I'm reading "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris (Amazon Associates link/commission earned).
November 16, 2023
"The slight stench of arsenic that emanated from his clothes; the tickly whiskers and glittering glasses..."
"... the manic bursts of energy which left him white and sick with exhaustion; his geyser-like garrulousness, choked by stammers which would inevitably explode under the pressure of more words boiling up inside him; his exuberant hopping on the dance-floor, so perilous to lace pantaloons; the bloodcurdling stories of wolves and bears; the black eyes from boxing, the nervous diarrhea, the alarming hiss of asthma in his lungs—these were not the things a girl of polite background dreamed about, except perhaps in nightmares. Yet Alice could not help being intrigued by him...."
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Wow. Arsenic and old lace pantaloons.
Edmund Morris flunked his biography exam with Reagan.
"these were not the things a girl of polite background dreamed about"
Hmm, is that so?
The quote reads like a sophisticated, titillating romcom. Fun. Intriguing.
However, the title is abysmal. Dry. Clinical.
Definitely larger than life. He spent a week or so in the town we live in, in NW MT, to hunt. Newspaper clippings and diary entries about that trip are posted downstairs in the courthouse in a glass case on the wall. Rode the train into and back out of town, and hired a well known local guide. He Stayed at the hotel still standing downtown, when he wasn’t camping out. It’s currently being slowly cleaned up. In any case, if I remember correctly, he was trying to hunt bighorn sheep, but didn’t find any. Probably too high up when he was there - the sheep were a big traffic hazard starting 5 miles east of us, until they put up a tall enough fence along the RR tracks, and safe routes to the river for water, a year or two ago. So, apparently he just was able to take some of the now ubiquitous deer and elk. No black bear either - again now ubiquitous, but he was there the wrong time of year there too. The interesting facet though, was when he fell off of a cliff, and only survived by hitting tree branches all the way down. He apparently escaped injury, except for a bit of bruising. And apparently laughed about it.
Can you have a "slight" stench. I've always thought of "stench" as overpowering.
@robother - Ha ha ha
So with this Famous Republican I do share some traits: "his exuberant hopping on the dance-floor, so perilous to lace pantaloons," is a fair description of my dance style. Can't say I trod upon any pantaloons but feet were known to be in danger of my exuberant hopping.
Frankly using "emanated" is linguistic tic that should be quickly excised just like the insect tick. Who was his editor, Justice Kennedy?
I wonder what Henry James thought of TR: "we have created a Frankenstein monster at whom in our simplicity can only gape. Mr. Roosevelt leaves us gaping ..."
“choked by stammers which would inevitably explode under the pressure of more words boiling up inside him”
Physician, heal thyself.
Hard to remember, but once upon a time Republicans were the progressives. Teddy Roosevelt was their President.
One of my favorite Presidents, and universally underappreciated.
I think Teddy could still beat up Robert L Peters
Arsenic?! WTF?!
Curious- I wonder whether the writer deliberately combined arsenic and old lace in the excerpt, or was it a happy accident?
Roosevelt made Woodrow Wilson possible, and for that he should be condemned to Hell.
"Arsenic?! WTF?!"
He was a fanatical taxidermist.
Arsenic was used. See this NYT article from last month: "Arsenic Preserved the Animals, but Killed the Museum/A popular taxidermy exhibit in Sioux Falls, S.D., was closed after the toxic substance was discovered laced throughout the specimens. Many lament the loss of the 'works of art'" ("'When we have a known carcinogen in one of our public displays, we can’t take risk,' Paul TenHaken, the mayor of Sioux Falls, said at the conference. Dave Pfeifle, city attorney for Sioux Falls, added that 'there are no acceptable levels of risk regarding arsenic'").
"However, the title is abysmal. Dry. Clinical."
The book came out 40 years ago. It's on Modern Library’s 100 best nonfiction books of all time.
I remember a sidebar comment my inorganic chemistry professor made during a lecture about the pnictogen group. Why is arsenic such a popular murder weapon in Agatha Christie's detective stories? Because the victim can neither taste nor smell the poison being fed to him by the killer. All the members of that group -- nitrogen, phosphorus, antimony, bismuth, moscovium, and arsenic are tasteless and odorless.
Evidently, Edmund Morris hasn't done his homework. No stench, slight or otherwise, of arsenic could have "emanated" from Roosevelt's clothes.
"It's on Modern Library’s 100 best nonfiction books of all time."
I wonder who assembled that list, someone with very narrow horizons, I'll wager. The entire notion of "100 best nonfiction books" published last year is absurd, let alone of all time.
It's a great book, as it the next installment (Theodore Rex is the title, IIRC).
Say what you will about Morris' Reagan bio. These books are fantastic.
As for TR himself, it's really hard to believe such a man existed. The combination of intellect and physical bravado seems unparalleled. Everyone else he met in life must have seemed so dull and lazy to him.
Arsenic … “laced throughout the [old] specimens.”
Nice.
