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In the end of the 1800's US President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
established himself as a conservationist. He may have been an avid
hunter, but he loved animals and respected them. It is his love
for animals that is the core of the teddy bear legend.
Hard-working and dedicated, Roosevelt
was at the height of his popularity in 1902. His famous "big stick"
policy and his powerful physical presence gave him a reputation
as a man's man, while his well known devotion to his family made
him popular with wives and mothers.
Journalists
of the day also admired the president, and good-naturedly reported
his activities. However, Roosevelt was in trouble with Southern
Republicans and National Republicans for his sponsorship of progressive
social programs. He further antagonized them by inviting Booker
T. Washington to dine at the White House with his family and to
advise him on the appointment of blacks to federal posts in the
South.
There was
a move among Republicans to dump Roosevelt as their candidate
in 1904 in favor of Senator Mark Hanna. In the late northern autumn
of 1902, Roosevelt was acting as adjudicator for a border dispute
between the states of Louisiana and Mississippi. During
a break in the negotiations in November, he was invited by Southern
friends to go bear hunting in Mississippi.
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Roosevelt felt that he could consolidate his supporters in the South
by appearing among them in the relaxed atmosphere of a hunting party,
so he accepted his friends' invitation.
By November 14,
the second day of the hunt, Roosevelt was disappointed that he
had had no real opportunity to shoot a bear. So his friends cornered
a young, 235 pound bear cub and tied it to a tree for Roosevelt
to shoot. But Roosevelt declined to shoot this little bear, believing
such an act to be beneath his dignity as a hunter and as a man:
"If I shot that little fellow I couldn't be able to look my boys
in the face again."
News of
the day's events quickly reached the press, notably including
Washington Post political cartoonist Clifford Berryman, who used
Roosevelt's sparing of the bear's life as a commentary on Roosevelt's
political situation.
Most accounts
agree that Berryman's caption "Drawing the Line in Mississippi"
referred to the Mississippi-Louisiana border dispute, but Gregory
Wilson, a former curator and head of the Theodore Roosevelt archive
at Harvard University, asserts that it instead referred to the
"color line" drawn by Roosevelt in his unyielding support for
black civil rights at a time when these were being denied to many
Southern states. Whatever the reasoning behind the caption, the
little bear in Berryman's cartoon was destined to become popular.
[continued]
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