Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, has made a name for himself writing provocative studies of presidents (FDR's Folly and Wilson's War). In this biased, unpersuasive account, Powell argues that virtually every plank of Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive agenda—including trust-busting, regulation of food and drugs, and the income tax (which Powell describes as "blood money") was a disaster. He sees Roosevelt as a dangerous tyrant who sought to expand the power of the executive office in order to promote his own interests. Powell's libertarian politics color almost every page of this study. To wit, his critique of Roosevelt's conservationism: "By establishing federal control over so much U.S. land, he defied the prevailing American view that land use decisions were best made by private individuals who had a stake in improving the value of their property." Powell also turns his guns on muckraking reporter Jacob Riis, remembered for his journalistic exposés of urban poverty. Powell says that instead of unmasking poverty, Riis should have asked "whether the poor were better off" in his day than they had been in the past, then approvingly quotes Thomas Hobbes's description of life as "poor, nasty, brutish, and short." This is irresponsible revisionism at its worst. (Aug. 8)
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From Booklist

Powell takes Theodore Roosevelt to task, criticizing the historical plaudits attached to the Rough Rider's presidency. Flowing from a free-market perspective, Powell scores TR's trust busting, maintaining that monopolies, if they existed at all, were ineffective. TR's support for an income tax, touted as a soak-the-rich scheme, earns Powell's condemnation for its growth into a soak-everybody scheme. The analytical polemic continues with TR's creation of food and drug inspectorates, bureaucracies Powell flays as unnecessary since food processors had market incentives to keep food safe. Nor is TR-the-conservationist safe from Powell's pikes as the author argues Roosevelt damaged rather than preserved the environment. And as for TR's Big Stick, that was an original sin that opened the door to America's foreign interventions in the twentieth century. Readable, forceful, and opinionated, Powell's third presidential jeremiad (after Wilson's War, 2005, and FDR's Folly, 2003) should ignite debate between supporters and opponents of big government. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Crown Forum (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307237222
• ISBN-13: 978-0307237224
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #552,904 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's all about the consequences..., September 4, 2006

By	vnrooster (Danville, CA) - See all my reviews

In FDR's Folly, Jim Powell relied heavily on the work of empirical economists to draw conclusions about FDR and his policies. While contrary to other historians who have largely ignored economic studies of the great depression, Powell evaluated FDR and the New Deal based on the actual outcomes and consequences that they produced. In a similar vein, Powell documents the policies of TR in his new book, Bully Boy, and concludes that they largely did more harm than good. Specifically, Powell discusses the following in Bully Boy:

* How TR's regulations, tariff and "trust busting" policies harmed consumers

* How TR's foreign policy undermined the Monroe Doctrine and set precedents for future intervention in conflicts with no clear threat to U.S. security

* How TR's Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drugs Act were used predominately as special interest legislation and set the foundation for the future FDA "drug lag," which has killed thousands

* How TR's conservation policies were counterproductive

* How TR's tax policies help to establish the federal income tax

While Powell's assessment of TR cannot be found in most history books, Bully Boy is well researched and documented with approximately 29 pages of notes and a 21 page bibliography. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to people that either love or loathe TR.

Many people will obviously disagree with Powell's conclusions or will support the consequences and precedents of TR's policies that appear to trouble Powell. I look forward to reading both the positive and negative reviews of this book. My hope is that those who disagree with Powell can provide more substance than the ad hominem attacks (e.g. "smut," "garbage," "reactionary claptrap") and other rhetorical fallacies that were the main locus of criticism for FDR's Folly and Wilson's War

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but Not as Good as FDR's Folly, May 11, 2008

By	Doug (Washington D.C. area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Hardcover)

Although I consider myself very much pro-laissez faire capitalism, a few of the chapters in this book are not very convincing, which detracts from the overall utility of the book. However, it is still one of the few books that critiques the Theodore Roosevelt Administration (henceforth T.R.) from a pro-laissez-faire capitalist perspective, and is therefore still worth reading.

T.R. became president at a crucial turning point in U.S. history. At this time, there was a raging political debate between Classical Liberalism and Progressivism. Classical Liberalism was the idea of the Founding Fathers, which essentially argues that the proper role of the Federal government is largely to protect civil liberties to allow all citizens to pursue happiness. Progressivism encouraged the federal government to serve as an advocate for the weak and take a more active role in public affairs for the "greater good" of society. Unfortunately, with T.R., Progressivism won, which set numerous political precedents for government regulations in business, food, medicine, the environment and just about every other facet of public life. Since the T.R. was a *decisive* victory for Progressivism over Classical Liberalism, this makes T.R. arguably the worst president in U.S. history.