No acceptable levels of risk for arsenic?
Nonsense. For example, a few years ago when there was a scare about arsenic in rice, I did a little digging in a mostly vain effort to reassure a relative. Since I was familiar with ROHS regulations, I started by looking up the EU standards for arsenic exposure from food. Which definitely exist, and are not zero.
I think we're just hearing a lawyer advise a client on minimizing liability.
Read this book when it first came out. Should read again. Fantastic individual. Much like Churchill in his enthusiasm for adventure and war he nonetheless disliked the older man. They met only once.
"Evidently, Edmund Morris hasn't done his homework. No stench, slight or otherwise, of arsenic could have "emanated" from Roosevelt's clothes."
"Most arsenic compounds are undetectable to the senses, since they have no smell or taste. But when arsenic is heated – by bright sunlight or in a laboratory experiment – it passes directly from its solid state to a gas and gives off a distinctive garlic odor. Miners once recognized arsenic in rock by the pungent aroma released by blows of a hammer or pick."
"Fantastic individual."
I'm reading this book after reading a book about President Garfield and a book about President McKinley. What contrast! TR is such a distinct individual. That's why I selected this quote. Imagine being an 18-year-old girl and having this bizarre person coming after you.
I read and greatly enjoyed his Roosevelt trilogy.
It's amazing how such a fine biographer could write such a dud book about Reagan, even with all the access he had. He blamed it on the fact that he never got a handle on who Reagan was and choose to write a semi-fiction book instead that failed as fiction and biography.
I read it awhile ago. It was striking how many animals TR killed during the course of his life. But it wasn't just him. I recently read the autobiography of Trotsky. Killing animals was also what Trotsky liked to do in his leisure time. In the book, he wrote about going hunting with Lenin. Lenin also liked to kill animals, but, as Trotsky pointed out, Trotsky was a better shot and killed more animals when they went out hunting.....I don't think hunting is as big a sport as it used to be....I don't recommend that any young man show a prospective romantic partner his taxidermy collection. Ever since Anthony Perkins in the Psycho movie, such an enthusiasm gives off an unwelcome vibe.... There was some Ottoman general who had the corpse of one of his enemies stuffed and mounted in his dining hall. That was pretty cool and probably made an impression of visiting dignitaries during state dinners. Something for Trump to consider if he wins back the Presidency.
The Libertarian Party in Montana has a history of skewing elections, mostly in favor of the Democrats. Dems always carry the college towns and the Indian reservations. Add in the 3% of votes that go to the Libertarian candidate and presto! The Dems win by 3%. In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt (Bull Moose) pulled more votes than Taft (Republican) and paved the way for Wilson (an out and out racist) to become President. It's going to happen again in Montana in 2024. Sigh....
The European and American elites such as TR, Lenin, and Trotsky reveled in bloodsport--you can find photos of kings, tsars, and kaisers proudly standing with heaps of kill. It transcended politics. If you went to university, you were in the elite even if you dropped out, like Trotsky.
Marx himself postulated that under Communism a man might fish in the morning and hunt in the afternoon, though he wasn't as outdoorsy as others were.
"It's amazing how such a fine biographer could write such a dud book about Reagan, even with all the access he had. He blamed it on the fact that he never got a handle on who Reagan was and choose to write a semi-fiction book instead that failed as fiction and biography."
I remember all the fuss when the Reagan book came out. Maybe someone needs to write a book about Edmund Morris, but just to guess... I'd say he had such a great subject in TR, and then he won a Pulitzer Prize AND the National Book Award, and he may have thought he was a very special writer. The Reagan people *selected* him. So he was a very big deal, and he decided to soar. He did something special and he may have thought he'd be hailed as a great literary genius.
So far, the TR book is heavily reliant on TR's own diary, so where did one writer end and another begin?
"Ever since Anthony Perkins in the Psycho movie...."
Ha ha. I was going to mention that in this post. You have this young female, confronted with a man who's into taxidermy. It's such a red flag!
"It was striking how many animals TR killed during the course of his life."
I'm also disturbed to hear stories of him riding his horse almost to death -- galloping for 20 miles, just in an expression of great exuberance.
"Miners once recognized arsenic in rock by the pungent aroma released by blows of a hammer or pick."
Okay, I give. Althouse rates me once again. TR's clothes emanated a slight stench of arsenic.
However, Morris fails to mention the squad of Irish miners, Fenians all, who accompanied Roosevelt everywhere and hired to whack him sharply with their hammers and picks. As the dynamic future president was oft heard to boldly exclaim, "A gentleman's attire [bang!] must waft [ping!] a subtle scent of arsenic. [clang!] And split infinitives. Bully."
A nice quote for Edmumd Morris. I'm a little doubtful of the "the nervous diarrhea, the alarming hiss of asthma in his lungs". For some reason, TR suffered from Asthma when young, but there's no evidence it stopped him from being incredibly active all the way till age 55 or so.
