Teddy Roosevelt: The Original American Badass

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[00:01:19] Fishingbooker.com and book your trip to the Fishingbooker.com and book your trip to the Fishingbooker.com and book your trip to the Hello Rye. Welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast. Kevin and Chuck. Today, well, we're going to talk about Teddy Roosevelt. You know, you guys keep asking for more badass episodes, and who's more badass than Teddy Roosevelt?

[00:01:45] This guy's fighting mountain lions, bears, whatever, fighting wars single-handedly, climbing mountains. Kevin, who is Teddy Roosevelt? Now, he's not the crazy one. He's the one who's a badass. What do you got? Well, FDR thought he was a badass, too, and he actually got his illness from swimming in a lake.

[00:02:14] But whatever, that's how he ended up going crippled. But we're getting sidetracked. Teddy Roosevelt. He was a lot of stuff, man. He had a full life. He was an author, police commissioner, soldier, cattle rancher, naturalist, explorer, statesman, mountain climber, New York State Assemblyman, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. He was governor of New York.

[00:02:43] He was vice president and president of the United States. So he had kind of a full life. And had time to be a badass at the same time. Mm-hmm. So that's pretty freaking impressive. Now, he actually, this guy starts badass way back. Now, he did come from a wealthy family, right? That's my understanding. Yeah, real wealthy. Not like rich people. Just the nice house at the end of the block?

[00:03:13] No, no, no. He wasn't even on our block. Yeah, he was so wealthy. His family was so wealthy that his dad's full-time job was philanthropist. Nice. Just giving money away. Like, that was his full-time job was building schools and, you know, that sort of stuff. Right. So I think that, you know, when they talk about, when you talk about people that are uncorruptible, a lot of the times I see rich people that are like the most corrupt people.

[00:03:42] You know, they've gotten wealthy by being corrupt. I know people have made that accusation recently. But go on. I mean, historically, a lot of people that are really rich get their money from doing shady shit. You know, the old-fashioned American way, the way Teddy Roosevelt did it is by inheriting it. You know? That's the best way to get rich. Yeah. Right. And that you kind of... Go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:04:11] So when he was a little kid, he was, like, asthmatic. He was real small for his age and sickly. And he was a smart kid. But his dad told him, like, he's got the brains but not the brawn. So you got to start working out every day. So... That's it. You got to work... Asthma. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You got to work through it, man. Now, he says that he cured his own asthma through, like, sheer force of will. He just willed himself to not have asthma.

[00:04:41] I mean, most asthma, when you have it as a kid, it kind of clears up as you become an adult. I like the sheer will story. Yeah, that sounds better. Roosevelt's version is better, isn't it? That's it. Well, you knew he was smart because he had glasses. And anybody who has glasses... Smart guy. Smart guy, right? So his dad had a partner and it may have been his brother. You thought they had a law firm together? But... Yeah. Anyway, he created the Natural History Museum.

[00:05:10] I believe the official name is the American Museum of Natural History. Right. And you've been there. I've been there. You've been there. If you have kids and you live in New York State, you got to make sure you make that trip. Pretty much if you go to New York City, you got to go to the Natural History Museum. It's kind of like an icon, a legendary thing. So it really...

[00:05:36] I think it's like how much you feel like paying when you go in. It's not... They don't charge you a big fee. It's just whatever you give them. Yeah. If anything, I know I'm too cheap. If it was more than 40 bucks a person, I wasn't doing it. So whatever it was. But I think, like you said, I think it's a donation thing. I don't even think it was a thing. Um, so this guy, well, this is how we get back to Teddy is age 12.

[00:06:04] This kid's donating specimens to the museum. And he ends up like donating over 3,500 specimens over his life. And it's pretty much like you can't go around New York State without walking into a bar that's got some giant moose head or something that rose up. I was just telling Chuck last weekend, that's where I was at.

[00:06:29] I was at some bar in Albany with a giant moose head on the wall was Teddy's moose. Nice. So his family does a trip in 1872. So he's 14 years old and he ends up collecting 20 birds that he shoots or whatever. And they stuff. Again, when you got money, you can get things taxidermied and set up and ship back. Right.

