Teddy, Jake and Healthcare

Jacob Riis

What makes you think Teddy Roosevelt did NOT succeed at Healthcare?

He surely did.

He had the help of Jacob Riis.  People who go over the Marine Parkway Bridge, guess it’s called the Gil Hodges Bridge now, from Brooklyn into the peninsula portion of Queens know where Riis Park is.  At the tip of the peninsula, Breezy Point.  Jacob Riis was a photojournalist.  His stories and his photos changed political policies.  Devoted Listeners to The Right Perspective know that Cheryl always likes to call the journalists in today’s media lousy, lying, low-life, lecherous, left-wing leaning liberals; so when I compliment Jacob Riis that means that he is being singled out for a high honor.

Jacob Riis started out as a trainee at the New York News Association, writing about not only the rich, but also about communities suffering from poverty.  On to being a police reporter at the New York Tribune.  That really gave him exposure to crime, poverty, and slums.  His writing style developed.  Then along came FLASH; photography in 1887 added something new so that a picture could be taken with some type of flashlight.  He had tried words, but if only he could get a photo to show what he wanted to describe.

Bandit's Roost by Jacob Riis, from How the Other Half Lives

Time, photographic technology developments, lectures, meeting people and then we arrive at 1889.  How the Other Half Lives, 18 pages written by Jacob Riis, 19 of his photographs, one article published in Scribner’s Magazine.  Now he’s getting attention.  Riis becomes a reporter at the New York Sun; his article grows into a book How the Other Half Lives, and the book not only receives wide attention but becomes a best seller.

Water, water became a major focus for Riis.  Public Works, Water, and the Croton Watershed; so that by 1891 in August he had the story appear in the New York Evening Sun, “Some Things We Drink”.  That may have saved New York from the water-borne disease cholera.  By 1892 he has written another book, Children of the Poor.

Teddy Roosevelt, circa 1885

Along comes the president of the Board of Commissioners of the New York City Police Department, Theodore Roosevelt in 1895.  You were wondering when the two teamed up.  What we would call public works programs soon emerged.  Roosevelt of course was influential in making sure that New York City eliminate the conditions that breed crime, disease and poverty in slums.  Public awareness, political influence, and a willing tenement populace.  The tenement dwellers wanted better sanitation conditions, education for their children, better working conditions, and opportunity to earn a living wage.  The tenement dwellers succeeded on all fronts.  And then they moved out of the tenements and became the middle class.  They assimilated into the culture of America, all calling themselves Americans, no matter where they came from.  When Roosevelt was President he wrote about Riis, “The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City.”

When Teddy Roosevelt was President he was proud that America had become a global power.  He wanted the citizens of America to be fit and healthy.  You couldn’t be a global power if your citizenry was sick and diseased.  Roosevelt believed in the “Strenuous Life”, he himself had been sickly as a child.  The citizenry must work to make themselves healthy.  “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America” by Douglas Brinkley tells you all you need to know about Roosevelt’s love for nature, the environment, conservation and patriotism.  Roosevelt’s health care approach involved what the individual did, how the municipality provided proper sanitation and living conditions, and how the working conditions and environment protected the worker.

The only time Theodore Roosevelt got involved with socialistic approaches to healthcare was in the failed bid for re-election to the Presidency; 1912.  Four men were in the race.  Taft, who was already President; Wilson, who would win; Roosevelt, who would lose; and Eugene V. Debs, who really pushed all these socialistic ideas onto the voting public.  Roosevelt was not for socialized medicine.  He is quoted as saying, “If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others.  He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.”

So much for starting a third political party.

Roosevelt had called it the Progressive party; but because a reporter asked him how he felt and he had answered, Fit As A Moose, it was called the Bull Moose party.  Progressive, not socialistic.

Roosevelt had wanted employers, business owners, to provide safe, clean working conditions for employees.  The union movement, the labor movement were looking for healthy, safe conditions.  That was the direction the country was taking.

March 25, 1911

Ninety-nine years ago.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Maybe that’s why during the election of 1912 horrifying working conditions were a major issue.  Maybe that’s why safe, productive, healthy working environments were a major issue.

Maybe that’s why politicians were concerned about the health of the voting class.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Dead – 146

Injured – 70

Coffins on the sidewalk

Wikipedia says “the worst workplace disaster in New York City until September 11, 2001”.

No, Roosevelt was never a socialist.  Roosevelt did not espouse a universal healthcare program.  To say that socialized medicine was what he sought is incorrect.

“If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others.  He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.”

We hear you Teddy.

We hear you.

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