Theodore Roosevelt died 100 years ago on January 6th, 1919.
You might remember he visited Salem once, on May 21st, 1903.
Earlier in 1918
his son Quentin had been killed in combat, and grief was likely an ingredient in the cause of Theodore's death.
A couple days after his death, the
Oregonian published a small piece of his on "patriotism."
On Patriotism:
Patriotism means to stand by the
country. It does not mean to stand by
the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in
which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in
so far as he efficiently serves the country.
It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to
the exact extent that by inefficiency or
otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it
unpatriotic not to tell the truth
whether about the President or about
anyone else save in the rare cases....
TR was a war-monger, a loud-mouth and blustering fellow, but he also was disciplined and relentless in work, wrote many books, was intellectually curious and serious, could administer large organizations and make good decisions, and was the perfection of a kind of uniquely American type and exemplar for a kind of masculinity.
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