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We're back with another edition of The
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinski,

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culture editor here at the Federalist.
As always, you can email the show

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at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.

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Make sure to subscribe wherever you download
your podcasts, and of course to the

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premium version of our website as well. Today I am joined by Edward F.

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O'Keefe. He is the CEO of
the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, also

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the author of the book we're going
to talk about today. It's called The

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Loves of Theodore Roosevelt The Women,
The Women who Created a President ed.

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Thank you for joining us, Hey
you, of course, so again,

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the title here is The Loves of
Theodore Roosevelt, The Women who Created a

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President. And this is an approach
to Teddy Roosevelt that hasn't really been done

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before. Obviously, the women in
his life were so important. People have

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talked about it many times, but
in book form, what made you ed

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decide this was the time to tell
the story about the women behind Teddy Roosevelt.

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Well, Emily, I think that's
exactly the right question. This was

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the right time to tell this story. I think up until now people have

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not really been ready to understand Theodore
Roosevelt as anything but the product of his

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own will. And The Loves of
Theodore Roosevelt really looks at his two wives,

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his two sisters, and his mother
who have been a part of the

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story. They were a part of
Edman Morris's trilogy, and in particular The

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Loves of Theodore Roosevel, excuse me, the Loves of Theodre Roosevelt, The

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Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, and of
course David McCullough's great book Mornings on Horseback.

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But The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt really
takes these figures Bammy, Connie,

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Mitty, Alice, and Edith out
of the shadows into the limelight for the

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first time. Now, before we
dive too deep into this particular subject,

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maybe on the broader subject, and
you could tell us a little bit about

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why you have focused so much of
your career now on petty Roosevelt drew you

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to Roosevelt, and maybe even just
tell us a little bit about your career

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path, because it's been very interesting. Yeah. Sure, Well, I

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think I've done my ten thousand hours
on tr Now I'm official I've crossed that

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threshold, so I'm welcome exactly exactly. So, I grew up in North

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Dakota. And when you grow up
in North Dakota, you have your choice

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of idols, right, Peggy Lee, Lawrence Welk, Roger Marris. Maybe

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contemporary North Dakota's could say Phil Jackson
or Check Closterman. And then, of

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course the icon of them all is
Theodore Roosevelt. In North Dakota, you

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get your birth certificate and then you
get a story of the Rough Riders and

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TR's time in the West in nature, finding the resilience and the fortitude to

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move forward after the horrific events that
propelled him to live the life of a

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cowboy and rancher. And you know, I just I don't know. I've

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always I went to Red River High
School, the home of the Rough Riders,

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So I guess this was ordained and
destined. But I've always been fascinated

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by Theodore Roosevelt's self made presidency.
You know, there were no external events

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that you could point to. That
old kind of adage, is it,

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you know, does the time make
the person or does the person make the

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time? And I think in Theodore
Roosevelt's case, he was a person who

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certainly suited his time, but he
kicked open the door of the American century.

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He really, you know, I
was listening to one of your prior

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Federalists podcasts, and I love Emily
eurphrase hyper modernity, right, because Theodore

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Roosevelt in a sense, must have
felt hyper modern in his moment. He's

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born in eighteen fifty eight. There's
no electricity, there's no cars, you

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know, and he'll become the first
president to find an airplane, to go

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in a submarine to travel abroad while
in office, I mean, he he

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and he faces so much of the
same as we are facing in our current

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society, you know, this,
this wave of immigration, challenging cultural identity,

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economic changes in that in his case, of course, moving from an

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agrarium to an industrial society. And
the role of technology again in that hyper

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modernity, the technology disrupting societal interaction, and I can only imagine. And

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then of course the US place in
the world, right isolation versus whether we'd

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be globalists, and tr embodies all
of this at the same time. He's

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a bit of a rorsch Act test. You know. What you see in

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Theodore Roosevelt says more about you than
it does about tr because he's really the

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only one that I've ever heard,
you know, Josh Holly and Elizabeth Warren

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site fe Roosevelt as their favorite president. He has this ability to bring people

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together while at the same time having
bits that appeal to everyone, a cloud

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across the political spectrum. So I
was just I'm fascinated by him and wanted

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to know more about how did he
come to be and who were the people

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in his life that brought him to
this great height of the presidency. That's

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just incredible and how timely and relevant
Teddy Roosevelt is right now. I mean

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it's almost underappreciated. We don't talk
about it enough. Probably can you tell

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us about the two most important women
in Teddy Roosevelt's life. You're gonna make

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him choose? Oh boy, Well, I focus on five women in the

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book, his mother Midty, his
two sisters, his older sister Bammy and

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his younger sister Connie, as well
as his two wives, Alice and Edith.

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I think if you had to really
choose two of those five that are

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in the Loves of Theodore Roosevelt,
you'd have to say that it's Bammy,

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his older sister, who I say
of Bammy, she is what Robert F.

