A Nibble to Share on Presidents' Day

[klondike]

Here's an enticing glance back over our cultural shoulder at the man who is MY favorite President:

A Man Walks into a Bar Speaking Softly and Carrying a Big Stick . . .
by David Boozer

He adjusts his pince-nez and orders a drink. Recently arrived from New York, he looks out of place in the dusty Dakota Territory saloon. "Four eyes!" roars the bar's bully, three sheets to the wind. A few laughs follow. Pleased with his cleverness, the bully adds, "Four Eyes is going to treat." Four Eyes tries to laugh off the insult and walks to the other end of the bar, but the tough follows and dishes out more foul-mouthed insults. He draws his two pistols and repeats, "Four eyes is going to treat." "Well, if I've got to, I've got to," Theodore Roosevelt — Four Eyes — says. As he rises, he hits the bully with his bare fists three times in the jaw. He's prepared to do more damage, but the man is out senseless.
Roosevelt, in his late twenties at the time, learned two valuable lessons that night: the first was to stay out of bars, and the second was the importance of speaking softly, but carrying a big stick. In fact, he learned the lesson so well that he employed the aphorism "Speak softly and carry a big stick" as a guiding principle in his domestic and foreign policy, producing fear among robber barons, corrupt political bosses, and foreign dictators alike. Few presidents are summed up by a single quotation the way Theodore Roosevelt is by this one. Editorial cartoons from the period portraying the young president with exaggerated physical features — toothy smile, beady eyes, barrel chest — as he hoisted a big stick while marching toward South America or standing tall as the world's police officer are as realistic to many as any photograph of the man.
Roosevelt's first public use of the expression was as vice president in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 1901, just days before President McKinley was assassinated. One early critic of the speech wrote that the phrase "ought never to be heard again on American soil," but it resonated with the press and public. Interestingly, before that date, the expression had never appeared in an English-language book, while after the speech, it began appearing in numerous books and publications. Its widespread use, though, didn't peak among writers until fifty years later as the Cold War was beginning. (Its use peaked again during the height of the Vietnam War.)
But TR's first use of the phrase had predated his Minnesota speech by almost two years. In a letter dated January 26, 1900, Roosevelt, as governor of New York, had written from the Executive Chamber in Albany to New York Assemblyman Henry L. Sprague concerning a recent political tussle with the powerful New York Republican Party boss Tom Platt. Exhilarated by the successful outcome, Roosevelt wrote this two-page letter in which he suggested he had won the tussle because "I have always been fond of the West African proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.'" This is the first known use of the phrase by Roosevelt or anyone else, and one senses that he knew it struck a perfect tone, which explains why he used it in his Minnesota speech, and then again and again. He liked it so much he even entitled a chapter in his 1913 autobiography after it. What made it so appropriate was that Roosevelt understood that it not only defined his outlook and policies, but the young nation, too, which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was bursting at the seams with optimism, vitality, and global influence.

[movieman1957]

Reading about TR is always interesting. He sounds like one of the Presidents everyone has heard about but would know very little about him.

Thanks.

[mrsl]

.
Teddy had the brawn, no negating that fact, but half a century later, Truman had the brain also. His "the buck stops here" is equal to 'carry a big stick". He had physical limits, but was aware of the responsibilities of his office and was willing to do whatever necessary to get the job(s) done. It's a shame we only get a president like them every 50 years or so.
.

[klondike]

After being elected President, TR won a Nobel Peace Prize for triumphantly arbitrating a swift resolution to the newborn Russo-Japanese War, after which he presented the Tsar with an autographed copy of his most current book, and then was tutored in the martial art of judo at the Emperor's personal dojo.
I'd say a good portion of his brawn was between his ears.