Theodore Roosevelt: The Navy

As the latest zinger of the Obama Romney campaign has been that President Obama has somehow reduced the Navy to it's lowest level since 1917, it's appropriate to talk about the man himself who pushed for a robust Navy, Theodore Roosevelt.

TR was truly a Naval enthusiast, having authored a book on the history of Naval Warfare in the War of 1812 that was so well written it's still studied in the Navy today.  In addition to writing a best selling book on the Navy, he also served as Assistent Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley where he constantly lobbied President McKinley for a more robust Navy and foreign policy.

He viewed America's failures in the War of 1812 as due in large part to the lack of a Navy that could stand up to British might.  The British at the time were by far the largest and best Naval power in the world.  It was their Navy that build the empire on which the sun never set.  He felt the answer to avoiding  military defeat in another potential invasion from a rival power was to drastically increase the number of ships in the United States Navy as well as professionalizing the maritime military forces.

It's not too surprising then that TR pushed a strong Navy in his budget when he came into office.  The Navy was expanded from 59 ships before TR was the Secretary of Navy for McKinley in 1897 to 141 when McKinley left office in 1901. By the time TR left office as President in 1913, the Navy was up to 214 active ships.

By 1916 or 1917, the Navy ballooned to 342 active ships and then nearly doubled in the two years following.  This is where the comparison loses meaning.

There are a few major factors to why Romney's argument that a lower active number of ships in the Navy means America is projecting an image of weakness.

The primary factor is that in the turn of the twentieth century, wars were fought very differently than they are now.  For starters, there were no airplanes then.  Navies were the primary vehicle of empire building and they could be used both offensively and defensively.  The steam engine was invented, so the Navies also became much more reliable since they did not always need to also rely on good winds as the Navies have had to do in the past.  Having a lot of ships roving the North and South American coastline deterred europeon invaders and were good tools to enforce America's interests in Latin America.  Then as now, superior and more technologically advanced forces could easily win wars. 

The Income Tax

Wars were fought over it, philosophers argued about it then and still do now.  Taxation is something that's always been and still is controversial. 

The income tax has been one of the most controversial.  Many don't realize that the country actually didn't even have an income tax until 1913 through a constitutional amendment, well into the industrial revolution.  This was at a time where the role of government was even more unsettled than it is now.

The government was entering into areas of people's lives that would have been unthinkable by much of the population 10 or 20 years before.  The urbanization of America led to things such as the regulation of food, traffic laws, housing and labor protections.  All of these new ventures increased the demand for revenue, as did the concern among many in society to reduce the inequality that came about from the South's defeat in the civil war and new industries that earned vast fortunes for early tycoons in the oil, gas and railroad industry.

In addition, wealth was being created in very different ways than when America was an agricultural society.  In the 1700's, most income came from owning land and selling produce or renting it out.  It was easy for the the government to know how much income an acre of land would generate and tax it accordingly.  With the industrial revolution, the relationship between labor and capital was different.  In a minimal amount of space, fantastic wealth could be generated from a factory setting.  Much of this wealth was going un-taxed. 

It was in this environment of Teddy Roosevelt's term that the income tax started to be agitated for and was towards the end of Taft's term in 1913 that it was passed.  Up until this time, it would have been nearly unthinkable to tax the income that someone earned.  Land was taxed, there was a sales tax and a whole host of other random taxes, but income was not something people were used to having taxed.

There are still people to this day that insist the income tax is unconstitutional.  Wesley Snipes, the demolition man himself went to jail for tax evasion because he doesn't accept that the government has the right to tax his income.

#26: Theodore Roosevelt: The 47%

The contrast between the way politicians spoke 100 years ago compared with now is amazing.  There is of course the difference in tone and tenor, in the turn of the century, the art of speaking still mattered and political speeches were expected to be aspirational rather than populist.  Even blue collar people generally did not vote purely on "who they'd want to have a beer with".