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Kennedy was to John F. Kennedy, this intimate political advisor who at

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every step along the way is not
only giving political and personal advice, but

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knows who's who tr should meet and
why. And just an example of that

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in the he left his role as
the police commissioner in New York and he's

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kind of flailing about for what to
do next. He hadn't held elected office

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in almost a decade. And it
is Bamy who says, you know,

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you should meet this congressman who's very
close with William McKinley. And if you

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do have that meeting, I think
you ought to. I think you,

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honestly you ought to become Assistant Secretary
of the Navy. That wasn't Theodore Roosevelt's

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idea. That was Bamy's idea.
Her home in Washington, d C.

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Is known as the Little White House. When McKinley was assassinated, they actually

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held the first Roosevelt administration cabinet meetings
in her home at seventeen thirty three.

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Industry, that's how influential Bamy was. And then I think you have to

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say Edith, I mean Edith.
Theodore and Edith know one another from the

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time that Edith is three years old, so they will know each other for

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fifty seven years of Theodore's sixty years
on earth. She is the first modern

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first lady. She has the first
social secretary, Belle Hagner. That becomes

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the precedent that every successor will follow
to this day. She literally redesigns the

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White House to create an executive function
and a residential function. What will become

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the East and West wings. And
that's you know, that's not just architecture.

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She understands that you need to project
the power of the executive mansion of

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the President of the United States and
also create a residence in which a family

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can live in too. When he
ascends to the White House. And she

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just said so many different I mean, she reads four to five newspapers a

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day. She's the first person to
brief him in the mornings, she's the

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last person to talk to him at
night. Everyone universally says that Edith has

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better judgment than Theodore himself will say, whenever I go against Edith's judgment,

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I regret it. Okay, So
this is one of the things I wanted

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to ask you about how aware and
when you look at as you're going through

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the book, some quotes like that
one is one of the most you know,

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I think one of the most interesting
because it raises this question of how

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aware is Theodore Roosevelt that he's being
heavily influenced by the women around him.

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How aware is he that he's sort
of being molded by the women around him.

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Is it something that's front and center
on his mind? Is it something

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he sees as you know, maybe
incidental? How does he see it?

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I think that's a great question because
it's Franklin D. Roosevelt, the future

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president, who will observe later that
Edith managed tr very cleverly without his being

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conscious of it. No slight achievement
does anyone will conceivee FDR says, So,

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I think you know, in FDR's
estimation, Edith was the hidden hand

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that was was really moving every decision
that tr made, but he wasn't always

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conscious of it. Actually, Archibald, but who will serve as an aid

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to both make excuse me both to
Roosevelt and to tax So he crosses over

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both administrations, and he will later
write a letter to his sister in which

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he observes how you know it was
really it was Edith who could soothe the

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tempestuous nature of Tr. Tr was
very impulsive, and that impulse did not

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always serve him well. Edith was
the one who would kind of step back,

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think about things, look at the
larger chess board of the political game

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in Washington, and know where and
how to make the right moves. So

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I think that tr was very consciously
aware of the influence of his sisters,

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particularly Bammy and Connie. You know, Eleanor Roosevelt would later say that you

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went to Bammy, TR's older sister
for advice, and you went to Connie,

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TR's younger sister for sympathy. So
he knew how his sisters would or

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operate in his life. And he
certainly knew, of course, how his

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mother operated in his life. But
I think Edith sometimes was very overt in

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the influence she had over him,
and sometimes was more covert, like FDR

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said, doing it without him being
entirely conscious of the way. She was

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subtly moving him in the right direction. And you know he's right whenever she

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whenever he didn't follow her advice,
he made mistakes I mean, Edith is

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the only person who said to tr
before nineteen twelve, put it out of

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your mind, Theodore, you will
never be president of the United States again.

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She was right, I mean it
politically, she was right. It

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didn't mean that he shouldn't run necessarily, but she was She had assessed the

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situation with a cold hearted pragmatism that
he couldn't quite see. Okay, this

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is going to be a slight tangent
archable. Butts you just quoted Day on

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the Titanic. Yes, yes,
he did. You learned this recently,

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and I think that I think that's
the same archable does. It's insane.

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I'm telling you, I'm eagerly awaiting
the adaptation of the Loves of Theodore Roosevelt

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because could you imagine a more dramatic
if we If we wrote this out and

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submitted the screenplay, it would get
rejected because the stories are too fanciful.

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The key military aid to both William
Howard Aft and Theodore Roosevelt crosses over both

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administrations. Not only does he know, so, he's the reason he goes.

