GENIUS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS 



PLACE AMONG HISTORIC PERSONALITIES 



Frederick Adams Woods 

 Lecturer on Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 



NOW that Theodore Roosevelt 

 has passed away, the whole 

 world is ready to acclaim what 

 only a small faction formerly 

 perceived; that this extraordinary man 

 was not only one of the greatest of all 

 Americans, but was in his characteristics 

 and conduct essentially a man of genius. 



The general unwillingness or inability 

 to justly estimate our former national 

 leader arose from several causes by no 

 means unique in his case, but rather 

 the exemplification of the eternal rela- 

 tion of the man of genius to the men 

 whom he seeks to persuade. 



If the pioneer is a man of science or 

 an artist, he has his small group of 

 doubting professional colleagues who 

 need to be shown the way. If the 

 artist or scientist has found a new truth, 

 it is not usually long before this is 

 accepted. Such men, if they be really 

 great and live to a ripe old age, are 

 almost sure to receive phenomenal 

 recognition before they die. Names 

 swell into memory to support such a 

 view: Newton, Boyle, Darwin, Lister, 

 Kelvin, Ramsay, Franklin, Rumford, 

 Pasteur, Cuvier, Fabre, Linnaeus, La- 

 grange, Laplace, Tycho Brahe. Goethe, 

 Kant, Hclmholtz and Faraday, Titian, 

 Michael Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo, 

 Rubens, Van Dyke, Holbein, Durer, 

 Millet, Corot, Whistler, Hogarth, Rey- 

 nolds and many others, all received, if 

 not ample, at least very distinguished 

 recognition during their actual lives. 

 There are exceptions. Copernicus was 

 long unappreciated, Galileo had a hard 

 time, and Mendel was unknown until 

 years after his death. Manet, the 

 founder of impressionism, was only in 

 part appreciated. He died at the age 



300 



of fifty — a recipient of the Legion of 

 Honor. William Blake lived to be 

 seventy, too long for his own happiness. 

 He died in poverty and obscurity. 

 There have been other martyrs to 

 science and art. It is perhaps the 

 popular conception of the tyj^ical man 

 of genius that he is unrecognized in his 

 day. But this is not the truth of the 

 matter. It is like many other popular 

 misconceptions, built upon the almost 

 unavoidable tendency to note and 

 remember the unusual and thus mistake 

 the exception for the inile. Scientists, 

 artists and musicians, even if bringing 

 the best of news, all require time for 

 its acceptance. The experts and the 

 critics must be convinced; after that 

 the public are easily made to follow 

 on gregariously. There comes a day 

 when opposition is negligible. Not so 

 with the political genius. He always 

 has to face a mighty opposition even 

 to the day of his death. It lies in the 

 nature of political and party bias and 

 is inherent in the kind of work that is 

 his. "A fight from start to finish," 

 but there never is a finish, never was, 

 nor can there conceivably be a finish, 

 where the particular fonn of manifes- 

 tation of genius is the leading of human 

 groups. For there will always remain 

 a very formidable aggregate of humans 

 who, rightly or wrongly, even if it be 

 a truth, cannot be made to see it that 

 way. 



It is essentially a different kind of 

 problem, for here truth is not absolute 

 and "right" — is always related to 

 somebody's best interests. Even if it 

 be made into the phrase, the "best 

 interests of all," it will be impossible 

 to bring all parties into agreement. 



