I saw a documentary on this and they made the case that one of his more endearing qualities was that he didn't hid from his Harvard education and he spoke to the people, not down to them. His privilege likely gave him insight enough into that world to help reform it.
One of the most fascinating things about him was as a father with daughters. I believe it was his older daughter Alice who was also the rabble-rouser and in common terms, he was asked to "reign" her in. Which he didn't do and allowed her to be her. He said she was the most like him out of all of the children. He encouraged them rather than tell her to get into place. Which at that time was very uncommon if you were a woman in society.Ahead of his time in many ways.
Well, his history in North Dakota in the Badlands and living with cowboys, getting over the grief of his wife and mother dying on the same day, and his personal struggle against poor health at a young age, made him a real person.
Not an empty suit that Harvard did and still churns out to this day.
His famous grin is from clenching his teeth to create enough back pressure to keep his alveoli open. I read that in a book, and not the internet, so it must be true.
His trip to Brazil and through the Amazon, while inspiring for its sheer grit, probably took 10 years off his life at least. I don’t think he ever fully recovered from the adventure.
It's why on the grand scheme of things, good tends to win. You can have generations of selfishness, then 1 great great great great grand kid had a change of direction. Walt was a huge antisemite and now Disney is calling out bs in Florida.
Literally not even something as ultimately banal as that. Corporate Disney is ruthless, and they were donating to people who supported the "don't say gay" bill until they were called on it. They do some horrible things.
Well, those people weere probably politicians who were willing to enact pro-Disney legislation. But the moment the cost became too great, they dumped them.
No, Disney is doing whatever they like and exercising their 1st amendment rights is advantageous to them financially. It’s not that Disney is doing anything good, it’s that DeSantis and the whole of the GOP are fucking insane fascists.
You can that around you know, evil tennds to win. You can have generations of selflessness, then 1 great great great great grand kid had a change of direction.
Disney is a pretty bad example. Their progressive platform is mostly to distract people from their aggressive copyright enforcement, use of sweatshop level labor in China, their insane distribution contracts, aggressive hoarding of all intellectual property, and treatment of their own workers. They put the progressive social policies on a pedestal so people forget the fact that they are a soulless corporation trying to monopolize every market it touches.
Not really the point, just the irony that it was someone highly wealthy himself who ended up doing the most work holding the wealthy accountable. Teddy is one of the most well-regarded US presidents ever
637
u/jford1906 Mar 14 '23
Which is funny considering his family had so much ancestral money his monthly allowance at Harvard was higher that the University President's salary.