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He's so conflicted about what to do
when tr decides to run again,

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So Taff comes up with an excuse
for But to travel abroad. He says,

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I need a message to deliver to
the Pope, So he goes to

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Europe. He delivers a message to
the Pope. He has a message that

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he's going to be returning to Taft, and of course his return trip is

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on the Titanic. And as soon
as Taft hears of the Titanic, he

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he is overcome with emotion, knowing
full well that there is no way that

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Archie but has made his way off. He would he would be the last

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person off the Titanic, and indeed
he perishes. All right, Today's episode

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that's actually not a bad segue because
there's something so symbolic about, you know,

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the Gilded Age coming to an end
as people maybe even saw it at

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the time or eternalized it at the
time. In this the excesses of the

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Victorian West crashing quite literally into an
iceberg, and figures like Taddy Roosevelt,

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figures like Taft sort of reckoning with
the new world, the new economy that's

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been created in the wake of all
of this. And some of the history

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in this book that I wasn't totally
familiar with and I found so interesting was

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of women's suffrage and Edith's role in
women's suffrage and actually how some of these

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big sweeping globalization, economic changes,
technological changes are bringing this to the forefront

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of politics. Can you talk to
us a little bit about people should go

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buy the book, but how Edith
even you know, you're just we're describing

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here as pragmatic. That's part of
this. Talk to us a little bit

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about how Teddy Roosevelt ends up becoming
sort of a champion in this space.

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Well. Interestingly, t R's relationship
with suffrage and women's rights will begin in

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eighteen eighty with his first wife,
Alice so. Alice is a Boston Brahmin

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progressive. She's a reform minded individual
because of the influence of her family.

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And Theodore comes into this family after
the death of his father, and he's

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talking politics, he's talking literature,
he's talked in reform with the people who

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will become his in laws. And
it's really Alice that influences TR's senior thesis

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that becomes a treatise on equal rights, and he endorses equal rights and equal

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pay for women. He says that
women shouldn't necessarily take their husband's name upon

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marriage. He says that women should
own property, they should be doctors and

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lawyers and judges and professional work.
So it's I mean, that's eighteen eighty

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that's forty years before the passage of
the nineteenth Amendment. And then sadly Alice

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dies, so that kind of progressive, reform minded overt influence disappears from TR's

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life. In eighteen eighty four,
Edith is one of the few of the

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Roosevelt family who actually endorses suffrage.
You know, it was interesting that,

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you know, of that level of
society, it was believed that one the

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male head of household would so carry
the family vote. And of course,

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if you were that wealthy, what
goods the vote I mean, you have

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influence over society in so many other
profound ways that a vote would seem almost

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quaint in terms of its influence over
national events. But Edith is pro suffrage.

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She's there encouraging Theodore behind the scenes. There are only four states that

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have suffrage during his presidency. By
the time that tr runs again in nineteen

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twelve, with Edith's influence, he'll
become the first major party candidate to adopt

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suffrage as a part of his party
platform. His nomination will be seconded for

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the first time by a woman at
that convention, and eventually his sister Carinn

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will become the first woman to address
a major party convention in nineteen twenty after

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TR's death. But nonetheless a pretty
profound and impactful legacy for the Roosevelt family

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on that progression towards women's rights and
the right to vote. Yeah, I

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was curious because it did seem to
me, like, in reading this book,

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just reminds me that kind of nobless
oblige sense among as you were mentioning,

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like the Boston Brahmins, where they're
building these coalitions with legitimately with working

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class women, immigrant women, all
of that. At the same time,

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so much of it, not unlike
abolition, did really spring forth from people

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of means who developed this like very
strong sense of social responsibility. And it

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seems to me that actually was the
culture that Teddy Roosevelt grew up in and

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around. And that's where I don't
know what you're I'm curious what you think

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of this. His his willingness to
listen to the women in his life and

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to take guidance from the women of
his life, that seems to me like

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it may have even been unusual for
people around him. Oh one, absolutely,

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Emily. I think that's you've hit
upon one of the themes in the

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Loves of Theodore Roosevelt that I found
most intriguing. Theodore Roosevelt listened to and

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respected women's opinions, and not just
in his family. You know, he

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was a frequent correspondent with Edith Wharton, you know, core extraordinary writer,

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an observer of class in her time. You know, he would he took

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an audience with Susan B. Anthony. She didn't go as far as he

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as she wanted him to. During
his presidency, it was a little late

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in coming to the power that he
had to push the cause of suffrage when

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he was president. But then again, you know, as far as he

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did in nineteen twelve and beyond.
I think that's that's the key, is

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that if you were if you had
a if you had an argument, if

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you had a perspective, if you
had a point of view, t R

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was willing to hear it. He's
a really interesting example of somebody who you

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know, starts in one place in
his life and evolves, I mean,

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and the arc of his life inevitably
bends towards justice. I mean, the

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last speech will switch from women's rights
to equal rights. The last speech so

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TR ever gives in his life is
November two, nineteen eighteen, at Carnegie

