I mean, that sometime, at some point in the future, there's going to be an interpretation that doesn't meet the intent of its, of its original creation. Like, that's what he was getting at. Yeah, his, that his legacy would be intertwined with something that he never had any part of. Yeah. And that's true. I mean, that's what happened. That's what I find, like, again, he's like a man from the future, sent back in time to say, don't do this, or this is what the next fight will be. I mean, it's eerie when you think of, I mean, you know, 1907, the economy collapses. He work, works with JP Morgan to create what will become the Fed.

• 1:42:29Speaker 03

  Football is in danger. He calls the presidents of elite universities to the White House. They create what becomes the NCAA and save the game of football. You know, meat packing and meat inspecting are killing people. He's the one who's reading Upton Sinclair and others, and he creates the FDA, right? I mean, it's on and on- Dudes are killing every last shorebird. Yep. Yeah.

• 1:42:53Steven Rinella?

  He creates Pelican Island.

• 1:42:54Speaker 03

  Creates Pelican Island. You'll, you'll love in the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, there's a special section in the presidency on his conservation legacy and it talks about, you know, of course, the land and the waters and the irrigation projects and everything, but there is a statue, a bronze statue, that we are creating of TR and it's a recreation of, of the famous image of him with his hand on the globe and then we have a pelican. But he said he'd go on statues. I know, but we cheated. Yeah, that's fair. We're gonna, but we put, we, we did one that is a recreation of his, of a photo and then I think the grace note here is the pelican. Because, you know, if you know, you know, and if you don't, I-

• 1:43:34Steven Rinella?

  That's pretty good.

• 1:43:34Speaker 03

  And it'll be kind of a, cool to see who, who discovers that.

• 1:43:37Steven Rinella?

  You're, you're a literary man, you might know the answer to this. What was Philip Roth's novel? Was it The Plot Against America?

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:43:44Steven Rinella?

  Does he do a novel where he imagines that Charles Lindbergh wins?

• 1:43:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, that Charles Lindbergh is so popular, he runs in 1940 and wins.

• 1:43:54Steven Rinella?

  As a Nazi sympathizer.

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  Basically says, let's make peace with Germany, let them take what they like.

• 1:43:59Steven Rinella?

  And that's The Plot Against America.

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:44:01Steven Rinella?

  There should be, there should be a novel. There should be a novel that, that Theodore Roosevelt wins in 1920.

• 1:44:08Speaker 03

  Fabulous, right? It's a, it's, you know, he, he was tired.

• 1:44:12Steven Rinella?

  It'll be like a real happy novel.

• 1:44:13Speaker 03

  Let's cut this out. You know, it was, it was a strenuous life. Yeah, it was just, you know, I don't think he had the fight and the energy left in him, obviously, since he was very close to death, but it is pretty extraordinary to wonder what would have happened. I mean, that, that's the TR that I know. I mean, that's in the loves of Theodore Roosevelt, I'm discovering this person that had great instincts and could make mistakes, but the real takeaway for me was if, if we are all fortunate in life, we have mother, a brother, a sister, a friend, a colleague, somebody who picks us up and pushes us forward when we're really down and-

• 1:44:54Steven Rinella?

  Well, I have someone that kicks me forward.

• 1:44:56Speaker 03

  Well, that's what you need sometimes, right? And TR was no different. I mean, he's up there on Mount Rushmore. He seems kind of, I don't know, inaccessible. He's, he's larger than life. You can't, you can't meet these feats of strength and adventure and-

• 1:45:15Speaker 03

  Accomplishments. And I think what what I appreciated in doing this research and building this library is that he's he's a little more like all of us than we realized. And maybe that's a good thing. It makes you think you can do that, too. You know, he had struggles. He had pain. He had setbacks. And there was an infrastructure. There were people there to keep him moving and make the right decisions and keep fighting for what he saw as right in the world. And, you know, that's what I think the ultimate lesson. He never deferred a problem to tomorrow. Right? He talks about this, especially with regard to conservation. This is for our

• 1:45:57Speaker 03

  children and our children's children for all those who will come after us. Well, there are a lot of problems that we're kicking the can down the road on in America today. And I think what if you can take one lesson from this person who attracts Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, it's that you got to sit down and deal with the problems that are in front of you, or they are just going to reverberate through the generations.

