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Contact Jim: jdipeso@rep.org (253) 740-2066 / 2009 Archive / 2008 Archive / 2007 Archive / 2006 Archive / 2005 Archive
Celebrating TR's 150th Birthday with Lessons for Today
October 27, 2008
One hundred and fifty years ago today, a boy was born to a New York philanthropist and his Georgia wife.
The boy, nicknamed “Teedie” by his family, was sickly and
homebound during his early years. He busied himself with science
projects and reading. Fascinated with animals, he might have made his
mark in life as a wildlife scientist.
Instead, Teedie overcame his childhood debilitations through discipline
and hard work, and then went into the rough-and-tumble world of
politics.
We know him by his given name, Theodore, and we celebrate the vast
legacy of stewardship that he left behind during his tumultuous
presidency, which was drawing to a close 100 years ago this year.
Republicans who face a pasting at the polls next week, followed by an
extended period in the wilderness, could do worse than to visit an
actual wilderness — perhaps a preserve within one of the forests
or wildlife refuges that fellow Republican Theodore Roosevelt protected
— and rediscover their bearings as the inheritors of Edmund
Burke’s conservative tradition of stewardship.
For too long, too many Republicans have been tone deaf to protecting
and conserving the environment that shaped our nation’s history,
formed its liberty-loving, enterprising culture, and furnished the
natural riches that made America the wealthiest civilization in the
history of the world.
Too many Republicans have stood idly by, arms folded and minds closed,
while the political left usurped the conservative heritage of
conservation, made conservation synonymous with liberalism, and turned
it into a partisan wedge issue.
Theodore Roosevelt would never have allowed that to happen. As he did a
century ago, so he would do today — take his party by the lapels
and pull it, kicking and screaming, into a new century where new
questions — energy, water, biological diversity, and climate
change among them — demand new sets of conservative answers.
It’s something to ponder on the 150th anniversary of the birth of
the great Republican conservationist and great American leader.
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