The Legend of Theodore Roosevelt with Rick Marshall

The US dollar has lost 85% of its value since the 70s, when the dollar decoupled from gold, and the government seems bent on continuing the tradition.

Charlie Kirk here. From now until after the elections, the government can print as much money as they want. The last time they did that, inflation went up 9%. Gold is the only asset that has proven to withstand inflation. Invest in gold with Noble Gold Investments. You will get a 24-carat, one-fourth of an ounce gold standard coin for free. Just use promo code KIRK. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

That's noblegoldinvestments.com, the only gold company I trust. Hey, everybody. An entire episode focused on Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most interesting Americans. This is a history-focused hour with Rick Marshall, a terrific historian. What can we learn from Theodore Roosevelt? Was he a good leader, a bad leader?

Was he a conservative, a nationalist, a populist, a progressive? We ask those questions. Text this episode to your friends, and you can learn history here on The Charlie Kirk Show. Email us your thoughts, as always, freedom at charleykirk.com. Become a member, members.charleykirk.com, and get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. That is tpusa.com.

Start a high school or college chapter today at tpusa.com. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

That's why we are here. Brought to you by the loan experts I trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandtodd.com. One of my favorite historical figures is Teddy Roosevelt. We have a historian joining us to explore it. Rick, I think it's Marshall. Is that correct, Rick? Welcome to the program. It's Marshall and it's Theodore.

All right. Well, tell us about the book. Yeah, it's called The Most Interesting American, and it sounds like you're already sold on that concept.

Yeah, there's the cover. It's my third Roosevelt book. And the angle of this, Charlie, is that everyone knows Roosevelt, what he looked like, and he's on Mount Rushmore and he's on Stamps. And we know the caricature and things he did, all his tremendous accomplishments. But as a lifelong Roosevelt addict, I was realizing that the essence of the man, what his personality was like and what he was, why he appealed to people and how he could be so persuasive.

That's being lost to the public. So I gleaned about 500 quotations, impressions, reports, diary entries, all that from people who knew him and encountered him or maybe just met him once or saw him in a crowd. And so that's what the book is. It took 10 aspects of his personality.

So it's none of his quotations. It's just what people thought about him and how they encountered him. So we have a portrait of him through people who knew him and met him.

So that's that's a book in a big nutshell. Well, he lived a full life. And so let's go through a couple different parts of his life. The one that people might not know, if I'm not mistaken, my memory serves me correctly. He was police commissioner of New York City.

Is that correct? Walk us through that part of his life. Yeah, that's one of the things he did. He was in the middle of his career, but he was in the New York legislature and civil service commissioner in Washington. Then, yeah, then he was a police commissioner in New York and is in everything else he did, ugly, honest and incorruptible and colorful.

And he did that. The police department was very corrupt then. And he came in and enforced the closing laws. And among the colorful things he did, he would go out after a full day of work at the police office, the commissioner's office. And he would roam the streets at night looking for policemen on the beat to see if they were doing their job or asleep or taking bribes like that. So the press loved him and the public loved him and the crooks didn't. And it just added to his growing reputation at that time.

So here's a question that I'm curious about. What books, thinkers, authors or philosophies were the most significant contributors to Teddy Roosevelt's worldview? You know, they call him a populist, a nationalist, but in his own words, what informed his politics? All right.

Well, glad you're asking that. He was a student of history. You know, he went to Harvard and he wrote, he made history, but he wrote history books.

But he was informed by a couple of things. And I will say, besides his heroes and the figures in history and his morality and such, a lot was his father. And a lot of the books about him have not really explored the influence of his father. You know, he was a blueblood. He came from New York aristocracy. And his father was a philanthropist at that point and a do-gooder and such.

But his father was a reformer and he favored reform. He was never in politics, Charlie, but at the end of his life, President Hayes asked Roosevelt's father, Theodore, Sr. And by the way, if I can say this, the Roosevelt we're talking about did not like to be called Teddy. And he once said that, matter of fact, he often said that anyone who called him Teddy didn't know him.

So he discovered that. So in my books, careful to call him Theodore. But his father, Theodore, was nominated to be collector of the customs office in New York City by President Hayes because it was a cesspool of corruption. And he knew that the famous philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt would be incorruptible and could run it honestly.

