Gumption (10 page)

But that was not the way of our Bull Moose. He boated them laboriously down the river, commenting, “The next eight days were as irksome and monotonous as any I ever spent: there is very little amusement in combining the functions of a sheriff with those of an arctic explorer. The weather kept as cold as ever.” Roosevelt then marched them overland through ankle-deep mud for thirty-six hours (!) to the town of Dickinson, “and I was able to give my unwilling companions into the hands of the sheriff. Under the laws of Dakota I received my fees as a deputy sheriff for making the three arrests, and also mileage for the three hundred odd miles gone over—a total of some fifty dollars.”

There is little about this anecdote that doesn’t beg flat astonishment. I suppose the fact that they were running a cattle ranch in the wintry, Native American–infested wilderness can begin to give us an idea of their mettle to begin with, but by then literally risking their lives, Roosevelt and his two fellow champions amaze me. All done just to see justice served, for as he described the miscreants further, “They belonged to a class that always holds sway during the raw youth of a
frontier community, and the putting down of which is the first step towards decent government.” The paperwork of decency was well ensconced faraway in the more modern urban centers of government, so maintaining the integrity of the law on the frontier depended wholly upon citizens like Roosevelt and company.

The second of my many favorite details from this story is the fact that these redoubtable cowboys, when faced with a seemingly irredeemable loss, simply gathered the best planks they could find, along with some tools and a modicum of gumption, and built themselves a solution, one of the most venerable objects a human being can create: a wooden boat. Somehow, in my examination of a list of Americans with gumption, boats, particularly those crafted of wood, seem to keep cropping up in a substantial way. I may have to look into that as we proceed.

The final tidbit from this tale (a story so heroic that it would have needed toning down if it were a Jack London fiction) is simply that in the midst of this chase, both when the pursuers would stop each night to camp and then after they had collected their quarry, continuing to camp at night, Roosevelt pulled out the only book he had brought along. “As for me, I had brought with me ‘Anna Karénina,’ and my surroundings were quite grey enough to harmonize well with Tolstoï.” Most any one of us soft, modern Americans would scoff—and loudly, at that—were you to suggest that we trek out even to the mailbox in inclement weather. Theodore Roosevelt not only took it upon himself to achieve this vigorous pursuit worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, but he did so at times putting his feet up by the fire and perusing the Tolstoy novel in his pocket. What a stud.

Among the many tributes to him in present-day North Dakota, including Theodore Roosevelt National Park, perhaps the most appropriately august recognition is to be found at the Pitchfork Steak Fondue, gleefully pointed out to me by that extremely well-traveled woman of letters, Sarah Vowell. Every evenin’ ’round suppertime, the cowboy chefs load several raw steaks onto a pitchfork and fondue ’em, cowboy-style. This, of course, means they dip them in a barrel of hot cooking oil. Imagine my shame to have been caught unaware of this repast of glory sizzling in our midst. By the time you are reading this, I fully intend to have severally sampled this barrel-fried beef in the town of Medora, North Dakota, especially after glimpsing this tantalizing morsel in a review on the computer web: “The Fondue is served before the musical.” Tickets booked.

On a more sober note, it’s hard to deny that Theodore Roosevelt’s stance on many hot-button issues would not fly with our modern, progressive society. His outspoken views on the American Indian and women, for example, would be enough to place him in hot water, and I don’t intend to defend him. He was an irrepressibly virile man, the sort one might describe as “macho,” living in an era when such a personality could be richly celebrated and rewarded, particularly by the white supporters of an imperialistic American worldview.

If one
were
to mount a defense on behalf of his principles, one might argue that his good deeds and acts of valor could be thought to far outstrip his rather archaic, occasional sexism and bellicose approach to foreign relations. The degree to which his misdeeds might overshadow his innocence is a complicated topic, to be sure, but in no arena so much as his love of killing wild animals.

