Full Movie: Teddy Roosevelt A Cowboys Ride To The White House

[Music] theodore roosevelt came here to kill a buffalo but he fell in love with the country [Music] and he won the grudging respect of his neighbors but eventually they came to like this guy and be rather attached to this strange character from these i wrote about one of them would have been dead like that had a duel he loved the outdoors he loved the environment he loved hunting all these things were available for him here when you do a biography of roosevelt his badlands chapters i think it's the it's the coming of age one it's the turning of a of a page theodore roosevelt came to the dakota territories and he pushed himself and he hardened himself physically and emotionally and he relied on that for the rest of his life this program was made possible by grants from the north dakota humanities council the southwest rural economic area partnership the north dakota cowboy hall of fame and was produced in cooperation with prairie public [Music] broadcasting [Music] the badlands of north dakota rugged buttes canyons grass plateaus a river called the little missouri that meanders slowly north towards the big missouri sunlight dances off the buttes like a ballet and winds blow gently through the grass across the plateaus and through the ravines 65 million years ago the badlands was home to the dinosaur herds of triceratops and the mighty t-rex roamed what was then a swamp-like land 35 million years ago mesa hippos the three-toed three-foot high ancestor of today's horse called this land home then a thousand years ago buffalo and the american indian claimed the badlands in the 1870s trail drivers pushed their herds north from texas to graze the rich grasses of this little missouri valley this quickly became cowboy country a place for men with big hats shops guns and whose heads danced with big dreams as they explored the open range this is a place of rugged beauty in the spring and summer but treacherous in the winter when blowing snow and bitter winds make it dangerous for the people and animals who live here coyotes howl into the north winter wind and life slows on the frozen landscape the winds eventually calm days become longer alberta clippers stay in canada the snow melts and the waters run into the whittle missouri the prairie flowers push through the gumbo and the grass again turns green and when spring returns to the badlands hope is eternal the newborn buffalo deer elk calves and colts take their first shaky steps it was into this land in the fall of 1883 that a young whirlwind by the name of theodore roosevelt stepped off the train at the town that was then called little missouri the 25 year old roosevelt loved guns and the outdoors he considered himself a naturalist and had come to dakota territory to hunt and study wildlife where there were once millions of buffalo now there were few and when the dandy from new york jumped off that train he was determined to shoot one of the few remaining shaggy giants one of the great misnomers that people have is somehow hunting is not synonymous with conservation most of your first-rate hunters are conservationists they're the first people to really care about species survival ecosystem staying intact more than a hunter he was an incredible naturalist and that's how naturalists did their work you know he was a field naturalist he wasn't he wasn't a lab naturalist he wasn't a lab scientist he was a field scientist and in order to collect specimens you kill them [Music] theodore roosevelt was born a new york blue blood in a victorian era he was frail sickly and advised not to plan on living a full or active life but roosevelt saw himself as a renaissance man he loved and lived life with gusto he was captivated by nature but was also scholarly he had attended harvard where by sheer force of will he overcame life-threatening asthma he was also a man of contradictions a serious author a prude when it came to personal matters but a man who loved guns and blood sports and despite personal wealth he was a political reformer born on the cusp of the civil war in 1858 theodore roosevelt would live to be 60 and the most vigorous and forceful man ever to occupy the white house he was a trust buster a conservationist a flag waiver who celebrated the 4th of july every day his motto speak softly but carry a big stick theodore roosevelt began his climb to greatness in 1880 he graduated from harvard married and within a year was elected to the new york legislature he also wrote an acclaimed account of the naval war of 1812 that is still considered a tour de force tierra got interested in politics i think partially because he felt a responsibility he saw that politics in new york in the early in the 1800s late 1800s was being run by a different type of person these were the immigrant machine kind of politicians i heard a lot of people complaining as they do today about politics his view is you can't complain about unless you get involved in it and he felt that people from his background that is with his education and understanding and views about the world had to get involved in politics in order to help this country become what he thought it ought to become roosevelt's trip west to the badlands to shoot his buffalo would change his life forever for here he would rub elbows with the people of the west the cowboys the homesteaders this here he would develop and refine his thoughts about creating a democratic society that was fair to all when he stepped off the train in the badlands he was considered snobbish a dilettante a man who expected the finer things in life but reality was witty the only sleeping quarters were at a building called the pyramid park hotel theodore roosevelt spent the night of september the 7th 1883 in a large room filled with bunks bed bugs and a dozen other snoring likely liquored up gun packing cowboys the most popular place in little missouri was the saloon called big mouth bob's bug juice dispensary the clientele dubious the whiskey bad the host special was called 40-mile red-eye which wasn't much for taste but as one local wag put it it gets the job done roosevelt was a teetotaler a sarsaparilla man and it's doubtful he ever set foot in bob's because he had come to hunt a buffalo and he quickly hired a local named joe ferris as a guide and was off to the hut for ferris the trip turned into 10 days of pure hell cold weather rain wind and slick sticky gumbo mud the season ferris wanted to go home but roosevelt insisted on continuing his hunt they've been out for eight or nine days they've had nothing but bad luck and now they camp out on the planes and that night it rains and they wake up at dawn literally in pools of water and ferris looks over at this kid from new york and thinks finally finally he'll quit roosevelt sits up in that pool of water and looks over at joe ferris and says bye godfrey this is fun and up they get and they go doggedly off and the next day roosevelt finds one of the last buffalo in dakota territory and shoots it and kills it he was a terribly driven man when he set an objective whether it was panama or whatever it might be politically he had to complete it or he looked at himself as a failure and not getting a buffalo was not in the cards he had to get one even if he had to stay out there the whole year he could not fail this this was part of his psyche i'm not a failure by god i've got to get the buffalo during his long and difficult hunt roosevelt stayed at the gregor lang ranch the lang cabin was little more than a shanty but roosevelt was a courteous and