[00:06:55] Because, you know, we all go on, you know, you remember your first Egypt trip, right? You know? Right. Yeah. Actually, I have been there if you want to get down to it, but it turned out it wasn't a family vacation. It was more like... I was in Egypt briefly and it was, uh, it was like, it must have been... Now I know they say that a lot of Egyptian cities are kind of shitty and scary. This was the worst. This is probably the worst city in all of Egypt. And I only got an afternoon there.

[00:07:26] So... Yeah. That sounds right. But, uh, you know, you know how it is. But, uh, yeah. So he was born, what? 1858. Mm-hmm. And, uh, yeah, he's fifth cousins with FDR. Right. Right. Yeah, they vaguely knew each other. They knew each other and they had met, but they weren't, you know, they weren't like buddies, buddies. There are two Roosevelt families. They'd split off.

[00:07:52] One moved to Hyde Park on the Hudson. Um, one side of the family stayed in New York City. Now they had, their family had been here since the, the 1600s. They were Dutch. Um, and they just happened to own most of New York City before it was New York City. Yeah. That's a good way to be. You know, you hold on to that land. That's how you get rich, you know? You got to hold on to that land.

[00:08:21] I always feel like it's too late, but it turns out the world just keeps growing. You know, people keep that sprawl keeps coming. You just got to buy those corner lots. That's the key corner. That's the anchor point. That's the anchor. Right. And you just right now I'm a little outside of town, but I'm waiting for that sprawl, you know? Um, all right. So this guy, you know, goes out, gets all these animals. Like I said, he did an Amazon trip.

[00:08:49] He collects 3000 animals. So he's all over, you know, filling this museum and, and it's pretty impressive. It's funny. I was, I was just saying that, uh, when you go, there's a, they'll have like lions and you're like, oh, I've seen lions before. I've seen moose before. But when you go into the natural history museum and you see the ones that he shot and that he's

[00:09:14] got, these things are like three times how big you imagine a lion to be. Yeah. And three times the size of any moose I've ever seen. You're like, oh damn, that that's significant. You know? Yeah. He, uh, I think it's, I think it's interesting because he, um, people gave him a little bit of a hard time about going to Africa to shoot all, you know, shooting all these animals that they said, well, listen, everybody's shooting all these animals. They're going to be gone soon.

[00:09:42] If I don't shoot some of myself, he'll be able to even know what they ever looked like. I actually tried to dig into that. I'm like, how does he wrap his mind around being a conservationist kind of thing and preserving everything and then going and killing everybody. But he talked about if, if you share how impressive and amazing these things are, it just inspires

[00:10:06] people to preserve land and, you know, and create a sanctuary and, and even, you know, save the animals. Right. Um, cause when you see how majestic and, and awesome they are, when it's not just abstract, it really does become something he actually had, they called it the square deal. Where he created a lot of the national parks. I think it was something insane, like 340 million acres. Yeah.

[00:10:34] He actually, he actually, well, he was president, uh, went off with some dude and, and hiked through, um, uh, Yellowstone. Like, I can't imagine a president at this point just being like, all right guys, I'm going to, I'm going to go out for into the woods for a few days, you know? Well, yeah. You know, think times were different, I guess. I'd say it.

[00:11:00] So he like in his honeymoon at 22 years old, he climbs the Matterhorn, uh, it's in the Alps. And yeah, no, that's like, you know, ice cliffs, you know, the whole thing. And they're all like, you know, we think we got to go back. And he's like, Nope, Nope. We're doing it. And that's kind of a bad-ass. I don't know. I've read like, he spent all over, like he was like the farm hand in Montana.

[00:11:28] And he talked about one of the stories I read was somebody had stolen his horse and he tracks the horse down and, and the guy, or it tracks the guy down, I guess, who stole his horse. And he goes into the bar and the guy's like sitting at the bar and cause the horse is out front, you know, he goes in and he's like, what the hell? And the guy's got his guns and he's like, yeah, what is it for eyes? And, you know, it's like, you need to buy us all drinks. That's what you need to do.

[00:11:58] And he fires his two pistols into the air, the horse thief and Roosevelt walks up and he's like, Oh, you know, I'm so I'm sorry, buddy. And, uh, as he goes over and he's kind of laughing and he just freaking punches the guy in the face and freaking drags him out of the bar, takes his guns from him and, uh, pretty much, you know, sets the standard. That's the kind of guy this is. I guess think like rip on Yellowstone.

