American
History Scrubbed Clean: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Peter
Schultz
I am currently reading Doris Kearns
Goodwin’s book, The Bully Pulpit, about
Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft and what Goodwin calls “the golden age
of journalism.” Of course, Goodwin is a reputable historian and should be, but
there are some strange aspects to her work.
For example, in her discussion of
the onset of the Spanish American War, Goodwin argues, as many have, that
Roosevelt was a proponent of that war while President McKinley was trying,
vainly it turned out, to keep the United States out of any war with Spain. Yet
in the course of her argument, it becomes clear that Roosevelt was not so much
in favor of a war with Spain because of what was being done to the Cubans but
that Roosevelt was, in fact, in favor of any war. Roosevelt was of course
concerned with the treatment of the Cubans but he also was looking for a war to
fight because he thought war, apparently any war, was worthwhile.
Roosevelt
said that he “would rather welcome a foreign war.” “The victories of peace are
great; but the victories of war are greater. No merchant, no banker, no
railroad magnate, no inventor of improved industrial processes, and do for any
nation what can be done for it by its great fighting men.” And it would seem
that Roosevelt thought that “fighting men” were “great” by virtue of the fact
that they were warriors. “Every man who has in him any real power of joy in
battle knows that he feels it when the wolf begins to rise up in his heart; he
does not shrink from blood and sweat, or deem them to mar the fight; he revels
in them, in the toil, the pain and the danger, as but setting off the triumph.”
Roosevelt, who had never seen battle before the Spanish American War, welcomed
the coming of that war and the chance for him to fight in it. He even said that
he would leave his wife were she on her death bed if necessary to fight in that
war, a thought to be taken seriously as his wife was seriously ill when
Roosevelt went off to fight in Cuba.
McKinley,
on the other hand, according to Goodwin, recalling his participation in the
Civil War, where he had “seen the dead pile up” at Antietam. “prayed for
peace.” The interesting thing though is that Goodwin treats Roosevelt and
McKinley and their stances toward war as equal, as just two different takes on
war and its role in human affairs. She does say Roosevelt wrote “blithely”
about war but that is the extent of her commentary on Roosevelt’s war
mongering. Apparently, a war monger like Roosevelt and a person like McKinley
who was praying for peace are both well-intentioned human beings seeking what
is best for the nation. So no judgment need be arrived at regarding these two
men and their different takes on war. They were both patriots who meant well
even though one embraced war as humanizing while the other saw it as
dehumanizing.
Another
aspect to Goodwin’s treatment of the Spanish American War is that she does not
raise a doubt as to whether McKinley was as against the war as he pretended to
be. To not raise this issue, Goodwin has to buy the idea that while McKinley
was not pro-war, he appointed Roosevelt to be assistant secretary of the Navy
knowing full well of Roosevelt’s pro-war views. Why did McKinley do that? Well,
because he was pressured by Roosevelt’s friends to do so. He didn’t want to
appoint Roosevelt but he did it anyway when pressure was applied. McKinley,
struggling bravely apparently to stay out of war with Spain, appointed someone
to a position of considerable power who had made it known that he was in favor
of a war with Spain. This requires that one pretend to know McKinley’s motives,
while pretty much ignoring his actions and their consequences. Goodwin also
treats McKinley’s sending the battleship Maine
to Havana harbor with the same innocence, merely quoting what McKinley had said
at the time, viz., that this was “’an act of friendly courtesy’ to the Cuban
people.”
Note
should be taken that as presented by Goodwin, McKinley was a man who was not
powerful enough to stand his ground in favor of peace in Cuba, appointing
Roosevelt despite his, Roosevelt’s, clear and strong preference for war.
Moreover, McKinley was not a manipulative person, that is, was not a person who
would seek to get what he wanted by indirection, if sending a battleship to a
foreign harbor amidst significant tensions can be properly called
“indirection.” No one reading Goodwin’s account of this period in our history,
a period that saw a break with what had been the traditional modest foreign
policy of the US, would think that this break was the work of human beings like
Roosevelt and McKinley. And they would probably come to think that the onset of
an imperial foreign policy, what was then called “the large policy,” was the
result of forces beyond the control of US politicians. The US just kind of
wandered into a war with Spain, that resulted in the acquisition of the
Philippines. And although at the same time the US was about to annex Hawai’i,
that shouldn’t lead one to think that the US chose to embrace an imperial
foreign policy.
As
a result of history like that written by Goodwin, there is very little to
question about US political or military actions. For the actors are all
well-intentioned, transparent, and basically good people and decent
politicians. There is no reason to study history for the reasons Jefferson
recommended, viz., so people could learn the dangers of oppressive government
and the consequences of bad choices. At most, people should study history to
see the mistakes that were made by well-intentioned, decent human beings. It
might have been a mistake for the US to “take” the Philippines, for example,
but it was not a policy that resulted from defective politicians who had
embraced defective but nonetheless American values.
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