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Hall. W. E. B. Du Bois is on stage. It's

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a mixed race audience. He's spoken
in front of a lot of mixed race

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audiences. Of course. He famously
has Booker T. Washington to the White

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House, the first black man to
dine at the White House with he and

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Edith. And in this last speech
in nineteen eighteen, tr extols the virtue

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of equal rights between black and white. He is saying things that had he

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been elected in nineteen twenty, he
could have put a sake in the heart

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of Jim Crow forty five years before
the Civil Rights Act. I mean,

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that's how progressive his viewpoint has come
over the course of his lifetime. And

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of course he didn't always believe that. I mean, Theodore Roosevelt shows an

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extraordinary ability to change his mind,
to evolve on an issue, and to

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not be afraid to say I was
wrong about that. And I now feel

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differently. You addressed the famous the
light has gone out of My life quote,

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because how could you not in a
book like this. But you know,

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I'm sure a lot of Freudian analysts, I'm sure analysts will have a

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lot of fun with the fodder in
the book about Theodre Roosevelt's relationship with his

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mother, and you know, maybe
even without getting to Freudian unless you want

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to it. But just tell me
about that, a little bit about you

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know, I mean, it is
really it's it's fertile ground, that's for

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sure. But if you could tell
us a little bit about Theodore Roosevelt's relationship

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with his mother and how that culminated
in what's now a very famous moment in

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his life American history, with the
Light has Gone out of My life twin

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tragedies is how you describe it in
the book, which I thought was lovely.

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Could you tell us about that?
Sure? So, Midy Bullock Roosevelt

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is a she's born in Connecticut that
actually lives a majority of her life in

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Georgia, and she is her two
brothers fight for the Confederacy during the Civil

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War. She moves from her home
in Roswell, Georgia when she marries the

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Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's father, to
New York, and at the outset of

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the Civil War, her mother and
her sister come join her in New York.

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So right there you have three Southern
women living in the heart of New

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York City, raising two girls and
two boys while the father is mostly away.

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She forbids many forbids her husband from
fighting in the Civil War for the

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Union cause, so he doesn't take
up arms, but he does work with

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President Lincoln to pass an allotment bill, and he'll go around trying to convince

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soldiers to send part of their pay
back home so they can help with the

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families they left behind while they're fighting
for the war. So you know,

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Theodore Roosevelt and his sisters are really
raised by a countra of women, and

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Mitti has been completely written off in
history, I mean as having absolutely no

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effect on him. But Mitti is
vivacious. She's got this incredibly strong willed

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personality. In fact, her husband, Theodore Roosevelt's father, will will say,

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do not become a strong minded woman. Well, she's born a strong

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minded woman. I mean she has
no choice, right, And she has

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these Coi turns of phrase. He
is the one who introduces her son to

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the idea of nervous Nelly's and the
African proverb speaks softly and carry a big

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sick You know. Really, his
mother is the source of his exuberant personality.

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She's the engaging one in the family. In fact, her brother in

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law will say, of Midi and
Fee, the father and mother. Between

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Mindy's liveliness and your solemnity, you
make an even pair. Right, opposites

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attract so interestingly throughout the freighting part
is, you know, throughout his childhood,

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Theodore Roosevelt is a sickly child.
He's got horribly bad asthma, so

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bad that with these racking coughs and
fevers that Mitty would often have to massage

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his chests until the blood would come
out. He has these horrible nightmares in

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which he thinks the devil is coming
to take his breath away in the middle

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of the night, and it's Mitty
who is there, mothering him, taking

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care of him, being the one
who's really you know, it's his father

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that will say, Theodore, you
have the mind, but you do not

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have the body. You must make
your body in order for your mind to

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go as far as it can.
He's the one who embraces muscular Christianity,

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the rise of the Ymca, and
this idea no bless obleege right to whom

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much is given, much is required, and the strenuous athleticism. So in

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a way, when Theodore is a
teenager, he rejects his mother and really

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embraces his father's outlook. And then
his father will die when tr is twenty

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years old, and that only takes
his father from the pedestal that he was

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on to the heights of heaven.
I mean, he couldn't possibly have looked

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upon his father as a stronger example, and that in turn kind of diminishes

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his mother's importance. But you're talking, of course about February fourteenth, eighteen

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eighty four, this infamous state in
history, Theodore is up in Albany.

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He has just received word that his
wife, Alice has had their first child,

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whom they will name Alice. And
then he gets a second telegram.