[00:12:26] That's pretty much Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. Now he was, uh, he was a police commissioner before he actually went out, uh, ranching. It was, uh, 1895. He was a police commissioner. All right. And, uh, you know, his big thing was, um, it'd be kind of racist today, honestly, but he, they were having problems with, um, the police officers going into the Jewish neighborhoods

[00:12:54] and getting into fights because the police officers didn't understand Jewish law and tradition. And, you know, the Jews weren't about to have some, you know, some foreigner coming into their part of the city and start telling them what to do. So he set up, he got all the Jewish police officers together and set them up, um, patrolling those neighborhoods. And he did a lot of that sort of stuff where he would have, um, officers of certain nationalities

[00:13:22] going to the parts of the city where those, uh, nationalities were, were like the predominant prevalent. Yeah. That lived there. Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah. You can understand the culture. It turns out you might be able to avoid some, uh, crazy disputes, you know? Mm-hmm. That's like, now the problem though, that, that they had an New York, New York city politics at the time, it was really like, um, organized crime.

[00:13:52] You know what I mean? They weren't really, they were stealing more than they were really helping anybody out. Right. And, uh, you know, like Tammany hall, that was all going on then. So when he started getting involved in politics, people were like, Oh, Teddy, like, it's not a good look, man. It's a bad look to be involved in politics in New York. Yeah. But he was, um, then they, they realized they had a problem though, because he was anti-corruption

[00:14:21] and started like rooting this out, you know, as a police commissioner was one of his, one of the things was like throwing out corrupt cops and stuff. And everybody's like, wait a minute, wait a minute. You're not supposed to do that. That's not how it works. Right. They said you could, yeah. Patrol the streets at night and like catch guys sleeping at, you know, cops. And it turns out cops are still sleeping on the job today. I've seen it. Um, yeah, yeah, it happens.

[00:14:46] But, uh, you know, they, uh, yeah, they'd be sleeping or whatever, taking bribes, all this stuff, he shut it down. He's like, no, we're not doing this anymore. And, and also like the whole selective enforcement thing was going on and he shut it all down and people didn't like that. Yeah. And, you know, he fired the, one of the chiefs of police because, you know, same, same sort of stuff, taking bribes.

[00:15:12] And yeah, it was, it didn't go over well with the other politicians, you know? Um, then he ended up becoming, uh, the, the, uh, assemblyman, New York state assemblyman, you know, up in Albany. And it was the same shit, um, you know, rooting out corruption. And they're like, no, no, no, you're supposed to root out corruption and the guys in the other party. But like, he wasn't, he wasn't discriminatory like that. You know what I mean? And he went after both.

[00:15:42] And so it gave it like, it gave everybody a bad vibe. You know what I mean? Like they, uh, so what they wanted to do is, is get rid of them. And so, um, he started, uh, campaigning for William McKinley and, uh, McKinley became president and gave him a job as the assistant secretary of the Navy, which is pretty sweet deal. Yeah. Not a, not a bad deal.

[00:16:12] Um, you know, Teddy was a big fan of the Navy. He was, uh, he'd written, you know, massive, uh, volumes of, of books on, uh, the United, the history of the United States Navy history of, uh, war of 1812, you know, a whole lot of stuff about the U S Navy. And so he, you know, he knew a lot about it and, uh, you know, Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt and Washington, George Washington are the only ones that I can think that.

[00:16:42] Uh, started a war before they were, uh, a president. Teddy Roosevelt kind of started a war. So he, um, he, uh, there was, there was issues going on with Spain in Cuba. You know, the Cubans didn't want Spain to be there. They wanted them out. The Monroe doctrine stated that, you know, European powers weren't welcome in, in the Americas. So got to do something about it. Right.

[00:17:12] So he, he sent the main down there, the USS Maine down there to, you know, kind of see what was going on. Right. And, uh, at some point the main exploded and sank for disputed reasons. Right. Um, right. Um, right. And you would think, you would think like, all right, well, you're in a good position as the secretary of the Navy, assistant secretary of the Navy, since the secretary of the Navy is gone, like wherever the hell he is, he wasn't around.

[00:17:41] Right. And so you're in a good position to like, you know, have an impact on this, this war, you know, but he did like the dumb thing and resigned from the secretary of the Navy. Yeah. Uh, and, but before he did that, he dispatched, uh, a fleet of ships to the Philippines to attack Spain there.