appreciative guest and made a big impression on his host he would accept no special treatment called every humble meal a banquet and slept on the dirt floor rather than deprive anyone else of a bed each night after supper the new york blue blood talked into the wee hours with lange a scottish immigrant years later lang's son lincoln lang in his book called ranching with roosevelt recalled that as a youngster he laid awake in the loft entranced by the conversations between his father and the young hunter and scholar as the two sat before the fire talking until dawn in roosevelt's forceful talk lay not only conviction but a depth of interest that kept me wanting to hear more and as i listened i learned learn for example that while the world was a good place to live in just as i had been thinking there were to share the frill a whole lot of rooting hogs loose in it among other things his talk forcefully impressed upon me that he favored making two blades of grass grow where but one grew before he believed and live and let live believed that the way to pull himself up was not to make a stepping stone of the other fella but rather join hands and pull together that both might rise easier altogether he was with us 10 or 12 days upon that first occasion when he left we were genuinely sorry to see him go as he rode away in the wake of the wagon bearing the head in the height of his skill well do i recall father saying to me there goes the most remarkable man i've ever met unless i am badly mistaken the world is due to hear from him one of these days [Music] 1883 was also the year another aristocrat discovered the badlands the marquis de moore was a french nobleman who married money and developed an audacious business idea de moore planned to raise beef slaughter them in his own packing plant located in the town that he'd named for his wife madura the processed meat would then be shipped to eastern markets in the newly invented refrigerated rail cars a superb hunter skilled swordsman and cracked shot the haughty aristocrat promptly hired hundreds to begin work on his packing plant built a chateau for his family a hotel housing for employees and relatives a store a newspaper called the badlands cowboy and a stage line that ran from medora to the gold fields of the black hills while the marquis was trying to build an empire roosevelt hunted the badlands he was captivated with the land its people freedoms and the character of the range-riding cowboys before boarding a train for the return trip to new york he bought what was called the chimney butte ranch south of medora and retained the maltese cross brand as his own [Music] roosevelt was excited about the new badlands ranching venture it was yet another way of proving himself and a way to become a dakota cowboy roosevelt came here to kill a buffalo but he fell in love with the country and he also realized something here that the frontier experience the experience of daniel boone and davey crockett was about to disappear forever from american life the frontier was officially being declared closed by the u.s census bureau and he wanted to get a little infusion of that frontier experience before it disappeared forever but he was also fascinated with the type of people that lived here with the cowboy life with ranching he saw it as a business opportunity uh he was pretty naive businessman it turned out to be a disaster so he saw all these possibilities and i think other things that he didn't see that it became truth about he loved the outdoors he loved the environment he loved hunting all these things were available for him here a cowboy will not submit tamely to an insult and is ever ready to avenge his own wrongs nor has he an overwrought fear of shutting blood he possesses in fact fear of the emasculated milk and water moralities admired by pseudo-philanthropist but he does possess to a very high degree the stern manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation [Music] well i think his thoughts were why am i here his second thought was i'm here because i like the the adventure i'm not afraid of anything by golly bully i'm going to make everything out of this it will be fun buffalo head and toe the eager hunter and new rancher headed for home in the rough and tumble politics of new york by february the young strong-willed reformer was back in albany serving in the new york legislative assembly there was pure was belty and joy when word arrived from new york city that his wife of four years alice lee had given birth to a daughter tears of joy soon turned to concern when a second ominous telegram arrived with word that alice after giving birth had turned desperately ill he rushed for new york city and home where he was met at the door by brother elliot who said theodore there is a curse on this house his beloved darling ellis was dead from complications of childbirth it was valentine's day but there was nothing to celebrate for not only had his wife ellis died so had his loving mother he was devastated he had a two or three day old daughter he had no idea he was completely numb they had a double funeral when he began to pull himself together he decided to finish his work as a legislator and so he went back up to albany and did that and then he decided to completely change his life he'd already been in north dakota had some interests here in a ranch decided to move out here to deal with this terrible thing that had happened to him when his first wife and his mother died on the same night you know he had this incredible loss this this crippling loss this loss that would have destroyed any man a much lesser man his approach instead of crumbling was to once again find the most difficult challenge physical challenge he could and that's when he came to the dakota territories and he pushed himself and pushed himself and he hardened himself i believe physically and emotionally and he he relied on that for the rest of his life the sorrow and grief were unforgiving and the young roosevelt needed time and needed space he made arrangements for his baby daughter alice to stay with his sister bammy he packed his belongings and with his grief boarded the train for dakota territory he was headed for the life of a rancher at a new ranch along the little missouri river north of medora he was mournful at the loss of his wife and his mother on the same day valentine's day and he spent weeks months trying to heal it's difficult because he was a father now with the child he needed to transition himself in some way it wasn't an era where you had deep kinds of thera grief therapy or psychiatrists were commonplace so you had to find a way to move forward on your own and he found that by going west by the solitude of the maltese ranch and elkhorn ranch gave him a chance to be by himself a lot often historians talk about tr going hunting and all these buddies a lot of his time was spent in the solitude of the west and that was where he was able to heal himself he had time to think time to walk time to grieve he went on long solo hunts and spent days reading he wrote parts of a couple of books there and he brooded this was the one period in his life when he was really filled with melancholy and his closest friends tried to talk him out of his darkest thoughts during this period while he was there roosevelt wrote the only tribute that he would ever produce to his first wife in his 1913 autobiography which is superb he never even mentions her and to his famous daughter alice he wouldn't talk about the mother that she never met the tribute that he wrote was part of a small book