If one examines the young Theodore’s fascination with a seal skull at age seven, then observes his penchant for not only claiming wildlife prizes of every stripe for his trophy collection but assiduously cataloguing them and describing their behaviors and habitats with a scientist’s eye for detail, only then perhaps can one fathom the lust that besotted the man when presented with the teeming wilderness of the American West.

Roosevelt was absolutely smitten with the romance of traveling into the unbroken frontier, tracking and stalking his prey, and then most of the time successfully shooting that prey for food or display. He killed a great many creatures, a hobby for which he received a lot of criticism, even during his lifetime. As I have stated, I stand in support of hunting and fishing as incredibly satisfying methods by which to put dinner on one’s table. If you are a person who disagrees with that stance, I am okay with that; I just won’t take you fishing. I feel that these, like all forms of harvest, should be performed responsibly with respect for the ecosystem and future generations, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a beer in the boat.

Now, killing critters for a reason that doesn’t involve a practical use—that is not my bag. Wasting a large elk because its head will supposedly look good over the fireplace does not appeal to me. But when such a sticky topic comes up, I try to remember that my own position has a lot to do with my time and place. I was brought up catching fish, not shooting bighorn sheep. If I had grown up in Colorado or Wyoming, or really just in a different family in Illinois, then I might well be an avid hunter. This perspective keeps me from feeling I need to judge the hunters, just because it’s not what we did at my
house. At the same time, I also try not to judge the folks who gripe about the hunters, because that’s also not what flies in my house.

A funny thing about Roosevelt is that when he wasn’t out killing a large pile of black-tailed deer, he was fighting fervently to preserve our nation’s forests and wildlife. The thing I try to remember about a figure like him is that, for all his epic accomplishments and feats of bravery, he was still a human being. This means he was as fallible as any of us. For example, how many of us (rightly) rail against the evils of corporate fast-food fare, only to catch ourselves in the devil’s drive-through some late and ravenous night? That happens to me about once or twice a year, and I simply shrug and try to wolf down the briefly delicious, offending pap before it cools off and turns to inedible rubbish. This doesn’t make me a supporter of fast food as a lifestyle; it merely exposes me momentarily as a human being who contains just the type of lager, or “weakness,” upon which fast-food companies prey. We all have such weaknesses by definition, and understanding this to be true is an important step toward curtailing a lot of the whining we do about things like shooting a deer for venison or using a pair of leather work gloves.

To my way of thinking, Roosevelt knew, or at least he intuited, that the type of unrestricted hunting he so enjoyed had a very definite expiration date. On one hand, he made incredible strides toward the preservation of nature in all her beauty with the legislation he passed and his instituting of our National Parks. On the other, he swooped in and selfishly indulged himself on the flesh-and-blood fruits of that same nature’s bounty for his own pleasure. In his defense, when he arrived at the party, there was still plenty of beer, as it were, but
knowing well the magnitude of the approaching traffic, he was able to enjoy his sport while at the same time comprehending that such pillage must come to end.

In his book
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman
, Roosevelt takes pains to obsessively detail each of twenty-seven discrete species of quarry, their habits and attributes, and how best to hunt them. At the same time, he also speaks to the responsible thinning of the herds in order to preserve the wildlife from a conservationist’s point of view. Thus, he manages to wear both hats even while hunting in his prime, which I feel speaks very well of his character. He did not approve of the killing of animals just for the sake of sport but instead considered hunting just one of the avenues by which he could learn about the nature and topography of a given area. Consider this passage from
The Wilderness Hunter
:

In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is after all but a part of the whole. The free, self-reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy; the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the ways and habits of the woodland creatures—all these unite to give to the career of the wilderness hunter its peculiar charm. The chase is among the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone.

On one famously unproductive 1902 hunting outing in Mississippi, a scout finally snuck ahead and cornered and chained a black bear to a tree so that Roosevelt could claim its life and they could all
go home. The scout was disappointed when the big-game hunter refused to senselessly slaughter the shackled beast on the grounds that it would be extremely unsportsmanlike. Newspapers loved the story, and Clifford Berryman immortalized the moment in
The Washington Post
with a humorous cartoon of the scene. A Brooklyn candy-shop owner saw the cartoon and got the idea to sell his stuffed animals under the new moniker “Teddy’s Bears,” which is how the teddy bear got its name. And that’s one to grow on.

