OMG! What a bad, bad man Theodore Roosevelt was! I mean, like, golly, he basically ruined the entire 20th century…..and he died in 1919, well before the century really got rolling.
I mean, James Bradley, writing in his 2009 book The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War, tells me and his other readers:
• That good ole T.R. was responsible for the rise of Mao Tse-tung in China and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam (page 289).
• That Roosevelt — known as the Rough Rider for his exploits in Cuba in the Spanish-American War — was responsible for World War II (page 251).
• That the 26th President of the United States whose slogan was: “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was responsible for more than 30 million deaths in that conflict (page 320).
Yet, there Roosevelt is — up there on Mount Rushmore with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
Who knew?
Let’s get out the jackhammers, and disappear his face off the mountain!
Wildly over-stated
Okay, enough with the sarcasm.
The Imperial Cruise is a frustratingly sloppy, argumentative, extravagantly exaggerated and ultimately silly book. Which isn’t to say that its subject — the impact of U.S white-centric arrogance and blindness on world events a century ago — is any of those things.
There is an object lesson buried deep in this book (but lost amid Bradley’s gnat-like and nasty prose) for the American nation of our day about conducting itself in world affairs.
It is a lesson about the limits of strength, the value for listening, the need to take care in making and not making promises, the absolute necessity to avoid wishful thinking, the benefits of honesty, the value of living by moral principles, and a host of others. (Lesson the Iraq War has also taught.)
It is, in addition, a lesson about how difficult it is to know the consequences of any action.
Bradley writes: “Teddy would not live to see his benevolent intentions lead over thirty million victims to early graves.”
That’s wildly and irresponsibly over-stated.
Back-fired
Yet, the fact is that Roosevelt sought to manipulate the Japanese in the board game of world politics in a way that, he envisioned, would benefit them — and benefit the U.S. even more.
To that end, he urged them to institute a “Japanese Monroe Doctrine” in Asia — essentially, to oversee Asia for Asians, and keep out the Slavs of Russia who were nosing their way into the region (and competing with the U.S. as a world power). As part of that, he was amenable to a Japanese take-over of Korea.
And it back-fired. Instead of being bit-players in a U.S.-orchestrated drama, the Japanese had their own ideas of what to do, and it involved conquering Korea, China and any other nation with needed resources. It also involved a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and a very bloody conflict across the Pacific.
To blame Roosevelt for all that the Japanese did, though, is just plain harebrained.
Making mistakes
Sure, he and other American leaders should have taken other policy options. Sure, they were haughtily racist and naively simplistic. We can see that in retrospect. They didn’t have that luxury.
It’s also worth noting that the same haughty, racist naiveté was at work at Versailles following World War I and had a lot to do with how the world exploded again two decades later.
I’m not defending haughtiness or racism or cluelessness. I’m defending humanity.
People make mistakes. Roosevelt was in error in his handling of the Far East during his presidency. You could say he was criminally in error. Even morally in error.
Okay. But that doesn’t give Bradley the right to whip Roosevelt up and down 333 pages as if his dealings with the Japanese and other Asian peoples were the entire sum of his life and career.
Fascinatingly ambiguous
There are many who consider T.R. one of the greatest U.S. presidents (hence his appearance on Mount Rushmore). I’m not one of them.
I’ve always found Roosevelt to be a fascinatingly ambiguous figure. He had a major impact on American life through his efforts to establish national parks, to rein in business, to build the Panama Canal and to beef up the nation’s military. Yet, in seemingly every area, he wasn’t as strong or as committed as he might have been.
For instance, as Edmund Morris reports in his 2001 book Theodore Rex, in October, 1901, Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to invite an African American (Booker T. Washington) to dinner. He didn’t see any reason not to.
Yet, when all hell broke loose throughout the nation, particularly in the South, over this breach of white social etiquette, he backed down, and never again entertained a black visitor in an intimate social setting.
Sloppy and slipshod
Roosevelt’s ideas and actions on race were complex and contradictory as Morris makes clear. In dealing with these questions throughout his book, Morris provides a multi-faceted look at this aspect of Roosevelt’s character.
By contrast, Bradley paints the president and virtually all other American leaders of that era as simply and only and deeply and blindly racist.
As with race, there is much that is sloppy and slipshod in The Imperial Cruise, such as:
• Bradley’s attempts to blame World War II and a host of other 20th Century ills on Roosevelt.
• His pretense that none of what he writes of has been widely known
• His lack of proof-reading — for instance, his statement on page 48 that Roosevelt was 25 in 1883, and on page 50 that he was 23.
“Aryans”
You might call Bradley’s use of the term “Aryan” sloppy as well except its purpose is more mean-spirited.
In line with his snide attitude and tar-brush approach, Bradley contends, with almost no quotations, that Roosevelt and other white American leaders were working to boost the “Aryan” race.
Occasionally, it appears, that word was used in that era although, more usually, “Anglo-Saxon” was preferred. Bradley employs it, however, in a ham-handed attempt to align the U.S. of that era with later Nazi ideology.
