![]() ![]() Now those last two faults are forgivable if we accept British diplomat Cecil Spring-Rice’s advice, “You must always remember the President is about six.” The first fault-his preachiness-is excused by the fact that the American electorate dearly loves a moralist. And he used to make rude faces out of the presidential carriage at small boys in the streets of Washington. ![]() He piled his dessert plate with so many peaches that the cream spilled over the sides. Morison’s delicious phrase, he had “a recognition, too frequently and precisely stated, of the less recondite facts of life.” He significantly reduced the wildlife population of some three continents. He was an incorrigible preacher of platitudes or to use Elting E. Let us dispose, in short order, with Theodore Roosevelt’s faults. This essay was delivered as a speech, in somewhat longer form, at a recent symposium on presidential personality at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The following study of TR’s personality-which so well illustrates this point-was written by Edmund Morris, who won the Pulitzer prize for The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt in 1980 and is now at work on a second volume. If Theodore Roosevelt seems to push his way into our pages with extraordinary frequency, it is because the force and variety of this “giant,” “over-engined” man appear to be endless. ![]()
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