Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was a born raconteur. His tongue was silver, his knowledge encyclopedic, his intellect monumental, his enthusiasm infectious and his charm irresistible. He held the company spellbound as he carried them with him from one subject to another, from politics to religion to ornithology and philosophy, tropical medicine to African anthropology.

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Theodore Roosevelt held many attitudes that the social thought of the 1990s quite correctly rejects. Some of his convictions can be especially troubling to those who view him with inadequate understanding, or without considering the Victorian world out of which he emerged. He was a white supremacist. Women, he believed, had an obligation to breed prolifically. The couple who chose not to have children-- many children-was committing a crime against the nation. He was a staunch nationalist, a big-game hunter, and glorified war.