Word: roosevelt
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Roosevelt was firm in his convictions, but he was also a man of puzzling contradictions. An avid conservationist who added national forests and wildlife refuges, Roosevelt’s first act after his chosen successor William Howard Taft took office was to embark on a safari to shoot lions, giraffes, and other exotic creatures. In total, Roosevelt and his entourage killed 512 animals, the majority of which were stuffed and sent to the Smithsonian Institution...
This expedition, which is recounted in the early chapters, is the first illustration of O’Toole’s overriding theme: that “Roosevelt often mistook the sirens of personal ambition for the trumpets of public duty.” The safari, Roosevelt explained unconvincingly, achieved important public ends. Science, for one, and pest control too. He even portrayed hunting as “a humane alternative to a cruel death in the jaw of a predator or the prolonged agony of starvation...
...upon returning from his African sojourn, Roosevelt found that his presidential legacy was unravelling. Taft failed to maintain the pace of reform that Roosevelt had set. Indecisive—and overweight—Taft lacked the firmness to be a strong leader and dreamed only of becoming Supreme Court chief justice (a dream that would be realized...
...Roosevelt wrote columns and delivered speeches sharply chastising Taft, accusing him of violating “every canon of ordinary decency and fair dealing.” O’Toole’s narrative of the ruined friendship paints Roosevelt as the pigheaded party who refused Taft’s peace gestures. Taft is the far more sympathetic figure. For instance, while on the stump, Taft broke into tears, lamenting that “Roosevelt was my closest friend...
...conservatives wanted nothing to do with Roosevelt’s progressive policies. After a dispute over the allocation of delegates, the 1912 GOP national convention nominated Taft, prompting Roosevelt to form his own Bull Moose Party and run anyway. “Roosevelt had loved the presidency for the power it gave him to play the hero, and when it ended, he was as wounded and blind as a husband who loses an adored wife to another man,” O’Toole writes. The two candidates split the Republican ballots, and a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, won with...