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And the second telegram we don't know
the contents. All we know is Theodore

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Roosevelt's reaction. His face went ashen
white, and he ran to the station

317
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in Albany. He caught the train
that would have normally taken two and a

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half hours. Because of this thick, dense fog descending over New York City,

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it took five and a half hours, excruciating. He gets home to

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six West fifty seventh Street and his
brother Elliot, the future father of Eleanor

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Roosevelt, says, there is a
curse on this house. Alice is dying

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and mother is dying too. So
tr runs up to the third floor of

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the house. He grasps Alice,
his wife, in his arms, until

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two thirty in the morning, when
the family says, you need to come

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down to the second floor, Midi, our mother is dying. He goes

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to the second floor that the family
gathers around her bedside, and she dies

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of typhoid fever eleven hours later.
After he runs back upstairs holding Alice in

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his arms for the entirety of the
night. Alice too dies of a kidney

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disease at around two thirty in the
afternoon February fourteenth, eighteen eighty four,

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puts a large X in his diary
and says, the light has gone out

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of my life. And you mentioned
this is both literal and symbolic. His

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wife, Alice has been nicknamed Sunshine. So vibrant is her personality, so

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magnetic is her presence, that she
is the sunshine of Theodore Roosevelt's life,

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and the light has gone out forever? How does he react to And actually,

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you make a very interesting point in
the aftermath. I think it's like,

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right as you're opening the next chapter, how does he react to this?

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I'm trying not to use the technical
term deficit, but really this deficit

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of wisdom and love that suddenly opens
up this hole in his life. He

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turns to another woman, right,
he does? He does first? He

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flees first. You know. The
one of the common themes here that I

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think goes unexplored and other wonderful biographies
of tr is that while he was physically

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courageous, he was emotionally very distant. When emotional pain approached, his tendency

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was to run, you know,
and so he did, for good reason,

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go to the bad lands of North
Dakota, and for the better part

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of two years lived the life of
a rancher and cowboy, to live what

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he'd later called the strenuous life,
and to recover in nature. I mean,

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nature was always Theodore's healer, the
place where he could get back in

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touch with this salubrious air and live
a life that he had always only read

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about in books. But then,
as you say, Emily, love is

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what brought Theodore out to the bad
lands, and love is what brings him

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back. Edith is his long lost
love. They had suffered a rupturous split

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a few years earlier. Only a
couple of months after that rupturous slit does

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Theodore meet Alice and Mary her.
So it seems like Edith might be on

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the outs forever. I mean,
she may have lost her opportunity to marry

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Theodore Roosevelt. But suddenly these twin
tragedies remarkably allow Edith to come back into

356
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the picture. And you could not
really find two more different women on the

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face of the earth than Alice Hathaway
Lee and Edith Kurmit Carow, two women

358
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who became Theodore Roosevelt's first and second
wives. I like to say that,

359
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you know, Edith was his first
love and second wife. They were sort

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of almost destined to be together,
and the fact that they do come back

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together really not only changes the course
of their personal lives, but it changes

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the course of American history. And
this is a big question that I mean,

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it's really the big picture of the
book. But if you could talk

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to us maybe a little bit about
how Teddy Roosevelt maybe to find, whether

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intentionally otherwise, masculinity and femininity.
You know, what did the sort of

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ying and yang of masculine and feminine
look like to Teddy Roosevelt. Well,

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I think it goes back to that
idea that was instilled upon him by his

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father, and that he rejects his
mother in part not an entirely uncommon progression

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in childhood into adolescence and adulthood,
you know, in that particular time.

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It goes back to the idea that, as we talked about right at the

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beginning of the podcast, that an
agrarian society was shifting to an industrial society.

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The wealthiest of this Gilded Age had
to find new ways to prove their

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manhood right. Manhood was not was
not proven by the physical feats of physical

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strength any longer it was it was
monetary or it was societal rank, which

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doesn't necessarily connotake strength. And so
this rise of muscular Christianity begins, and

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you begin to see even depictions of
Jesus Christ seeing beefier, bigger. All

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right, this is the beginning of
seeing a very muscular Christ and sound mind,

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sound body really takes root, and
it's fascinating. I explore this relationship

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that Theodore has with his college his
best friend in college, Henry Davis Maynott,

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and Henry Davis Maynutt is a bit
of a psychological mirror for TR.

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There's this excruciating letter that Henry Davis
Maynott writes to a doctor saying, I

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have want of being manly, but
I don't know how to do it.

383
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I don't know how to accomplish it. And literally the doctor never sees the

384
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letter. It goes unopened, and
Henry leaves Harvard and is completely at a

385
00:31:41,799 --> 00:31:45,160
loss, but he's very close with
TR. And I think that there's these

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00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:52,000
psychological mirrors throughout TR's life, like
Henry Davis Maynott, like his brother Elliott.