But that’s only until around page 200 when Bradley suddenly decides to explain to the reader that Aryans include Anglo-Saxons and Slavs. And that:
Roosevelt loathed the Slavs: “No human beings,” he declared, “black, yellow, or white could be quite as untruthful, as insincere, as arrogant — in short, as untrustworthy in every way — as the Russians.”
So, wait, according to Bradley, Roosevelt is a white racist of the Aryan persuasion, except, well, he hated the Slav half of the Aryan race and thought black and yellow people were more truthful, sincere and trustworthy.
Do I have that straight?
Patrick T. Reardon
5.7.13
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.
Bradley is correct about Roosevelt in that once we settled the last of Native American land extending to the west and the Pacific Ocean, Roosevelt the swashbuckling macho president filled with the thought of the end of Jacksonian Manifest Destiny just kept going West across the Pacific. Roosevelt was the creator of American imperialism and Wilson and the rest of American presidents bought into it with dreadful results and a slew of failures. What Teddy wrought is still what drives are foreign policy with a minimum of 119 military posts around the world making us the most hated country on the planet today. Look at our forays in other counties where we disregarded self-determination and democratically elected governments from Haiti, Chile, Iran, Nicaragua, just to name a few. And of course we only need to look at Iraq where we believe we can change a country’s spots by regime change where our success record has been a dismal failure wherever we secretly plant our flag. And it is all for “our interests” which just happens to be capitalism’s vaunted corporations who interests are the ones that get fed. In Chile it is the fear of nationalization and world OPEC style control of commodities like copper which happen to almost all of it being in the ground of Third World countries. Oil in Iraq is another example and going after it was planned early on in Bus’s administration but haliburton and Vice President Dick Cheney at secret energy meetings. Of course Vietnam is a prime example of American hegemony’s reach that has disastrous results. If only President Wilson did not snub Vietnam when they reached out to America for an endorsement of their government, a government whose Constitution is modeled after our own. We spend more money on our military than the next 15 countries combined. Like Rome, our overreach in order to dominate and the cost to do so that is really the culprit that is bankrupting our country will destroy us. Roosevelt started us down this path, and especially after WWII where spy agencies like the CIA and NSA have grown so powerful even politicians can’t or won’t stop them, we are destined to keep making the same mistakes into the future. It is good to revisit dead presidents and chip away at the false layers of varnish to reveal the real history behind this country with hope we can change its path going forward.
Bradley actually has it right. If we want our history books to present Truth no matter how difficult it may be to the American psyche, it is Truth that will save America from imploding from within. With a review like yours it won’t even be two generations before we lionize George W. Bush and his disastrous presidency with its failed wars in the Middle East. So what if Teddy boy was racist with a foreign policy that has failed from Cuba, to Nicaragua to the Philippines. It is our history and one that shouldn’t be sugarcoated to make historically illiterate Americans feel good about themselves.
Patrick —
Thanks for your two comments. I agree that there are many questions and problems with the difficulty of figuring out what the U.S. should be doing in relationship to the other nations and other peoples of the world. When is the nation imperialistic when acting elsewhere, and when is the U.S. doing what it needs to do to protect itself. These are questions that run through the entire history of the nation, and my problem with “Imperial Cruise” is that Bradley wants to blame so much of it on Teddy Roosevelt.
American imperialism goes back to the Puritans and to Manifest Destiny. Trying to exercise American muscles in Asia isn’t much different that driving the Native Americans out of their home territories, again and again, and killing them through war, disease and starvation.
This doesn’t excuse Roosevelt’s imperialism, but it puts it in a context. He was taking American policy the next step. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been another president.
And racism in the White House didn’t start with him either.
My point is that history and the world and life are much more complex than Bradley portrays.
Pat Reardon
By the way, is your email address a reference to the song by the Band “W.S. Walcott’s Medicine Show”? I am a big fan on the Band.
Anyone who knows anything about history quickly realizes that it is nothing but fabrication. Just another tear American history apart fallacy. It ignores important political, economic and social events that were the actual causes of Japanese imperialism, WWII etc.
Liberalism revisionism at it best making it a totally useless piece of propaganda unless you use it to start a campfire.
I am glad for this book. Many Americans have learned false patriotism, and should take in all the facts possible. Think how Puccini wrote Madame Butterfly c. 1900, pointing out naval immorality. Remember the Atomic end to WW II, and the terrorist purpose it had in warning Russia to stay away from China. How does the world view America today? We need introspection to learn humility, honesty, integrity. Perhaps it’s true about the two-sided coin.
I’m 74 years old,growing up l always believed my country right or wrong, after this book ,sadly l see there is much wrong, then and in the past 4 years. Learn from our mistakes ?maybe, but don’t count on it.
Learning from our mistakes is always the goal. Thanks for the comment.
I mostly attended to the tremendous amount of first source material used by Bradley.