And he would have. But one of the New York senators, it was under his skin that he wasn't consulted on this. And he also saw it as a source of bribery and so he opposed the Republican president and a Republican nominee. And fought him like crazy in the Senate and persuaded the Senate to reject the nomination. And for a period of several weeks, it was in the news and it was dirty and Roosevelt's father was besmirched.

It was just awful. Our Roosevelt was away at Harvard at the time and was not really aware of the controversy. And after he was defeated, his father was defeated in the Senate. He had, he didn't know this at the time, but he had stomach cancer. And right after the defeat, he wound up in severe pain, died very quickly. And of course, everyone connected the humiliation of that defeat with his death, but had a big impact on Roosevelt's life.

Came home. He was not there when his father died. And famous at the time, just the idea that an incorruptible hero could be besmirched that way. And it affected Roosevelt greatly. He decided to go into politics. And we know from his writings that he always was affected by that and kept his father's ideal in his mind. So when he went into politics, he was incorruptible. He fought in the 1884 convention, 26 years old, but was a major figure in that convention trying to defeat the nominee who was a famous crook, Blaine.

And then whether it was in the civil service commission or the police commissioner office, as you asked. And then as president, it was really, he kept his father's example before him. So a lot of the influence on him was his morality, his Christianity, his ideals, his heroes in history. But really, I think he tried to live up to his father's ideals and it was a very important thing in his life and not sufficiently recognized, I think.

The book is The Most Interesting American by Rick Marshall. You know, some parallels that we're seeing. Potentially that election of 1912 sticks out, third party upset. And I'm sure Rick wrote extensively about that.

I'm just genuinely curious. What was Theodore, former President Roosevelt, thinking at the time? Because based on my recollection of reading history and biographies, he was angry at William Howard Taft.

But maybe there's more to the story. I will say this, and I think you would agree, Rick, he lived a full life. Theodore Roosevelt, he lived a full life in every possible way, from winning a peace prize for ending the Rucho Japanese conflict to his, what they call the Roughnecks in Cuba. He was Rough Riders. Yeah, he was not a boring guy. He lived a full life.

Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here. MyPillow's 20 year anniversary, they're celebrating over 80 million pillows sold. Mike Lindell of MyPillow wants to thank you by giving you the lowest price in history on their MyPillows. You'll receive a queen size MyPillow for $19.98, regular prices $69.98 and just ten dollars more for a king size. With this special anniversary offer, you'll receive a deep, deep discount on all MyPillow products such as their bedsheets, mattress toppers, pet beds, mattresses, my slippers and so much more. Go to MyPillow.com and click on the radio podcast square and use promo code Kirk to receive this amazing offer on the queen size MyPillow.

It's time to start getting the quality sleep you deserve. Go to MyPillow.com and use promo code Kirk or call 800-875-0425. That's MyPillow.com promo code Kirk received this amazing offer on the queen size MyPillow. Let's support my friend Mike Lindell, MyPillow.com promo code Kirk.

It's MyPillow.com promo code Kirk. So, Rick, tell us, we're going to kind of jump around Theodore's life here, but the one that I want to talk about is the election of 1912. Talk about the events that led to that and the historical significance. I'm so grateful you're asking about that because a couple of terms come up in relation to that populism, progressivism, and they had different meanings then than they do now. But when he ran in 1912, you know, he had promised that he would, he pledged that after his resounding victory in 1904 that he wouldn't run again.

But he meant consecutively. He didn't plan to run in 1912, but Taft, who he handpicked, really betrayed his policies. He carried some out on a slab and he betrayed Roosevelt in other ways.

He had largely forgotten by history, for instance, his environmental policies. Alaska was pretty much off the boards and Taft let the Guggenheim syndicate go in, lumber interests and such, and really have a chance to rape the whole state. And Roosevelt considered that a betrayal and things like that. So and there were other things with the United States Steel Corporation and Taft implied that Roosevelt, to end the panic in 1907, let J.P. Morgan and others pick Roosevelt's pocket or pick Uncle Sam's pocket. Taft was in the cabinet then and he went along with it. So Roosevelt just felt personally betrayed and his policies were being betrayed, too.

So he jumped into the race. But Roosevelt was not a populist at the beginning. Populism. William Jennings Bryan was really on this golden cross.

