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Presidential Trivia

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Knucklehead

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Darn! I was thinking Theodore Roosevelt about the boxer question . . . I should have gone for it! Also on the subject of TR, I'm surprised at that comment about McKinley, especially considering that the latter was assassinated. People generally don't speak ill of the dead, and besides, it violates the later "Reagan rule" of never speaking badly about another Republican.

TR made the statement in 1898. McKinley was shot three years later in 1901.
 

deluxestogie

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That 1898 comment about McKinley is also a source of some controversy. Some have attributed it to the then Speaker of the House. The truly fun Broadway musical, Tintypes, features a character named "TR", who is sometimes Teddy Roosevelt, sometimes others. Tintypes (centered on 1900 America and its music) puts the "chocolate eclair" comment into TR's mouth. [http://www.amazon.com/Tintypes/dp/B0007NMJZ4]

TR is always a great subject for anecdotes. Rough seas prevented the Rough Riders from disembarking their horses, when the unit arrived on the shores of Cuba, so TR and the Rough Riders took San Juan Hill on foot. TR was the first US President to fly in an airplane, and was also the first sitting President to leave the country (he visited the Canal Zone to inspect progress on digging the Panama Canal). Bully!

Bob
 

deluxestogie

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One more TR story.

While Assistant Secretary of the Navy (his boss was a fat, somnolent fool who did nothing), TR wanted to show America's newly expanded Navy to the world by sailing the fleet to the Philippines. Congress refused to allocate sufficient funds to make the round trip. So TR ordered the fleet to the Philippines anyway. Congress could figure out how to get them back home.

Bob
 

winston-smoker

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Bob,
I have a cousin by marriage (would that be a "cousin-in-law"?) who would like you ... his M.A. thesis in History was on Theodore Roosevelt. His wife, my cousin, wrote her M.A. thesis in History on St. Brendan (coincidentally, or maybe not, her name was Brenda).
 
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