F. Peter Brown: Cancel Culture Comes for All - Even Our Great President Teddy Roosevelt
Is former President Teddy Roosevelt the latest target of cancel culture?
It began when museum officials at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City petitioned to move the Equestrian Statue of Teddy Roosevelt to another location. A city panel recently approved in a unanimous vote the petition to do just that.
The statue, located outside the American Museum of Natural History, shows Teddy Roosevelt on a horse.
He is joined by a Native American man on his right side and an African man on his left.
According to a New York Post editorial, the designer of the statue meant to portray the figures as “heroic,” but it is now being decried as a “symbol of colonialism and racism.”
Teddy Roosevelt was more than a great president.
He was a naturalist from his youth, a soldier, the author of many books, an amateur boxer, a hunter and an outdoorsman. He sought out various plants and animals to add to his nature collection. In fact, the president gave specimens from his hunts to the American Museum of Natural History.
Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War, proving his credentials as a man’s man. Before that, he graduated from Harvard magna cum laude. He boxed while he was at Harvard.
It is said that during his time as president of the United States, he would read at least one book a day, often three or four.
He was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishments as president, the first American to be so honored.
Roosevelt was thus one of our most distinguished presidents. He was ahead of his time on racial matters, and he invited Booker T. Washington to the White House.
Roosevelt was also a great conservationist, which makes the politically motivated decision to remove his statue at the American Museum of Natural History that much more ludicrous.
According to the Department of the Interior, “Roosevelt used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land.”
Roosevelt was both an environmentally sensitive man and a man with progressive views on race for the time.
His statue should retain its honored place in front of the American Museum of Natural History. Honor, rather than unfounded criticism, is what Theodore Roosevelt deserves.
The recent attack on Roosevelt by the cancel culture mob is repellent.
It is time to stand up to those who would recast history, turning Teddy Roosevelt into a disgraceful figure instead of the great man he was.
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