President Theodore Roosevelt seemed indestructible. But an ill-fated expedition into the Amazon jungle nearly cost him everything.
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00:00President Theodore Roosevelt seemed indestructible, but an ill-fated expedition into the Amazon
00:05jungle nearly cost him everything.
00:07Born in 1958 in New York City, Theodore Roosevelt was the son of a wealthy, long-established
00:12New York family. We're talking back when old New York was once New Amsterdam. Yet as he
00:16grew older, it became all too clear that the boy had fragile health. Young Theodore was
00:21undernourished and beset by frequent fevers and respiratory issues. Most infamously, he
00:25suffered from intense asthma attacks that left him terrified and struggling for breath.
00:29Traditionally speaking, being outside could trigger more asthma attacks, but for Theodore,
00:33the trips to the outdoors to get fresh air really sparked a love for wild spaces and
00:37the sciences. And while confined to bed, Roosevelt was able to engage his mind, becoming a bookworm
00:41who consumed tales of heroic masculine figures such as Ivanhoe and Robin Hood.
00:46As Roosevelt aged, his asthma seemed to fade into the background. Roosevelt himself said
00:50that his dedication to regular exercise was a key to his improved health. Modern science
00:54today backs it up, so he was way ahead of the curve there. Yet he continued to deal
00:58with occasional asthma attacks as an adult during periods of intense stress.
01:03Roosevelt began studying at Harvard in 1876, where he met Alice Hathaway Lee. The two married
01:08on October 27, 1880. By 1882, at the age of just 24 years old, he was serving as a New
01:13York state legislator. And by 1883, the two were expecting their first child, while planning
01:18an idyllic summer home on Oyster Bay, Long Island. He seemed to have everything.
01:22Alice gave birth to a daughter, also named Alice, on February 12, 1884. Teddy was away
01:27in the state capital of Albany, but on February 13, a telegram carried the news that his wife's
01:31health was deteriorating rapidly. He rushed home and arrived the next day. That's Valentine's
01:36Day if you're following along. There, he discovered a double horror. His beloved mother Martha
01:41had died earlier that day of typhoid fever in the same house in which, mere hours later,
01:45his wife Alice, too, died of an inflammation of the kidneys.
01:48Teddy shortly took to his diary, but only wrote that,
01:51"...the light has gone out of my life," and marked the page with a black X.
01:54A later entry recounted the union between Teddy and Alice, with Roosevelt writing,
01:58"...we spent three years of happiness, greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known
02:02fall to the lot of others."
02:05After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt left for property he owned in the Dakota Territory.
02:09Mostly he was just getting away from everything — pain, the politics, all of it. Though
02:14he found time to write three books as well. And when he finally returned to his political
02:17ambitions, his time in the West gave him a new manly image that boosted his career.
02:21"...and now he could say he was a cowboy."
02:24But it came at a cost. Roosevelt destroyed letters that mentioned his deceased wife Alice
02:28and refused to speak of her for the rest of his life. His young daughter Alice grew to
02:31have a complicated relationship with her energetic and famous father. When he remarried to Edith
02:36Kermit Carrow in 1886, Alice found herself competing for attention with Teddy's growing
02:41new family, a likely motivation for her hell-raising behavior and oftentimes sarcastic personality.
02:46After a second marriage, Roosevelt seemed to find new vigor for life, basically returning
02:50to the East full-time and becoming the assistant secretary of the Navy. He left that office
02:54to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War, and gained a masculine, heroic image
02:59for leading the Rough Riders Cavalry Regiment in the Battle of San Juan Hill. As a Republican,
03:03he then proceeded to win the election for governor of New York in 1898. In 1901, he
03:08ascended even further up the political ladder, becoming vice president as part of William
03:12McKinley's administration.
03:13Yet Roosevelt was hardly excited about the job. When McKinley was elected, he grumbled
03:18to a reporter, saying,
03:19"'This election tonight means my political death.'"
03:21He was pushed into the infamously powerless role by New York Republicans who had found
03:25the boisterous, reformed-minded man troublesome. You see, McKinley's vice president, Garrett
03:29Pobart, died in office. So when McKinley needed a new VP on his re-election ticket, the power
03:34brokers decided they'd just bury Roosevelt in that meaningless position and be done with
03:38him.
