Posts Tagged ‘president roosevelt’

A majority of the American people have been concerned about President Obama’s restful vacation schedule, a veritable disconnect between he and thee as the country withers under Obama’s long, hot, recovery summer.

As it turns out, insufferably long vacations are just another dormant progressive tradition brought back to full vigor. Below, find an article from what was then known as the Perrysburg Journal, circa July 1907.

America lost its journalistic innocence for good and all in the last couple of years. Even so, we have the tendency to believe that at some point back in time, news givers were honest and neutral in their reporting.

As a student of history, I realize that different time periods have different customs. I have always made allowances. Longer vacations, for example, were more common back then, for people who had the time, means, and circumstances for them.

However, lately, I have come to the conclusion that some things are universal. FOUR months vacation for the chief executive of the United States…and he’s not taking calls? And the news media gushes bully good cheer?

Read this “neutral” piece from 1907 on the subject of presidential vacations. (The author is not stated) Liken it to what you’re hearing these days, if you are one of the diminishing breed that monitors the mainstream media.

I believe the article is exactly 180 degrees out from what it should have been. I believe I would have entitled the piece, “President Takes Some Time From Busy Vacation Schedule To Do A Little Of The Nation’s Business Occasionally.”

I have always been a TR supporter, I built the graphic below, respectfully, of bits and pieces from the time.

Like you, I loved his Big Stick theory and his attitude to conservation and hunting. However, lately, as we learn of his progressive ways, he seems, now, tarnished. The article included does not improve on the growing stain.

The people who were alive in 1907, though without Rush, Glenn, Sean, and Fox News, were not stupid. Make of the article what you will.

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The President’s Vacation
Roosevelt Always in Touch with Affairs of the Nation

DEVOTES PART OF EVERY DAY TO PUBLIC AFFAIRS
OYSTER BAY July 1907.

Although President Roosevelt is settled down at Oyster Bay for a four months’ vacation he will not be able to escape from a good deal of the labors and duties of his job. The public business at Washington goes on just the same.

There are officials to appoint, questions of policy to decide, commissions in the army and navy to sign, many other things that no one but the president can attend to, and which President Roosevelt would let no other man attend to even if he had the power.

While he spends the summer In his modest and comfortable country house at Sagamore Hill he is obliged to devote a few hours a day often more than a few to the nation’s business.

When the president went down to Oyster Bay recently he was accompanied by Secretary Loeb, Assistant Secretary Latta, and four clerks from the executive staff at Washington.

They began work next day in the executive offices In the village of Oyster Bay, three miles from the president’s house. These offices are connected by direct wire with the executive offices adjoining the White House at Washington. The clerks at the capital are therefore in as close touch with their immediate chief, Mr. Loeb, as if he were in his own office there.

Mr. Loeb, in turn, is in constant touch with the president. The whole arrangement works out in the same manner as if the capital and all the departments had been moved from Washington to Oyster Bay.

One difference is that the president never visits the executive offices in Oyster Bay. Whatever business requires to be brought to his attention is taken up by Secretary Loeb to Sagamore Hill. Mr. Loeb goes to the president in the forenoon about 11 o’clock, after he has gone through the mall and sorted out from it the letters and official papers which need to pass under the executive eye or hand. Some days Mr. Loeb gets back to the village in time to put in an hour’s work before luncheon. More often his luncheon has to wait an hour for him.

The executive offices at “the summer capital,” as Oyster Bay folk take pride in calling their village, never fail to Impress visitors by their unpretentiousness. They consist of seven office rooms and a storeroom, into which a loft above a corner grocery has been divided. Mr. Moore, the enterprising purveyor of pure food to the villagers and surrounding gentry, is a famous man every summer. The whole country hears each summer in the press dispatches of “the executive offices over Moore’s grocery.”

Mr. Moore’s pride would be greater if the president should come down some day and transact some important piece of business there. It would be a fluke 87.

The cabinet is rarely called together in the president’s vacation, and then only to consider matters regarded as of the highest importance.

Nevertheless, in the course of a summer most of the members of the cabinet pay a visit, either of business or friendship to Sagamore Hill. They often dine and sleep there. Some of the president’s closest friends in the senate, members of the “tennis” cabinet, or literary cronies, are overnight guests. But most of Mr. Roosevelt’s visitors who call by appointment are asked to arrive in the forenoon and to stay for luncheon.

It is the impression at Oyster Bay that there will be many such visits by the closest political friends of the administration from next week on. The master of Sagamore Hill Is watching with the closest scrutiny the development of the campaign for the nomination of his successor, and it is likely that he will have frequent consultations with the leading statesmen who are devoted to him and his policies.