The Roosevelts

[Zen Badger]

Teddy Roosevelt was one of the few great republican presidents... Lincoln and Eisenhower come to mind, also. He looked around and saw what the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of big business was doing to the country and moved against the republicolibertarianazis of his day.


We desperately need someone like him now.

Todays republicans and their corporate puppeters will make damn sure you never get a man like him either.

[Cinjin]

Now that we got the WWII thread started...

Dear Reverend, DP, and all others who thought so:

Teddy Roosevelt kicked ass. You can throw Franklin D in there if you like.

Discuss.

Teddy Roosevelt could shoot lightning from his fingertips while flying as if Superman.

Franklin D could only fly ... and only if he had a long runway to wheel down.

[Gawdzilla]

The anti-FDR crowd likes to make out that he ordered the press not to take pictures of him in his wheelchair or showing his braces. They want to pretend it was some kind of secret that he had "polio". However, there were plenty of such pictures from his days as governor. And it's hysterical to think that the Press would follow such an order, especially the newspapers who despised the ground he rolled on.

What actually happened there is a combination of two things. The first thing is the fact that everybody in those days either had a family member or a friend/acquaintance that had the disease. It was endemic in the population. The second thing was something we don't see in today's Press, courtesy. There was simply no need to show his disability, it did nothing for the story, so they skipped it.

[Cinjin]

The anti-FDR crowd likes to make out that he ordered the press not to take pictures of him in his wheelchair or showing his braces. They want to pretend it was some kind of secret that he had "polio". However, there were plenty of such pictures from his days as governor. And it's hysterical to think that the Press would follow such an order, especially the newspapers who despised the ground he rolled on.

What actually happened there is a combination of two things. The first thing is the fact that everybody in those days either had a family member or a friend/acquaintance that had the disease. It was endemic in the population. The second thing was something we don't see in today's Press, courtesy. There was simply no need to show his disability, it did nothing for the story, so they skipped it.

One could argue that that continued courtesy is what kept it generally "unspoke of" in front of the public and thus the appearance of a kept secret.

(just playing devil's advocate - I don't actually have a real opinion on it.)

[Gawdzilla]

One could argue that that continued courtesy is what kept it generally "unspoke of" in front of the public and thus the appearance of a kept secret.

(just playing devil's advocate - I don't actually have a real opinion on it.)

That's just it, it wasn't secret in those days, "everybody" knew. I recently gave a talk on "Pearl Harbor and Modern Mythmaking" to a Rationalist club near here. This was the kind I discussed. Conspiracy theorists cherry-pick the available information and create their own version of reality. The fact that there are very few pictures of FDR in his braces or chair "logically" means that the press was threatened if they published such pix. "It's jut one more way we have of knowing FDR was EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Gawdzilla]

Naval War of 1812 (Roosevelt) (1902) v1

Naval War of 1812 (Roosevelt) (1902) v2

BTW, I did some checking and Roosevelt's formal portrait as Governor clearly shows his braces. I found images as late as 1944 (taken at the Springs) of him in a wheelchair. One image was of him hopping down the White House steps in his braces, 1933. FYI.

[reverendjeremiah]

Lies. Not even the good Reverend knows about those boots, and he stalks the photo gallery.

I have to admit, I know a bit more about Teddy the naturalist than anything else so I'm interested to hear what all people come up with. I loved "Mornings on Horseback"

---

SHUSH! *hides printed phots behind his back* I have done no such thing.

I think what you need is a private prayer meeting

Praise Sweet Baby Jesus!

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TR may have been more deistic or even pantheistic than christian back in those days, seeing as he was a well documented naturalist at his prime.

Picture of the script and glasses case that more than likely saved his life during the assassination attempt

While Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank shot him, but the bullet lodged in his chest only after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket.[59] Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he wasn't coughing blood, the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung, and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt.[60] He spoke for 90 minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."[61] Afterwards, probes and x-ray showed that the bullet had traversed three inches (76 mm) of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him for the rest of his life

X-ray of TR's torso after the attempt on his life. The bullet was never removed.

It is interesting to note that the reason the progressives were for prohibition was to keep the saloon owners from influencing our political system

[Autumnlicious]

Well, those progressives didn't really think through what happens when the unstoppable force of alcoholism meets the fairly movable (and hideable) booze bottle.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

[Gawdzilla]

Well, those progressives didn't really think through what happens when the unstoppable force of alcoholism meets the fairly movable (and hideable) booze bottle.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Legislating against fun is pointless.

[reverendjeremiah]

Well, those progressives didn't really think through what happens when the unstoppable force of alcoholism meets the fairly movable (and hideable) booze bottle.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

True, and we have learned our lessons from that and now go the opposite way. We now have learned that making substances like that illegal actually fucks up the system even worse.

Hind sight is 20/20, or so they say.

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Progressive Party Platform 1912
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...cument=607

THE OLD PARTIES

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.

Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.

My favorite part