• 1:46:26Speaker 03

  It's one of the big lessons of his life.

• 1:46:28Steven Rinella?

  Man, you're the right man for the job to run that library. Hopefully, they'll give you a chance to have like, you know, when you walk around, there's like an old man like doing interpretive stuff.

• 1:46:37Speaker 03

  That'll be me.

• 1:46:40Speaker 03

  That's my future.

• 1:46:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like dress up like TR and act like you're like.

• 1:46:44Speaker 03

  I'll just wander around and.

• 1:46:45Speaker 06

  You're gonna see the story by 1912. It's unbelievable. Told Dr. Rinella about it way back in 2026.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  If he just wanted 1920.

• 1:46:56Speaker 06

  President Rinella? I said, wow, I saw it coming before you did.

• 1:47:02Steven Rinella?

  Man, yeah, what but like, in all seriousness, man, what a situation you landed in.

• 1:47:10Steven Rinella?

  Like, you know, I mean, I don't know, I mean, to, to, to have the book and to have the position and just be like, bring all that.

• 1:47:17Speaker 05

  And the moment.

• 1:47:18Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:19Speaker 03

  The moment, I think I didn't necessarily anticipate.

• 1:47:22Speaker 05

  No, but I mean, it's, it's, yeah.

• 1:47:25Speaker 03

  I, I, I mean, I think we could all use a little more TR right now.

• 1:47:30Steven Rinella?

  Well, you're giving, you're bringing it right now.

• 1:47:31Speaker 03

  I'm gonna bring it. And I think the nation needs it. I think the world needs it, needs reminding of, you know, here's do what you can with what you have where you are, you know? So a person is the best thing, you know, in a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is make the right decision. The next best thing is the wrong decision and the worst thing is nothing.

• 1:47:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:48Speaker 03

  Like again and again, his philosophy just reverberates in a way in the arena. I mean, and one of the special experiences of the TR library is going to be surrounded by that incredible paragraph in the arena speech, you know, it is not the critic who counts and, and it's 15 feet tall. It's nine feet.

• 1:48:08Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:48:08Speaker 03

  You know, it, it's nine feet high. It's, you, we're going to have, uh, different voices, different, uh, you know, one time you walk in, it'll be President Clinton or Bush. And the next time you walk in, it'll be, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio or LeBron James and, and the whole idea is that, you know, you then are asked, what, what do you want to dare greatly to do in this life? You know, this one chance that you have to make a difference in the world? What do you care enough about to commit to action? So I, I've always thought that, you know, the past really teaches you about the present in order to make a better future. And so if we can look back to TR

• 1:48:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  And understand a little something about our world and maybe, just maybe bond together and make something better, then this will all have been worth it.

• 1:48:58Steven Rinella?

  You know, this is really inspiring too, because like me and Randall have been really struggling with whether we want to take on the task of trying to learn how to make gas station hot dogs of deer meat. And sometimes it seems too daunting.

• 1:49:10Speaker 03

  And you're gonna do it.

• 1:49:11Steven Rinella?

  But after hearing this, dude.

• 1:49:13Speaker 05

  Be the difference you want to see in the world.

• 1:49:15Speaker 03

  You wanted to.

• 1:49:16Steven Rinella?

  We're gonna be the man of the arena.

• 1:49:19Speaker 03

  You know, this past six years just came to full fruition for me. That you can get deer meat hot dogs in gas stations is, it's not what I envisioned in 2019, but here we are.

• 1:49:31Steven Rinella?

  Someday when we figure that recipe out, you'll be able to be like, that was me.

• 1:49:36Speaker 03

  I made that happen.

• 1:49:37Speaker 04

  We have a Wyoming-based company who is going to send us a sample.

• 1:49:43Steven Rinella?

  Guess we can just kick it.

• 1:49:46Steven Rinella?

  Never mind that. Phil, cut that out.

• 1:49:48Speaker 04

  They were inspired. They were inspired by your show.

• 1:49:54Steven Rinella?

  Turns out, Phil, there's already someone in the arena.

• 1:49:57Speaker 04

  No, no, it's not on the market. It's just for us. It's just for us. They're fans of the show, so.

• 1:50:03Steven Rinella?

