From "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris (Amazon commission earned).
I finished reading this 1,162-page book yesterday. The last 2 sentences are fantastic: "As he ate his sandwiches he saw below him in the trees a ranger approaching, running, clutching the yellow slip of a telegram. Instinctively, he knew what message the man was bringing." Teddy, with sandwiches, ranger with telegram.
I was going to say "The last 2 sentences are perfect," but the "As" suggests a precise moment in time and so "sandwiches" — in the plural — is hard to picture/believe, even if Teddy did have multiple sandwiches for lunch. "Below him in the trees" is understood. He's in the mountains. (Here's the drop pin on Google maps).
The natural thing for me to do at that point was to go back to the beginning of the book. Is it wonderful or dismaying to see how many things surprise you when you reread a book you've just read? But there's the President, wading naked into Rock Creek — in winter, to be seen by casual passersby — on page 24. (Here's the drop pin for Rock Creek Park.)
Bob Dylan sang "But even the President of the United States/Sometimes must have to stand naked." But I've always thought of as meaning that the President must, like anyone else, need to get naked to take a shower. Or it's all metaphor, expressing an imperative that the President be fully exposed. But it will never be required that the President strip naked for winter river wading in full view of onlookers.
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44 comments:
I do think in the future we’ll have lots of nude photos to consider when selecting a presidential candidate.
If the telegram contained the news that the president had died, then Roosevelt hadn’t been sworn in yet and those strollers did not see a naked president wading into freezing waters. (Though I am comfortable with “as” encompassing the entire lunch, and therefore the plural “sandwiches.”)
I read somewhere that John Quincy Adams swam naked in the Potomac most everyday.
I don't remember if there were onlookers.
alot of what is written about Teddy Roosevelt is pure fiction. I just finished "Dakota" -- according to this book, he was perfect at everything.
They were, perhaps, tea sandwiches. Watercress and bread, cut into neat triangles.
I don't see myself returning to book reading, but these quotes are very tempting.
i guarantee you, that an adult TR would NOT have just one 19th century sandwich.
"But it will never be required that the President strip naked for winter river wading in full view of onlookers. ".
But what a joy it would be to have a President that was unafraid and unabashed the way Teddy was. A truly 'Don't G.A.F.' President.
The perfect cliffhanger ending. Theodore Rex, the book’s sequel, was not nearly as compelling for me.
You finally did it Ann. TR, naked, sandwiches ... my immediate thought was Senators Kennedy and Dodd and their famous waitress sandwiches. What an awful visual with which to wake up.
Biden is also known to swim naked.
"There's the President, wading naked into Rock Creek — in winter, to be seen by casual passersby,..."
Aggie said...But what a joy it would be to have a President that was unafraid and unabashed the way Teddy was.
I see from Kevin's post that I am not the only one who was reminded of Joe Biden.
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
The Blackbyrds, 1975
President Joe Rogan
Technically, the office was vacant until he was sworn in. He took the oath of office in the parlor of a private residence and did use a Bible — or any other book.
These days a man would have to be very well endowed or very uncaring about the impact of being observed by casual bystanders with his testicles pulled tight to his body by the cold and his penis accordingly shrunk back. I’d bet on the latter.
Many decades later, Chandra Levy -- a congressional intern having an affair with representative Gary Condit -- disappeared in Rock Creek Park. Condit's career ending shifty-eyed video interview is one of the record books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Chandra_Levy
Rock Creek Park is a few miles away and across the river from Fort Marcy Park, where Vince Foster of the White House Travel Office controversy is said to have killed himself. This was perhaps the place where a very long list anti-Clinton accusations and conspiracies started. (Some true, some false.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Vince_Foster
Comet Ping Pong, as the site of the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, is right next to Rock Creek Park too!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
Maybe something in the DC river and swamp water makes people act weird?
Yeah, Biden needs to swim naked in the Potomac to prove his fitness for office. He’s just like TR.
A lovable President. His sons tried to imitate him, but of course TR was never really imitating anyone. Alice may have been more impressive; I'm looking for a good biography. Her comment on her dad may be relevant to the nude public swimming. From memory: he wanted to be the bridegroom at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral.
"On winter evenings in Rock Creek Park, strollers may observe the President of the United States wading pale and naked into the ice-clogged stream, followed by shivering members of his Cabinet."
