Column: Leadership lessons from Theodore Roosevelt
Retired superintendent Curt Dubost.
– TR, or Teddy, as our 26th President was more commonly known, became the nation’s youngest president in 1901 when President McKinley was assassinated. I’ve thought about Theodore Roosevelt a lot the last few days as we celebrate Presidents’ Day as well as the Super Bowl.
I’ve shared before how TR believed football is America’s sport and saved it with reforms when it was about to be banned due to collegiate fatalities.
Been to Yosemite or The Pinnacles lately? He was a true conservationist who dramatically expanded the national parks system.
Believe the federal government has a role in food and drug safety? He expanded federal oversight dramatically. One can certainly now argue that some regulations may go too far, but no reasonable person could possibly want a return to the time of Upton Sinclair and “The Jungle” or Rachel Carson and “Silent Spring”.
Believe workers hurt on the job shouldn’t be fired if they are too injured to return to the job? He pioneered workers’ disability coverage.
Want a President who is a strong advocate for defense spending and national service without being a “Chicken Hawk” ready to send others? TR served himself in combat as the commander of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War. One son was a pilot killed in action in WWI. His eldest son, Theodore Roosevelt III, was the only General to land with the first wave on the beaches in Normandy on D-Day.
Want a President who actually wrote his own books?
Thirty-five of them.
Want America to have a leadership role in the world?
He sent the Great White Fleet around the world to show all that the USA was a global power and would not tolerate interference with our national interests, particularly in our hemisphere. (Congress thought the cost excessive and only approved half the cost. TR sent the fleet halfway around the world and invited Congress to get them home.)
Want a President who was a true sportsman and principled hunter?
On a bear hunt in Mississippi, he refused to shoot neither a crippled old bear nor an adolescent cub for slaughter by his guide. You can imagine the political cartoon that followed with Teddy pardoning a bear.
Want a President who refused to profit from his fame and Office?
He subsequently refused to take a penny for his name being used on Teddy Bears, which are wildly popular to this day.
Want a President who, despite being born into a very wealthy family, fought for workers’ rights?
Want a President who believed in American capitalism yet enforced trust-busting legislation to outlaw monopolies and oligopolies in the name of a SQUARE DEAL for all?
A couple of TR’s most famous quotes below seem timely:
On Immigration
“We should insist that the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American and assimilates to us, be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, birthplace, or origin.” He added they must be loyal only to America and learn English within five years.
On Diplomacy
“Speak softly and carry a Big Stick.” “Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready.” As I recall, that included conducting any contentious foreign policy in private, especially with our allies.
On Military Action
“Don’t hit at all if it can be avoided, but if you have to hit, hit hard.” He also won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an actual end to the war between Russia and Japan.
Ironically, he also orchestrated the military success of the Panamanian separatists, making it possible, albeit through more than somewhat nefarious means, for America to build and own the Panama Canal. When facing criticism of the canal, he replied he’d have the canal built now, and then they could debate him for the next forty years.
On Service to Others
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
“This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live unless we make it a reasonably good place for all to live.”
On Corruption
“This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to our country.”
By the way, at that time, politics like Tammany Hall in New York was a profession not worthy of any man of honor, given the assumption that all politicians were crooks. TR, on the other hand, was considered absolutely honest.
On Our Constitutional Rights
“To announce there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone else, but it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than anyone else.”
On Equal Rights for Women
“I think there can be no question women should have equal rights with men, especially as related to marriage…and access to every field of labor which they care to enter…” His Bull Moose Party was the first presidential candidate to campaign for the passage of the 19th Amendment and women’s suffrage.
The name Bull Moose was from his comment after being shot in the chest by a would-be assassin while speaking to a crowd. Knowing from his war experience that chest wounds with no bubbles in the blood meant the lung hadn’t been hit, he finished the 90- minute speech, though bleeding profusely. When asked why he kept speaking with a chest wound, he said it would take more than that to kill a Bull Moose.
On Civil Rights
He hosted Booker T Washington for dinner at the White House, the first Black American to be so honored.
On Bullying, Masculinity and Honor
“A healthy -minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or smaller boys or who tortures animals. What we should expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man.”
On Personal Integrity and Hypocrisy
“No man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character. “
“No man is above the law.”
And lastly, his most famous… On Courageous Leadership
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who errs and comes up short again because there is no effort without error or shortcoming…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat”
I hope there is a candidate like Teddy Roosevelt on the ballot in 2028.
-By Retired Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Superintendent Curt Dubost
Thank you Curt for sharing this. I think most of us who have taken the time to read your letter agree we need a candidate like TR in 2028. It is unfortunate that our present President falls short on the personal integrity level as many of his policies are good for our country. I give him a A for most policies and a F for his integrity.
Thank you Curt for sharing this. I think most of us who have taken the time to read your letter agree we need a candidate like TR in 2028. It is unfortunate that our present President falls short on the personal integrity level as many of his policies are good for our country. I give him a A for most policies and a F for his integrity.