For one thing, in the current environment a man called "Theodore" must be light in his loafers; for another, his actions indicate a tendency to government overreach and generalized socialism:'
A Deadly Heat Wave and a Roosevelt’s Rise
By SAM ROBERTS
HOT enough for you? In 1896, a blazing 10-day heat wave killed nearly 1,500 New Yorkers and, arguably, burnished the progressive and populist credentials of a young police commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt.
Edward P. Kohn, a historian, brings that forgotten natural disaster to light in “Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt” (Basic Books, $27.95). While Roosevelt was elevated by having the streets hosed and delivering ice to the poor, Professor Kohn argues, the presidential ambitions of William Jennings Bryan, who came to town to accept the Democratic nomination, evaporated. Nearly 10,000 fans braved the heat to hear him in Madison Square Garden; by the time he finished, fewer than half remained.
“The average victim of the heat wave was a workingman, probably Irish, living in the most impoverished and squalid of conditions,” Professor Kohn writes. “As he and his brethren died, the philanthropists of the Progressive Era called for reform on all levels: of working conditions and work hours, of housing conditions, of sanitary conditions, of government conditions that allowed corruption and of economic conditions that had made New Yorkers of August 1896 so susceptible to death and disease in the first place.”
“Such changes would take decades,” he concludes, “but a natural disaster occurring during such an age of reform created a potent catalyst for change.”
No comments:
Post a Comment