My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked and free the city of the Lord from their grip.
- from A Psalm of David, 101:8
As I have continued reading and thoroughly enjoying Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough, what has struck me most of Theodore Roosevelt’s character is how early his commitment to a virtuous and disciplined life is developed. Surely forces beyond his control in the tragic deaths of his father, mother, and wife, the latter two on the same night, are significant but are more keystones in a temple of a man who was and is larger than life. So much so he is the only President that lived in the 20th Century to be featured in Mount Rushmore, his companions in stone were all of a different time and a different America.
We would do well to continue to meditate on the efforts our 26th President made as a local politician in his home city, something Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln never had on their resumes. While Generals and Governors flank the Colonel as he wish to be known by after his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt might best be remembered in our own time as the civil service man who hired jews to help the police patrol anti semitic neighborhoods in New York City or even the state lawmaker going door to door in a borough slum to inspect immigrant housing. No other member of his committee cared to see the conditions for which they were voting.
Do I have to spell it out for us all here? Has not a hellish corruption left our fellow men and women at the border in a dire situation without the attention of the administration responsible for its alleviation? What of the other prong of the immigration pincer crushing the American people under the guise of programs to import genius? Should it be noted that one particular party of American government has presided of every World War ever to have been conducted?
Are too many Americans finally apathetic enough that we will not take up ourselves the task at hand of weeding our local gardens? Is there no longer a dignity in due diligence worth dedicating ourselves to? Not in delegating our desires but applying our disciplined selves to the disasters we now collectively face?
Are there no longer even a few that would stand up against giants like our ancestors did at Lexington and Concord? Will there ever be Americans who would dare sign their name to a commitment of liberty for themselves and their fellow countryman? And would any of you reading this dare stand up when the masses cry for secession and slavery to proclaim as one heart beating body of Americans that we will be united and free?
Many will only remember Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider, yet we all would be better to know the Harvard man who was consistent in character from the slums of New York to the bad lands of the Dakotas reminds us that all Americans, even in the modern centuries, can be a people unlike any other.
Ferret out the wicked from your city and free it from their grip. Not once, nor twice…
Daily. Task.