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00:31:52,359 --> 00:31:56,279
Elliott, the father of Eleanor Roosevelt, will become a severe alcoholic and

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die at age thirty four, leaving
Ellen and her brother abandoned, orphaned before

389
00:32:02,519 --> 00:32:07,519
they're ten years old. And I
think he sees these people in his life

390
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as sort of the way he doesn't
want to be. And he accomplishes these

391
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:20,599
physical feats of strength to sort of
project the manliness that he believes he needs

392
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to project in order to be strong
in the world. And obviously this becomes

393
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a big part of his political identity. You know, he's from the East,

394
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,400
but his identity in politics will also
include the West. He has a

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00:32:30,519 --> 00:32:35,000
northern father and a Southern mother.
I mean, in a way, he

396
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:42,079
is the quintessentially perfect American to kick
open the twentieth century because he embodies everything

397
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that the United States was and everything
that the United States could be. And

398
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did he enforce any sort of sexual
strictures on the women in his life?

399
00:32:52,359 --> 00:32:57,079
Did he ever, you know,
enforce the role of the woman even you

400
00:32:57,119 --> 00:33:00,240
know, I guess it's technically not
that long ago, but long long enough

401
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:05,359
ago, several generations ago. When
we're talking about the opening of the twenty

402
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,839
first century of the twentieth century,
I should say, so does he do

403
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:12,279
any of that? Is he is
he at all pushing you with the woman

404
00:33:12,319 --> 00:33:15,279
in his life, or he's not
very He's not very happy when his older

405
00:33:15,359 --> 00:33:21,680
sister Bammy decides to get engaged at
forty years old and have a child at

406
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:27,359
forty two, because she was marrying
a man that they knew very little about

407
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,920
and he had been divorce and so
she thought, you know, he thought

408
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:36,759
this was scandalous and writes these letters
that you know, seem like the world

409
00:33:36,839 --> 00:33:42,119
could potentially fall in, that you
are ruining your reputation and taking this enormous

410
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,039
risk, and Bammy is sort of
like, let's take it easy here,

411
00:33:45,119 --> 00:33:46,599
Theodore. I don't think it's quite
that bad. What was really going on,

412
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:53,160
of course, is that if Bammy
was marrying someone anyone, that she

413
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:59,200
wouldn't pay as much attention to him. You know, you know, I

414
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:07,160
think he's he's definitely It's interesting Emily, after the death of his mother and

415
00:34:07,319 --> 00:34:12,400
wife on the same day in the
same house, he begins to talk about

416
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,559
the protection of women with an emotional
intensity that he had not had before,

417
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:24,800
and he says a lot of things
about motherhood and the duty of motherhood,

418
00:34:25,079 --> 00:34:30,920
and you know, it's got he's
kind of got this interesting diametric viewpoint.

419
00:34:31,079 --> 00:34:37,400
If you decide to be a mother, there is the there's no more there

420
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:42,440
is no other more noble path in
the world than being a mother. But

421
00:34:42,559 --> 00:34:45,920
if you decide not to be,
then you need to go full tilt into

422
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,920
your career, and you deserve equal
access to every single right that you possibly

423
00:34:51,159 --> 00:34:57,039
could right. So they kind of
seem almost diametrically opposite, but in a

424
00:34:57,119 --> 00:35:00,199
strange way. I think in his
mind again, with that experience of losing

425
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:06,280
his mother and losing his wife,
there was no more brave and noble calling

426
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:13,360
than motherhood because you could quite literally
die in the service of bringing new generations

427
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,719
into the world. But if that
wasn't the choice you made, he would

428
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:22,159
respect it and say, now you
need to go full tilt into a professional

429
00:35:22,199 --> 00:35:27,760
career. You know, he's prepare
for a world of contradictions when it comes

430
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:30,960
to Theodore Roosevelt. They you just
have to get rid of for that.

431
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:35,519
But even just thinking of like the
North South dichotomy in his own upbringing,

432
00:35:35,679 --> 00:35:38,239
and as you said that, it's
sort of fascinating to think how those different

433
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:45,400
cultures sort of blended in one person
and maybe translated into different perspectives or that

434
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,360
diametrical opposition as you mentioned, ed, I think he can hold to,

435
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,599
you know, two things to be
true at the same time in the mind

436
00:35:52,639 --> 00:35:58,960
of Theodore Roosevelt, right, you
could be I think this is why he

437
00:35:59,119 --> 00:36:04,679
evolved on issues like race, or
why he saw issues. I mean,

438
00:36:04,679 --> 00:36:08,440
he can endorse suffrage in eighteen eighty
and yet he can say that the most

439
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:15,400
noble pursuit is of womanhood is motherhood
in the nineteen hundreds. I mean he

440
00:36:15,599 --> 00:36:24,320
had two different opposing outlooks because he
was constantly listening to differing viewpoints. I

441
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,199
mean, I think that's the interest, you know, that's kind of he's

442
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,239
That's why I think he's a bit
of that Rorschach test, because he's ingesting

443
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:36,079
information. If you come to him
with facts, if you come to him

444
00:36:36,559 --> 00:36:43,079
with a sound argument, he's going
to hear you out and not immediately.