Even when Roosevelt wasn’t in the woods, he was still avidly fueling his pursuit of the ideal masculinity, for himself and also for America. While serving as William McKinley’s assistant secretary of the navy in 1897, he aggressively took over the command of our country’s navy, bolstering its readiness for battle. When war was officially declared with Spain, Roosevelt shocked those around him by resigning his (civilian) navy post and enlisting in the army so that he could go to Cuba and fight. He and army colonel Leonard Wood formed the first US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, which the press immediately christened “the Rough Riders.” Roosevelt once again proved his mettle, and then some, when he led the limping regiment uphill into flagrant enemy fire at the Battle of Kettle Hill.

On the day of the big fight I had to ask my men to do a deed that European military writers consider utterly impossible of performance, that is, to attack over open ground unshaken infantry armed with the best modern repeating rifles behind a formidable system of entrenchments. The only way to get them to do it in the way it had to be done was to lead them myself.

Say what you will of the man, but he was as good as his word. When the going got tough, his rough-riding ass got going, so much so that this civilian volunteer was promoted to colonel during the fighting and nominated for a Medal of Honor. Upon his return to the States, he preferred being called “the Colonel,” stating that the decisive battle had been “the great day of [his] life.”

We should all be infinitely thankful that Theodore Roosevelt was on our side. In his political career, he worried no adversary more doggedly than the corrupt corporate influences that aimed to take advantage of the citizenry: “To dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” As effective as he may have been, we apparently have not escaped this unholy alliance in our modern society, as Washington lobbyists openly spend
billions
on the purchase of congressional favors. Would that Colonel Roosevelt were present today to whip some sense into all of us.

I’d love to imagine paddling my canoe down, say, the Snake River with Roosevelt (he’d be in the stern, of course) and engaging him in a discourse about the great advances in equality between the genders since his day. That is, if I could get him to shut up about all the great blue herons dipping frogs from the shallow water. Despite his very vocal opinions on the proper indoctrination of boys and men, the colonel was also actually rather instrumental in the advent of women’s suffrage on the eve of its success. His Bull Moose Party was the first political party to grant women any recognition in the voting arena, to the extent that Roosevelt’s 1912 nomination was seconded at the Bull Moose Convention by none other than Jane Addams herself.

The world was a very different place then, particularly in the way
that world powers regarded war, before either of the world wars had occurred.

Roosevelt ruled in a different era, one in which a person could remain popular while also openly advocating for war. “All the great masterful races have been fighting races” is not really going to put you in the White House these days, which is why Ted Nugent has not yet seen a nomination. One could argue that behaving more or less like a “man” succeeded insofar as helping the Allies defeat the fascist Axis powers in World War II, but then the same brute force caused us to throw a couple of punches too many when we obliterated countless numbers of Japanese human beings by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have to wonder what the colonel would have thought of our contemporary warfare that ultimately can be conducted from a distance of thousands of miles with the push of a button. Methinks he would have a hard time finding the honor in it.

That said, I wonder if I could convince Theodore Roosevelt (whom I would never call “Teddy,” as it was a nickname he despised) that perhaps what America needs, if we hope to evolve into a more decent people, is a little more of the woman’s touch? When our citizens are determined to openly wear pistols on their belts to go shopping at Walmart, that signifies to me a failure on the part of the macho ideal. Ostensibly, the handgun is displayed to let evildoers know, in no uncertain terms, that this is not a person with whom to trifle. It then follows that the wearing of the pistol presumes a situation in which the bearer will need to shoot someone, rendering the brandishing of the weapon a badge of fear, does it not? It occurs to me that if we keep on turning to such “masculine” methodology to solve our conflicts,
the only inevitable ending is a bunch of somebody’s family lying in a bloody schoolhouse, movie theater, or smoking Japanese city. I guess we just hope it’s not our family? I don’t like the odds.