of obituaries and other pieces of praise about alice and this is what he said this is the only thing he ever wrote about his first wife she was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit as a flower she grew and as a fair young flower she died her life had always been lived in the sunshine and there had never come to her a single great moment of sorrow and none whoever knew her did but love and revere her for her bright sunny temperament and her saintly unselfishness fair pure and joyous as a maiden tender loving and happy as a young bride when she had just become a mother when it seemed as if her life had but just begun and the bright years seemed to stretch out before her then by a strange and terrible fate death came for her and when my heart's dearest died the light went out of my life forever but in addition to grieving for his loving wife and mother the time along the little missouri may have also provided the future president time to consider his political situation when roosevelt came west in 1884 to stay for a while it was partly to grieve for his deceased wife to some extent for his deceased mother who died on the same day that was part of it there's no question about it and the memories of the places and the time he had spent with alice's first wife were very painful for it with roosevelt though there was almost always sort of a second reason for doing things there was there was a political angle to it the summer of 1884 was a good time for a republican like roosevelt to be gone from the east the republicans were trying to decide who they were going to nominate they nominated james blaine who was a character with a rather checkered past roosevelt had made his reputation as a reformer in new york and he had to make a basic decision do you support blaine and if you do it seemed it would seem to give the lie to your devotion to reform on the other hand he was a republican and if he doesn't support blaine how is he going to expect republican support of him in the future so it was very convenient simply to leave the republican invention was held in chicago and he took the first train out of chicago and headed for dakota and disappeared into the wilds of the west so newspaperman couldn't find him he eventually made his way back in time for the election but by then most everybody else had lined up most of the republicans had lined up either for blaine or for the the mugwump position and roosevelt had time to think in the west that you know as devoted as i am to reform this politics in america is a team sport and you better make sure that your team knows that you're a player so he eventually came out behind blaine but by then the heat wasn't on him and his endorsement was pretty much lost among the endorsement a lot of other people the rough and tumble frontier and the cowboys of the west were bombed for the mournful aristocrat his sanctuary became his elkhorn ranch it was here that theodore roosevelt found the solitude he wanted and needed he spent his evenings on a rocking chair on the front porch gazing at the little missouri river watching the sunset light up the buttes to the east this was his place his spot to meditate right heal his soul and become a true man of the west the widow missouri ran through his ranching world it was his connection with medora and defined the boundaries of his ranch here he made friends with other cowboys and ranchers there were roundups and social gatherings roosevelt had an interest in photography and brought a camera to dakota territory he lugged the heavy camera from point to point taking pictures of the badlands his ranch his new life he doubted his skill as a photographer but some of his pictures survive and they tell a story from across the river then to across the little missouri today [Music] this was a working ranch an investment a business there were stables and corrals there was also his elkhorn ranch house which he enjoyed looking at his photographs now it is evident he wanted us to know that he was a real working cowboy on the front porch a rocking chair his saddle perched above it his pearl handled six gun men carried six guns in the west and roosevelt wanted others to know that this was a life that could be dangerous it could also be a life filled with nature's beauty [Music] throughout june the thickets and groves about the ranch house are loud with bird noises from before dawn to long after sunrise thrashers have sung all the night through from among the thorn bushes if there has been a moon or even if there has been bright starlight and before the first glimmer of grey the bell-like silvery songs of the shy woodland thrashers chime in while the meadowlark robin bluebird song sparrow together with many rarer singers like the growth speak join in swelling the chorus roosevelt was determined to experience the american west before it was gone he was fascinated with the badlands he asked his friend famed artist frederick remington to use his pictures and writings to do sketches of life wildlife and the land he now lived in [Music] he also asked montana territory photographer l.a huffman for help with his pictures huffman obliged and took photos of roosevelt's ranch cowboys ranchers and the badlands the great free ranchers with their barbaric picturesque can curiously fascinating surroundings mark a primitive stage of existence as surely as do the great tracks of primeval forest like the latter must pass away before the onward march of our people and we who have felt the charm of the life and have exalted in this abounding figure and its bold restless freedom will not only regret its passing for our own sex but must also feel sorrow that those who came after us are not to see as we have seen what is perhaps the pleasantest happiest and most exciting place of american existence this was the west before it was tamed and medora and the badlands were wild roosevelt was advised by badlands cowboy editor and studebaker wagon salesman a.t packard that carrying a gun was a dangerous business in a town like medora packard who often wrote about shootings and the violence that permeated frontier cow towns like medora knew that guns caused more trouble than they solved people like he and roosevelt were no match for the western gunslingers and packard set up a demonstration for the young rancher two tomato cans were thrown into the air medora cowboy and pistol arrow billy roberts drew and fired both cans had holes in them before they hit the ground the demonstration left a major impression on roosevelt who was not known as a marksman he would now leave his pistol at packard's office when he visited madura tiara's shooting ability was interesting well any golfer will tell you or or hunter you know that you have your good days and your bad days but the problem first of all tierra couldn't see very well he had very thick glasses and it was always being misting over and carrying it out of this and that the other thing and he was quite honest about his shooting abilities but he did occasionally have really lucky shots he did shoot two black tails with one bullet at 430 some yards but he mostly talked about how he missed all these shots many of them easy shots he was not a good shot somebody asked him once you know he was president they said mr president are you a good shot he said no but i shoot often he remembers fondly when his father gave him his first gun and he was so disappointed he couldn't figure out why his friends could hit things that he couldn't even see and that's when he came to his father and his father first realized my god you know