Morris' Theodore Roosevelt - 03 - Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Author:Edmund Morris
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography, History
ISBN: 9780375504877
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-11-23T10:00:00+00:00

“A LARGE, LAVISHLY ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.”

Metropolitan magazine, TR’s main journalistic outlet from 1915 to 1918. (photo credit i20.1)

The resultant twelve-chapter volume, entitled America and the World War, was issued by Scribners. It made permanent the breach between him and the administration, and established him as Wilson’s doctrinal foil. Critical reaction, when not dismissive, was divided. To Roosevelt’s chagrin, reviewers sympathetic to Britain, Belgium, and France accused him of favoring Germany. The reverse obtained with those who described themselves as “German-American,” a locution he detested.

In a letter to a woman asking him to announce that he was an “Anglo-American,” he disclaimed all hyphenated allegiances. “England is not my motherland any more than Germany is my fatherland. My motherland and fatherland and my own land are all three of them the United States.”

His new book, hortatory by purpose, lacked such plain eloquence. Its few statesmanlike passages were obscured by a surf of words so repetitive and overstated as to numb any reader. Roosevelt had always excused his habit of saying everything three, or thirty-three times with the rationale that it was the only way to drum certain basic truths into the public mind. But America and the World War took repetition to the point of pugilism, as if he wanted to knock out everyone who did not feel as strongly as he did.

Many bookstore browsers glancing through its table of contents felt that they had already gotten the Colonel’s message, and would gain little by reading further:

THE DUTY OF SELF-DEFENSE AND OF GOOD CONDUCT TOWARD OTHERS

THE BELGIAN TRAGEDY

UNWISE TREATIES A MENACE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS

THE CAUSES OF THE WAR

HOW TO STRIVE FOR WORLD PEACE

THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

AN INTERNATIONAL POSSE COMITATUS

SELF-DEFENSE WITHOUT MILITARISM

OUR PEACEMAKER, THE NAVY

PREPAREDNESS AGAINST WAR

UTOPIA OR HELL?

SUMMING UP

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