The President both candidates want to be

The fifth book I read this year was Can­dice Mil­lard’s Riv­er of Doubt, the sto­ry of Theodore Roo­sevelt’s 1914 explo­ration of unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry in South Amer­i­ca. Both Oba­ma and McCain have invoked Roo­sevelt’s name (and no, Oba­ma was­n’t talk­ing about FDR though I’m sure he has good things to say about him as well) in the cur­rent cam­paign for pres­i­dent, and bul­ly for them. You don’t get much bet­ter than Theodore Roosevelt.

Here’s a guy who ran a cam­paign against his own for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent after see­ing four years of his per­for­mance as Pres­i­dent. The GOP hat­ed him for it at the time, but Repub­li­cans must have liked him well enough since run­ning as the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty can­di­date he gath­ered more votes than Taft. 1912 was the only time since Lin­coln was elect­ed that either a Repub­li­can or a Demo­c­rat has come in third in a Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion. Roo­sevelt’s can­di­da­cy also made Taft the only incum­bent Pres­i­dent to come in third in a bid for reelection.

Mil­lard’s book proves that a well-researched book can be engag­ing. Roo­sevelt’s tri­als in the jun­gle place him among the more intre­pid of explor­ers in our his­to­ry, yet the expe­di­tion is large­ly for­got­ten. Riv­er of Doubt, named for the riv­er now called Rio Roo­sevelt (which has a trib­u­tary still named Rio Ker­mit after Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt’s son who accom­pa­nied him on the expedition).

The sto­ry is inspir­ing as an account of the brav­ery of men who pushed them­selves right to the lim­its. The ter­rain was rugged and progress was slow through the dense jun­gle. Not every­one on the expe­di­tion made it back. Roo­sevelt him­self was wound­ed bad­ly enough that he con­sid­ered sui­cide not out of des­per­a­tion but because he want­ed the expedition—including his son—to make it out of the jun­gle and thought that might not be pos­si­ble with him slow­ing the party.

Even (per­haps espe­cial­ly) these dark moments pro­vide a source of inspi­ra­tion. Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt knew that Ker­mit was fight­ing to make cer­tain his father returned safe, just as he was look­ing out for Ker­mit. His deci­sion to per­se­vere came from know­ing that Ker­mit’s will would remain strong so long as there was a chance to get his father home.

It trou­bles me that we may nev­er see anoth­er of Roo­sevelt’s cal­iber in the White House.