Theodore Roosevelt’s “Strenuous Life”

In 1899, a bold, unbridled New Yorker, half cowboy, half soldier, at once Harvard-educated but a former police commissioner, began dropping truth bombs on America’s political elites. They hated him. He called out their fraud, moral, mental, and physical weakness. He was Theodore Roosevelt.

In time, he would become vice president, then president. He would win the Medal of Honor for courage in combat. He would win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Russo-Japanese War. A Columbia-trained lawyer, he would bring down monopolies, stop crippling strikes, end child labor,  build the Panama Canal, send the “great white fleet” around the world to deter wars, and die at 60.

The path of light cast by this remarkable, morally-centered, idealistic, yet doggedly realistic figure in American history has produced more than three dozen major biographies, not including his own autobiography, 37 books on nature, war, diplomacy, science, and life, and 150,000 letters.

Of all his books and speeches, one of which he delivered after being shot in the chest, perhaps his most memorable is a speech, a later book chapter, and a book title called “The Strenuous Life.” He delivered it in Chicago, 127 years ago, while serving as the crime-fighting governor of New York.

From the title, you might think it was about being a strong individual, living fully, your face to the wind, doing the hard thing, and doing it with intention, getting stronger by living a “strenuous life.” In one sense, it was, and if it did nothing more, that would be a good reason to read it. But it did more.

The speech was an appeal to individual Americans to value their history and work ethic, act with courage, faith, and determination, but also for America never to shrink, to be a strong nation. A few segments of the speech, which sits beside me, are worth rethinking now, because they are true.

“A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole.”

Do we still understand his meaning? Do we understand that sloth is the death of self-respect? Do we grasp that peace without purpose, taking money without striving, is the death of an honest soul? Do we still demand of ourselves that we rise and work, find purpose, and that our children do?

He continued. “A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life… it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world. In the last analysis, a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.”

Ask yourself, are we those people? For all our failings – and we all have them – are we yet striving, seeking to do better, training our children to understand that America and their good fortune are not an accident, but are the product of generations of intense sacrifice, overcoming difficulties? Do they understand – as we were taught – that all “triumph” comes from “toil and risk,” none without it?

Theodore Roosevelt, who had overcome much, then wrote this line, which many know: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”  Do we rise and try, become resilient, or shrink and sigh?

He presses us as individuals and a nation to reach higher. “We of this generation do not have to face a task such as that our fathers faced, but we have our tasks, and woe to us if we fail to perform them…We must demand the highest order of integrity and ability in our public men…” But do we?

In closing, he ends this way: “I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor…Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and word; resolute to be honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods.”

America will not soon again see the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, unyielding patriot, fierce fighter for American ideals, yet by his nature, a fair-minded arbiter, practical idealist. In a time of short tempers, lost compass, little interest in history, idealism, or sacrifice, we could use more of his type.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!