Although Powell seems to miss the broad philosophical turning point described above, he does identify a large collection of loathsome policies of T.R. The chapter on "trust busting", which describes the dissolution of Northern Securities and Standard Oil and the subsequent hampering of economic growth that resulted from anti-trust laws, is very good. Similarly, the chapter on the massive pricing regulations on the railroad industry and the crippling economic results is also very eye-opening. The chapter on food and drug regulations contains a lot of informative facts, such as the ludicrous campaign against Coca-Cola (well after cocaine was removed as an ingredient), but it is a little less convincing. The chapter on environmental regulation was probably the least convincing of these four.

Although Powell is very good at revealing how in many situations, the government regulations did not actually make consumer products safer or the environment cleaner in many situations, his argument seems to boil down to how these things inherently became less safe in every situation, because the government got involved. While this is certainly true in many situations, it is definitely not true in all, as there are legitimate cases of fraud or negligence in consumer products or pollution that the government should be involved in. Instead, Powell's argument would have been much more compelling to base his arguments on moral rights. For example, a chronically ill patient has the right to risk his life with a non-FDA-approved drug, if he indeed rationally perceives it to be his only hope to recovering.

Moreover, the chapter on Roosevelt's foreign policy is not persuasive. Roosevelt did indeed think that a country should routinely go to war to maintain national pride and would toughen men into "real men". This is indeed an alarming view for a Commander in Chief to have, since wars should be viewed as something a country is forced into to defend the rights of its citizens, not as a means to boost national moral. However, Powell goes well beyond this. Powell is heavily critical of the Panama Canal because its construction was made possible by a U.S. government backed revolution in Panama. While I think there can be a serious discussion on the propriety of this actions, to fixate on the fact that the Panama Canal was made possible by "interventionism" overlooks the prodigious achievement in civil engineering and international commerce that this canal truly represented. Furthermore, Powell labels T.R.'s handling of the Ion Perdicaris hostage situation as unnecessary interventionism, which overlooks how T.R.'s actions boldly declared that the U.S. would have zero tolerance for those who violate the rights of U.S. citizens overseas.

Overall, this is a good, but definitely not great, book on the Theodore Roosevelt administration from a pro-laissez-faire capitalist perspective.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Historical Look at the Consequences of T. Roosevelt's Politics, March 28, 2009

By	Keith Heapes "Heapester" (Racine, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After reading Jim Powell's book FDR's Folly, I wasn't sure I wanted to follow that one by reading Bully Boy, Powell's critque of Theodore Roosevelt's political life. So, I thought I'd give my brain a rest and just check it out of the library and do a mild overview. Unfortunately, you can't read a Powell book like that, so after reading just the introduction, I was hooked.

Powell's view point in Bully Boy is similar to that in FDR's Folly, but a little less detailed. He provides a strong chronological look at T. Roosevelt's entire political career, with his major focus on its consequences, especially during Roosevelt's presidency.

One area that evidently eluded me during my years in school was the fact that T. Roosevelt was a Republican (pretty much in name only), but his politics were radical, liberal and progressive. As a result, he believed in a huge, powerful central government, led by a president who has a lot of individual power at his disposal. Roosevelt felt America's involvement in war was the nobelest of endevors, and as an aggressive expansionist president, continuously involved the American military in senseless, impearlistic takeovers of foreign governments like the Hawaiian Islands, Panama, Cuba, the Philippeans, and even eyed countries in South America, even though note a single one of these military actions involved the security of the United States. And many, if not most of these comflicts were done without Constitutionally mandated congressional approval. As the president, Roosevelt felt he had the power and the right to commit American military forces anywhere he deemed them necessary, and without anyone's approval.

Powell shows that Roosevelt's famous "trust-buster" reputation was a sham. As president, he created governmental monopolies, while damaging America's free-trade economy and harming consumers by the use of tariffs, breaking up of worthwhile businesses, and resurrecting the dreaded income tax.

Bully Boy is a compelling, well-documented, and controversal book. Regardless of your view point, Powell has written another thought-provoking volume, worthy of serious consideration. The end notes and bibliography in this book are a gold mine of historical information.

Whether you love and admire Teddy Roosevelt, or can't wait for his face to be sand-blasted off of Mount Rushmore, Jim Powell's book Bully Boy is truly a worthwhile read. All I ask is that if you're going to write a review of Bully Boy, or add comments to another review, please respect the author, Amazon.com, and the other reviewers by at least reading the book, the entire book, and also please refrain from spilling your ideological guts out all over Powell instead of adding a thoughtful review.