If you didn’t see it last week on PBS, you can watch online Ken Burns’s seven-part 14-hour series “The Roosevelts,” about Theodore Roosevelt, his fifth cousin Franklin and his niece (and Franklin’s wife) Eleanor.
It begins with Theodore’s birth in 1858 and ends with Eleanor’s death in 1962.
Even the usually wrong-headed George Will has some thoughtful things to say.
I thought it was excellent and frequently moving– but then again I’m a pro-activist-government social democrat, as were the three of them.
My favorite of the three was Eleanor, who constantly pressed her husband to support more extensive efforts to promote social and economic justice, and who after his death become a fighter for universal human rights.
My mother was a huge admirer of her and my sister bears the middle name “Eleanor” in her honor.
The Roosevelts were born into wealthy and elite families and were regarded in some quarters as “traitors to their class”– especially FDR.
“Come along. We’re going to the Trans Lux to hiss Roosevelt.”What struck me as remarkable is that the three Roosevelts never tried to be anything other than the New York patricians they were. And yet they were perfectly capable of empathizing with, and winning the support and affection of, ordinary people.
In an age when politicians strive (sometimes embarrassingly so) to act like regular guys and gals, could someone so obviously “elite” in manner as FDR be elected today?
