On this date in 1886 Theodore Roosevelt married Edith Kermit Carow in England. Although he had forgone the thought of another marriage after the death of Alice Hathaway Lee during the birth of baby Alice, TR and Edith, his dear and close childhood friend, renewed acquaintances, and the spark of love ignited.
Edith would become mother to five Roosevelts including Alice, who was a fascinating, unorthodox celebrity.
On December third, 1901, TR sent, not delivered in person, his first annual message to Congress as the nation’s youngest president following William McKinley’s assassination. One of his Republican opponents said of him, “That damned cowboy is in the White House.”
The President was a prolific writer, authoring 36 books. This month in 1912, he started on his autobiography, which some citizens read in part from chapters published in The Outlook a magazine where TR was an associate editor.
“It seems to me that, for the nation as for the individual, what is most important is to insist on the vital need of combining certain sets of qualities, which separately are common enough, and, alas, useless enough. Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life. We must be just to others, generous to others, and yet we must realize that it is a shameful and a wicked thing not to withstand oppression with high heart and ready hand. All for each and each for all is a good motto – but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as to not be a burden on others.”
Dakota Datebook: Remembering Theodore Roosevelt is written and performed by Steve Stark. Funding provided by the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation.