you have horrible eyesight you you're incredibly myopic and he got his first pair of glasses unfortunately after he got his first gun bad shot or not theodore roosevelt was no shrinking violet glasses or not he would stand and deliver if his honor was challenged on a visit to a town called mingusville present-day weibo montana a drunken gunslinger who had been terrorizing other patrons of a saloon and restaurant decided to have a little fun with the dude from back east who wanted only to order a meal roosevelt wasn't looking for a confrontation he was looking for food in a bed after a long day in the saddle as soon as he saw me he hailed me as four eyes in reference to my spectacles and said four eyes is going to treat i joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down thinking to escape notice he followed me however and though i tried to pass it off as a guest this merely made him more offensive and he stood leaning over me a gun in each hand using very foul language in response to his reiterated command that i should set up the drinks i said well if i've got to i've got to and rose looking past him as i rose i struck quick and hard with my right just to the side of the point of his jaw hitting with my left as i straightened out and then again with my right he fired the gun but i do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands or whether he was trying to shoot at me as the gunslinger goes down two things occur first he hits his head on the back of the bar and passes out cold but as he goes down both pistols discharge roosevelt might have been killed he takes a real joy in that later don't hit at all if you can help it don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it but if you do hit him put him to sleep not only was he honest but he he faced up to problems he faced them directly and that was just in his nature and it certainly played through his life but there was one story of that was kind of a tough guy and and in medora who was upset at tr over something i don't remember one and then started talking loudly about how the next time he's going to see him he's going to shoot him on site well when tr is told this by one of his ranch hands his immediate response was to get on his horse right over to this guy's house pound on the door and when the guy came to the door looking a little surprised said i hear you're going to shoot me on site have you got anything to say or should we get down to business and the guy sort of taken back oh no no it was a mistake it was a mistake that was the end of it roosevelt was fascinated with the people of the west the rugged individuals who were making new lives for themselves on the new frontier over time he gained a genuine respect for the common folks of the west that touched his soul and taught him valuable lessons about the meaning of true american democracy [Music] roosevelt was one of those people who didn't often have serious second thoughts about much of anything especially as it related to matters of personal pride or matters of physical prowess when roosevelt came west he recognized that most people thought he was an eastern dude they wondered what he was doing here he wore these very thick eyeglasses you know what's he doing out here and he he recognized that people were going to be testing him and he decided he concluded that he had to stand up to the test and if he could prove himself in these initial tests then people wouldn't bother him after that so he probably walked around with a chip on his shoulder for the first while he was out essentially daring people to knock it off and when they did he stood up to him and he won the well initially probably grudging respect of his neighbors but eventually eventually they came to like this guy and be rather attached to this strange character from the east i think a lot of them never quite convinced themselves that he wasn't sort of strange but still he chose to come out here and he made themselves made himself one of them it was something they could appreciate i had studied a lot about men and things before i saw you fellows but it was only when i came here that i began to know anything or measure men rightly theodore roosevelt arrived at north dakota as a physically challenged as we'd say now fellow who certainly looked like an eastern dude and wore glasses for lord's sake which was considered a sign of moral degradation here but with tremendous energy he threw himself into this and it transformed him in many ways he said once i wouldn't have been president if i hadn't been in north dakota there it's certainly true there are many dimensions of that one dimension of it is that he his whole view about people changed you read his letters when he was in college at harvard and you get this snobbish snot you know and he's talking about people and do they have enough money and you know just really this you know very sort of feet snotty new england type or eastern type it was here that he discovered what real americans were as he said it and i think it not only did he see these people but he inculcated them he became he he proved to himself that he could be like them and as a as a rancher he played all the roles of the cowboy on on roundups he would ride the circuit horses he would do everything he would be in the saddle 14 18 hours a day so it was partially self-proof the first real chance of him to uh measure himself against people he really respected in their abilities and and stand up to it he also developed his view of america on a much larger scale than just the eastern seaboard so by seeing the western experience by by living the western experience he became a part of both which gave him the depth to be able to do many of the things he was able to do [Music] not only did he learn about people while working with the cowboys of the west but he also learned to love the robust life of the outdoors [Music] cowboys are known to each other only by their first name with a prefix the title of the brand for which they are working thus i once remember overhearing a casual remark to the effect that bar y harry had married the seven open a girl zalata being the daughter of a neighboring rancher [Music] they are as hearty and self-reliant as any men who ever breathe with bronze set faces and keen eyes that look all the world straight in the face without flinching roosevelt rode from dawn to dusk on the roundups he might have been a dude with glasses but he had grit and soon proved he could keep up with the best of hands he never malingered never shirked a task no matter how dirty difficult or tiring he was often the last to go to bed and the first to rise and he never complained about injuries aches or pains on my first roundup i had a string of nine horses four of the broncos only broken to the extent of having each been saddled once or twice one of them it was an impossibility to bridle or saddle single-handed it was very difficult to get on him and he was exceedingly nervous if a man moved his hands or feet but he had no bad tricks the second soon became perfectly quiet the third turned out to be one of the worst buckers on the ranch once when he bucked me off i managed to fall on the stone and broke a rib the fourth had a still worse habit where he would walk and then throw himself over backward once when i was not quick enough he caught me and broke something in the point of my shoulder so that it was some weeks before i could raise the arm freely his fascination with the call by culture was that it was it was rough and ready these were in the day in the victorian period where manhood