I thought you were talking about delusional Joe since he was so fond of swimming naked in front of his female Secret Service people.
Biden is also known to swim naked.
...in front of people who are required to spend at least some of their time watching him do it.
"These days a man would have to be very well endowed or very uncaring about the impact of being observed by casual bystanders..." said Big Mike
"Comparison is the thief of joy." said Teddy Roosevelt
"If the telegram contained the news that the president had died, then Roosevelt hadn’t been sworn in yet and those strollers did not see a naked president wading into freezing waters."
Even though I reread the beginning of the book after I read the very end, it wasn't as though the author intended that — a la "Finnegan's Wake."
Sometimes the arena is Rock Creek.
It’s not “required” but it happens. There was LBJ who invited reporters to interview him while he sat on the crapper and, of course, VP Biden who preferred to skinny dip in front of his female SS agents. Someone else probably already mentioned these though.
Ann, is the book worth the effort to plow through that many pages?
Reposted to fix a typo:
Technically, the office was vacant until he was sworn in. He took the oath of office in the parlor of a private residence and did not swear on a Bible — or any other book.
These days a man would have to be very well endowed or very uncaring about the impact of being observed by casual bystanders with his testicles pulled tight to his body by the cold and his penis accordingly shrunk back. I’d bet on the latter.
TR was in North Creek, NY, NOT Rock Creek, DC, when he got word of McKinley's death.
John Quincy Adams swam naked in the Potomac many mornings before starting work. First female correspondent Anne Royal used this odd habit to pry an interview out of the President. Covered in:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g28970-d12791843-Reviews-Lafayette_Square_Tour_of_Scandal_Assassination_Intrigue-Washington_DC_District_of.html
Sketch of TR in:
https://www.amazon.com/Patriots-America-Things-American-Should/dp/1596525495
Polar... presidential... progressive climate club.
Althouse writes, "But there's the President, wading naked into Rock Creek — in winter, to be seen by casual passersby — on page 24."
Nude bathing in public -- by men and boys exclusively -- was a common practice from antiquity until only about 100 years ago, after which it became the eroticized activity of nudists. TR and his contemporaries were simply the last participants of this common pastime. For example, consider this notable Roosevelt contemporary, Tsar Nicholas II. We haven't much cinema footage of the last Russian emperor, however, what we do have includes Nicholas swimming, splashing, and diving with his officers and kinsmen, everyone completely naked. (One can hardly be more publicly nude than to be filmed in that state of undress.) To a Russian watching those motion pictures before 1917, the only remarkable thing to see, or more precisely not see, was Alexei Nikolaevich's absence in the group. Such bathing was considered normal, healthy, and invigorating. The Tsarevitch not not enjoying the water with the others would be the subject of commentary, not the nakedness of the Tsar.
Once again, Edmund Morris is trying to imply things the facts do not support by distorting the context through omission.
Well, Edmund Morris. I fail to see the faith that is bestowed on his writings in regard to historical accuracy, especially after he came out with his excretable "Dutch" about Ronald Reagan. Here he was given unfettered and unprecedented access to Reagan and his life, and he comes out with a biography where is places himself as a major character, completely ficticiously.
Having read multiple volumes about TR, including a number of his own writings, I can honestly say that the idea of TR wading naked into an icy river, in full view of the public, is quite perposterious. Now, I have no doubt about him going into an icy river, but TR was a very strict Victorian in his sense of proprietary in public and personal life, so appearing naked in any form of public setting is totally out of character. And followed by this cabinet? That is highly doubtful as well. His Secretary of State, John Hay, suffered from both prostate and coronary issues, the later of which would cost him his life while still serving TR.
Now there may have been writings from the time about such an instant, but TR was the subject of much exaggeration, both during his life and after. I would not put it past Morris to engage or help perpetrate such exaggerations.
The truth about TR is extraordinary enough, like finishing a speech after being shot in the chest, that exaggeration is superfluous.
Should the current VP continue the tradition of public skinny dipping while waiting for the prez to kick the bucket?
My quick, non-Dylan-scholar take on presidents being naked is akin to another Dylan song,
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you're gonna have to serve somebody...
