Author gives new interpretation of beloved U.S. hero

Literally carved into the face of the American landscape, Theodore Roosevelt is one of the nation’s most studied and iconic figures. A nearly-mythical leader often praised for connecting oceans, defeating corporations, and salvaging the wilderness, Roosevelt has enjoyed a century-long joyride that may have just hit a deep pothole.

Sailing in to challenge all presumptions of the Rough Rider president is James Bradley’s newest book, “The Imperial Cruise.” Author of the highly successful works “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Flyboys,” Bradley spoke at Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute last night to an audience of professors and students.

After discussing his first two works, Bradley outlined the research process of his third book, using the bombing of Pearl Harbor as a jumping-off point and expanding into a greater examination of U.S. involvement in various East Asian nations. “I began to look closer at 1905,” Bradley said, “and it seemed to be a big year in Asia.”

This special year saw the journey of the largest U.S. diplomatic mission from San Francisco to nations throughout the Pacific. Exactly one century later, Bradley followed in the wake of the SS Manchuria to Hawaii, the Philippines, China, Korea, and Japan, examining each country’s stormy history with the United States prior to 1905 that included unspoken agreements, waterboarding, and heaping amounts of “race theory.”

Indeed, one of the seminar’s principal topics was the “Aryan Myth” and its profound influence upon our nation’s leaders. In a flashback to the pedagogy of a century ago, the animated author disturbingly described the legend of the Aryan race as it traveled from northern Iran to American shores.

Bradley’s research brought him to Columbia, where Roosevelt had studied under the influential figure of John Burgess, the so-called father of modern American political science. Here in our halls, according to Bradley, Roosevelt had been indoctrinated with the Aryan Myth. “This wasn’t racism but race theory,” Bradley stated, “and you couldn’t get out of these Ivy League schools without knowing this stuff.”

It was exactly this myth, argued Bradley, which drove U.S. policy decisions in the Pacific region. In the author’s examination of the Treaty of Portsmouth, America’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner now seems much more controversial—by offering an unwritten treaty allowing the Japanese to take Korea, Roosevelt entered into foreign agreements without the consent of Congress, stirred by his own belief in Japan’s acceptance of the Aryan Myth and their superiority over the other Asian races.

Released over three months ago, “The Imperial Cruise” has been the subject of fierce debate. Bradley said that critics have attacked his presentation of Roosevelt, yet his anger does not lie with our former president.

“What I am more interested in,” Bradley said, “is how James Bradley with a B.A. in history is the one to tell the public this stuff when Teddy Roosevelt is one of the most studied presidents in U.S. history.”

Many of the famous myths about our Bull Moose president, from saving bears to roughing it out west, may now go the same way as Washington’s cherry tree. Other groups, the author mentioned, have yet to support their criticisms with historical evidence and refute the work’s interpretation of the Rough Rider.

Bradley’s work may not be over—an imposing equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt looks out across Central Park from the American Museum of Natural History. Supporting his stirrups are an American Indian and an African, two principal victims of the Aryan Myth. In the spirit of the euphemized history Bradley consistently attacks, the museum’s website offers one simple comment: “This statue has been the subject of heated debate.”