The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris.#

A friend of mine recommended this book to me by abruptly tossing on my desk and saying, "I don't want to see you reading anything else until you finish this!" Obviously, I had to oblige.#

The main take-away of this book is that Teddy was any interesting guy, like many are; and, that politicians are filthy criminals, even the ones who are known as `honest.' Teddy was interesting in a very Forest Gump-esque way: he seems to have done everything.#

Roosevelt is very cute when he writes about his first wife:#

Now that Alice was his, Theodore's natural exuberance, so long bottled up, burst out like champagne. His letters and diaries for the months following are awash with adoration. "My sweet, pretty, pure queen, my laughing little love... how bewitchingly pretty she is! I can not help petting her and caressing her all the time; and she is such a perfect little sunshine. I do not believe any man ever loved a woman more than I love her." [p. 104]

"How I love her! She seems like a star of heaven, she is so far above other girls; my pearl, my pure flower. When I hold her in my arms there is nothing on earth left to wish for; and how infinitely bless is my lot... Oh, my darling, my own bestloved little Queen!" [p. 106]

Alice eventually died as a result of complications from childbirth. Teddy managed to destroy almost everything he wrote about her. Years later, when he courted his second wife, he wrote: "Were I sure there was a heaven my one prayer would be I might never go there, lest I should meet those I loved on earth who are dead." (p. 337)

Roosevelt wrote of his colleagues in the New York state House of Representatives: "They never open their mouths, without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." (p. 423)#

The chapter on Roosevelt's time as the Police Commissioner in New York City (#19) is great.#

Roosevelt on President McKinley: "[He] has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair." (p. 638)#