In the mid-1990s, Mrs. Irene Harrison (1890–1999) several times stayed in the bed-and-breakfast my wife and I operated in Waynesville, North Carolina. Daughter of famed tire entrepreneur Frank Seiberling, this centenarian was a gracious lady with a distinctly conservative take on politics. Once when she and her son were discussing politics in the living room, I paused on some errand to ask, “Mrs. Harrison, who was the greatest president of your lifetime?”
“Roosevelt!” she exclaimed.
Given her viewpoints, her answer took me aback. Franklin Roosevelt?
“Theodore Roosevelt!” she chirped merrily. “He was the greatest president since Lincoln.”
Mrs. Harrison would have been 18 years old when Theodore Roosevelt left office. Had I been on my toes, I would have asked her whether she’d ever met the man. Her father’s fortune and status certainly made that a possibility.
But I did ask her why she favored Roosevelt. Though her exact answer escapes me, I do recollect that she talked about the man rather than his presidential accomplishments. She spoke of his energy and zest for living, his ability to connect with people, and his deep and abiding faith in America.
‘The Old Lion’: A Bird’s-Eye View
“The Old Lion” should appeal to all sorts of readers, from high school students looking for an introduction to the youngest man ever to become president to adults wishing to learn more details about the life of this phenomenal human being. Even those already familiar with Roosevelt’s history may enjoy Shaara’s ventures into Roosevelt’s emotional and personal life.Throughout this historical fiction, Shaara breaks away from recounting Roosevelt’s activities to return to 1919 and Sagamore Hill, New York, the home built and occupied by Roosevelt and his second wife, Edith. At age 60, Roosevelt is dying, a former shadow of the man who had led diplomats and politicians on grueling hikes through Rock Creek Park while president. His cowboy life in the Badlands, his campaign with the Rough Riders and their famous charge at the Battle of San Juan Hill, an assassination attempt as president that left him with a bullet permanently lodged in his chest, and his near-disastrous exploration of the Amazon just four years earlier have all taken their toll on his heart and general health.
Focus Points
Though the author covers all of Roosevelt’s many achievements, many readers will be particularly fascinated by his in-depth looks at Roosevelt’s boyhood, his time as a rancher in the Dakota Badlands, and his military service in the Spanish-American War.As a boy, Roosevelt suffered from terrible bouts of asthma. Shaara paints a tender picture of the care his parents gave the sickly boy, particularly his father, whom Roosevelt regarded as the chief heroic figure in his life. It is his father, a New York philanthropist, who soothes his son in the middle of the night and who later encourages him to “apply yourself to strengthening your body.” His father’s death while Roosevelt was a student at Harvard was one of the major blows of his lifetime.
Another hammer blow of death came on Feb. 14, 1884, when both his mother and his beloved wife Alice died and in the same house—the former from typhoid fever, the latter from Bright’s disease incurred during her pregnancy. Devastated by this dual loss, Roosevelt left politics for a time and headed West to his ranch in the Dakotas.
Here, he lived the life of a cowboy, gaining respect from the rough men of that place for his ability to defend himself—he had boxed as part of his war on asthma—and for his dogged optimism. He once pursued three men for stealing one of his boats, caught them, and brought them to justice. Of this incident, Shaara writes: “Word spread quickly of what Roosevelt had done, one more legend piling on the man who seemed simply to love all of life, who poured himself into every enterprise.”
This reputation stood him in good stead when, at age 39, Roosevelt left his post as assistant secretary of the Navy, formed a volunteer regiment under the command of Leonard Wood with himself as second-in-command, and led the “Rough Riders” in the fighting in Cuba. Throughout this campaign against Spanish forces, Roosevelt took care of his men and displayed gallantry and courage on the field of battle. Acclaimed as a hero, he became governor of New York, left that office to serve as William McKinley’s vice president, and with McKinley’s assassination in 1901, took up residence in the White House.
Shaara’s Bully Pulpit
Roosevelt coined the term “bully pulpit” to describe the position of the president, by which he meant that the office provided a grand stage from which to address the American people. In this same sense, “The Old Lion” serves as Shaara’s bully pulpit to explain the greatness of Teddy Roosevelt.Like all good writers of historical fiction, Shaara adroitly blends a number of historical figures into his story, thereby creating a sort of “you are there” immediacy to his narrative. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler serves as just one example of this tactic. A former Confederate general in the Civil War, the 61-year-old volunteered for service in Cuba and was in command of cavalry, including the Rough Riders. At one point in “The Old Lion,” Wheeler gives some pointed and humorous advice to the much younger Roosevelt on his boundless political future.
One particularly fascinating character is Anna, known to friends and family as “Bamie,” who was Roosevelt’s older sister. Though I’ve read the Edmund Morris trilogy, I somehow missed the enormous influence of this woman on her family, particularly on Roosevelt himself. After the death of their father, Bamie became both the heart and backbone of the clan, and a respected and wise counselor to her brother. She also helped raise Roosevelt’s difficult daughter, Alice Lee, the child of his deceased wife.
“‘Your family needs you, for certain. Your mother will need you. You’re the head of the family now.’
“He fought back tears, to still the fierce beating of his heart, his hands shaking.
The Face on Mount Rushmore
Shaara ends his novel with “The Legacy of Teddy Roosevelt.” He reminds us that Roosevelt preserved nearly 230 acres of natural land in our national parks system, that he gained a reputation as a trust-buster by breaking up the corporate monopolies that dominated the world of finance and labor, and that he won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.Though unmentioned in this coda, Shaara earlier wrote of Roosevelt’s key role in one of the world’s greatest and most enduring engineering feats, the Panama Canal. He also described in detail his meeting in the White House with Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute, and the positive influence of their relationship on race relations.
As Shaara also notes, in 1941 sculptor Gutzon Borglum finished his massive sculpture at Mount Rushmore, with its portraits in stone of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Some visitors may wonder why Roosevelt deserved membership in this distinguished company. “The Old Lion” is Shaara’s answer to that question.
“The story of Theodore Roosevelt is the story of a small boy who read about great men and decided he wanted to be like them. He had vision, he had will, he had persistence, and he succeeded. ... He is not a second Washington. He is not a second Lincoln. He is not a second Andrew Jackson. He is not a second anybody. He is Theodore Roosevelt himself, unique. There has never been anybody like him in the past, and though the world wait a long while, there will never be any one like him in the future.”