[00:18:07] Then he resigned and started his own, uh, own little army, like his own personal army. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. So the rough riders, this is about, he's 39 years old, 1898. Uh, it's kind of a bad-ass and basically it's, it's like a hodgepodge of some like Harvard graduates kind of thing, like intellectuals and like native Americans and athletes. Yeah. Dude.

[00:18:36] Cowboys all over cowboys. Like, I feel like it's like just people he met along the way, you know, I mean, I don't know how he put these guys together, but it basically, he created a war so we could fight into war is kind of how it felt like, right. You know, he seized an opportunity. He didn't back away. That's how I would say, I don't mean to paint it. Like he was just looking for whatever I'm saying.

[00:19:02] He seized the opportunity and it was pretty bad-ass. He's think Audie Murphy. Think of the guy who charges in, you know, and says, Hey, I'm going to be what lead from the front instead of the lead from behind. You know, they talk about that in the military that, you know, you want to be the guy who can do, and that's why your guys respect you. Teddy was somebody, the guys respected because he's somebody who jumped in and did not give

[00:19:29] a shit and, you know, move forward with things. Yeah. So after the, after the war, he came back, he was like a, you know, a big war hero and stuff. And they're like, shit, we, now we still got to get rid of him. Like this, he's only gotten worse. So they found like this perfect, uh, dead end job that they can set them up in as vice president. Oh, I thought you were going to say the governor of New York would be a dead end job, but no, no, he became, I'm sorry.

[00:19:57] He became governor of New York and then they're like, nah, we got to get rid of this dude. So they set him up as, as a vice president for under McKinley, who the guy who had, he had campaigned for. Um, so he was vice president for like, like eight months or something. And then McKinley was shot and it became president. Right. And he said, you know, it's the worst way to become a president, but you know, you're

[00:20:25] not like, you know, he was a fan of McKinley. So he, he, you know, he was really upset about him being shot. And, uh, now he was president though. So he started, you know, take the bull by the horns type thing and got it, got into it. Um, he, uh, spent, uh, his beginning of his presidency, sent out the great white fleet,

[00:20:52] which was, uh, the United States like new, you know, ironclad Navy, you know, steam ships and, and, uh, steam powered ships and everything like that. And he had, you know, kind of designed this, uh, fleet while he was this, the assistant secretary of the Navy. And now he got to like show it off, send it all over the world. Everybody could see like, you know, their impressive ships and they say it shows American strength. You know, like, I don't know what the point of that is.

[00:21:21] I think he was just, uh, you know, one of his lines was, uh, speak softly and carry a big stick. You know, if everybody knows that you can kick their ass, nobody starts the problem. Right. That's like a, uh, a West African proverb that he, uh, he ended up, you know, like he's known for the guy who, you know, that that's his quote, but yeah, yeah, actually that had kind of, you know, been around and he, uh, he adopted it.

[00:21:50] We'll say, but Hey, that's the way to be president. You know, that's the way I see it. But it's funny. Cause the Navy is like the symbol of, I think the U S Navy creates fear around the world that they, it kind of gives people the idea that we can come get you anywhere. Like you think armies and stuff and, and it's impressive and scary. And maybe it's my bias being in the Navy, but it's kind of like, yeah, you really have

[00:22:19] that feeling that, Hey, you can kind of come get me anywhere in the world. And cause we can get pretty close and then we got the planes and the guys to back it up once we get there, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't remember when I was in bootcamp, one of the drill instructors said that it's, uh, you know, if you want to start shit, don't worry. We'll come to your house. You know, we'll come to you.

[00:22:43] So, but, um, you know, I, I always, uh, you know, so, so Teddy Roosevelt did a lot of stuff while he was president. Um, he served almost two full terms. Uh, he, he, uh, broke up a lot of crush, uh, corruption, a lot of the, the big trusts that were being built. Um, you know, he believed in a six day work week instead of a seven day work break. He thought by law should be required that everybody gets a day off a week. Um, he wanted minimum wage.

[00:23:12] He didn't get it done. No, there's a lot of stuff. He didn't actually get done. You know, he, he, right. He was president, but he wasn't, you know, he had to deal with Congress and, and most of the Senate disagreed with all of his ideas. It's funny cause well, cause he's a Republican too. So a lot of this is very contrary to the Republican party. Um, it basically was kind of pro worker instead of pro business, which, you know, has been the theme. And that's the thing.