was very much emphasized he had great respect for the cowboy because the cowboy worked in the rain worked in the dirt worked under the worst conditions but always triumphed always got the job done the new york times reporter asked him how does he want to be remembered and he said i want to be remembered as a man of the west a man of dakota never mind the hail rain heat and cold he was now a cowboy one of the men he thought honorable and he could relate to cattle stampedes were always a danger and could quickly end in death for cattle horses and men but for a man of action it was another great adventure the only salvation was to keep them close together as if they once got scattered we knew they could never be gathered so i kept on one side and the cowboy on the other and never in my life did i ride so hard in the darkness i could but dimly see the shadowy outlines of the herd as with whip and spurs i ran the pony along his edge turning back the beast at one point barely in time to wheel and keep them in at another the ground was cut up by numerous little gullies and each of us got several falls horses and riders turning complete somersaults we were dripping with sweat and our ponies quivering and trembling like quaking aspens when after more than an hour of the most violent exertion we finally got the herd quiet again you know ranchers are very accepting people um it is true that they make fun of your follies that they like to uh there's a kind of regional pride and the fact that we understand the branding life and these city slickers that come visit us don't there's a hazing quality to trying to engage in any subculture and the cowboy culture is just one of them but once roosevelt showed his his grit and the merit of it of his integrity whether he was a good shot or not wasn't what impressed them about roosevelt or what a great horseback rider he was i mean he had bad eyesight he couldn't lasso horses because he his vision was so bad he once joked he wasn't a good shot he just shot a lot meaning he'd get games so i think there's a romanticization on him as a wild west figure what people got to see him with going on week-long hunts that he had a great fiber to him that this was a good guy that you'd come back and say this is a guy's smart he's funny he's decent he's honest he has integrity and people start admiring those qualities about him if he wasn't working at a roundup at the elkhorn reading or writing a book he often sat in his rocking chair gazing over the little missouri and the rugged bluffs that blended into the wide horizons he was still grieving but the beautiful badlands were helping to recover his spirit and bring meaning back to his life these long swift rides in the glorious spring mornings are not soon to be forgotten the fresh sweet air with a touch of sharpness this early in the day and the rapid motions of the fiery little horse combine to make a man's blood thrill and leap with buoyant lightheartedness and eager exultant pleasure in the boldness and freedom of the life he is leading as we climb the steep sides of the first range of buttes wisps of wavering mistil cling in the hallows of the valley when we come out on the top of the first great plateau the sun flames up over its edges and in the level red beams the galloping horsemen throw fantastic shadows [Music] black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough at any rate not when he first feels the horse move under him well it really started defining the character of theodore roosevelt the badlands was the discovery of america up until that time he had made family trips to egypt he had traveled europe he certainly had spent time on the eastern seaboard lived in new york went to school in harvard when hunting in maine but seeing the badlands and capturing what some people call the closing of the frontier or the end of a certain era out here it gave him a taste of of what it was like at the battle little bighorn or what it would have been like while he was out here to have sitting bull still alive at a reservation not far away and to have buffalo herds the last indigenous ones still roaming freely he improved as a as a horse rider he became a better shot out here but more importantly he started building his physical stamina up and his strength so he used to say roosevelt that without north dakota i wouldn't have been president what he really was saying was you know without those experiences and self-reliance he wouldn't have had the fortitude to go forward uh and put together the rough riders which was made up of of great planes cowboys and harvard dandies in some ways or intellectuals um you know that and that that rough riders then became what his famous calling card was colonel roosevelt [Music] well roosevelt was becoming a cowboy the other blue blood in medora was the charismatic marquis de moore who was busy building his cattle empire he was a man to be reckoned with quick-tempered strong-willed and always well-armed the marquee and roosevelt were acquainted both were considered gentlemen they had business dealings but roosevelt at one point refused to sell cattle to demors because he felt an agreement had not been honored he became convinced the frenchman was not always honest in his business dealings and decided never to do business with him again these two men were aristocrats but one was a profoundly american aristocrat and the other one more of the european stamp roosevelt grew up with great privilege but he came to the west to learn how to be a cowboy he wanted desperately to fit in and no part of him wanted to remind others of his social privilege just the opposite the marquis had some pretensions to the french throne and he took himself very seriously indeed and patronized and belittled all the people around him it was inevitable that these two styles would be clear to everyone in the badlands and what strikes any historian is that eventually the cowboys of dakota territory learn to respect and even love theodore roosevelt but nobody really loved the marquee in fact most people openly despised him and the only thing that got him anywhere he wanted to go in dakota was the immense pool of money on which his investments lay both were known as ben who would not back down from a confrontation and demors was always ready to defend his honor in a duel if necessary they had dined together exchanged books and favors in both medora and new york city but they were circumspect of one another and the relationship was cool prior to roosevelt's arrival in the badlands demors upset area residents by fencing open range he claimed as his own this was considered very bad manners by locals tensions ran high among locals who felt they were being treated as serfs and servants rather than the independent ranchers and cowboys they were the animosity and the tensions grew until gunfire erupted between the marquis and his men and local cowboy riley lupsi and his friends below the bluffs just west of medora lead flew and when the smoke cleared luffy lay dead what had been a war of words now became a serious legal battle with demores being accused of murder charges against the marquee were filed and dropped twice but he was indicted again and held in jail to a white trial the marquis suspected roosevelt was a key figure among those trying to have him brought to trial there was tension hard feelings and as that conflict grew demores sent a note to roosevelt that many considered an invitation to a duel my principle is to take the ball by the horns joe ferris is very active against me and has been instrumental in getting me