03:39Yet party chairman Mark Hanna was still nervous, reportedly exclaiming,
03:42"'Don't any of you realize there's only one life between that madman and the presidency?'
03:46Several months into the administration, Hanna was proven all too right. In September, an
03:50assassin shot McKinley while the president was attending the Pan-American Exposition
03:54in Buffalo, New York. McKinley's abdominal wound became infected, and he died on September
03:5814. Roosevelt suddenly became the nation's youngest ever president at age 42. Roosevelt's
04:04subsequent term was successful enough that he won the 1904 election on his own.
04:08He was able to make a name for himself, make an impression, and accomplish a great deal
04:14wherever he landed.
04:16Theodore Roosevelt's life was marked with periods of deep depression, as well as periods
04:20of boundless energy and activity. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental
04:24Disease suggested that Roosevelt may have had bipolar disorder. However, the medical
04:29world's understanding of mental health is very different now than it was during Roosevelt's
04:33life, so this is still speculation, as obviously no diagnosis was made while he was alive.
04:38Still, a history of the Roosevelt family includes quite a few cases of apparent mental health
04:42struggles. Theodore's brother, Elliot, dealt with substance abuse and may have taken his
04:46own life. Theodore's son, Kermit, was highly accomplished and productive, and also experienced
04:50depression and alcohol abuse, and took his own life in Alaska in 1943. Daughter Alice
04:55may have exhibited manic symptoms of bipolar disorder, while her daughter Paulina experienced
05:00depression and also died by her own hand, just like her uncle. There's also Quentin,
05:04who was a lot like his father, Theodore. We'll get to him in a bit, just keep watching.
05:09By 1912, Roosevelt had already served almost two full terms as president and had garnered
05:13a reputation as a progressive modernizer and U.S. expansionist. In 1906, while still president,
05:18he had even been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for shepherding a diplomatic end to the Russo-Japanese
05:23War. He was supposed to be enjoying the post-presidency life afforded to past presidents.
05:28But then there was the problem of William Howard Taft. Once a protege of Roosevelt,
05:32Taft had been elected president once, and was running for another term as a Republican
05:36in the 1912 election. Yet he ran on a platform that Roosevelt had deemed overly conservative.
05:41Theodore sought to put the country more in the direction he wanted, so he challenged
05:44Taft for the nomination, and chaos ensued. Theodore actually won the majority of the
05:48primary votes, but Taft and his backers actually controlled the convention. So you know what
05:52that means. Taft got the nomination.
05:55And in a sense, Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate for the Progressive Party, popularly
05:59known as the Bull Moose Party. The rift between the two men, which split the Republican Party,
06:03was only truly ended by Roosevelt's death.
06:07On the evening of October 14, 1912, during the fraud election campaign against Taft and
06:11Democrat Woodrow Wilson, an assassin named John Schrank shot Roosevelt with a revolver.
06:16However, the bullet first struck Roosevelt's overcoat pocket, which contained a lengthy
06:20speech and his metal eyeglasses case. This slowed the projectile enough that, while it
06:24still entered Roosevelt's body, it did not kill him. He went ahead with his speech, because
06:29of course he did, dramatically telling the audience that he had just been shot and that
06:33the bullet was still inside him. He only went to the hospital once the speech concluded.
06:37Fifty minutes later. That's 5-0. Fifty.
06:39Though he played it off to his wife Edith as a mere flesh wound, the projectile had
06:43stopped just short of striking major organs. Doctors decided to leave it lodged next to
06:48a rib, perhaps remembering how an infected bullet wound had killed President Kinley.
06:52But though the incident boosted support for Roosevelt, it wasn't enough. With the Republican
06:56vote fractured between Taft and Roosevelt, Wilson won and became the next U.S. president.
07:01"...Roosevelt, with 27 percent of the popular vote, pulled a higher percentage than any
07:07third-party candidate in history has done."
07:11While the 1912 assassination attempt on his life had some obvious repercussions for Roosevelt,
07:15it also had a less obvious effect on his arthritis. Reportedly, the intensity of his injuries
07:20and the presence of that bullet exacerbated pre-existing arthritis, making his joints
07:24all the more uncomfortable for Roosevelt in the remaining years left to him.