[00:23:42] Like, honestly, a lot of the ideas that he had are more progressive. He's known as a progressive guy. Um, they're more progressive than I am personally, but I also, there's certain people where, you know, that it's kind of coming from a good place. Like it doesn't make things right or wrong, but you just know that they mean what they say and they're actually, you know, thinking about and trying to solve these problems. And that's pretty awesome and pretty respectable.

[00:24:12] So I got to say, you know, he kind of was a bad-ass guy. And again, he, he took ideas and standing up to your party is kind of bad-ass. Right. I mean, if you want to get down to it, you know, um, yeah, I mean all through, I mean, the guy fought, you know, mountain lions, he, you know, he, uh, one of the stories back in his younger days, somebody stole his boat and this guy spends two days.

[00:24:41] He actually stopped, built a new boat to go catch the guy. It took him two days to build the boat in the middle of winter, sneaks up the river and is camping out every night. I think you said something he is reading Tolstoy. Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Now they awaken. Yeah. I've read Tolstoy before and that is not how you stay awake.

[00:25:07] No, he's not how I stay awake, but, uh, yeah, he, so he, he catches up with the guys and takes them over land to actual court where they can be tried, you know? Um, but he stayed awake for three days with these guys so that he could keep an eye on them all the time. Right. He goes when they were sleeping. Right. Yeah. Nah, it's easy. He's a bad-ass. I mean, definitely story after story. And we're going to, we still got a few more good ones. Yeah.

[00:25:35] So he's goes, uh, as president, he, he builds the Panama Canal. I mean, he didn't physically get in there with a shovel and build it himself. It would have been bad-ass if he did though. He wanted a canal. And, uh, at that time it was that, that piece of land was owned by Columbia and, uh, Columbia said, no, we're not into it. So he armed this rebel group and they founded the country of Panama and they actually were really into a canal.

[00:26:04] So we're into it. That's how you, that's how, that's where Panama came from. That sounds like a Reagan move. If you want to get down to it, it does, you know, that that's some classy shit. So he's like the original Reagan on that one. Another thing, this guy, bad-ass. So he's kind of a warrior his whole life, right? We, I mean, these just so many stories, we kind of skipped some of them, but this guy set

[00:26:31] up so he could be sparring in the white house while he's president. Cause he's like, you know, he had a lot of quotes about, you got to stay, you know, fit and active and, and healthy. And it keeps your mind strong. And he would bring in professional boxers and military men to come in and spar with them while he's freaking president. That's pretty bad. It's not like building a bowling alley in the white house. Right. When you set up a rock thing, that's yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:00] It's not like sparring where, you know, like people's today's spar, they don't play rough. You know what I mean? Because there's no reason to get a concussion, you know, when you're training, but he always played rough and, uh, he actually had his, his retina detached by being punched in the face of hard, uh, during one of these boxing matches that he lost his vision in his, in his right eye.

[00:27:24] So he had to give up boxing and he's like, you know, I, I gotta, he said, I can't, I, you know, I can't, I can't get beat up. I have to recognize that I'm getting older now, so I'm going to take up jujitsu. Obviously. Now how this came about was that, uh, Japan and Russia were at war at the time. And, uh, Teddy Roosevelt brokered the peace deal between the two of them to end the war.

[00:27:52] And he won the Nobel peace prize for that. But while he was, uh, dealing with the Japanese, he like started getting interested in their martial arts. So he had a professional trainer in jujitsu come from Japan to stay in the white house and train him in a jujitsu. That that's better than some of the other people they have stay in the white house. So I like that. That's like I said, it's better than a bowling alley. You know, you're, you're kicking ass here.

[00:28:19] Now, one of the things that they said about, uh, Roosevelt winning his president was that he was like, uh, he was always horse around with his kids, like crawling around under, under the tables and, and stuff like that. And, you know, somebody had, the press had mentioned, you know, how kind of bizarre that was. I said, well, you have to, one of his friends said, well, you have to understand that down inside who Teddy Roosevelt is, is a five-year-old. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, that's just how he acts. You know, it's funny. Yeah.