  Are you gonna be there? I mean, you'll obviously be present for the grand opening. I'm thinking about heading to the grand opening.

• 1:50:07Speaker 05

  What's the grand opening look like? Is there like a week of activity? I mean, should people put it on their calendar?

• 1:50:15Speaker 03

  Well, we have invited all living presidents to join us at the grand opening.

• 1:50:20Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:50:20Speaker 03

  If they all join us, we won't need fireworks, so that'll be fun. We, we.

• 1:50:26Steven Rinella?

  How many are there?

• 1:50:28Speaker 03

  Well, let's see. We've got Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. This is four, and then the current president, five.

• 1:50:38Steven Rinella?

  What's the normal amount of living presidents?

• 1:50:41Speaker 03

  That's about, I think I feel like that's about what it is. It's five to six.

• 1:50:45Speaker 05

  That's a great.

• 1:50:46Steven Rinella?

  A year, every year, going back to the beginning, and how many were alive at that time?

• 1:50:53Speaker 03

  Okay, so we're gonna blow.

• 1:50:53Steven Rinella?

  So like, be Washington, zero.

• 1:50:56Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:50:56Steven Rinella?

  And then it'd be like, you know, on down the line.

• 1:50:58Speaker 03

  Yep. Nobody came to his party. He was the only.

• 1:51:01Steven Rinella?

  He's like, I've invited all former.

• 1:51:02Speaker 03

  I've invited all the ex-presidents, and they're all here.

• 1:51:04Speaker 05

  We're invited.

• 1:51:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. Here, since you, since you clearly assassination conspiracy line, every president from 1840 until Reagan in 1980 either died or was killed in office. Eighteen for, every 20 years.

• 1:51:21Steven Rinella?

  Say that again?

• 1:51:21Speaker 03

  So every 20 years from 1840 to 1980.

• 1:51:27Speaker 03

  The president died or was killed in office. So 1840, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1940, 1960.

• 1:51:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:37Speaker 03

  And Reagan was shot, but did not die. So he broke the curse.

• 1:51:41Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna hit you with a weird one.

• 1:51:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:51:43Steven Rinella?

  I was talking to the writer Selena Zito.

• 1:51:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:45Steven Rinella?

  She just wrote that book Butler.

• 1:51:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Steven Rinella?

  About the assassination attempt on Trump. She was like, we're talking and she said, he's not the first president to be shot.

• 1:51:56Steven Rinella?

  In Butler.

• 1:51:57Speaker 03

  Oh. That I'm like, what? Seriously?

• 1:52:00Steven Rinella?

  Well, during the French, like in the sort of like out, like in the complications of the French Indian War. George Washington as a British, right?

• 1:52:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:52:12Steven Rinella?

  Military guy.

• 1:52:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:52:14Steven Rinella?

  Was shot there.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  He was shot like right.

• 1:52:16Steven Rinella?

  In that county.

• 1:52:18Speaker 03

  So I would not have put that together. Good on Selena to get that one. And I believe like you could, the clothes that he was wearing, you could see where the bullets went through. I think that they were preserved and there's a crazy story about like just how close he came to being killed.

• 1:52:32Steven Rinella?

  That was in that county. They had had a meeting. He'd come in and tried to tell the French what's up.

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:52:36Steven Rinella?

  And they had a little meeting and then they take off and they sent an assassin in his wake. I think, I could be screwing it up. They sent an assassin in his wake to go take a pot shot at him.

• 1:52:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:47Steven Rinella?

  Like, I think is how it went. And that was in the county.

• 1:52:50Speaker 03

  For coming up with that, that's crazy.

• 1:52:52Steven Rinella?

  So anyways, where's everybody, where the hell's everybody gonna stay?

• 1:52:55Speaker 03

  Well.

• 1:52:56Steven Rinella?

  Cause you guys are out in the middle of nowhere.

• 1:52:57Speaker 03

  We're in the middle of everywhere, Steve. I don't need to tell you.

• 1:52:59Steven Rinella?

  I don't mean that. I didn't mean that as a negative.

• 1:53:01Speaker 03

  We're the geographic center of North America.

• 1:53:04Speaker 04

  It looks absolutely stunning.

• 1:53:06Steven Rinella?