The other striking difference of course was how honest people were in their views.  During this time, messages were less managed and in the absence of the 24 hour news cycle and the entire industry we have now of pollsters, strategists and media consultants, politicians were more likely to write their own speeches and less likely to mute their real beliefs to be more electable.  That's not to say they were less corrupt than they are now or better human beings or anything, you were just a little more likely to get the unfiltered version of their thoughts than you are now.

It took an unauthorized recording of Mitt Romney to confirm what he really thinks.  His view of America is one of makers and one of takers.  He believes that half of the country is unproductive and lives off the productive other half that pays income tax and does not rely on government programs such as social security, welfare, etc.  This "scandal" of the world hearing his real philosophy that he explained to his contributors is a legitimate debate the country should be having regarding what government should and should not do and the effect of entitlements.  Instead of arguing if his vision makes sense or is good for the country, the media focuses only on the horse race of the election on how it will appeal to minorities or how many percentage points his polling will go down.

In Theodore Roosevelt's day, he was much less afraid to lay out a bold, controversial vision for the country than today's politicians are.  His view of the 47% was very different from Mitt Romney's, although he had many political opponents that said openly the types of things Mitt says in private regarding the lower classes.  It's just amazing that Theodore Roosevelt spoke so forcefully on the need for government in people's lives when you factor in that he lost the support of his own party, it was a time when social darwinism was widely accepted by the upper classes and there was great concern for civil unrest that was being caused by anarchist and communist terrorists at the time.  In addition, social programs or the view that government should take care of people was still a very new and not universally held view. 

All these factors made it in-expedient for Theodore to give this speech, but he gave it anyway.  Listen not only to the message, but also the way he spoke to the American people as adults and not simpletons reading The USA Today they find outside the door of their hotel room:

#26: Theodore Roosevelt: A Life Well Lived

Teddy Roosevelt was like the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man" of his time.  His life read like some blockbuster adventure novel and the facts and antedotes go on and on.

Here's a couple that I like:

• He wore a ring made with Abraham Lincoln's hair.
• A life long anti corruption crusader, he went against the NYPD and the NYC political machines and they attempted to frame him for prostitution and have thugs rough him up on multiple occasions.
• He was definately pro conceal and carry, since he carried around a revolver to defend himself against his many political enemies.
• He was a best selling author multiple times on subjects as varied as big game hunting, the wild West and Naval Warfare.
• "The Naval War of 1812" was published by TR when he was only 23 years old, but is considered one of the best historical accounts of Naval Warfare ever written.  The U.S. Naval Academy still teaches from this book today.  This is somewhat amazing since TR was never in the Navy prior to him writing this book and only pursued the subject as an academic interest.
• An avid hunter of all big game, TR ate the heart of the first elephant he killed.
• In his african safari, it's estimated that his crew killed over 11,000 animals.  Although many of these animals were small mammals or insects, over 500 were big game animals such as elephants, rhinos and lions.
• The african safari costed the equivelent of $1,800,000 in today's currency.
• TR himself mapped a 1500 mile river in Brazil.  The river was renamed Rio Roosevelt in his honor.  He nearly died on this trip and on many others from infection and disease.
• He lived a real cowboy's life in North Dakota.  During this time, he was appointed deputy sherrif and hunted down three people who stole his boat.  Instead of hanging them, as was the custom, he drove them back to town to stand trial, a 40 hour trip he made without sleep.
• He wrote 35 books on various subjects, and unlike the half literate politicians of today, none of them were ghost written.  Few of them were even about politics.
• Giving a speech, he got shot in the chest.  Rather than seek medical attention, he simply exclaimed "it will take more than that to stop a bull moose!" and continued with his speech.  He knew that since he was not coughing blood, the wound would not be mortal.
• TR largely led and funded a volunteer regiment in Cuba during the Spanish American War.  The unit was largely successful and he personally led the charge to storm Spanish positions.

I'm not sure what else I can even say.  I'm sure that there's a lot of things that I'm leaving out, but I have to say that TR is in the running for the "Most Interesting President" award.