Bully for Him

This week’s Time magazine spotlights Theodore Roosevelt, which brings to mind my all-time favorite quote from TR (who, incidentally, was homeschooled until he went to Harvard). Addressing the National Congress of Mothers in 1908, the president said:

The “mother is the one supreme asset of national life; she is more important by far than the successful statesman or businessman or artist or scientist. ... There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. ... One of these is the truth that ... the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmate, the housewife and mother. ... [A woman] who deliberately forgoes these blessings ... why such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle ... the existence of women of this type forms one of the most unpleasant and unwholesome features of modern life.”

Yowch. Can you imagine a president saying that in 2006? Heck, can you imagine any public figure saying that today?