The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00DEKZDOG | Format: EPUB
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism Description
After Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin wields her magic on another larger-than-life president, and another momentous and raucous American time period as she brings Theodore Roosevelt, the muckraking journalists, and the Progressive Era to life.
As she focused on the relationships between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in No Ordinary Time, and on Lincoln and his team in Team of Rivals, Goodwin describes the broken friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. With the help of the "muckraking" press - including legendary journalists Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, William Allen White, and editor Sam McClure - Roosevelt had wielded the Bully Pulpit to challenge and triumph over abusive monopolies, political bosses, and corrupting money brokers. Roosevelt led a revolution that he bequeathed to Taft only to see it compromised as Taft surrendered to money men and big business. The rupture between the two led Roosevelt to run against Taft for president, an ultimately futile race that resulted in the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the diminishment of Theodore Roosevelt's progressive wing of the Republican Party.
Like Goodwin's chronicles of the Civil War and the Great Depression, The Bully Pulpit describes a time in our history that enlightened and changed the country, ushered in the modern age, and produced some unforgettable men and women.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 36 hours and 42 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: November 5, 2013
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00DEKZDOG
A bully pulpit is a position sufficiently conspicuous to provide an opportunity to speak out and be listened to. Teddy Roosevelt coined this term and lived by it to set the direction of the 20th century with regard to role of the Presidency versus the capitalist elite. This wonderful book frames the man's character by presenting Roosevelt as a man making a stance by enforcing the Sherman Act of 1890 (an antitrust law) that was basically over looked while the big business bosses established their vast monopolies & power in the late 19th to earlier 20th century. Roosevelt a New York upper-class milieu confronts his fellow upper class rival J.P. Morgan by braking up his trans- ocean stream ship & railroad line thereby enforcing the Sherman Act. Typically monopolists caught bending this law were addressed behind closed door deals rather than on a national public stage. Roosevelt's and his people took the fight to Morgan & won a Supreme Court decision.
You will read about the friendship & common cause between two Republican comrades that wish to reform and clean up corruption in politics. William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt both emerge as Progressive Republicans and soon become friends. Taft came from a privileged back ground as well, but had a mild manner wishing to please family versus Teddy's driven ambition to confront and change America. Roosevelt brings Taft along as his Secretary of war then supports him as his successor.
Ms. Goodwin has cleverly developed the story of these two men by showing the path of Taft as President to push congress to reform big business through regulatory amendments and measures to enforce them, while Roosevelt who regretted not pursuing another term wishes to take action on child labor and women's work issues.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a very popular historian, whose last work Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was widely acclaimed, and therefore I was expectant of another such achievement in this new book, but it just wasn't for me.
The research is extensive, the notes on primary sources exhaustive, the writing style is, as with all her work, excellent, but the book is too much. I can't help but think of a George Harrison song, Long Long Long.
The first one hundred fifty pages are bios of TR and Taft, and their families. There is nothing new here. There have been so many works on Roosevelt, and I felt that Edmund Morris covered his early years best in The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Modern Library Paperbacks). While the information is good, it is too much.
The writing concerning the "golden age of journalism" is good and an important part of the story of our nation's reform from more than one hundred years ago.
The relationship between Taft and TR is the most interesting of the book, and that part moved quickly, and the differences in style and personality are nicely portrayed, but the inclusion of so many things from the journalism side just cluttered up the work. The book would have been less cumbersome and more interesting if the focus had been on the two men, with the journalism portion given only a supporting role.
In the end, the split between the two great men ushered Woodrow Wilson into the White House.
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism Preview
Link
Please Wait...