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Teddy Roosevelt may not take Oyster Bay New York as easily as Kettle Hill. Local residents are beginning to question the need, size, and location of the Theodore Roosevelt Association’s proposed museum.

Newsday reports the natives growing restless, with one resident leading off a community forum with

“How do we stop this? I got the impression this was being rammed down our throats.”

If TR Association Executive Director James Bruns fails he will at least fail while daring greatly:

“to do a presidential museum of a figure as prominent as Theodore Roosevelt you need a minimum of 80,000 square feet.”

How the Bush Library copes with 21,000 square feet, and the Clinton with 20,000 is unknown. And even if they are fudging their numbers, are they doing so by a factor of four?

The National Archives Doc ‘O The Day for Saturday

Surfacing this picture gives the Archives reason enough to link to a 1998 article in their publication “Prologue,” “I Am Entitled to the Medal of Honor and I Want It” Theodore Roosevelt and His Quest for Glory

The story is a trawl through the documents and secondary sources on Roosevelt’s brief combat experience near Santiago Cuba with the Rough Riders, doing his part lifting Spanish Tyranny from the grateful Cuban people [and of course to protect our white women.]

It’s quite a tale. The author points out that Roosevelt’s charge was up Kettle Hill, not neighboring San Juan Hill, and that “By the time the assault reached the top of Kettle Hill the ground was practically deserted by the Spanish soldiers.”

Roosevelt backed up his medal of honor pitch with documents from his superior officers. But the article points out none of them were there, and they largely replicated second hand documents or repeated what he had told them.

The Theodore Roosevelt Association claimed the author was biased, but perhaps what they object to is the comic effect he achieves quoting TR bluster:

“I don’t know who saw me throughout the fight, because I was almost always in the front and could not tell who was close behind me, and was paying no attention to it.”

He didn’t get the medal, he became President and the issue slumbered. During the 90s an effort to right past military awards wrongs against African-American soldiers was piggy-backed by Roosevelt fans, and Congress passed a bill asking for another review of the record. Which found against Roosevelt.

His Great-Grandson Tweed Roosevelt finally received the award during Bill Clinton’s last week in office. This instance is not generally attacked as part of Clinton’s shall we say generous use of his pen on the way out.

In the citation it became once again “a desperate and gallant charge up San Juan Hill.”

Clinton was at his wistful, head tilting, wondering best as he repeated the misinformation Roosevelt generated:

“Two high-ranking military officers who had won the Medal of Honor in earlier wars and who saw Theodore Roosevelt’s bravery recommended him for the medal, too. For some reason, the War Department never acted on the recommendation…”

Gambling Great Harry Truman

Poker News calls the roll of Presidential poker players: Grant, Harding, both Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower and Nixon. They are summoning up the ghosts of gaming past to defend….online gambling!

“It’s hard to imagine that a pastime that these men, arguably considered pillars of American history, could be condemned by so many just because there is an element of luck and gamble mixed in with the skill needed to be successful in the game.Perhaps America’s legislators should take a look at these presidents and the game of poker in America’s history before condemning the online gambling industry. If the game is good enough for presidents to play, it’s good enough for people to be playing online from the comfort of their own homes.”

Better press than usual for Warren Harding – moving on up!

The dream of a Teddy Roosevelt Museum on an Oyster Bay Long Island flood plain is one step closer to reality.

The Town Council has signed on to the project, a million dollars in pledges have been, um, pledged, and all that remains is designing an actual building and raising the $99 million more needed to complete the vision. [That’s more than Bush Senior’s Library cost, less than Clinton’s, but only a fifth of the projected George W. Bush Presidential Library!]

The Oyster Bay Enterprise-Pilot rounded up a variety of local opinion, with more skeptics than fans. Naysayers focus on traffic, parking, flooding, traffic, some more traffic, and who pays. And the environmental impact of saluting the Great Conservationist.

“If it gets the visitors they claim there will be too many toilet flushes.”

– Centre Island Mayor Jack Williams

The Mayor of Oyster Bay Cove, another nearby town, lays it out:

“I don’t understand why it’s needed and – who is going to support it? Sagamore Hill [nearby TR home] is not open every day for lack of financing so I don’t understand about the deal. “

The museum planers remain enthused The Northender wrote that the Roosevelt Association Director sold Oysterians hard:

“Mr. Bruns said that the presidential museums dedicated to other presidents are in the places they considered their hometowns. ”

Not lately. Atlanta? College Station? Simi Valley? They all exist at vaguely plausible locations near the merger of real estate and cash.

Bruns also did some Big Stickin’ touting the “threat” that the Teddyists will take their ball to Boston or Washington:

“We plan to take the reasonable time to talk with the community, to present to the community what we’re proposing. But if this becomes one of those things that is just a protracted issue, I think then it would be more appropriate for us to think about another site.”

Quite a recovery for the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Earlier this year Newsday reported [original no longer on line] that “the previous choice for president declined the job at the last minute and some historians have said the group lacks a purpose and should dissolve.” Roosevelt [and quirky Reagan] biographer was among those opposing going big with a museum.

The Association needs work in other areas. It’s web site’s “Breaking News” section urgently enthuses about a looming television broadcast. In 2003.

He’s Everywhere!  

As the dream of a flood plain-based Long Island Theodore Roosevelt Library remains but a vision, the Peace Garden State is surging ahead.Teddy Roosevelt once shot a buffalo in North Dakota, and they’ve never recovered.

“Theodore Roosevelt was the nation`s 26th president but number one in a lot of North Dakotans` hearts. He has his image forever etched in the side of Mount Rushmore, but lacks one thing that most modern day presidents have: a Presidential Library. Dickinson State University is gearing up to change that.”

Such is the passion for the future president’s passing through the state that North Dakotans have decided to beat Long Island in the race to become the nation’s premier depository of other archives’ Roosevelt documents.

The Long Island effort also promises to be pretty much free of anything original, but KFYR TV reports North Dakota is already creating facsimilies on the ground.  They are part way through the effort to archive other libraries holdings.