[00:28:49] One of his sons had, had caught a snake in the, uh, in the yard of the white house and, um, snuck in when he was in a, when Roosevelt was in a meeting from it with an ambassador and, uh, dropped the snake in the ambassador's lap. And, uh, you jumped up screaming and Teddy just thought that was like the funniest thing in the world. You know, the funniest shit he'd ever seen. He loved like, you know, his kids being like assholes and he's like fully endured that, you know? There you go.

[00:29:18] That's well, you know, that's the thing. Like I saw these pictures of Roosevelt and it's funny cause the one that made me like this guy's awesome is there's one where he's just got this big grin and he's just like the happy guy and it's like, yeah, that's awesome, man. That's how life should be. You know? Right. Enjoy it. Why, why be a stuck up jackass, you know, embrace life. And that's, you know, I don't know. I feel like he set the standard.

[00:29:44] He, he really, uh, kind of brought cool to the white house. It's one of these, you know, guys who really, really nailed it. Um, now he was followed by Taft. Right. And right now, so he, he didn't run for president. The, for a third term, this was, I mean, before it was against the, you know, against the, it wasn't against him. Well, that was actually, uh, FDR. Yeah. That caused the problem. Right.

[00:30:12] But, um, so he, he basically didn't, you know, he said he wasn't going to run again. He didn't run again. Instead. He just, uh, he went out to Africa, you know, he's like, gotta, gotta do some hunting. Gotta get some hunting in, you know, went out, uh, elephant hunting, you know, lion hunting, hunting hunting and all the, the big game in, in Africa had a taxidermied ship back, you know, kept stock in that museum of natural history. Right. And, uh, people love the stuff though.

[00:30:42] So he was writing dispatches that were being sent back and published in papers, you know, like just his, his weekly hunting journal, you know, and, uh, people in the United States, the rich people didn't like Teddy Roosevelt. He was a real populist president though. Like everybody loved him. It's just people that were in positions of power were not fans. So every time he, you know, when he was running for president, every time he pissed off, you

[00:31:12] know, a wealthy person, he lost their vote, but he gained like five more votes of just regular people, you know, and that's how he was able to win the election. Yeah. And then, so Taft kind of went a different way though. And it was, he was not the same. Yeah. Republican values. Right. And he was like, Oh, you know, I thought we were going to do this minimum wage thing. And I, uh, women's suffrage thing.

[00:31:39] And, and, you know, a lot of things going on and it was kind of going the other way. So he's like, you know what? I think I had to get back into it. And that's where you get the whole bull moose party. And it basically, they kind of said like, it's the progressive party, you know, it was just progressive Republican values. Yeah. The Lincoln Republican party. There you go. And, uh, yeah. So he was, he was, uh, set to give a speech and, um, some asshole came up and shot him,

[00:32:10] shot him in the chest. And, uh, thought, thought he'd slow down, uh, slow down the guy. So he had a speech tucked in his pocket. This is one of those stories that you kind of hear. I don't know. And they said between the 50 pages in his speech and the, uh, folded over and his glasses case in there, it, well, they say it slowed down the bullet, but mind you, he stays and gives the speech is like, you know what?

[00:32:39] I'm just going to keep going. And I did get shot. Like you mentioned it, the speech. Yeah. Like they did just, well, he said after he was shot, he coughed into his hand. And since he didn't see blood, he knew that the bullet hadn't punctured his lungs. So he's going to be fine. He's fine. Right. Right. So, but the thing is, you're like, oh, well, you know, it probably caught it in the thing, like wearing a bulletproof vest. I see how somebody could go on, but as he's giving the speech, he's bleeding through the shirt and it's like dripping out.

[00:33:08] Like it wasn't nothing, you know, instead of went four inches into his chest and broke his ribs. Yeah. It was so deep in there that they couldn't even get the bullet back out. They said it would be riskier to pull it out. He spent the rest of his life with a bullet in it. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's kind of significant. Yeah. No, he only makes it to 60. So it's, you know, but he gave a 80 minute speech after being shot. So that that's pretty impressive before going. Yeah.

[00:33:38] No, that's who gives an 80 minute speech. How do you hold the tension for 80 minutes? Exactly. Exactly. He seems to be well, like one of those people that was a bit long winded, like long speeches were his, his deal, man. His go-to. He could, he could talk. Nice. Nice. Now he ends up, he does not win re-election. Now he splits the Republican vote and it ends up, is it Coolidge that wins? Woodrow Wilson. Whoever. It's Wilson. That's it. Yep.