07:27Speaking to Today's Wound Clinic in 2018, Susan Sarna, the chief of cultural resources
07:33at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, said that arthritis was an increasingly difficult
07:37problem for the president as he aged, causing painfully swollen joints that contributed
07:41to issues he had with walking. His mayor may not have been familial, as his older sister
07:45Anna dealt with serious attacks of arthritis throughout her adult life.
07:49With the 1912 presidential election lost to Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt found himself hanging
07:54around New York at loose ends. Then, he received a fateful letter inviting him to go on a speaking
07:58tour throughout South America. This appealed to the adventurous Roosevelt, who won up the
08:02plan by tacking on a specimen collection expedition on the Amazon River, bringing in a couple
08:07of naturalists from the American Museum of Natural History. Once there, he upped the
08:10ante again and decided that it was just the right time to attempt to map the Amazon tributary
08:15known rather ominously as the River of Doubt.
08:18Good thing Roosevelt's young adult son Kermit was already in Brazil and volunteered to join
08:22the group, in part because Roosevelt's wife Edith was worried that her aging husband was
08:26going to really overdo it this time. Edith was right. Things started off well enough,
08:30with Roosevelt showcasing his classic energy and enthusiasm. But illness, insects, accidents,
08:36rushing waters, insects, insects, and supply issues plagued the dwindling group. And insects,
08:41if I didn't mention that.
08:42As the weeks wore on, Roosevelt eventually grew seriously ill and endured an infected
08:47leg wound, exasperated by insects. At one point, he even demanded that Kermit leave
08:51him behind to perish.
08:52There was something in Roosevelt's character that required him to take on challenges, however
08:59risky they might seem.
09:01Kermit refused, and eventually Theodore rallied, finished the trip, and returned to New York
09:05in May 1914. Yet the trip took a serious toll on his health, and Roosevelt finally retired
09:10from the adventuring life, later blaming some of his ongoing medical issues on his Brazilian
09:14misadventure.
09:16The youngest of Theodore's children was born on November 19, 1897. Quentin appeared to
09:21have inherited his father's extroverted charm and considerable energy. Following in the
09:25footsteps of his father and other members of the family, Quentin also began attending
09:28Harvard in 1915. But the educational path changed for him when the U.S. entered World
09:33War I in April 1917.
09:35Quentin quit college and joined the U.S. Army Air Service to become a combat pilot in Europe.
09:39There, he was shot down in the skies over France on July 14, 1918. Four days later,
09:44Quentin's death was reported, though his family didn't get official word until July 20.
09:49For Theodore, who had been a vocal advocate for the U.S. joining the war and encouraged
09:53his own sons to join up, this was an especially painful blow. Writing to the French prime
09:57minister in July 1918, he claimed that,
09:59"...it is very bitter to me that I was not allowed to face the danger with my sons."
10:04He wrote to others that he was proud of his sons' bravery and sacrifice, but admitted
10:07to daughter-in-law Belle Willard Roosevelt in August 1918,
10:10"...it is no use pretending that Quentin's death is not very terrible. As for mother,
10:15her heart will ache for Quentin until she dies."
10:18Though Roosevelt was clearly aging, it still came as a shock to the nation that the man
10:22famed across the globe for his energy and vitality had died suddenly in his sleep. He
10:26was just 60 years old. His obituary, published in The New York Times right after his January
10:301919 passing, reported that his death shocked not only the nation, but Roosevelt's own doctors,
10:36who concluded that he'd been felled by a pulmonary embolism.
10:39The grim details of his death included the fact that he had suffered from inflammatory
10:43rheumatism — and in case you're wondering, that's brought on by arthritis. Though they
10:47had been political opponents, President Wilson officially announced Roosevelt's death the
10:50next day. He directed that all U.S. flags be flown at half-staff in Roosevelt's honor,
10:55writing,
10:56"...in his death the United States has lost one of its most distinguished and patriotic
10:59citizens, who had endeared himself to the people by his strenuous devotion to their
11:03interests and to the public interests of his country."