Theodore Roosevelt came
here to kill a buffalo, but he fell in love
with the country. ♪
♪ 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 the East. Roosevelt would've been
dead like that in 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 chapter, I think it's the coming of age
one, it's the turning 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. ♪
♪ (birds sing) (orchestra plays softly) (male narrator)
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 swamplike land. Thirty-five million years ago, Mesohippus, the 3-toed,
3-foot high ancestor of today's horse
called this land home. Then 1000 years ago, buffalo and the American Indian
claimed the Badlands. In the 1870's, 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, chaps, 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
a frozen landscape. The winds eventually calm,
days become longer, Alberta Clippers stay in Canada. The snow melts, and the waters
run into the Little 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 shakey 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,
ecosystems staying intact. (narrator)
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,
whereby 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 trustbuster,
a conservationist, a flag waver 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. TR got interested in politics, I think partially because
he felt a responsibility. He saw that politics in New York
in the 1800's, late 1800's, was being run
by a different type of person. These were the immigrant machine
kind of politicians. He heard
a lot of people complaining, as they do today,
about politics. His view is,
you can't complain about it unless you get involved in it. (narrator)
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. It is 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 waiting. 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, bedbugs, and a dozen other snoring, likely liquored-up,
gun-packin' cowboys. The most popular place
in Little Missouri was the saloon called Big-Mouth Bob's
Bug Juice Dispensary; a clientele dubious,
the whiskey... bad. The house 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 hunt. For Ferris, the trip turned
into 10 days of pure hell; cold weather, rain, wind, and slick, sticky gumbo mud. The seasoned Ferris
wanted to go home, but Roosevelt insisted
on continuing his hunt. (shrill crack of lightning) They've been out
for 8 or 9 days, they've had nothing
but bad luck, and now they camp out
on the plains, 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,
"By 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! (rifle shot) 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. (narrator)
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 Lang, 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. (crackling of the fire) (man, as Lincoln Lang)
"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,
learned, for example, that while the world was
a good place to live in, just as I had been thinking,
there were, to shear the frill, a whole lot of rooting hogs
loose in it. Among other things, his talk
forcefully impressed upon me that he favored making
2 blades of grass grow where but one grew before. He believed
in 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
and the hide of his kill, 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." ♪
♪ (narrator)
1883 was also the year another aristocrat
discovered the Badlands. The Marquis de Mores
was a French nobleman who married money and developed
an audacious business idea. De Mores planned to raise beef, slaughter them in
his own packing plant located in the town that
he'd named for his wife Medora. The processed meat would then
be shipped to Eastern markets in the newly-invented
refrigerated railcars. A superb hunter, skilled
swordsman, and crack 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 goldfields
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. 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. (Clay Jenkinson)
Roosevelt came here
to kill a buffalo, but he fell in love
with the country. 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. He was a pretty naive
businessman, and 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. (narrator)
Buffalo head in tow,
the eager hunter and new rancher headed for home and 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 Rooseveltian joy when word arrived from New York
City that his wife of 4 years, Alice Lee, had given birth
to a daughter. But 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 Elliott who said "Theodore, there is
a curse on this house." His beloved
darling Alice was dead from complications
of childbirth. It was Valentine's Day, but
there was nothing to celebrate, for not only had his wife Alice
died, so had his loving mother. (Candice Millard)
When his first wife and his mother died
on the same night, he had this incredible loss,
this crippling loss, this loss that
would've 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 relied on that
for the rest of his life. (piano plays softly) (birds sing) (narrator)
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 Bamie. 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. ♪
♪ (Douglas Brinkley)
And he spent weeks, months
trying to heal. It's difficult because he was
a father now with a child. He needed to transition
himself in some way. It wasn't an era of where
you had deep kinds of 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. (Clay Jenkinson)
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. But while has 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. (man, as Roosevelt)
"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 who ever 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." (narrator)
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. (W.H. Brands)
The memories of the places
and the time he had spent with Alice, his first wife,
were very painful for him. With Roosevelt though,
there was almost always sort of a second reason
for doing things. 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 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's he going to expect republican support of him
in the future? So it was very convenient
simply to leave. The republican convention
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 newspapermen
couldn't find him. (narrator)
The rough-and-tumble frontier
and the cowboys of the West were balm 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, write, heal his soul, and become
a true man of the West. The Little 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. 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. (acoustic guitar plays softly) (man, as Roosevelt)
"Throughout June, the thickets and groves
above 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 thornbushes if there has been a moon, or even if there has
been bright starlight. And before the first glimmer
of gray, 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 grosbeak
join in, swelling the chorus." (narrator)
Roosevelt was determined
to experience the American West
before it was gone. He was fascinated
with the Badlands. He asked his friend,
famed artist Frederic Remington, to use his pictures and writings
to do sketches of life, wildlife,
and the land he now lived in. ♪
♪ 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. (man, as Roosevelt) "The great
free ranches with their barbaric, picturesque and curiously fascinating
surroundings mark a primitive stage
of existence, as surely as do the great tracks
of primeval forest, and 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 its
abounding vigor and its bold restless freedom will not only regret its
passing for our own sakes, 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." (fiddle plays
in bright rhythm) (narrator)
This was the West
before it was tamed. Medora and the
Badlands were wild. To be successful here,
it helped to be a good shot. Some think
Theodore Roosevelt was not, but Roosevelt had grit. (Tweed Roosevelt)
TR's shooting ability
was interesting. He had very thick glasses, and
there was always misting over occurring, this, that,
and the other thing. He was not a good shot.
