The Old Lion: A Novel of Theodore Roosevelt

by Jeff Shaara

There’s not a gossiping snake among you, and I’ve learned that in my profession as a state assemblyman, snakes are a regular concern.”

“You are a master of flattery, Mr. Roosevelt. You know better than to come right out and ask an indelicate question. So you will let me answer it without a question at all.

“If politics is to be my lifeblood, I must do it on my own terms, and I will find a way to survive. If it is not in my future, well, I have my cattle. And a clear conscience.”

“You’d make a good lawyer, for certain.” Sewall paused. “But maybe you ought to think again about politics. You’re a good man, sir. Good men should go into politics.”

we need good men to lead us into good places.

“There is no political life even when you become president. It’s more of a very slow death, that every day someone tries to take something away from you, bring you down just a bit, steal your effectiveness.

Writers are all the same. No matter how pretty a picture you try to paint, they find the ugly. Increases their readership, so I’ve heard.”

I learned something out west, and it applies to the Negro right here in New York. I have had my share of prejudice, assuming the worst about a race just because they had a name: Indian, Negro, Hindu, Chinese. I have judged entire races as inferior or unable to compete with the white man. I admit there are times when I slip back into those feelings, no matter how hard I try to escape that. The point is, Mr. Hagedorn, there is one thing I have learned in my life: race doesn’t mean a thing when compared to achievement, skill, competence, ability. Give me a Negro any day who can outthink or outspeak a white man. Give me an Indian engineer who can build a bridge better than any white engineer, and on and on. You get my drift, right? A man has value because of what he can accomplish and the power of his brain, not the color of his skin. And I know full well, this kind of talk just gets me more enemies. Bring them on.”

Most men are imbeciles when it comes to women. The notion that you can keep an entire gender down, subservient, is patently ridiculous. If I tried that with any of the women in this family … moot point. It could never happen. The fact that there are men firmly entrenched against a woman’s right to vote astounds me. Suffrage is an inevitability,

Some of the old politicians I’ve suffered through, they think they can turn back the clock, reverse the flow of history. I can’t, and I know better than to try. Nobody ever has.”

I energized the notion of fairness, that workers of all stripes should be regarded with respect and a decent living. Do you know that before I drove a cattle prod into that agency, men could be denied a job because of their political beliefs? We changed a system that had rewarded favoritism at every level, a system in which the incompetent and useless would get the job best filled by the able and the skilled.

McKinley and his intimates were terrified that Bryan could so bowl over the mindless voters, and there are plenty of those in every state, that he could take the presidency. He insisted, for God’s sake, that we return to the halcyon days when agriculture ruled the world, as though the Industrial Revolution was an unhappy accident. The man makes a career out of becoming hysterical and pushing his audience to do the same.

You know just like I do, sir, that sometimes the high brass, those fellows in the clean uniforms, sometimes those people think there’s no harm in it for them, that they outrank death and suffering. Isn’t it Walt Whitman who says of the vultures that they ‘pluck the eyes of princes and tear the flesh of kings’?” Roosevelt was impressed, looked at O’Neill. “I’m not familiar with the quote. Where did you read … oh never mind. I know better than to ask. I have no doubt that vultures don’t discriminate, that generals can die as easily as privates. Generals know that, too. That’s why a lot of them stay in the rear. I’d rather be out front, leading. By Godfrey, I was alive.”

“I rather thrive on chaos, especially when I can push it onto someone else. Politics lends itself quite well to chaos. If everybody agreed on everything, if everybody trusted everyone else, nothing would get done. Makes no sense, I bet, eh? But it’s chaos that forces deals to be made, agreements to be forged, usually in some sweaty, smoky back room. You want to prevail in politics, you stay just a bit outside the chaos, let them come to you.

“Newspapers do not concern me, Doctor. They’re just words written by scared or angry men who use anonymity as a shield. But in the end they’re just words.”

There will always be a war of sorts between the haves and the have-nots. It’s up to the government to keep the peace, to maintain justice.