Sure. There we are in 1896, but eventually came to adopt a lot of the populist program. Times were changing and Roosevelt started the administrative state.

But he would be appalled today at the Frankenstein's monster, at what happened. And he pretty much coined the term progressivism. But there was a big difference, Charlie, between his progressivism and Wilson's progressivism. And largely forgotten today, when Obama pushed for the health care changes, he kept saying, oh, Teddy Roosevelt favored this. Well, he did not favor it. He never was in favor of a national health care system or any of the stuff that modern day progressives favor.

And Wilson's progressivism turned into FDR's progressivism and Johnson and then Obama and everyone. But Roosevelt today would never favor all that stuff. He would not have.

He'd be appalled. So he he was a nationalist. He did favor some government intervention, but as a referee in things. And the problem with Roosevelt's progressivism is that every generation does not produce a theater Roosevelt.

To have a referee, you've got to have a sensible nationalist constitutionalist. And, you know, Roosevelt's come along, we wish every generation, but not that often. So it always was a challenge. But would that we had a Roosevelt, certainly in foreign policy and in nationalism and in domestic policies, the way the way he managed things. And we don't.

And that's a problem. If people were more inspired by Roosevelt, and that's one reason I do the book that's my third on him and do my speaking and such is so we'd be inspired and could follow Roosevelt as we should. The most interesting American is the name of the book.

Make sure you pick it up. So, Rick, there is a divide on the right. Glenn Beck, who we just had on this program, who I really enjoy and love, says Theodore Roosevelt, no good. Tucker Carlson says Theodore Roosevelt hero.

Help us understand this. I'm very grateful to bring it up because some people on the right and they're smart guys. Glenn Beck, you know, even Judge Napolitano wrote a book a couple of years ago taking Roosevelt to task. Roosevelt and Wilson and people on the right.

And, OK, some populace, modern day populace and a lot of. OK, they don't understand this modern day progressivism and there was Roosevelt's progressivism. And I mentioned in the last segment that Wilson's progressivism has been a straight line to AOC today and the monsters who run the administrative state are trying to. Roosevelt's progressivism was not of that sort. And he was at his core a nationalist and he was an individualist. And his progressivism was what a generation in intervening years called rugged individualism. So he wanted the government to play a role, but basically to preserve. What individuals could do and what nationalists could do and not to reject, as Wilson originally wanted an agrarian vision. Jefferson's American, just small town farmers. No, Wilson wanted and was in his writings and it's distilled in Obama and AOC today.

The administrative state. And that was not Roosevelt's vision at all. He wanted people to stand on their own two feet. He wanted to people who wanted people to fail or succeed according to their lights. And he just wanted the government out of the way. And if it took strong government to keep.

OK, the corporations from calling the shots and interfering with free enterprise. We can debate whether he was a capitalist. He did not like crony capitalism. That's why he bought the trust. But he wanted people to fail or succeed according to their talents and make a make an even playing field. And that has been lost.

Not completely. But that has been lost to a lot of people in history. And Glenn Beck and Napolitano should realize that. And he's not only the most interesting American, but he was the most American American. So one thing I don't think Theodore Roosevelt only gets credit for, I mentioned this previously, is that there was a fair amount of economic anxiety that was brewing in the 1890s and 1900s. We saw William Jennings Bryan and he tried his best to capitalize on it politically.

Russia ignored a lot of this economic anxiety, which is why in 1917 you have the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik's rise to power, because we had one of the most transformational economic transitions ever from the farms to the factories. Is it fair to say that Theodore Roosevelt was able to build that bridge successfully, that he was able to calm some of those economic anxieties through prudent government programs while being focused on a strong American middle class? You've actually distilled his programs and his policies. Yes, that's the core of his argument. And, you know, after he left the presidency and especially through the teens and then there was the Russian Revolution, there was a lot of agitation and including a lot of his former followers.

Now, you mentioned 1912 before. A lot of his followers through the end of his presidency and through the Bull Moose campaign really veered toward the left and were very seduced by Bolshevism and such. So a lot of his followers fell in with that, those movements. But we need to remember, you know this, but a lot of people forget is that some of the people who followed him into the Bull Moose campaign, he called immediately afterwards. He was grateful for their support, but he called them the lunatic fringe because they went overboard. They took the ball and ran with them.

