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- Jay
Telfer may have handed over the reigns of the Wayback Times to
Sandy and Peter Neilly, but he is still going to be visible in
the newspaper.
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- The
longtime resident of Prince Edward County will be writing Jay's
Blog, a column on his ongoing love of antiques and life in the
Quinte Bay area.
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- Jay's
Wayback Times, founded in 1995, published 1.7 million papers
in 11 years and more than 258,000 kms
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traveled for visits
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deliveries to antique
shows, stores and markets.
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- Jay
Telfer's final issue
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- Jay's Wayback Blog
- About lives, then
and now
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- By Jay Telfer
- Four-Eyes - a tiny look at Theodore Roosevelt.
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- Editor Sandy said she wanted a less expansive blog for this
issue. I didn't think I could trim things down to just a few
hundred words, especially with the subject of this bloggerism.
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- I heard a question about American politics, about the massive
division of ultra right and ultra left, the war, the middle east,
poverty, no health care, North Korea, etc. The question was,
which former president would try and set things straight? The
answer immediately was Theodore Roosevelt.
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- I went down to Minneapolis and Rochester in September to
have some U.S. doctors figure out what is wrong with me. I spent
the weekends with my sister, Margaret and her husband,
Ed McConohay in Minneapolis. We had the best visit ever.
While there, there was a 35th Anniversary of the Minnesota Humanities
Commission and my sister, who is a member, and I attended the
celebration. In the hall, Clay S. Jenkinson was introduced
as a writer and the solo performer of An Evening with Theodore
Roosevelt
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- Clay came out in his knee length coat, a monocle and his
top hat and he began by saying he was most interested in his
years in the Dakota Badlands, from 1884 to 1898. His tales were
perfect, descriptive and I was lost in his characterizations
of Theodore's past life.
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 In his life, he had
so much to say for a short blog. He was the most mighty pen in
his life, writing more than 30 books, 150,000 letters, multiple
memorable quotes and countless articles and columns, including
The Naval War of 1812 (1882), the four-volume Winning of the
West (1889-96), The Rough Riders (1900?) and his autobiography
(1913).
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- Born in 1858, he was a sick boy with asthma and the doctor
told him he would live a short, quiet life with his breathing
problems. He decided to fight against that determination and
he became the inventor if the strenuous life. He climbed the
Matterhorn, he was a big game hunter in Africa, South America
and the U.S., he wrestled and branded cows, he shot his first
bison in 1883, and in between, he was the President of the United
States.
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- In Clay Jenkinson's book, Theodore Roosevelt in the Dakota
Badlands, he wrote; "When he wasn't seeking manly (and sometimes
reckless) adventures, Roosevelt gave his life to public service.
He served three turns in the New York State Assembly (1881-84).
He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York City (1886). He served
under two presidents of different parties as U.S. Civil Service
Commissioner (1889-95). He was the Police Commissioner of New
York City (1895-97). He was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
(1897-98). Plus, he led the charge up Kettle Hill in Cuba with
the Rough Riders that made him a national hero. And that was
just the beginning.
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- He was first married at age 22 and he loved and adored his
wife, Alice. After three years of marriage, Alice gave birth
to their first daughter on February 12, 1884. On February 14,
his mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt died of typhoid fever;
hours later, in the same house on 57th Street, his wife Alice
Hathaway Lee Roosevelt also dies from Bright's disease -
a chronic kidney infection, unknown due to her pregnancy. He
wrote in his diary: "The light has gone out of my life."
In a few days, after the two funerals, he wrote "For joy
or for sorrow, my life has now been lived out."
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- It was at that point with the two family deaths, he quit
politics and moved to North Dakota and worked at the Elkhorn
Ranch. He arrived wearing a buckskin shirt made by the name brand
suit makers in New York and some handmade, monogrammed spurs.
The tales of him being four-eyes, a teetotaler, having a high
pitched voice, and no early bulkiness to him, he was considered
a fop.
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- After a drunken cowboy told everyone in the bar that four-eyes
would stand everyone to a drink, Theo moved to another table
to have his meal. When the cowboy persisted, standing before
him and was using the clock as a target. Theo gave him a solid,
trained as a pugilist at Harvard, punch. The man went down, hit
his head on the bar and was out cold. The other cowboys, proud
of Mr. Roosevelts prowess took the man outside, tied him up and
put him on a freight train.