445
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:45,119
He might not always agree, you
know, it doesn't mean he's going to

446
00:36:45,159 --> 00:36:49,440
follow what you say. I mean, we talked about his relationship in the

447
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,159
Gilded Age with you know, some
of these titans and tycoons of industry,

448
00:36:53,719 --> 00:37:00,320
JP Morgan is a fascinating relationship when
he comes to power. It's said that

449
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:05,320
JP Morgan said, I fear Theodore
Roosevelt because I don't know what he'll do,

450
00:37:06,039 --> 00:37:09,760
and Theodore Roosevelt shot back, he
fears me because he knows exactly what

451
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:15,360
I'll do. I mean. He
was a trader to his class in many

452
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:23,000
ways. Right there were these wealthy
New Yorkers and again titans of industry and

453
00:37:23,039 --> 00:37:28,360
economy that were sort of looking at
him as what are you doing? I

454
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,119
mean, why are you regulate?
What is? What are these regulations that

455
00:37:31,159 --> 00:37:37,760
you're putting in place? I mean
the Food and Drug Act, the antitrust

456
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:42,480
suits, the idea of you know, again, equal pay for equal work,

457
00:37:42,599 --> 00:37:46,039
or even a work day, I
mean having established work hours and work

458
00:37:46,079 --> 00:37:52,079
safety measures. These were things that
got a lot of pushback in their time,

459
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:58,039
and tr saw them as as issues
of fundamental fairness. I think if

460
00:37:58,039 --> 00:38:01,800
you had to boil his philosophy down
to one word, it would be fair.

461
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:07,280
You know, he wanted to see
an even playing field, and sometimes

462
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,639
he felt like he needed to put
his thumb on the scale of one side

463
00:38:10,679 --> 00:38:15,199
or the other in order to even
it out. My last question is a

464
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:20,360
technical one, but I think it's
relevant because I think one of the big

465
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:28,199
challenges in history studying men's relationship,
very important men's relationship with women is sometimes

466
00:38:28,199 --> 00:38:34,360
it seems like researchers historians will have
a really hard time coming up with a

467
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,360
commensurate amount of information about the women. But one thing in this book,

468
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:43,440
just the volume of letters in particular, I mean letters go and flying back

469
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,679
and forth all of the time.
Can you doctor says a little bit about

470
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:51,840
you know how maybe because of the
time period and because they were relatively wealthy,

471
00:38:52,039 --> 00:38:54,239
affluent, it was was it easier
to put some of the pieces together?

472
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:59,079
Here? What was it like actually
having a really big, important man

473
00:38:59,599 --> 00:39:01,000
and then the women in his life, what was it like sort of put

474
00:39:01,039 --> 00:39:07,000
piecing together their roles? Just from
the perspective of being a historian, Well,

475
00:39:07,039 --> 00:39:13,960
the challenge was that each of these
five women either a didn't know that

476
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:19,159
they were communicating with a great historical
figure, right like his mother obviously died

477
00:39:19,159 --> 00:39:22,239
in eighteen eighty four, long before
he was President of the United States.

478
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,199
Much as she loved him, I
don't think that she could have necessarily predicted

479
00:39:25,559 --> 00:39:30,440
that her son was going to be
President of the United States, as all

480
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:37,280
mothers obviously expect their sons or daughters
to be. And b they didn't want

481
00:39:38,199 --> 00:39:44,519
the world to know that Theodore Roosevelt
was anything but the product of his own

482
00:39:44,559 --> 00:39:52,880
will. So in several cases,
particularly Bammy and Edith, they did everything

483
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:57,480
they could to obscure their role.
And that makes it hard for the historian

484
00:39:57,519 --> 00:40:00,800
to knit this story together. You
have a lot of Theodore Roosevelt's letters going

485
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:06,440
to them, you don't have as
much of what they said back. And

486
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,079
you know, Edith was a historian's
nightmare. I mean, as much as

487
00:40:10,119 --> 00:40:16,280
I love her and feel like she
had such an incredible role, you know,

488
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:22,119
she burned a lot of the correspondents
that she sent to tr we don't

489
00:40:22,159 --> 00:40:30,440
know as much about their interior emotional
life because she had seen people like Robert

490
00:40:30,519 --> 00:40:35,400
Browning, the poet, pass away
and all of the letters come out between

491
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,000
you know, Elizabeth and Robert Browning, and thought, that's not going to

492
00:40:38,039 --> 00:40:40,639
happen to me. We're going to
make sure these are gone. And her

493
00:40:40,679 --> 00:40:45,840
children actually struggled for many years about
what to do, since they knew the

494
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:50,239
express wishes of Edith were to not
have some of these letters revealed. So

495
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:54,639
slowly, but surely the letters have
come out. I mean during unbelievably,