And instead of reform, they wanted revolution. And he just completely was turned off by them. And a lot of them who wanted him to run again as a third party candidate in 1916, he utterly rejected them. And he didn't even say thanks, but no thanks.

I mean, he really scored them. And as I say, called them the lunatic fringe. He regretted, you might say he started some of those balls rolling, but he knew what was dangerous in America. And, you know, he died in 1919 and we had a severe recession.

It was brief. Yep, that's right. When World War I ended, everyone came home and there was this big recession, right?

Yeah, exactly right. And there were labor problems and the radicals really, you know, Eugene V. Debs ran for president. He was indicted, wasn't he? Sorry to interrupt, but he actually was indicted, I think. Sound familiar?

Sorry, please keep going. Oh, no, he was. And unfortunately, it was not for this economic lunacy. It was for his, you know, opposition to World War I and all like that. And Roosevelt was a big interventionist and everything. But America was really on the brink in 1920 of turning radical.

And OK, so it didn't. And the Harding and Coolidge, Coolidge is not as appreciated as he should be, I think. But Roosevelt really was at the, he bridged those two movements and he was able to rein in sort of like Luther did after the, after the Reformation. He had to calm a lot of the reformers at the time. And there was a counter-Reformation. But Luther had to remind a lot of the people not to go overboard in, you know, smashing stained glass windows and statues and all like that. And Roosevelt pretty much had to do the same thing and remind his followers to stay on the straight and narrow. So I'm glad you recognize the difference between those who revere Roosevelt and those who might not. No offense to Glenn Beck. And this is not an attack on Glenn. I just see it differently. And I understand.

So but this is how I actually think we prove it. Was Theodore Roosevelt a German historicist believer? Was he a believer in the arc of progressive history philosophically? Yes, he was. Yeah.

But, you know, it's always qualifications. We have to remember that one thing that made him the most interesting American is that, you know, he's probably the only president we've had who it's plausible that in the first paragraph of his obituary, being president of the US would not necessarily be the first item to check off, you know. So he wrote more than 40 books. And he would have been a famous and respected naturalist, natural historian and a biographer and historian and all like that. So, you know, the moment you mentioned, yeah, he was in those currents and he taught and he lectured and he wrote and he was at the whirlwind of history, too. But he was, let me put it in another context, if I might, but with Manifest Destiny, I mean, he saw the broad scope, the broad sweep of history. And he saw America's role not just in a racial sense or an ethnic sense or a geographical sense in that way with Manifest Destiny, but he surely saw the sweep of history. And when he would talk about social and industrial justice, he was not talking about socialism. He rejected socialism. But he really saw that the government and the state had a role.

But he was not that he was ever scared silly about anything, but he did not want the mechanism of government to co-opt the ideals of individualism and nationalism that he saw America as embodying. I would be remiss on my behalf if we did not talk about just some of the unbelievably interesting personal stories of Theodore Roosevelt. True or not true, he was shot while campaigning and then finished a speech with a bloodstained shirt. Is that folklore or is fact?

It's fact. He was shot at point blank range, five feet away, and they wanted to take him to the hospital, of course. And he insisted on going delivering a speech. He had 90 minutes with blood streaming down his shirt and he finished his speech and they said, now you can take me to the hospital.

And understand the context. He became president because McKinley was shot and died. And so then Theodore Roosevelt gets shot and he finishes the speech.

Yeah. One of the you know, one anecdote about that is he was an outdoorsman. He was a hunter.

He was a police commissioner. He was carried a gun with him in case someone would attack him. He didn't have the chance because someone came up point blank range and he was always in harm's way. And he wrote a friend after he was shot that always being at risk, always having a gun, always shooting, loving firearms and such and such. And he wrote a friend after this happened. He said he felt like the the old maid who found a burglar under her bed one night and said, there you were looking for you for 30 years. So there he was courting death, being a soldier, San Juan Hill and all like that, never being shot.

And then he was and he wasn't able to shoot back. Hey, Charlie Kirk here, if you guys love this program and you want to support this program, if we have impacted or blessed your life in any way, I want to tell you about a new thing that we are starting it up. First of all, if you have supported us at Charlie Kirk dot com slash support, nothing to worry about, you guys are going to be moved on over. If you want to support us even more and say, hey, I want exclusive content, I want to talk to Charlie directly. We are standing up this amazing infrastructure teams and working so hard at members dot Charlie Kirk dot com.

