Posted on 08/24/2016 8:03:37 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
If this country could be ruled by a benevolent czar, we would doubtless make a good many changes for the better. - Theodore Roosevelt, 1897
In most of the puff piece biographies written about Theodore Roosevelt, one will read about the valiant days of TR as police chief, cleaning the joint up, and rooting out the bad guys. But is that really all that happened? Nothing more? Why is it that the full story is never told, rather, it has to be pieced together?
During his time as a police commissioner, TR was actually quite unpopular. There were many who dubbed him "King Roosevelt I"(source), with some newspapers even going so far as to coin a jingle based on the notion:
East Side, West Side, all around the town, yesterday went King Roosevelt I, ruler of New York and patron saint of dry Sundays.(source)
Now, it is true, that much of Roosevelt's unpopularity as "King Roosevelt I" was directly connected to his taking away people's drinks(source), but there was more, much more to this.
As an aside, wasn't prohibition one of the crowning achievements of progressivism? And didn't that involve big government taking away people's drinks? Interesting. But I digress.
Roosevelt had a longstanding proclivity toward "strong"(which he used as a euphemistic code word for roughshod, hurtful, bully government) government. In a letter to his sister Anna, TR wrote:
If I were ... a single-headed Commissioner, with absolute power (not to speak of his having an infinitely less difficult problem to solve), I could in a couple of years accomplish almost all I could desire; were I even the member of a three headed commission, like the Boston Police Department, with absolute power, I could have accomplished very much; but, as it is I am one of four commissioners, any of whom possess a veto power in promotions.(source)(source)(source)
Now really.... Who do you know who speaks this way besides 12 year olds and young college grads who are completely out of touch with reality?
It's no wonder then, we have all of these stories of how most of the republicans in New York were just waiting with bated breath to get rid of Roosevelt. The web page for the National Park Service contains a very interesting line in this regard:
In 1895, he resigned to take the post of Police Commissioner of New York City. With this new appointment he hoped to expand his ideas of reform into new areas. Just like the Civil Service Commission, Roosevelt wanted the Police Department appointments and promotions to be based on merit rather than patronage. He tirelessly hounded corrupt and incompetent policemen, often replacing them with men who had no connection to any political machine.
With all of his talk of benevolent czars and absolute power, and the fact that the NY GOP ejected him as fast as they could, I highly doubt that Roosevelt's time as commissioner was truely as clean as the wind driven snow as they make it seem with this line here. Particularly this line of him "tirelessly hounding" "incompetent policemen". As we have seen with Obama, people enthralled with absolute power such as this have bizarre definitions for "incompetence".
This certainly matches with his letter to his sister. His "tireless hounding" had a lot to do with getting rid of people that he, and only he alone, knew to be incompetent. It is likely that there were some true incompetents. Others, however, were probably no more than simply of a different ideological persuasion than he.
Between that, and his anti-saloon campaign, Roosevelt ended up losing his job as commissioner - a job that was revoked by republicans.(source) All the reform work Roosevelt had attempted to do was for naught.
It is interesting to note, that one of Roosevelt's last acts as Governor, was to unify the job of Police Commissioner under a single head starting in 1901. This is very, very indicative of how deep his progressive ideology ran, even at that time. He wouldn't even be the one sitting in the top chair, as he had dreamed of years prior. But that power - it had to be centralized. He couldn't let it go.
Centralization for centralization's purpose. That's progressivism.
Benevolent dictatorship today, Malevolent dictatorship tomorrow.
People who identify “government” with “society” leave no room for freedom. Everything is either mandatory or forbidden.
The key component of the original Italian Fascism (before Nazism came along and turned the word into a synonym for "bigotry") was never-ending struggle for the sake of never-ending struggle. And unlike Communism, there was never to be an eschatological resolution ending in a utopia. Mussolini once declared that Fascists were heretics against all utopias, whether in Heaven or on earth.
Another similarity between Roosevelt and Italian Fascism was that both are economically interventionist and jingoistic. In contemporary America, economic interventionism is associated with pacifism and anti-Americanism. Roosevelt was the exact opposite (this is also true of historically Communist states, which were all socially conservative). Roosevelt was chomping at the bit to enter World War I from almost the beginning just as he couldn't wait for America to declare war on Spain sixteen years earlier.
My only complaint about this article is that it fails to note that prohibition had conservative as well as progressive advocates. Traditional American Fundamentalist Protestantism regards the consumption of alcohol as inherently sinful, thus banning alcohol was to them the same as outlawing homosexual acts. Granted that this is a relatively new belief (certainly not found in Halakhah), but to write off prohibitionism as exclusively left-wing is historically and ideologically dishonest.
Interesting points. It’s easy to look back on TR with rose tinted glasses, but he had his dark side too. I wonder how much of that has been whitewashed because of the fame of FDR, and unwillingness to sully the family name.
Now really.... Who do you know who speaks this way besides 12 year olds and young college grads who are completely out of touch with reality?
Absolutism and totalitarianism are products of a misintegrated mode of thought, where big government is a god, and faith in, trust in, and worship of big government is a religion. Roosevelt wanted to be the high priest or the pope of this religion.
He was absolutely correct. My father always told me the benevolent dictatorship is the BEST form of government. However, almost always, those who follow the dictator are usually despotic or mistreat the people badly.
TR’s autobiography is available on the ‘net for free. It’s an interesting read. He was drenched in noblesse oblige, fully embraced the top-down feudal structuring of society under progressive elite management.
FDR didn’t sully the family name?
Hehe, good point.
I was thinking from “their” point of view.
The two Roosevelts had a lot in common. Both really disliked the Germans and the Japanese. And both were interventionists at home and abroad (ironically, this similar policy is evaluated in radically different ways, with TR being considered a "jingo" and a super-patriot while FDR is considered by many of the same people to be a traitor and an internationalist).
As I understand it, the Roosevelt family was originally all Democrat but at the time of the Civil War most of them turned Republican (the remaining Democrat Roosevelts produced FDR). Ironically, TR's mother was a Confederate sympathizer from Georgia who was descended from Revolutionary War hero Archibald Bulloch. TR and FDR were distant cousins, as was Eleanor. FDR and Eleanor's wedding was held in the TR White House where Teddy gave her away.
The “High Hat” to the lesser classes.
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