[00:34:08] And Wilson is not like, we ended up getting kind of the extreme Democrat because he had the Republicans splitting the two. They kind of had to go with somebody who is way the other way to be different. And Wilson ended up doing a lot of things that people kind of, we'll say that he expanded government power by a lot. We'll say that. Yeah. And yeah, Wilson, I'm not a big fan, turns out.

[00:34:37] But you know, Hey, that that's again, another, another time. Okay. So then. Yeah. So what's he doing now? He's, he's out of politics. He's got a big family. Um, he's, he's rebuilt his fortune. He, you know, he's lost his fortune. He's rebuilt it and he's lost it and rebuilt it. He, uh, was a cattle rancher for a long time and ended up, you know, some disease spread

[00:35:06] and killed off all his cattle. And he wrote a bunch of books that made money that way. Um, he had a whole, he had a, actually has a whole bunch of books about like, uh, birds and about hunting and all sorts of, uh, you know, different things, you know, wasn't, you know, just history, history that he wrote books on it. His first book was actually summer birds of the Adirondacks. And he wrote that when he was in college. Uh, nice. But that's the end of birds.

[00:35:36] Well, he was. And I mean, that's it. Most of the animals he, uh, submitted to the museum were birds, but, uh, it's, and honestly, birds are a little tougher to get than big animals, big game animals. Turns out. I mean, I know big game animals come after you and try and kill you. There's that, but birds are a tough shot. You know, that's a something to do. I guess if you do shotguns, I don't know, but you know, who knows? But, uh, yeah, no, he was a bad-ass.

[00:36:05] And so then he decides, Hey, how about we head down to the Amazon? Who's going down there? Right. And well, he was, the thing with him was that he was very interested in South America and he actually had gone to Argentina a couple of times where he was paid to go down there and give, you know, speeches and talks about, you know, different types of wildlife. And he got a real interest in the types of wildlife that were in South, uh, South America.

[00:36:33] And, um, he seemed, he said that, you know, it was kind of like the, the last great, you know, frontier, um, which, you know, there's a lot of places that, and in 1920, there are 1910, there is a lot. There are a lot of frontiers left. Yeah. There are still frontiers, but, um, yeah. So he, he got really interested in, in, uh, in South America and a guy had come up to him who's planning an expedition and he needed financing.

[00:37:04] And, uh, Teddy's like, you know what? I'll do you one better. I'll finance you and I'll go along. And, uh, so they went down there. Um, they were going to investigate some of the, uh, explore some of the tributaries to the Amazon. Now, if you've ever looked at a map with the Amazon, there's, you know, it's one long river that could smaller and smaller as it, you know, splits off in the, you know, rivers where it all comes. And I have to point out he's 55 years old at this point. Right. Right.

[00:37:33] So he goes down there and now they had a lot of, uh, issues initially. And he had a problem with this guy that wanted to do the exploration and ended up just being like, nah, dude, you're going home. I'm not into this anymore and send him on his way. And, uh, they started coming into contact with, um, these tribes that were, they had been contacted before.

[00:37:58] And, uh, by basically people running talent telegraph lines through and what the telegraph company had done to like, keep the peace was they'd leave them like gifts, leave them like, you know, steel tools and, and things like that. And just stay away from them. And if they get killed, then it's just white people getting killed. You don't retaliate.

[00:38:27] And, you know, just keep it like that. Cause they had poison darts was the thing, you know, they're, they were, uh, shooting poison darts at people. So I don't know if it was the frog poison or what, but, um, so he kept the same, uh, the same approach to it. You know, he just stayed away from them. If they were attacked, they didn't fight back.

[00:38:48] They just left and, um, was able to, uh, investigate some, some, a large amount of the Amazon. Uh, he discovered some tributaries. One of the, one of the rivers was, was one of the tributaries was named after him. Um, it was the, the river of doubt was the one that they were exploring. Right.

[00:39:11] So at some point during this trip, uh, his canoe capsizes and he dashed his leg pretty badly on something that was under the water. And of course, if you're in the Amazon in that muddy water and you get a big cut on your leg, it gets infected. So he got re he started getting real sick and it was, you know, it was real bad. And so he told them to just, you know, go on without him, leave him behind like this.

