Last week saw the statue of the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, removed from its place at the Museum of New York to be placed at a yet built library in Medora, North Dakota.
Colonialism and Racism were cited as the need to properly contextualize the monument again at a Library that does not exist and will not until at least 2026. Some how the state literally embodying colonialism, and modernizing racism with vaccine mandates and passports found the irony lost on themselves.
As I have been reading Edmund Morris’ leviathan trilogy biography of Roosevelt, a few thoughts have come to mind.
On the subject of race, Theodore Roosevelt was the first President of the United States to host and entertain an African American in the White House. Even bolder that he would do so in the first year of his first term as president. He would lose the vast majority of support from southerns for it. The man’s foreign policy was based on an African Proverb: Speak softly and carry a big stick and you will go far. Roosevelt had in fact traveled to Africa as a child with his family and had experienced this proverb first hand on the continent where it was born. Then Roosevelt in his presidency would go on to champion African Americans in places of high government at both State and Federal levels.
On the subject of Colonialism was where Roosevelt made his name. Leading the Rough Riders Calvary unit into Cuba, Roosevelt along with thousands of Americans took Spanish bullets from German guns and returned them with American determination to win the island nation freedom from the Spanish Empire. Roosevelt in his Presidency would go on to press for independence of not only Cuba but also the Philippines along with master diplomacy to save Venezuela from German colonization.
It has been Morris’ biography of the 26th President that convinced me to donate to the construction of the Library in North Dakota. I do believe we need such a place to experience the lessons and values of an archetype American. A loss in the east. Another victory for the west.
-Steven