Hunting, mountain climbing, ranching, horseback riding, tennis, rock climbing, judo, boxing, rowing, not to mention charging up San Juan hill and being shot in the chest by an assassin.
The contrast between him and his cousin FDR, is quite remarkable. Even before Polio struck him FDR was more into Sailing, Swimming, and Golf then in anything more active. If he shot a gun or boxed anyone is open to question. And unlike TR's sons, he had no desire to go fight on the Western Front, perferring to stay in DC.
Oh, I forgot TR's foxhunting, where he fell off and broke an arm, but got up on the horse and finished the hunt. He also went up in a Rickety biplane and down in an early sub because he felt as Commander in Chief, he had to do anything he asked of the Army and Navy.
Having read the book back in 1979, it told a story and an image of a soon to be President I found worthy of admiration. I often wonder how TR would fare in our political climate today. Likely he would Bull Moose it again 2024 style. Could easily see him supplanting Trump railing against the state, but would he…considering his progressive populism? Not sure.
His foibles and oddities made him more compelling and also largely unpredictable.
All this rubbed some people the wrong way. IRC Henry Adams said TR "had to be the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral"
.
Ann Althouse said...
["Evidently, Edmund Morris hasn't done his homework. No stench, slight or otherwise, of arsenic could have "emanated" from Roosevelt's clothes."]
"Most arsenic compounds are undetectable to the senses, since they have no smell or taste. But when arsenic is heated – by bright sunlight or in a laboratory experiment – it passes directly from its solid state to a gas and gives off a distinctive garlic odor. Miners once recognized arsenic in rock by the pungent aroma released by blows of a hammer or pick."
True. While rockhounding in the Black Hills of South Dakota, I found a silvery rock that I showed to the property owner (an in-law of my uncle) and he said I should sniff the rock. I did, and there was a faint odor like garlic. He told me the rock was arsenopyrite, and the garlic smell was from the arsenic.
"I'm also disturbed to hear stories of him riding his horse almost to death -- galloping for 20 miles, just in an expression of great exuberance."
How does one maintain exuberance for 20 miles?
Doesn't the writer mean pantalettes, the leg coverings worn by women under their skirts in the late 19th and early 20th century? (At least, respectable women in America; Italian king Victor Emmanuel, visiting France, was delighted to learn when a lady-in-waiting tripped and fell, flipping up her crinoline, that "the gates of Paradise are always open."). Pantaloons were worn by men, particularly by soldiers with colorful uniforms like the Zouaves.
Alas, common knowledge of the smell of arsenic is missing from current society. I do recall from my Org Chem class decades ago that Dr. Tappy Hugh Jones described the smell of phosgene gas as very like freshly cut grass. That came out in a brief diversion from sulfur chemistry into the gases used for attacks in WW I. He could, and did, also go on forever about the chemicals produced by Daddy Long Legs, and how to both isolate and then synthesize them, which was the subject of his recent PhD dissertation.
As for TR, years after hs presidency the man nearly died on a jungle trek seeking the source of the Amazon. He also was an esteemed birder and was credited with one of the last reliable sitings of a wild passenger pigeon. Were he still around 50 years later, he'd have been the inspiration for Slim Pickens riding the nuke down from the B-52 in Dr. Strangelove.
"Miners once recognized arsenic in rock by the pungent aroma released by blows of a hammer or pick."
As a graduate of an ABET certified Mining Engineering program (BS), I call BS on that one. Arsenic mines are rare (most production is as a byproduct of other valuable minerals such as iron, and brines) and what dumb shit would go around abusing rocks with either hammer or pick to smell out the "mother lode" of Arsenic, why not just assay a piece? As the Karen of the underground, "give me a source!"
Ann Althouse:
You have this young female, confronted with a man who's into taxidermy. It's such a red flag!
How, specifically? The taxidermy, not the flaying women for their skins.
He was an amazing man. I've read dozens of biographies about TR -- one whole one just on the time he spent in the Badlands after his wife and mother died -- hours apart. He was considered an easterner dandy not to be taken seriously. He proved them wrong.
I am moved tremendously by his diary entry after his wife and mother died: "The light has gone out of my life." Nothing more than that.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
In the 70s I accidentally discovered that arsenical poisons for vermin imbue a cellar with a distinct, strong garlic aroma. It's completely plausible to me that spending time around such could cause your clothes or person to carry that smell.
mikee, I always assumed Chuck Yeager was the inspiration for Slim Pickens in that film.
Since we are concerned with golden age American presidents I will make 3 claims:
1. Herbert Hoover was the greatest humanitarian US President ever. He saved personally, through private sector executive leadership and practical resource allocation, the lives of more women and children than any other US President, including Obama (ha ha) and FDR.
2. Joe Beiden has saved no one that is not in his personal wealthy sphere or a relative. This includes the effect of unintended consequences. Beiden is tool of the mass legislation for specific benefits machine. Along with my own "Durban the Dick" from Illinois.
3. Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump are identical in theory and practice.
FIGHT ME!!
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