indicted by furnishing money to witnesses and hunting them up is this done by your orders i thought you my friend if you are my enemy i want to know it i am always on hand as you know and between gentlemen it is easy to settle matters of that sort directly yours very truly demore the letter that the marquis de moore wrote to theodore roosevelt which was apparently a challenge over some issue about land uh it certainly is true and and i suspect it all is true the tr answered uh answered this is his approach to it was to write back and that letter's extent too and say that uh you know he was ready anytime now there was no question if tr had gotten in a duel with the marquis de moore it was very unlikely that uh that tr could have survived damore had actually tried to kill him and do more was much better shot here couldn't see very well there is the story that he said well let's do it at close range with rifles and making it as difficult for damore as possible [Music] roosevelt viewed the letter as questioning his integrity and a threat in case there was a duel he asked his ranch foreman to act as his second and because of his bad eyesight and poor marksmanship he picked rifles at 12 paces as the weapon of choice if they were going to duel both would likely die having made his decision roosevelt quickly replied to damore's note most emphatically i am not your enemy if i were you would know it for i would be an open one and would have not asked you to my house nor gone to yours as your final words however seem to imply a threat it is due to myself to say that the statement is not made through any fear of possible consequences to me i too as you know am always on hand and ever ready to hold myself accountable in any way for anything i have said or done yours very truly theodore roosevelt luckily for history demors responded with a conciliatory note that roosevelt interpreted as an apology the marquis was a ruthless man who had killed others in duels before he practiced his dueling arts he would have beaten roosevelt in any fair fight and he was alone in the world by this time he was in jail when he wrote this letter he needed friends and in the european way he thought that the other aristocrat of the badlands would be his ally and it really upset him i probably even heard his feelings that roosevelt wasn't supporting him in any meaningful way roosevelt would have been would have been dead like that in a duel uh and and i i think that uh that really shows that uh you know he he wasn't afraid of anything but sometimes sort of foolishly not afraid roosevelt spent much of the winter of 85 and 86 in new york with snow melting in the badlands he boarded a train and in the spring of 86 returned to his beloved elkhorn ranch upon arrival he discovered thieves had stolen his small boat this was no small matter to theodore roosevelt he was incept blood was up the chase was on ordering his ranch hands to build another boat roosevelt and the makeshift posse quickly began the chase the thieves had a six day head start but within three days roosevelt and his men caught up with the hapless trio of lawbreakers wiley redheaded mike finnegan a medora nerdwell was the leader of the band of thieves finnegan and friends were quickly surprised by roosevelt and his rifle brandishing men finnegan hesitated for a second his eyes fairly wolfish then as i walked up within a few paces covering the center of his chest so as to avoid overshooting and repeating the command he saw that he had no show and with an oath let his rifle drop and held his hands up beside his head he wanted his boat back and remember that they stole the boat just before roosevelt was going on a mountain lion hunt he needed that boat for the hunt get in the way of roosevelt's big game hunting and you've caused trouble he thought it was a matter of principle that you can't allow lawlessness out on the frontier because it will breed more lawlessness and eventually anarchy and so he decided that he had to to stake a claim for civilization by hunting down these thieves and taking them to justice he had to build a boat he had to pursue them through a blizzard there were ice floes in the river the banks were covered with mud his food supply ran out but in some sense he regarded as a lark and when he gets to the place where the thieves are resting it's a scene out of a dime novel and roosevelt is constantly casting himself in life as a kind of hero from his boyhood reading his account of this is very heroic and dramatic we have several other accounts of the same incident which are a little more mundane but he was able to disarm the desperados at gunpoint there's something in roosevelt's character that's really interesting and hard to fathom but he courted danger all of his life he liked brushes with death and this was one of them roosevelt was so proud of the incident he had the event reenacted for this photo in another photo roosevelt's trusted ranch hand sewell and doll posed with a recovered boat although he had the miscreants in hand the road to justice was long low on food and in bitter cold his ranch hands were sent home a grueling journey to justice with prisoners began first on the still partially frozen little missouri river and then over land on a gumbo trail from killdeer to dickinson to stay awake and guard his prisoners roosevelt reads the recently published english translation of leo tolstoy's masterpiece anna karenina when finished with the classic he asks finnegan if he has a book and surprisingly he does finnegan's book is a dime novel about jesse james nevertheless roosevelt borrows the book and for three harrowing and exhausting days either walks or reads as he heads his captives to dickinson and justice turning his prisoners over to the sheriff the wealthy new yorker proudly accepts fifty dollars for his law enforcement efforts and then looks for a doctor to treat his badly bruised feet dr victor stickney later wrote he was all teeth and eyes but even so he seemed a man unusually wide awake you could see he was thrilled by the adventures he'd been through he did not seem to think he'd done anything particularly commendable but he was in his own phrase pleased his punch at the idea of having participated in a real adventure [Music] on the 4th of july 1886 stickney invited roosevelt to be the speaker at dickinson's independence day celebration the day began then as now with the parade it was a big parade but a local booster is quoted as saying that trouble with the parade was that everyone in town was so enthusiastic they insisted on joining the procession and there was no one to watch except two men who were too drunk to notice anything roosevelt in what is regarded as his first great public address tells the assembled audience like all americans i like big things big prairies big forests and mountains big wheat fields railroads and herds of cattle too big factories steamboats and everything else but what we must keep steadily in mind is that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue [Music] following the 4th of july dickinson speech roosevelt and friend and newspaper publisher a.t packard traveled together back to medora it's once been said that you have no idea how far you can go in american life if you look good on the back of a horse roosevelt learned how to look good on the back of the horse he learned how to be a hunter's hunter he learned how to give fourth of july speeches on main street towns like dickinson that were there to unite and inspire people it was all part of the education of this of this young man that was just