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- As TR wrote: "It was still the Wild West in those days,
the Far West of Owen Wister's stories, and Frederic
Remington's drawings, the soldier and the cow puncher. The
land of the West has gone now, 'gone, gone with the lost Atlantis,'
gone to the isle of ghosts and strange dead memories ... In that
land we led a hardy life. Ours was the glory of work and the
joy of living."
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- After a few years at Elkhorn ranch, he learns his boat in
the Little Missouri river has been stolen - the rope was cut
and there was a mitten on the ground. Roosevelt takes control.
Lawlessness and theft can never be condoned, he explains, especially
on the raw frontier where institutions of justice have not been
established.
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- It is in the early spring thaw in 1886 - with ice floes moving
and freezing of the river every night. His men build another
boat that floats and though six days behind, they take off after
the boat thieves. On the third day, they find them and capture
them all. Now, he must move them to a sheriff and justice over
300 miles away. He tries to sail them down the Little Missouri
and takes off their boots or their socks so that no one will
escape at night.
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- The trip is far too long and too difficult with the ice,
so he has his men look after the thieves and goes inland to find
a farm and borrow a horse. The days after leaving Elkhorn, he
has his two men sail the boats back on home and he will move
the scofflaws alone down to the sheriff at Dickerson, North Dakota.
The men, including Theo, are eating unleavened bread and drinking
muddy water from the Little Missouri.
He must keep awake during the period when he moves them overland.
He has a book in his sack, Anna Karinina, by Tolstoy.
Clay Jenkinson writes: "He reads it (aloud) cover to cover
to cut the tedium and stay awake enough to get the thieves to
justice. He does not like Tolstoy's indifference to morality
- the novel is, after all, about adultery - but he admires the
sweep of Tolstoy's imagination.
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- On April 11, 1886, he arrived in Dickerson and gave the thieves
to the sheriff, after walking four days with no sleep, his Winchester
loaded and at his side. Then he asked if there wasn't a doctor
in the town. He walked into the doctor's office and sought attention
to his frozen and infected feet. He was, said Dr. Stickney, covered
in mud and all teeth and eyes.
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- I have more tales than that to tell, but what massive difference
to the life of a true president to the guy-you-would-like-to-have-a-beer-with
man in office. After he killed one of the last bison in 1883,
he became a conservationist who had the strength to prove over
230,000,000 acres of land to National Forests, National Parks,
Federal Bird Sanctuaries and National Wildlife Refuges.
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- His great effort was on November 18, 1903, a treaty signed
with Panama for building of Panama Canal, which was completed
in 1914. A great quote I loved was "Panama declared itself
independent and wanted to complete the Panama Canal, and opened
negotiations with us. I had two courses open. I might have taken
the matter under advisement and put it before the Senate, in
which case we should have had a number of most able speeches
on the subject, and they would have been going on now, and the
Panama Canal would be in the dim future yet. We would have had
a half a century of discussion afterward."
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- I would suggest if you want to read quotes, quotes and more
quotes, along with his story, go to
http://www.baxtercountyrepublicans.com/theodore_roosevelt.html
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- The best quote I would leave to the man who is a uniter rather
than a divider, you are with us or you are part of the enemy
(ahem) is;
"That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American Public." - Theodore Roosevelt.
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- At the tail end of the evening, he opened it up to questions.
A man put up his hand and Theo/Clay said, Yes ..., you seem to
be a capitalist ...? The man did not expect that response and
he could not remember his question.
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- Why, oh why, didn't I have him as my history teacher? Every
single student would learn from his great research, thoughts
and impressions.
If you want more on Theodore, I do have more stories ... please
write to Sandy or to myself at waybacktimes@xplornet.com
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- Clay S. Jenkinson, who got me into this wonderful bit of
history, is the Theodore Roosevelt Scholar-in Residence at Dickinson
State University and a consultant to the Theodore Roosevelt Medora
Foundation. He is a Rhodes and Danforth scholar, and he studied
English language and literature at the University of Minnesota
and Oxford University.
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- He is the author of six books, two on Thomas Jefferson,
three on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Theodore Roosevelt
- in the Dakota Badlands.
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- Clay is considered the nation's foremost first-person interpreter
of Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, J. Robert Oppenheimer
and Theodore Roosevelt.
Other articles by Jay Telfer
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