Not every statue deserves to remain forever in a place of honor. Likenesses of Confederate generals do not belong on plinths for continued veneration, for example.
But as with most things in life, deciding which statues ought to go requires good judgment. The New York City Public Design Commission’s decision to remove the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History is a poor choice. People need more reminders of our 26th president’s virtues, not one less.
The statue is of Roosevelt on horseback, flanked by a Native American and an African. Strong men, they appear to be helping Roosevelt, marching with determination. Yet a parks department official said the statue’s composition “supports a thematic framework of colonization and racism,” and so it must go.
Sorry, that’s just nonsense.
Our forebears’ treatment of Native Americans, going back to Jamestown in 1607, was terrible. But Roosevelt, although he did spend a year as a cowboy in the Dakotas, only began his federal service in 1889. That matters because the frontier was closed in 1890, the year the Wounded Knee Massacre ended the American Indian Wars. Roosevelt is not representative of that 283 years of conflict. Roosevelt spent 1909-10 hunting big game in Africa, helping the museum’s collections immeasurably. A half-dozen European powers were certainly brutal in their colonization of Africa. Roosevelt had little to do with this, either.
But Roosevelt can teach us at least four lessons today.
Resilience. Physically, Roosevelt overcame debilitating childhood asthma to become a collegiate boxer and oarsman, an outdoorsman, and an explorer of South America’s “River of Doubt.” Emotionally, he overcame grief from the death of his first wife, Alice, to be a loving husband to Edith and doting father of six. He gave a speech during the 1912 presidential campaign with a bullet in his chest. Roosevelt’s “muscular Christianity” reminds us that people can do more than whine about the unfairness of life.
Learning. Roosevelt attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. More impressive are his 47 books and his accomplishments as a historian and naturalist. Visitors to Roosevelt’s home, Sagamore Hill, note the library’s well-thumbed volumes in French, German, Italian, and Latin. Today, some politicians take false pride in ignorance and provincialism to seem more relatable. Not Roosevelt.
Public service. Roosevelt was a state assemblyman, civil service commissioner, New York Police Department commissioner, failed mayoral candidate, assistant secretary of the Navy, governor, and vice president before ascending to the presidency, all by age 42. He resigned his civilian Navy Department post to fight in the Spanish-American War, and his heroism with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, or the “Rough Riders,” on San Juan Hill was later recognized with the Medal of Honor. He sought unsuccessfully to get back into uniform for the Great War. Roosevelt’s willingness to take the tough jobs, to walk the walk, contrasts those today who loudly describe themselves as “patriots,” yet often never serve in any capacity.
Accomplishment. Roosevelt championed civil service reform, conservation, consumer safety, labor, peace, and trust-busting. He launched a powerful U.S. fleet, enforced the Monroe Doctrine, and built the Panama Canal. He mediated international disputes such as the Russo-Japanese War, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Presidents over the past 30 years often failed to achieve far more modest goals. The breadth and depth of Roosevelt’s legislative and policy accomplishments are humbling. Enoch Powell observed that all political lives end in failure, but this isn’t true of Roosevelt: Had he not died in 1919, he’d likely have been the Republican presidential nominee in 1920 and won reelection.
Roosevelt was a New Yorker to his core. His statue on Central Park West greeted generations of student field trips and parents bringing children to see the dinosaurs, the blue whale, and more. This statue also serves as a bracing reminder of the great man Roosevelt was. His force of personality dragged America out of Gilded Age decadence and on to the path of world leadership in the 20th century.
We need more of Roosevelt in each of us. New York’s next mayor should keep his statue where it belongs.
Kevin Carroll served as a law clerk to the late U.S. District Judge Thomas C. Platt, the great-grandson and namesake of Roosevelt’s political rival “Boss” Platt.