[00:39:39] If I have to leave my bones in South America, you know, I'll do that. And that's it. He was like, you know, I'd rather die than hold you guys up and kill you. I mean, not just hold them up, but you know, bring you guys down with me, you know? Yeah. But his son Kermit was with him and his son was like, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving my dad. And so he eventually realized that like, if he, his son wasn't leaving, the party wasn't leaving without him.

[00:40:06] So he didn't like do his best to like, you know, get in the canoe and travel. Everybody was going to die. Right. So they ended up making it back. The war of World War I broke out and he was a big proponent of getting involved. You know, he's, he supported getting involved and he went to, was it Wilson at the time? I think it still was Wilson. Yeah.

[00:40:35] Yeah. So he went to go see Wilson was like, dude, let me, let me run an army. Let me, let me go over there and be a general. And, uh, Wilson decided now he wasn't going to let him do it. Refused. And, uh, I mean, that was really, uh, that was the thing though with, with Teddy's always, you know, trying to be on the front lines of every exciting thing that's going on. You know, that's, that's the thing.

[00:41:04] Like a lot of the stories I read, they were like, Oh, you know, it said he fought a mountain lion. And, and then as I read more, it's like, well, his dogs had it pinned down. So he's like, you know what? I don't even need my gun. I'm just going in with a knife and I'm going to get them. And, you know, like, I was like, well, any one of these stories could be like embellishment or, you know, who knows? But then when it's like 25 stories, you know, of, of bad-assery, you're just like, Oh, you know what?

[00:41:31] I bet you to just even find yourself in harm's way. Like, I don't even want to deal with like mosquitoes or snakes or bugs in the Amazon. I'm not going there for a two hour tour. Right. Let alone the expedition, right? You're not putting yourself in these positions unless you kind of have no fear and, you know, are down for whatever. And to end up, you know, yeah, he is the, the original adrenaline junkie, right? That's, you know, that's the theory.

[00:42:02] And he loves outside. He loves nature. He wants everybody to have it and be able to embrace it. You know, he preserved all this land, which again, you know, I understand, like, I'm kind of like, you know, the government, I think nobody thought the government would just turn into the big control freaks that they ended up being. And you see why it could end badly, but he wanted to protect things and make sure they were there for you. And that's kind of what's awesome.

[00:42:31] You know, he wanted to make sure that there was nature, there was Yellowstone, there was all these beautiful places that people could see that, you know, that people could enjoy it. And also that nobody can go in and kind of corrupt it. Right. And I feel like that majesty, a lot of it would have been lost if it wasn't for him. Yeah. You know, if you don't think that go to Niagara Falls and see what that shit looks like now. You know, it's just nothing but hotels and, and concrete. Exactly. It's not what you want it to be.

[00:43:01] And so I get it. There is a lot of awesome. Like there's a lot of things that I think the government shouldn't be in, but man, when you see some of the majesty that he saved for this country, it's pretty freaking awesome. So yeah. As far as government overreach goes, I feel like the one I am least upset about is national parks, you know? Yeah. That's not your big problem. The best national park system in the entire world, you know?

[00:43:28] And they just got to keep people from poking the bears now and they do what you want. You know what I mean? You get eaten by a bear. That's just natural selection, man. That's right. I always see people out there fucking with Buffalo and shit. Like you're going to end up dying, you know, but whatever, dude. Do your thing. People are stupid. Yeah. But, and that's, that's one of the things like people are like, oh, well, how does this have to do with survival and prepping?

[00:43:53] But I got to say, having no fear and going into things and being bold and being a leader and seeing things, you know, as they are and embracing life, you know, the whole thing is about living, you know, you want to enjoy life, man. You got to get out there and do it. If you just play it safe and go through the motions, then what's the point? You know, you gotta, you gotta embrace it and there's nothing wrong with being a badass. So I don't know.

[00:44:22] You guys have thoughts, ideas, uh, email us at prepping badass at gmail.com. Also put it in the comments, especially if you think there's somebody that we need to cover that we might be overlooking that you think, you know what, that guy stands out. We could dig into it. That's something we do. So, but, uh, Kevin, any last word on, uh, Roosevelt? That's all I got. With that, I'd say stay safe and we will talk to you guys next week.

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