filled with ambition and i think it's true that that dickinson speech if you pet it to the collected speeches of theodore roosevelt it'd be probably the first speech of the volume it's the beginning of what we're going to see as this political dynamo and the emerging voice that we get to know as theodore roosevelt they came from medora to dickinson on a freight train but they returned later that day on a passenger train and as they went back to medora roosevelt proud of his speech began to expatiate on his vision of the united states and the square deal good government civil service reform america's place in the world the need for a large navy the need for a stronger central government packard was so impressed by the deep civic mindedness of roosevelt and his mastery of the public life of the american constitution that he he said to him you know i think if you really believe all of that that someday you might be the president of the united states thus a.t packard became the first person ever to predict that roosevelt would be the president with the possible exception of roosevelt himself when roosevelt heard this he sat up he thought about this for a moment he looked at packard and he said i don't know if what you say is true but if i do become the president of the united states i shall do my best to be a very good one it's a great moment for roosevelt the speech in dickinson on the 4th of july 1886 was the first great national speech that he ever delivered it set the stage for all of the great orations that were to come he was in a sense celebrating this experience that he had had in the badlands but in some meaningful sense he was also saying farewell he had learned what he was going to learn he was about to return to the east he was about to get remarried he would come back to hunt but he would never come back to live roosevelt was ready to go home and home eventually meant new york boston and finally washington d.c roosevelt's dakota adventure was coming to an end the winter of 1886 87 was one of the harshest in the history of north dakota there were too many cattle on the range and with little feed howling cold north winds blinding snow and bitter cold the cattle of the badlands and the prairies died by the thousands roosevelt was caught up in the catastrophe when he heard of the mounting losses he rushed by train to the badlands to assess the damage to a friend he wrote losses are crippling for the first time i have been utterly unable to enjoy a visit to any ranch i shall be glad to get home his cattle were lost and the adventure was over but he had proved himself as a man among men and now it was time to move on he had lost more than 25 000 ranching in dakota and he sold what remained of his herd like a moth to a flame roosevelt returned again in 1888 and 89 to hunt in 1890 he brought his second wife edith sister bammy and friends to visit his elkhorn ranch he returned five more times before he led his famed rough riders up san juan hill in cuba it was a charge that was pure roosevelt leading his rough riders and firing a pistol recovered from the sunken battleship maine old four eyes became a national hero he later called it my crowded hour the great day of my life roosevelt recruited the rough riders he said he had always wanted to round up a harem scarum group of western cowboys and indians to lead on behalf of america somewhere in the world now his moment came what he called its crowded hour and so the rough riders were made up of the very sorts of people he spent every day with out in dakota territory they came from all of the frontier but they were just the sort of people he would have run into in the badlands people he hunted with and worked with and sometimes fought against so they go off to cuba and the battles of kettle and san juan hill are really historically insignificant this was america's entrance into the world arena it was america's first global war most of what was important about the spanish-american war occurred not in cuba but in the philippines but because of roosevelt's charisma because of the kind of mythic quality of his life and particularly because of the book that he wrote about it he shot up he said i rose like a rocket and in a sense he took over the entire narrative and when we think of the spanish-american war we chiefly think of colonel theodore roosevelt assaulting san juan hill the qualities that he brought to that stamina a willingness to take risks under impossible circumstances a kind of cowboy mentality about good and evil those qualities were learned on his two ranches in dakota territory if roosevelt hadn't spent time in north dakota or in some other place comparable place in the west he wouldn't have been president roosevelt labored under the fact that he was a new york boy he was a new yorker at a time when the politics of new york was not held in high regard by much of the rest of the country but when he touched base in the west once he developed this persona as somebody who knew the west someone who had won the respect of the west then all of a sudden it changed americans perceptions of roosevelt the rough riders the rough riders you know they put roosevelt on a map the way almost nothing else could it was their exploits in cuba but it was also the fact that it consisted of cowboys and indians for heaven's sakes there were also some west from eastern polo players but it was really the fact that these were cowboys these were the folks that roosevelt could ride with these were folks who respected roosevelt's leadership ability and followed him right up kettle hill in san juan hill shortly after returning to civilian life roosevelt was elected governor of new york with typical roosevelt fervor he signed nearly 1 000 bills into law during his two years in office included in the laws enacted in his administration are many protecting working men and women another desegregating state schools national republicans don't know quite what to make of this dynamic reformer finally it's decided the incredibly popular war hero and new york governor would make a wonderful running mate for the 1900 gop standard-bearer william mckinley it seems like an ideal solution vice presidents are sometimes seen but not often heard and many become anecdotes to history party bosses shudder at the thought of roosevelt ever becoming president and the job as vice president seems like an easy way to sideline this energetic and charismatic governor william mckinley decides to let the voters come to him and campaigns from his front porch in ohio roosevelt happily takes to the campaign trail nationwide during a brief whistle stop in medora he says here the romance of my life began there's no doubt that when you do a biography of roosevelt his badlands chapters i think it's the it's the coming of age one it's the turning of a of a page into uh being a young man into being a a adult who understood uh basic adult premises of self-reliance and understood american patriotism in a new way mckinley and roosevelt take office in march 1901 then just six months later in september mckinley is struck down by an assassin's bullet at the pan american exhibition in buffalo new york there were people in positions of power for one reason wanted to get him out of new york were unhappy with what he was doing in new york and so this did seem like a safe position you know you often do don't hear from a vice president he's it's sort of an invisible position and um you know then of course we're horrified when roosevelt steps into the presidency when mckinley is assassinated theodore roosevelt takes the