Somebody asked him once, he was President, they said "Mr.
President, are you a good shot?" And he said, "No,
but I shoot often!" (narrator)
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 Wibaux, 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 and a bed after a long day in the saddle. (man, as Roosevelt)
"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 jest, 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 the 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 hand, 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've been killed. He takes a real
joy in that later. (man, as Roosevelt) "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! ♪
♪ (Tweed Roosevelt)
Not only was he honest,
but 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
there was kind of a tough guy in Medora who was upset at TR
over something, I don't remember what,
and then started talking loudly about how
the next time he sees him, he's gonna shoot him on sight. Well, when TR is told this
by one of his ranch hands, his immediate response
was to get on his horse, ride 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
gonna shoot me on sight. Have you got anything to say, or should we
get down to business?" The guy sort of taken back said
oh no, no, no, it was a mistake, it was a mistake.
That was the end of it. (fiddle, bass,
& guitar play in waltz time) (narrator)
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. So 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. What's he doing out here? And 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 here, essentially daring
people to knock it off, and when they did, he stood up
to them, and he won the, well, initially probably grudging
respect of his neighbors, but 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 himself one of them. It was something
they could appreciate. (man, as Roosevelt) "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 that 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. His whole view
about people changed. You read his letters when
he was in college at Harvard, and you get this snobbish snot, and he's talking about people
and do they have enough money, and just really
this very sort of au fait, snotty New England type
or Eastern type. And it was here
that he discovered what real Americans were. As a rancher, he played all the
roles of the cowboy 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,
a first real chance of him to measure himself against
people he really respected, and their abilities,
and stand up to it. He also developed
his view of America on a much larger scale
than just the Eastern seaboard. (narrator)
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. ♪
♪ (man, as Roosevelt)
"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 7 Open A girl,' the latter being the daughter
of a neighboring rancher. They are as hardy
and self-reliant as any men who ever breathed, with bronze-set faces
and keen eyes that look all the world straight
in the face without flinching. (narrator)
Roosevelt rode from dawn
to dusk on the roundups. He might've 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. (man, as Roosevelt)
On my first roundup, I had a string of 9 horses; 4 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 a stone
and broke a rib. The fourth had
a still worse habit, for he would balk 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." (Gerald Tweton)
His fascination
with the cowboy culture was that it was rough and ready. These were 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. (narrator)
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. (Douglas Brinkley)
Once Roosevelt showed his grit
and the merit of his integrity, whether he was
a good shot or not wasn't what impressed them
about Roosevelt. He had a great fiber to him,
that this was a good guy that you'd come back and say
this is a guy who's smart, he's funny, he's decent,
he's honest, he has integrity, and people started admiring
those qualities about him. (narrator)
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. (man, as Roosevelt)
"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 motion
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 climbed the steep sides
of the first range of buttes, wisps of wavering mist still cling in the hollows
of the valley. When we come out on the top
of the first great plateau, the sun flames up over its edge,
and in the level red beams, a galloping horsemen
throw fantastic shadows. 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,
went 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 what it was like at The Battle of 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 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 without those experiences
in self-reliance, he wouldn't have had
the fortitude to go forward and put together
the Rough Riders, which was made up of
Great Plains cowboys and Harvard dandies,
in some ways, or intellectuals. And that Rough Riders
then became what his famous calling card was--
Colonel Roosevelt. ♪
♪ (narrator)
While Roosevelt
was becoming a cowboy, the other blue blood in Medora was the charismatic
Marquis de Mores, who was busy building
his cattle empire. He was a man to be
reckoned with; quick-tempered, strong-willed,
and always well-armed. The Marquis and Roosevelt
were acquainted. Both were considered gentlemen. They had business dealings,
but Roosevelt at one point refused to sell cattle
to de Mores 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 2 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 2 styles would be clear to everyone in the Badlands,
and what strikes any historian is that eventually, the
cowboys of Dakota Territory learned to respect and
even love Theodore Roosevelt. But nobody really
loved the Marquis. 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. (narrator)
Both were known as men who would not back down
from a confrontation, and de Mores 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, de Mores 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 Luffsey and his friends below the
bluffs just west of Medora. (loud gunshots) Lead flew... and when the smoke cleared,
Luffsey lay dead. What had been a war of words now
became a serious legal battle with de Mores being
accused of murder. Charges against the Marquis
were filed and dropped twice, but he was indicted again
and held in jail to await 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, de Mores sent
a note to Roosevelt that many considered
an invitation to a duel. (man, as de Mores)
"My principle is to take
