![]() ![]() ![]() His father - the Roosevelt family was in the plateglass business and made millions - is the perfect humanitarian. The frail, squeaky-voiced myopic and asthmatic older son goes to doctors, Europe, Harvard and the Dakota Badlands, to make himself a man. ![]() Teddy's story, of course, has been told before although never better. But he seems to want to tell a different story. He sticks in ''Mornings on Horseback'' to his period - the cusp of our two unruly centuries - and he is incapable of writing a page of bad prose. McCullough is the author of two previous splendid social histories, one devoted to the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge and the other to the Panama Canal. ![]() Young Teddy from about age 10 until, at age 28, he runs for Mayor of New York against, of all people, Henry George, is the ostensible subject of David McCullough's new book. Old families - and the Roosevelts have been around here since the 17th century - have deep passions they don't talk about them they just shoot dogs and birds. No wonder he went out later on horseback and shot and killed a dog that chased him. Alice, in fact, died on the same day that Theodore's mother did. Clover Adams and Alice Lee Roosevelt both died before they were supposed to. LIKE Henry Adams, Theodore Roosevelt never got around to mentioning his first wife in his autobiography. ![]()
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