KERNS GOODWIN BOOK MISLEADING

I am in the process of reading The Bully Pulpit by #Doris Kerns Goodwin. Previously, I read #Theodore Rex by #Edmond Morris and #The Imperial Cruse by #James Bradley, therefore was acquainted with the challenges he faced as president: imperialism, industrialism, conservation, immigration, labor, race and of course the challenges of being a president of the most powerful nation in the world. From the published reviews that hailed Theodore Roosevelt as a progressive, and the book won a Pulitzer Prize; thus well written. I, as a liberal, was looking forward to a delightful read, which it is; however, I found something else hidden in its pages.

Kern’s-Godwin’s approach through the eyes of exposé journalists reveals something unexpected. There was a terrible rift within the #Republican Party, which the author exploited to Roosevelt’s benefit; the author depicted him a “heroic progressive” fighting for the America way; implying labor and unions mattered. The truth was that he was a true blue conservative, fighting to maintain corporate dominance of society. This sounds like a sentiment completely opposite from all other reviews, but regardless, it is valid. Historians rightfully credit him with “breaking trusts” based on their proven corrupt practices in all manners of doing business. In a landmark case before the Supreme Court, the court found in favor of the president and did not allow a merger of two giants in business; a great victory. Roosevelt feared that “mergers” would allow corporations to dominate the business world eventually resulting in one man being in control that would not be the president.

Consider this; Roosevelt was fighting corporate relations other corporation and not corporate relations with workers. President Theodore Roosevelt was 100% behind capitalism, meaning freedom to do create and conduct business with in and across states and nations.  He saw corruption within the Republican Party as being corporations buying politician at all levels as wrong, city, state, and federal government; that gave him common alliance with progressive notions of fairness but not with the working class, which is my point—he was not as progressives as Kerns-Goodwin was being made out to be. A careful reading of Kerns-Goodwin’s book reveals the political fights we read about were between factions of the Republican Party, just as we have today but hardly mentioned Democrats. Corporate money bought politicians with the express purpose of providing corporations with more and more power including over the working class, which is what we see in Washington today. Of course, Democrats were fighting for labor, during the time f the Roosevelt administration but were looked at as trash in the same way Ayn Rand would looked at liberals a half century later—they were not productive and just caused trouble.  

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