the bull 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'm always on hand, as you know,
and between gentlemen it is easy to settle matters
of that sort directly. Yours very truly, de Mores." The letter that the
Marquis de Mores wrote to Theodore Roosevelt, which was
apparently a challenge over some issue about land,
certainly is true. And I suspect it all is true. TR answered this,
his approach to it was to write back,
and that letter's extant too, and say that, you know,
he was ready anytime. Now, was there no question
if TR had gotten in a duel with the Marquis de Mores,
it was very unlikely that TR could've survived if de Mores
had actually tried to kill him. De Mores was a much better shot,
TR 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 de Mores as possible. (narrator)
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 de Mores' note. (man, as Roosevelt) 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 in threat, it is due to myself to say
that the statement is not made through any fear or
possible consequences to me. I too, as you know,
am always on hand and have a ready to hold myself
accountable in any way for anything I
have said or done. Yours very truly,
Theodore Roosevelt." (narrator)
Luckily for history,
de Mores 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've 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 a European way, he thought that the other
aristocrat of the Badlands would be his ally. It really upset him. It probably even
hurt his feelings that Roosevelt wasn't supporting
him in any meaningful way. Roosevelt would've been
dead like that in a duel. I think that that really shows that he wasn't afraid
of anything, but sometimes
sort of foolishly not afraid. (narrator)
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 incensed;
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 6-day
head start, but within 3 days, Roosevelt
and his men caught up with the hapless trio
of lawbreakers. Wiley, red headed Mike Finnigan,
a Medora ne'er-do-well, was the leader of
the band of thieves. Finnigan and friends
were surprised by Roosevelt and his rifle brandishing men. (man, as Roosevelt)
Finnigan 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. (Clay Jenkinson)
He wanted his boat back, and remember
that they stole the boat just before Roosevelt was going
on a mountain lion hunt, and 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. So he decided that he had 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 hands Sewell and Dow posed
with the recovered boat. Although he had
the miscreance 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, 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 asked Finnigan if he has a book,
and surprisingly he does. Finnigan's book is a
dime novel about Jesse James. Nevertheless,
Roosevelt borrows the book, and for 3 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 $50 for his law enforcement efforts, and then looks for a doctor
to treat his badly bruised feet. Dr. Victor Stickney later wrote: (man, as Dr. Stickney)
"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 as punch,' at the idea of having participated
in a real adventure." (snare drum & piano play) ♪
♪ (narrator)
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 a parade. It was a big parade. But a local booster
is quoted as saying the 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 2 men who were
too drunk to notice anything. Roosevelt, in what is
regarded as his first great public address,
tells the assembled audience; (man, as Roosevelt) "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!" (narrator)
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
4th of July speeches on mainstreet towns
like Dickinson that were there to
unite and inspire people. It was all part of the
education of this young man that was just
filled with ambition. I think it's true that
that Dickinson speech, if you put 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. (Clay Jenkinson)
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 said to him, you know, I think if you
really believe all of that that some day 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, and 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. (narrator)
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 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: (man, as Roosevelt)
The 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. (narrator)
Most of his cattle were dead. The great adventure was over. He had proven himself
as a man among men, and now it was time to move on. He had lost half his fortune
ranching in North Dakota, and he sold the few cattle
that remained from 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 Bamie, and friends to visit his Elkhorn Ranch. He returned 5 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." (Clay Jenkinson)
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 a 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." 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 2 ranches
in Dakota Territory. (narrator)
Theodore Roosevelt
was a national hero. He was quickly elected
Governor of New York, then selected
by national republicans as the running mate for William McKinley in 1900. McKinley and Roosevelt
easily won election. But in 1901, tragedy struck when McKinley was felled
by an assassin's bullet. Theodore Roosevelt, at age 42, became the youngest president
in U.S. history. He promoted
conservation efforts, the building of
the Panama Canal, and was a progressive who championed
a Square Deal for everyone. Roosevelt returned
to Medora in 1903, stopping his train
there while on a visit to Yellowstone
and Yosemite National Parks. The visit was brief, but friends from his
ranching days turned out at the Medora Town Hall for
a look at a real President. This photo was taken to commemorate the historic event. Those who might've poked fun
at Old Four Eyes just a few years earlier were
now awed by the presence of the President of the
United States of America. Roosevelt was delighted,
but also visibly moved by the presence of
the men and the women who had shared his life
on the frontier. He was one of them, and they would never forget
one another. (man, as Roosevelt)
"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. (narrator)
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 the Badlands still hangs in the north room of his New York home,
Sagamore Hill. Shortly before he died, a "New York Times" reporter
asked him, how do you want
to be remembered? He answered, "I want to be
remembered as a man of the West, a man of Dakota." ♪
♪ ♪
♪
