What if Alice Roosevelt was a boy?
(A collection of unanswerable questions)
When we collaborated recently, public historian Rebecca Grawl casually mentioned her deepest belief that if Alice Roosevelt had been Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest son she may have become President of the United States ... perhaps instead of Warren G. Harding.
That got my wheels spinning and I couldn’t stop thinking about it:
I can’t even tell you how much time I spent working on and looking at this doodle… and I only just realized that I included Hoover vs. Roosevelt instead of Harding vs. Roosevelt, which is what I meant. [shrugs]
It uncorked a whole flurry of questions and semi-related tangents. If you have any additional questions (or any answers!), pop them into the comments below. 👇
Would she have been Theodore’s namesake instead of her brother?
Alice was the only child of Theodore and Alice Roosevelt. Her brother Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (born Theodore Roosevelt III, confusingly. See Exhibit A below for more), Edith Roosevelt’s first born, was named after their father. But if Alice was a boy, would she have been named Theodore instead since she was first?
And if Theodore, Jr. wasn’t the namesake… would he have made different decisions during his life, feeling less pressure to live up to his father’s name…?
Would Male Alice have carried around a snake?
Or cut her wedding cake with a sword?
As a Roosevelt male, she would possess power and attention and possibility — and perhaps wouldn’t need big dramatic attention-grabbing gestures…?
Would Warren G. Harding have died so young?
Though spry and downright youthful compared to the sickly Woodrow Wilson he succeeded, Harding died of a heart attack at 57 years old. Maybe if he wasn’t president, Harding wouldn’t have died so soon. Maybe it was too taxing on his heart to flirt with all of the young ladies when traveling the country. See Exhibit B
Calvin Coolidge finished the rest of his Harding’s term.
Would Calvin Coolidge’s son have lived?
If Harding was never president and Coolidge never took over for him, Calvin, Jr. wouldn’t have come “home” from college to the White House. Nor would he have played tennis there. Or developed a blister from it. He wouldn’t have died from blood poisoning.
Would Cal have been so silent?
According to one biography I read, Silent Cal wasn’t as silent before his son died.
If Coolidge was never president, would Hoover have been…?
I mean, the whole trajectory of the country could have changed!
What about FDR?
What if Male Alice actual ran against FDR? Can you even imagine an election with two relatives — with the same last name! — pitted against each other? When Ted Roosevelt ran for governor, Eleanor Roosevelt campaigned for his opponent Al Smith. Not only that — she had a “teapot” with steam on her car — a dig at her cousin’s alleged involvement in the Teapot Dome Scandal. See Exhibit C
For more on the Teapot Dome Scandal and the 20s in general, watch this Crash Course on The Roaring 20s and maybe your brain will spiral into even more possible outcomes.
If FDR was never president, what would have happened in World War II?
Similar to Harding, FDR had a heart condition. Unlike Harding, it wasn’t undiagnosed. His doctor advised him to work only four hours a day. (The position of Leader of the Free World — during a world war no less! — as a part-time gig? Yikes.) Despite knowing he was sick, he continued to run for reelection — and didn’t fill in his third vice president (Harry Truman) on his condition or the goings-on of the war. Truman was only vice president for 82 days and attended just two meetings (not counting cabinet meetings) with FDR before he died. (Henry Wallace, FDR’s second vice president, was ousted from the ticket in ‘44 for being too into astrology/mysticism, too short-fused, and too liberal.) See Exhibit D
If FDR never was never elected president an unprecedented four times, would we have term limits today?
[cue shiver running down spine]
Tangent Corral
Exhibit A
President Theodore Roosevelt was a junior
His son Ted, Jr. was actually Ted III. President Rutherford Hayes appointed The Original Theodore Roosevelt Collector of Customs to the Port of New York. Teddy, Sr. assumed it was a reward for work he’d done for NYC, but actually Hayes was sticking it to Roscoe Conkling and his big, dumb Machine. Conkling wanted the corrupt Chester Arthur reappointed. Being a pawn in the spoils vs. reform game took a toll on Roosevelt’s health. Within four months, he died.
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Exhibit B
Warren G. Harding
When Harding checked himself into J.H.Kellogg, MD’s Battle Creek Sanitarium to recover from fatigue, etc., he may have been suffering from an undiagnosed heart condition. While president, he was the first to visit Alaska. His staff didn’t notice how his 15 hour days were impacting his health. By the time they got to Seattle, he felt ill. A few days after reaching San Fransisco, he died… putting Calvin Coolidge in office and setting up Coolidge’s namesake to meet his early demise.
Exhibit C
Teapot Dome Shenanigans
When Ted Roosevelt III ran against Al Smith in the 1924 New York governor’s race, Eleanor Roosevelt campaigned for Al Smith. Not only that, but she drove around with a “teapot” puffing steam on top of her car … a nod to her cousin’s alleged involvement in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
(Ted was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time of the scandal, appointed by President Harding… and his brother Archibald Roosevelt was VP of one of the oil companies involved… soooo that’s both problematic and also something I want to drill into more at some point. Get it? Drill? Because oil?)
This book (Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR's 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal by David Pietrusza) was a damned bear trap that kept snapping shut uncooperatively when I tried to wrestle it open so I could doodle.
Let’s segue to the NY governorship for a sec
As doodled above, FDR and Al Smith both served as New York governors. At one point Ted Roosevelt campaigned against Al Smith. I’d just like to point out how much easier it would be to communicate any of this if everyone didn’t have the same flipping name. See the CYA below. Between 1898 and 1966, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Ted Roosevelt III, and Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. all ran for New York governor. (FDR and Theodore Roosevelt both won and then became president, as I’m sure you know. The younger namesakes both lost.)
I don’t believe New York uses a spinny-thing to select gubernatorial candidates, but I’m not positive.
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Exhibit D
Nobody had more vice presidents than FDR
FDR’s VPs include: John Nance Garner, Henry Wallace, and finally Harry S Truman… who was veep for less than three months. What would have happened if Wallace wasn’t so cranky, mystical, and liberal and was VP when FDR died….? That’s a whole other blog post.
Garner was kicked from the ticket for threatening to let New Orleans starve if they wouldn’t do what he wanted. Just kidding. FDR apparently agreed with that strategy.
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Etc.
When FDR was running for president, Ted Roosevelt Jr (III) supported Hoover and told his mother “Franklin is such poor stuff it seems improbable that he should be elected president.” When asked how he was related, Ted quipped “fifth cousin about-to-be-removed.”
Ted was floated as a possible candidate against FDR in 1936, but it didn’t he didn’t poll high enough to get the nomination.
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CYA
This entire post would make more sense if everyone had unique names. Every time I tried to dig online for information about Theodore Roosevelt’s son, the internet “autocorrected” to serve up only stuff about the president. And when looking for a Ted nugget in a book I’d read, I noticed that he was listed twice — as Ted Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. I should be grateful there wasn’t a third entry for his real name, I suppose (Theodore Roosevelt III). In any case, this post contained information about:
Alice Roosevelt [Longworth]
Alice [Hathaway Lee] Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Theodore Roosevelt III (aka Ted aka Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.)
President Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.
President Calvin Coolidge (who was actually, I shit you not, born John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.)
Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (Since his dad was really named John, he wasn’t truly a junior. You would think his older brother, who was actually named John, would be the junior. You would be wrong.)
What do you think?
What would have happened if Alice was a boy? Drop a comment below!