Some confusion as to WHICH Rock Creek. The one near DC with its park, or one in the Adirondacks? Maybe TR was in both! My understanding was that the message to TR in the woods in September 1901 was to come as McKinley was now clearly dying. It was upon his arrival at North Creek's RR station platform that he learned that McKinley was now dead. I've been to that North Creek station twice; humbling to know something momentous happened there.
Me? I'm torn between "As/While" while "While" implies more than one thing was happening simultaneously, "As" stretches the time out slightly with no implication anything else will happen. But the writing seriously at first implies TR is up in a tree when he sees the messenger approaching and instantly realizes what it means. I'd call in a "re-write" man; maybe I won't bother with that book! Much bad writing around these days! I blame The New Yorker magazine.
I used to write a Railroad Newsletter 1976-80 and frankly that is probably my major accomplishment in Life. Writing texts, then typing re-writing as I went. "Two days to write, two days to type, two days to print and mail." Once I had to compose a paragraph to write of some startling development. It was then that I realized that "WHILE" was the most explosive starting word in the English language. Use "While" and the reader instantly grasps that more than one thing is going to happen simultaneously. That was in June 1978. OK my writing style was heavily influenced by National Review under Buckley and the novels of Anthony Trollope.
People don't write like that anymore. Wonder what I would have done with text editors? Quicker but not as well, I bet. B&MRRHS is where you'll find my writing. Latest I want to research Jefferson and his signing of the anti-slave trade legislation in 1808--because there may be some SERIOUS misinformation going on among the 1619 Set!!
"Well, Edmund Morris. I fail to see the faith that is bestowed on his writings in regard to historical accuracy, especially after he came out with his excretable "Dutch" about Ronald Reagan. Here he was given unfettered and unprecedented access to Reagan and his life, and he comes out with a biography where is places himself as a major character, completely ficticiously."
That's a different book and not what is going on here. The sentence in question has a footnote with 3 separate sources.
tim maguire said...
If the telegram contained the news that the president had died, then Roosevelt hadn’t been sworn in yet and those strollers did not see a naked president wading into freezing waters.
When Roosevelt received the telegram, he was up in the Adirondacks. Furthermore, it was late summer (14 September 1901). His winter ablutions in Rock Creek came later.
"TR was in North Creek, NY, NOT Rock Creek, DC, when he got word of McKinley's death."
Right, but that refers to the quote that I said was the last 2 sentences of the book.
Then I said I returned to the beginning of the book and quoted something there, on page 24, as I clearly said, that is about Rock Creek in D.C. The 2 passages are over 1,000 pages apart.
I don't know why anyone is confused about this.
And the members of the Cabinet were with him in the nude wading incident. They weren't there for the other scene in the Adirondacks.
Different time of year too.
Really, why am I getting "corrections" on this?
I've even got Google drop pins for the 2 locations.
My first comment says, "The message TR knew was in the telegram was that the President had died — TR knew he'd been shot but thought he was recovering — and that TR was now President."
The message in the telegram was the news not that the President was dead but that he was certain to die.
"THE PRESIDENT IS CRITICALLY ILL/HIS CONDITION IS GRAVE/OXYGEN IS BEING GIVEN/ABSOLUTELY NO HOPE."
I'm seeing that on the 3rd page of the second book in the trilogy, "Theodore Rex."
This has to be the most AA-appended post of all time : )
"Just one more thing!"
Wow! 38 comments and not one "Big Stick" joke. You people are slipping!
Related somewhat to TR, my wife and I spend one night at year just up I-5 at Thornewood Castle. Under the previous owners, we'd rent the most expensive room on a night when there were no other guests. Usually during the Christmas season. Since all the guest rooms were open, we had the entire castle to ourselves.
While we didn't stay in the Presidential Suite, it was just down the hall. We make some drinks in our room and go soak up the atmosphere in the Presidential. Something about being in a room where not one, but two presidents stayed.
TR was there for two weeks and William Howard Taft for three days.
https://www.thornewoodcastle.com/presidential-suite
he wanted to be the bridegroom at every wedding
I believe she said "bride at every wedding," TR was VERY Progressive. Autogynephilia, or just narcissism?
Why was Pres. TR wading naked early in a book that ends with his accession? Sounds like titillation. I wonder if RC Park had as many trees as it does now.
I should mention, I have no connection to the new owners at Thornewood. It wasn't a pitch, which is why I didn't hotlink it.
I'm just an old-town Tacoma guy who appreciates some local history.
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