Like your review, 90 percent or so of reviews on the ‘goodreads’ site, attacked Bradley for not being a professional historian, and attacked ‘his’ conclusions (which any of us would draw from the source material) regardless of the wide variety of political views they held. They could not stomach a clear look at their own history.
Nor could they be bothered to find out what happened to their last murdered president. Some country. Thick country.
You know, if y’all went to the moon, the rest of us would manage ok.
Thanks for joining in the conversation, Mr. Nowak. I’m not sure why you want to send me to the moon. Pat Reardon
Mr Reardon, I’d no idea you had replied. I was looking for a reference for a friend to whom I was going to recommend this book, and I was deposited on your site again – quite surprised to see my name there actually. You are a thoughtful person and good on you for writing. I do not want to send you to the moon. Best wishes, Robert Nowak PS I see you write poetry. I myself, write doggerel. Here is a bit for you.
OGMORE VALE
“It’s because of this wonderful climate,”
Says Dai Gould,
“That we love to work underground!”
The weather has settled in.
There is no flash lightning
Or cracking thunder,
Just the steady drizzle
That drives the people up and down the valley
To say in their singsong way,
“Is it wet enough for you today?”
The deserted plant stands weeping in the mist.
What? Can a factory be sad?
Yes. The old coal belt nowadays
Conveys only something of the
Ineffable sadness that plays, softly,
Like the light in the coals of a dying fire,
In Dai Gould’s ever-smiling face.
“But wait!” says Griffin, “What is effable, eh?”
“Effable is fuckable, okay!” says Dai Gould.
A man who always has an answer,
A man who always does,
What someone has to do
And now who leads the way
In doing nothing.
A master
Of draughts and darts,
Always ready with a laugh
To appreciatively criticise
His fellow Welshmens’ farts
Down the club, on Sunday,
They’ve got everything for
The working man: snooker,
Pool, alcohol, dominoes and cards.
Down the club on Monday
Dai sits with Griffin and Puppy,
Drinking slowly, because it’s only Monday
And gazing out the windows at
The workers down the road.
Strangers they are.
Pulling down the old bus stop.
A little further down the road,
A bundle of rags, or is it a man,
Lies, like some universal truth,
Waiting to be collected
By the Salvation Army.
“Will you see that b’ there!” says Puppy.
“Is that not Bernard Perkins?”
“Aye, it bloody is,” says Dai.
“That man is a disgrace!”
“Oh, Aye,” says Griffin,
“And who bought him a drink last week?”
“I did NOT buy that man a drink,” says Dai.
“Aye, but you bloody talked to ‘im!”
“They should leave it as a shelter,”
Says Puppy. “It’s sad to see it go.
I got married there, you know.”
“That thing has been an eyesore
Ever since I was a boy,” says Dai.
“And even if you did get married
There it has to go! But what gets me,”
Says he, “is that it should be
Us that pulls the bugger down.
Wait here!” he says, and his car
Roars off in the rain and ten minutes later
Roars back again with three sledge hammers
And ten minutes more and the
Old bus stop is down all over the place.
The workers aren’t too happy.
A week’s work down the drain.
Dai Gould kicks among the rubble.
“There’s Puppy’s name, and there’s
Griffin’s. But where’s mine? Eh?”
After the club on Tuesday Dai
Drives everybody home they
Discuss (you’d be surprised)
The water seeping through the town.
“I am the bloody fool,” says Gould,
“Who sued. Ten years ago. And who else?
The Ramblers and their rights
Of way be buggered the problem is
We never fight until we’ve lost!”
When he gets himself home
He sits alone in the car
Because he has nowhere to go
Because he has no petrol
Because he has no money
Because he has no job
Because why?
“There’s only
Answer to that question ‘Why?’”
Says Dai. “The answer is because.”
He watches as the last old red bus
Rumbles up the road and vanishes
Into the fog…two years walking
The steep bare hills
Thank god for the dog.
After the strike it would be nice
To say a great defeat was a great
Victory, but look around.
The cottages huddle in the
Crook of the mountain’s arm,
Like a nest of painted dolls.
The little cemetery, a great
Tree, growing underground,
The headstones sliding like
Strange fruit slowly down
The mountain’s side.
A paperboy pushes his bike up the hill.
On a breathlessly cold, white morning,
Past the gaily painted
Drainpipes, past the stream that now
Runs where the railway ran,
Past the fields of sheep grazing
Vacantly on brambles and bracken,
The hard-edged realist paper.
A bright boy, sharp
As a broken window pane.
Stops briefly at the old
Wash house where, once upon
A time, two hundred men
Would sing in the shower
At once, and throws a few stones.
A murder of crows* flaps up out
Of a black patch on an overgrown
Slagheap and circles round
The half-dismantled headgear
like the resurrected shadows of the
Sheaves, crying, “More! More! More!”
The paperboy thinks, ‘No.’
Mining towns are ghost towns.
Miners dig their graves.
Look up. The hills are closing in.
The meek are inherited
By the earth.