  No, it's gorgeous. And I wasn't meaning it as a hit, but there's just not like a huge, there's not a huge urban area with 30 hotels.

• 1:53:12Speaker 03

  So there are 700 hotel rooms in Midora itself.

• 1:53:17Steven Rinella?

  Good.

• 1:53:17Speaker 03

  And then in Dickinson, 30 miles away, there are over 3,000.

• 1:53:20Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:53:21Speaker 03

  And there's camping RVs and glamping and all the things that have now become very commonplace around the National Park.

• 1:53:27Steven Rinella?

  So you're not worried about putting people up?

• 1:53:28Speaker 03

  Well, I, I, we're gonna hit a max for sure. I mean, so if the president visits likely to be early in that, that week of festivities, then we hope to have a couple of days where we're really focused on a lot of the people that have made this possible. I mean, $400 million raised, we've got a lot of benefactors we want to honor and we hope that July 4th will really be an incredible celebration, a community day. You know, we want as many people as we can to get up and see the site and see the museum.

• 1:53:56Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 1:53:57Speaker 03

  It's gonna be pragmatically challenging, uh, logistically challenging, but we're gonna do what we can. We also-

• 1:54:02Steven Rinella?

  I'm, I think I, I wanna take my kids out there. I think I'm gonna do that, man.

• 1:54:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's fabulous. It's, if not for the opening, then shortly thereafter, because it's a great place to get out into the National Park.

• 1:54:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. You guys will touch off a couple fireworks, huh?

• 1:54:16Speaker 03

  So we are gonna do a drone show. We've got, uh, so the, the, the folks that did, I don't know if you saw this, uh, Grace for the World on Hulu, they did an amazing concert and then above, uh, the Vatican, they recreated Leonardo da Vinci's works as well as several, um, images in drones. It's stunning. Yeah. Stunning. Stunning. So we're gonna do, um, like a 14 to 18 minute life of Theodore Roosevelt in the sky as a drone story.

• 1:54:47Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:54:48Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, because in part we don't want to burn down the building that we just built. Um, but July, July on the northern plains. I mean, it is the plains. I don't, I don't need to-

• 1:54:59Steven Rinella?

  104 degrees.

• 1:55:00Speaker 03

  We have had rain in a month.

• 1:55:02Steven Rinella?

  Start the fireworks.

• 1:55:04Speaker 03

  Let's see what happens. Hey, we get to do it all again. Maybe we'll inspire another deer meat with Discovery.

• 1:55:10Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I do wanna go to that. I mean, I've been kicking around going, but I hadn't thought about the possibility of bringing my kids, but I should probably go reserve me a hotel room, man.

• 1:55:19Speaker 03

  I, you know a guy. We can help you out. Dr. Rinella. We'll make it happen.

• 1:55:22Steven Rinella?

  Okay. I'll sleep in a broom closet or something.

• 1:55:27Steven Rinella?

  Man, it was great having you on.

• 1:55:29Speaker 03

  It was wonderful to be with you. Thanks for all you do.

• 1:55:31Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you're good. You're the good kind of guest where you just kind of know the story in and out, dude.

• 1:55:37Speaker 03

  Well, I've been living it for six years. So, you know, it just, I gotta, I gotta warn your listeners out there. They go down the TR rabbit hole. It's very hard to get back out.

• 1:55:45Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it's a deep pit.

• 1:55:46Speaker 03

  It's deep. It's a deep one.

• 1:55:48Steven Rinella?

  Well, again, everybody, the lives of Theodore Roosevelt, the women.

• 1:55:52Speaker 03

  The loves.

• 1:55:53Steven Rinella?

  What am I saying? The love, like, the life. Like, in arguably, you know, different facets of life. The loves of Theodore Roosevelt, the women who created President Edward O'Keefe, writer, and is it, what is it, President, CEO?

• 1:56:10Speaker 03

  CEO, yep.

• 1:56:11Steven Rinella?

  Of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opening soon. Thanks for coming on, man.

• 1:56:18Speaker 03

  Great to be with you.

• 1:56:19Steven Rinella?

  Great, appreciate it.

• 1:56:19Speaker 03

  Thanks so much.

• 1:56:47Steven Rinella?

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• 1:58:11Steven Rinella?

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• 1:58:51Steven Rinella?

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