oath of office at age 42 and becomes the youngest man ever to become president sometimes people wonder whether tiara if he were president today would be a republican or a democrat but there was an interesting quote about tr who was a republican as president somebody commented that when he became president he became president because mckinley was shot and he was catapulted the president and the comment was they don't know it but they've now got a democrat in the white house the presidency is a job that fits the near manic former cowboy like the shafts he once wore bursting with energy and full of ideas he launches a campaign to curb the industrial and financial trusts that run wall street in many industries he quickly establishes new parks and wildlife refuges and becomes a national champion for conservation efforts he recognizes the country of panama when the region declares independence from colombia part of his plan to begin work on one of the greatest engineering feats the world has ever known the panama canal in 1903 roosevelt again comes through medora stopping his train there well on a visit to yellowstone and yosemite national park the visit was brief but friends from his wrenching days turned out at the medora town hall for a look at a president they also brought his old horse manitou but the secret service discouraged him from taking a last ride this photo was taken to commemorate the historic event those who might have poked fun at four eyes just a few years earlier are now awed by the presence of the president of the united states roosevelt was delighted but also visibly moved by the presence of the men and women who had shared his life on the frontier he was one of them and they would never forget one another he was always a dandy even when he left here but what he was was a dandy that had a belly full of integrity and so everybody that got to really know him recognized that he was special roosevelt made way more of his north dakota experience than it actually warranted he used to exaggerate the amount of time he spent out here in fact i think if you total everything up he hardly spent a year of time out here but he talked as though he had spent the better part of his youth almost in north dakota and i'm sure it probably seemed that way to him because of the importance that he invested in his time out here he he really did think that there was something about the west that drew out something in his personality and made him a different person than he would have been had he stayed in the east he was convinced of that and he was able to convince americans that and and when he ran for elections president 1904 when he ran again in 1912 his western experience was a big part of the attraction he had for voters it is not the critic who counts not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where 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 strives valiantly who airs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without air or shortcoming but who knows the great enthusiasms the great devotions who spends himself for a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat roosevelt leaves the presidency in 1909 it's a decision he would later regret roosevelt was one of those people who generated tremendous popularity but not by telling people what they wanted to hear by telling people what he believed and americans not just western or americans generally respond to that it's this kind of leadership that says okay you've elected me not because i do necessarily what you want me to do you've elected me because i do what i think is right and americans admire that war breaks out in 1917 and in 1918 he makes his last stop in north dakota on a tour promoting the war effort he speaks briefly in fargo and bismarck a visit to the badlands was also proposed but the aging cowboy declined it's a mistake for one to hit the back trails after many years have passed one finds things changed the old picture destroyed the romance gone i'd rather try and remember it as it was and remember it he did it was his defining time and he never forgot the lessons he learned among the cowboys of the badlands i spent the happiest and most profitable years of my life here if it had not been for what i learned in north dakota i would never in the world have been president of the united states [Music] theodore roosevelt died at his home in oyster bay new york at the age of 60 on january the 6th 1919. the buffalo he shot in 1883 in the badlands still hangs in the north room of his new york home at sagamore hill the cabin from his chimney butte ranch now sits at the entrance to the theater roosevelt national park in medora the joe ferra store where he had a room still stands even though roosevelt was an outsider who spent a relatively short time in the badlands of dakota and then went back to become a great man the time he spent there was absolutely essential to his development and you can still walk where he walked hunt where he hunted ride horse in exactly the places that he so loved you can go to both of his homes the maltese cross cabin is much changed when you're in it you can sense what this small but cozy space was to this young man from new york he'd never lived in such primitive conditions but he thrived in that little cabin and then at the elkhorn although the boards are entirely gone you can still see the foundations and you can wander through that place it's in one of the remotest places in north dakota and it still has the solitude that roosevelt loved and in a certain sense you can almost feel the grief that he experienced there mourning for his wife and his mother at the ferris store in medora when you're there you can almost sense him upstairs restlessly pacing the floor reading and writing one of his books the little missouri valley is roosevelt's american west and because of it we have a special understanding of its importance and the crown jewel of all of that of course is the national park he was in a sense the father of the modern national park system he doubled its size the fact that there is a national park in north dakota and that it's named for the great roosevelt is a fabulous tribute to this young man who came west to renew himself and did so in a really extraordinary fashion so when you're out in that part of the country it's not that you could ever really see roosevelt but if you have an imagination he's everywhere from marmot all the way to the gilder mountains there is no question that north dakota was extremely important he also once said that if he was placed in the position where he had to erase from his mind every life experience except one the one he would keep of all his experiences his wives his children his charge up san juan all his experiences he'd keep north dakota that's clear to me that he knew and realized that north dakota was the was one of the very top changing experiences of his life frost still arrives early in the fall the north winds blow the snow arrives early in the winter and it stays long but there is always hope and there is always a spring renewal [Music] and the memories and the romance are still alive in north dakota where the roosevelt legacy is legendary [Music] [Music] this program was made possible by grants from the north dakota humanities council the southwest rural economic area partnership the north dakota cowboy hall of fame and was produced in cooperation with prairie public broadcasting

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Id: 9ikBE45W2w0

Length: 75min 33sec (4533 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021