496
00:40:54,760 --> 00:41:00,480
during the research and writing of the
Loves of Theodore Roosevelt, there eleven letters

497
00:41:00,639 --> 00:41:05,920
that had been locked in a safe
since nineteen fifty four, and just by

498
00:41:06,039 --> 00:41:12,519
sheer coincidence and happenstance, Greg Wynn, the president of the Theodore Roosevelt Association,

499
00:41:12,679 --> 00:41:15,920
opened that safe, found those letters, and they came to light for

500
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:22,920
the first time. It's Harvard called
those eleven letters the single greatest discovery since

501
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:28,320
Roosevelt's death in nineteen nineteen. So
it just tells you that, you know,

502
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,360
the longer you wait, I mean
what I think it's longer you wait

503
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:38,320
that the more history reveals itself.
And I feel like sometimes it's just a

504
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:49,039
matter of history really is whatever view
that generation or that moment of that historian

505
00:41:49,159 --> 00:41:52,719
is taking on those events. You
know, the Loves of Theodore Roosevelt have

506
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:58,880
always been there in the story.
You know, Midy, Bammy, Connie,

507
00:41:59,199 --> 00:42:06,199
Alison, Edith have always been characters
surrounding Theodore Roosevelt. But now feels

508
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,039
like the first time we can take
a look at them and fully appreciate their

509
00:42:09,199 --> 00:42:15,920
role. Because it doesn't diminish Theodore
Roosevelt for us to say there were others

510
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:20,599
that helped him. We all have
brothers, sisters, wives, cousins,

511
00:42:20,639 --> 00:42:23,920
colleagues, friends who pick us up
and push us forward if we're fortunate,

512
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:30,840
you know when we're down, and
that doesn't take away from the myth that

513
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,400
has been and lore that has built
up around tr So, you know,

514
00:42:34,559 --> 00:42:37,760
just from a technical standpoint, I
think these letters come to view over time

515
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:44,280
because one, of course they're not
really the central historical figure, and two

516
00:42:45,079 --> 00:42:49,760
people in multiple generations down become more
comfortable with the idea of saying, wait,

517
00:42:50,199 --> 00:42:53,320
if it's known that he had doubt, or that he made the wrong

518
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:58,400
decision, or that he listened to
somebody outside of his own mind, that

519
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:00,960
doesn't mean he's any les that's great
than he was. In fact, I

520
00:43:01,039 --> 00:43:07,119
think it makes the story only more
intriguing to know the context in which those

521
00:43:07,159 --> 00:43:13,239
decisions were made. No hard to
argue with that. I'm so glad I

522
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:15,800
asked that last question because your answer
I think that I think that was one

523
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,199
of the most interesting things that you
said in this entire conversation, and so

524
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,199
I really appreciate it. Thank you
so much for giving us that answer,

525
00:43:22,559 --> 00:43:28,119
and thank you a reminder again.
So the book is called Theodore, Well,

526
00:43:28,679 --> 00:43:30,360
let me make sure I have it
pulled up in front of me.

527
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:36,920
The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt, the
women who create created a president, and

528
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:42,320
it's if it's a fascinating book,
it's really worth your time. I recommend

529
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,719
it. Edward O'Keefe dot com,
right, ed to get all the information

530
00:43:46,159 --> 00:43:51,639
about the work that you're doing about
this particular book. Everything's right there,

531
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:54,840
Edward F. O'keef dot com.
My mother would want monum me make sure

532
00:43:54,920 --> 00:44:00,199
get that middle initial in there Okee
dot com. Great, okay, I'm

533
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:04,159
glad I asked that too. And
you just if the Chuck Klosterman Presidential Library

534
00:44:04,199 --> 00:44:06,880
ever opens up in North Dakota,
make sure you let us know. I

535
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:09,480
will check if you're out there.
We know you're from North Dakota. If

536
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,880
you want to be a part of
the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library effort, just

537
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:19,039
give me a call. I forgot
you guys could claim Chuck Closterman. Yeah,

538
00:44:19,159 --> 00:44:21,360
exactly, we've got it all.
We've got it going on. We

539
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:23,400
got to going on in North Dakota. Tr and Chuck Closterman. It's a

540
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:29,239
wide array, Edward F. O'Keefe
dot com, The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt,

541
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,559
the women who created a President Edward
O'Keefe, thank you so much for

542
00:44:31,639 --> 00:44:35,719
joining us. Good to be with
you, Emilin appreciate it again, So

543
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:37,280
Edward F. O'Keefe dot com.
That's going to be in the description of

544
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:40,519
the episode. I'm Emily Dashenski,
culture editor here at The Federalist. We'll

545
00:44:40,519 --> 00:44:44,679
be back soon with more. Until
then, be lovers of freedom and anxious

546
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:45,239
for the Frank