Not only is it a way to support us directly outside of all of the other channels, but get this live Q and A's, I mean, the team articles exclusively written by me that you won't find anywhere else. Pre show prep calls and more sign up today at members dot Charlie Kirk dot com. We love bringing our show every day and we can't wait to bring you even more content that is just for you at the Charlie Kirk exclusive. That's members dot Charlie Kirk dot com head to members dot Charlie Kirk dot com today.

Yes, there's going to be a lot of goodies, a lot of engagement, a lot of fun stuff. But even more than that, if you feel moved and compelled that our show is impacting you and impacting the world, it would mean a lot if you became a member at members dot Charlie Kirk dot com. The most interesting Theodore Roosevelt stories, safaris, rhino hunting in North Dakota, what are the ones that just stand out? You've done unbelievable research here. Well, thank you.

And you've done your questions are great. I can answer that question by saying the way I organized the book was 10 aspects of his personality. And he has many more facts than that. But the fact that, yeah, he was born sickly, severe asthma as a child. He fought his way back and became, you know, a physical specimen, a boxer and a hunter and oh, like a cowboy.

So I tried to break it down. Conservation is a family man, a chapter on his faith is Christianity. Of all things, he did not wear on a sleeve. It was his faith. But the three of his books he named after he took verses from the Bible is an intensely faithful man.

Patriot, of course. You know, his wife and his mother died. A lot of people don't know this. His wife and his mother died on the same day in the same house of different causes. It devastated him. It did.

It would anyone. That's when he went out to the Wild West for two years and just rode the range, became a rancher and a cowboy, built and finished building his body. And that was an aspect of his personality, too. Just everything he did. You know, I was attracted to him as a child.

Why? I was a student of history. I was too young to be a student of history. I discovered this man who vaguely looked like my grandfather. But even then, when he was not as respected, they went through a decline. It was kind of a caricature in history books and everything. But it just struck me that this man was so honest. He courted controversy.

And the phrase that was said about Cleveland was said about him. People said, we love him for the enemies he has made. And he just didn't care who he offended. He stood for the flag. He stood for America.

He stood for himself. And he was incorruptible. He had enemies in politics.

No one ever could did accuse him of being personally corrupt or in his private life or anything like that. And who can we say that about in history or special? And is it fair to say he was a man's man, an alpha male amongst the rest?

Thrift on that for a second. Well, that was absolutely the case. And by the way, not that this is what you're implying, but the subject is collateral. He wrote one of his papers in college in the 1880s on advocating the vote for women. And he was for women's rights.

And what he said about that equality of rights does not equate to equality of function. So, I mean, he believed men should be men and assert themselves and have the manly virtues of phrase. He was not shy about using. He brought up his sons that way. And it was a hard thing when one of his sons all went into World War One and one died on the battlefront. And he was haunted by that, that he inculcated those virtues in his sons to volunteer and fight and do.

But that was part of the package. He was a man's man. He went to Brazil. He almost died. Because he had a bug bite or something, right? Or he got infected, right?

He got infected. They got lost. He was charting a tributary to the Amazon and they got lost.

And it was a virtual stream, no GPS in those days. They were starving. There were attacks from natives and the porters went crazy and one killed the other, ran to the jungle. He got a fever because he was trying to save a canoe that broke loose. And he hurt his leg and it got infected. He had a hundred and five fever.

It was delirious. He wanted to take morphine to kill himself, but his son wouldn't let him do it. His son was with him on that trip.

He lost 40 pounds in the jungle and he saw it through. And that was just one of many adventures in his life. Rick Marshall, excellent hour.

Thank you for your work. The most interesting American. I encourage everyone to check it out.

We all have something to learn from Theodore Roosevelt. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your thoughts as always. Freedom at Charlie Kirk dot com.

Thank you so much for listening and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to Charlie Kirk dot com. Lots of channels, nothing to watch, especially if you're searching for the truth. It's time to interrupt your regularly scheduled programs with something actually worth watching. Salem News Channel straightforward and filtered with in-depth insight and analysis from the greatest collection of conservative minds like Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Sebastian Gorka and more. Find truth. Watch 24 seven on SNC TV and on local now. Channel 525.