As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have always been a champion of Theodore Roosevelt, for he was right like Richard Nixon most of the time, but when he was wrong it was a large wrong, but at heart they were the best of men, which can not be said of most people or leaders.
I offer a glimpse into Teddy Roosevelt which happened on his Yellowstone Expedition, where he frequently was off by himself in the wilds without Secret Service, and one night he and his friend John Burroughs slept with the window open to the floor on a main porch where anyone could have walked in on them and done harm.
The set up in this is George Marvin who was driving a wagon for the entourage. I leave it to John Burroughs to tell the event.
"The second morning at Norris's, one of our teamsters, George Marvin, suddenly dropped dead from some heart affection, just as he had finished caring for his team. It was a great shock to us all. I never saw a better man with a team than he was. I had ridden on the seat beside him all the day previous. On one of the "formations" our teams had got mired in the soft, putty-like mud, and at one time it looked as if they could never extricate themselves, and I doubt if they could have, had it not been for the skill with which Marvin managed them. We started for the Grand Cañon up the Yellowstone that morning, and, in order to give myself a walk over the crisp snow in the clear, frosty air, I set out a little while in advance of the teams. As I did so, I saw the President, accompanied by one of the teamsters, walking hurriedly toward the barn to pay his last respects to the body of Marvin. After we had returned to Mammoth Hot Springs, he made inquiries for the young woman to whom he had been told that Marvin was engaged to be married. He looked her up, and sat a long time with her in her home, offering his sympathy, and speaking words of consolation. The act shows the depth and breadth of his humanity."
John Burroughs
This was Theodore Roosevelt as President. He was on a western tour and Yellowstone was his playtime. This tour would take in 2 months and he would give 200 speeches, and rush out to wave at school children in little groups on the prairie.
At Yellowstone though, no press was allowed to accompany the expedition as this was personal time.
No one but the party would know what the President did, and would not say a word of it to the press or public. John Burroughs did not write his summary of the expedition for years, and in that, he showed a glimpse to the Teddy Roosevelt nature in being engaged with people who cherished him, aware of their need to meet the President, but off by himself studying animals as others fished as he was home in the wilderness.
Theodore Roosevelt never forgot one of the poor in Dakota he had met and happily greeted them.
The dead would not have known if Theodore Roosevelt paid his last respects or not to a hireling, but Theodore Roosevelt by instinct went to pay them to a teamster as if he were royalty. In the same human affection, he went to the fiance of the dead man and sat a very long time with her consoling her.
He did not have to do it as no one would know, but he did is, because that was Teddy Roosevelt.
I remember the deaths during the Reagan years, and cringed when President Reagan and Nancy went to the first memorial services, as the cameras were there hoping to find some grieved family member slapping the Reagans and screaming at them.
What happened there was remarkable as Ronald and Nancy Reagan went down the line of the mourners, and as they spoke to each, hugged them and consoled them, you could see the weight lifted from these family members.
It provided the closure for them which stunned me as I desire no one about me when it is a matter of grief.
It is a pity that America no longer has a President at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but an image instead who appeals to nation loathing idiots in need of validation. For a moment though in time, America had a President in Theodore Roosevelt who without politic and simply human affiliation sat with a grieving finance, as Theodore Roosevelt knew what it was to have a spouse taken from him.
The world has forgotten George Marvin and the act of a real American President.
agtG
