Mike Resnick: The Other Teddy Roosevelts

So why would anyone spend so much time writing science fiction stories about Theodore Roosevelt?

Well, they have a lot in common, science fiction and Roosevelt. Both of them deal with ideas. Both of them are entertaining. And most of all, both of them are bigger than Reality.

You think not?

Let’s take a look at Roosevelt’s life.

Roosevelt was born in New York City in 1858. As a boy he suffered from a debilitating case of asthma. Rather than give in to it, he began swimming and exercising every day and like every pulp hero you ever read about, he built himself up to where he was able to make the Harvard boxing team.

But he’d been making a name for himself before he went to Harvard. Even the Gray Lensman and Doc Savage weren’t exclusively brawn, and neither was Roosevelt. An avid naturalist to the day of his death, he was already considered one of America’s leading ornithologists and taxidermists while still a teenager. Nor was his interest limited to nature. While at Harvard he wrote what was considered the definitive treatise on naval warfare, The Naval War of 1812 .

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude , married Alice Hathaway, went to law school, found it boring, and discovered politics. When Theodore Roosevelt developed a new interest, he never did so in a half-hearted way — so at 24 he became the youngest man ever elected to the New York General Assembly, and was made Minority Leader a year later.

He might have remained in the State Assembly, but on February 14, 1884, not long after his 25 thbirthday, his beloved Alice and his mother died in the same house, 12 hours apart. He felt the need to get away, and he went West to become a rancher (and being Theodore Roosevelt, one ranch couldn’t possibly contain him, so he bought two).

Not content to simply be a rancher, a sportsman, and a politician, like hundreds of pulp and science fiction heroes he became a lawman as well, and hunted down and captured three armed killers in the Dakota Badlands during the fearsome blizzard that was known as “The Winter of the Blue Snow”. Could Hawk Carse or Lije Baley have done any better?

He began building Sagamore Hill, the estate he made famous in Oyster Bay, New York, married Edith Carew, and started a second family. (Alice had died giving birth to his daughter, also named Alice. Edith promptly began producing sons — Kermit, Theodore Jr., Archie and Quentin, as well as another daughter, Ethel.) In his spare time, he wrote a number of well-received books. Then, running short of money, he signed a contract to write a four-volume series, The Winning of the West ; the first two volumes became immediate bestsellers. He was also an avid correspondent, and it’s estimated that he wrote more than 150,000 letters during his lifetime — and what science fiction writer, I ask you, is not an avid correspondent?

He was now past 30 years of age, and he decided it was time to stop loafing and really get to work — so he took the job of Police Commissioner of the wildly corrupt City of New York…and to the amazement of even his staunchest supporters, he cleaned the place up, just like heroes from The Shadow to Lincoln Powell. He became famous for his “midnight rambles” to make sure his officers were at their posts, and he was the first Commissioner to insist that the entire police force take regular target practice.

He made things so uncomfortable for the rich and powerful (and corrupt) of New York that he was kicked upstairs and made Assistant Secretary of the Navy in Washington. When the Spanish-American War broke out, he resigned his office, enlisted in the army, was given the rank of Colonel, and assembled the most famous and romantic outfit ever to fight for the United States — the fabled Rough Riders, consisting of cowboys, Indians, professional athletes, and anyone else who impressed him — and what classic space operas don’t have a crew of romantic misfits just like that? They went to Cuba, where Roosevelt himself led the charge up San Juan Hill in the face of machine-gun fire, and he came home the most famous man in the country.

Less than three months later he was elected Governor of New York, a week after his 40 thbirthday. His new duties didn’t hinder his other interests, and he kept turning out books and studying wildlife.

Two years later they kicked him upstairs again, finding the one job where his reformer’s zeal couldn’t bother anyone: he was nominated for the Vice Presidency of the United States, and was elected soon afterward.

Ten months later President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt became the youngest-ever President of the United States, where he served for seven years.

What did he do as President?

Not much, by Rooseveltian standards. Enough for five presidents, by anyone else’s standards. Consider:

He created the National Park system

He broke the back of the trusts that had run the economy (and the nation) for their own benefit

He created the Panama Canal

He sent the Navy on a trip around the world. When they left, America was a second-rate little country in the eyes of the world. By the time they returned we were a world power.

He became the first President ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, when he put an end to the Russian-Japanese war,

He mediated a dispute between Germany and France over Morocco, preserving Morocco’s independence.

To make sure that the trusts didn’t reclaim their power after he was out of office, he created the Departments of Commerce and Labor.

When he left office in 1909 with a list of accomplishments equal in magnitude to any Galactic President in science fiction, he immediately packed his bags (and his rifles) and went on the first major safari ever put together, spending eleven months gathering specimens for the American and Smithsonian Museums. He wrote up his experiences as African Game Trails , still considered one of the half-dozen most important books on the subject ever published. Clearly he had a lot in common with science fictional hunters from Gerry Carlyle to Nicobar Lane.

When he returned to America he concluded that his hand-chosen successor, President William Howard Taft, was doing a lousy job of running the country, so he decided to run for the Presidency again in 1912. Though far and away the most popular man in the Republican Party, he was denied the nomination through a number of procedural moves. Most men would have licked their wounds and waited for 1916. Not Roosevelt. He formed the Progressive Party, known informally as the “Bull Moose Party”, and ran in 1912. It’s thought that he was winning when a would-be assassin shot him in the chest while he was being driven to give a speech in Milwaukee. He refused all medical aid until he had delivered the speech (which ran 90 minutes!), then allowed himself to be taken to a hospital. The bullet would never be removed, and by the time Roosevelt was back on the campaign trail Woodrow Wilson had built an insurmountable lead. Roosevelt finished second, as President Taft ran a humiliating third, able to win only 8 electoral votes.

So now did he relax?

Fat chance. This is Theodore Roosevelt we’re talking about. The Brazilian government asked him to explore a tributary of the Amazon known as the “River of Doubt”. He hadn’t slowed down since he was a baby, he was in his 50s, he was walking around with a bullet in his chest, all logic said he’d earned a quiet retirement — so of course he said Yes.