Ironic Era: T.R. to F.D.R

The image of Theodore Roosevelt, the “Colonel” from Oyster Bay, has been somewhat obscured throughout the past two decades by that of our seemingly more significant and important four-term President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt of Hyde Park. And, for good or ill, the current judgment of the historians would seem to be irreversible.

Certainly the recent crop of books about T.R., though they make fascinating reading for students of character, fail to establish the superior economic or political acumen of the promoter of the Square Deal. In a new edition of The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, condensed by Wayne Andrews from the original and supplemented with excerpts from T.R.’s speeches and letters (Scribner, $4.95), we listen once again to the Colonel’s denunciation of Woodrow Wilson for saying that “the history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it.” That was Theodore Roosevelt’s “progressivism” in 1912, a “progressivism” that may properly be considered the forerunner of a New Deal that was to put its faith in such things as the NRA and governmental rigging of agricultural prices. F.D.R., in retrospect, seems closer to the Square Deal of his cousin than to the New Freedom of Woodrow Wilson.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Theodore Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The image of Theodore Roosevelt, the “Colonel” from Oyster Bay, has been somewhat obscured throughout the past two decades by that of our seemingly more significant and important four-term President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt of Hyde Park. And, for good or ill, the current judgment of the historians would seem to be irreversible.

Certainly the recent crop of books about T.R., though they make fascinating reading for students of character, fail to establish the superior economic or political acumen of the promoter of the Square Deal. In a new edition of The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, condensed by Wayne Andrews from the original and supplemented with excerpts from T.R.’s speeches and letters (Scribner, $4.95), we listen once again to the Colonel’s denunciation of Woodrow Wilson for saying that “the history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it.” That was Theodore Roosevelt’s “progressivism” in 1912, a “progressivism” that may properly be considered the forerunner of a New Deal that was to put its faith in such things as the NRA and governmental rigging of agricultural prices. F.D.R., in retrospect, seems closer to the Square Deal of his cousin than to the New Freedom of Woodrow Wilson.