Everyone’s been there. Your favorite singer wrote a bad song, your politician extended the Patriot Act, your school’s team blew chunks during the big game against an obviously inferior team. “Yeah,” we mumble, “but…” But nothing; x-factors be damned, we bet on the wrong horse and we can’t admit it. We need to take the blows to our ego and move on. And I’m going to start now by resurrecting a moral crime in U.S. history that has to be the biggest, bloody, blotch on my favorite president’s legacy. I’m talking about Theodore Roosevelt and the Brownsville Episode.
The Brownsville Episode was a series of bloated and sloppy actions fueled by racist paranoia, baseless logic and bruised egos—and considering the connotations, may have been the origins for the Cleveland NFL team.
“Yeah, sure Nick, kick 'em while they're down."
In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt was “the Man” in a way few American presidents have ever had the fortune of being. Perhaps few presidents had the stones to act as furiously unilateral as T.R.—but there I go again, defending the man. In another light, T.R. was an American dictator who only eventually left office because the country was beginning to bore him. Really, though, I think most Americans would accept, or even love, a dictator so long as the dictator’s views were in line with his or her own. Democracy is only fun if you’re on the winning side every time. So anyway, Roosevelt is rolling with the creation of the FDA—amidst accusations of socialism—when a bar brawl in Brownsville, Texas captures the nation’s attention.
Reportedly, one night some white people in the town insulted some black soldiers. In retaliation, 16-20 soldiers “attacked townspeople” and fired their guns (killing one bartender). That no real evidence existed to connect any African-American soldiers to any incident of violence was disregard as a minor technicality. In fact, there was no immediate trial or hearing and the (white) commanders at the nearby Fort Brown affirmed that all soldiers were in their barracks on the night in question. But the very notion that U.S. soldiers would attack American civilians was so outrageous that action was cried for, and action was carried out.
Roosevelt demanded the guilty soldiers confess. Because no soldier confessed to the crime nor turned in any other soldier, Roosevelt declared they had all proven themselves guilty. Wildly claiming there was a “conspiracy of silence,” the President dishonorably discharged all 167 black men in the company. Many of the soldiers had served for their entire lives, some over 20 years, and were now all denied back pay, pensions, allowances and other benefits expected at the time of service.
Roosevelt’s hammer of the presidency was as commended as it was criticized—again resurrecting the argument that courage is the victor of controversy. In this case, though, T.R.’s disinterest in self-examination proved egotistical. Senator Joseph Foraker started a congressional investigation that uncovered many of the facts we know today, including the testimony of the commanding officers, the inability of the townspeople (including the mayor) to reasonably describe any of the accused attackers, planted bullet casings and such. In response, Roosevelt had the Treasury Department (an arm of the Executive Branch) launch its own investigation—which included private detectives. This new investigation ran around Brownsville planting more fake evidence, bribing people, threatening people, destroying real evidence and just generally acting like jerks until Roosevelt felt his point had been made.
Roosevelt went on to talk about race relations in America, though always in the hypothetical. “Lynching could tear apart civilization,” he’d say…“however,” he’d continue, “black citizens shouldn’t protect black criminals,” though there was definitively no black conspiracy. And while T.R. wanted African-Americans to assist in the arrests of criminals, he apparently didn’t care that they were still excluded from serving as members of a jury or even as police officers. In response to a specific lynching, Roosevelt continued his baffling distance, saying “the hideous crime of rape” is abominable, and punishment “may follow immediately upon the heels of the offense.” What?
It’s difficult to just say Roosevelt may have been a racist president, and if the presidents were ranked by racism he wouldn’t even crack the top ten (hell, he wouldn't even be in the top 3 on Mount Rushmore). His first civilian guest to the White House was Booker T. Washington--which brought on a slew of death threats just weeks after the assassination of President McKinley. T.R., to his end, reveled in his own fantasies of being attacked by would-be assassins and having the nation cheer him on as he beat the hypothetical villain(s) into a bloody clam chowder.
In a broad sense, Roosevelt also did a lot of good for global understanding. He, and other world leaders, put pressure on Belgium to cease its genocidal exploitation of the Congo. And then after leaving office, Roosevelt joined a scientific excursion to Africa with the express purpose of retrieving samples of “exotic” flora and fauna. And if a flora or fauna needed to get shot, well, that’s where ol’ T.R. came in. His hunting party killed over 500 animals, including 17 lions, 11 elephants, 9 white rhinos, 7 cheetahs (and a partridge in a pear tree!). A filmmaker named Cherry Kearton filmed the entire trip and defended it all as great entertainment, allowing Americans to “visit” Africa from the comfort of a movie theater…also, Americans got to pretend they were Theodore Roosevelt.
The 1910 documentary was given the chill-inducing title of “Roosevelt in Africa,” and inspired the whole industry of travel filmmaking. More than that, Roosevelt’s radical importation of hundreds of (usually) dead animals allowed Americans to see Africa as a real place and not just a mythological realm filled with prehistoric monsters that may or may not have been manifestations of Satan’s demons—as was the common sentiment at the time.
Oh great, I just defended my support for Roosevelt again. Whoops.
In 1972, the United States Army declared that the soldiers involved in Brownsville Episode would have their discharges be declared honorable. The surviving soldier likely had mixed feelings regarding the late ruling-reversal. Yes, THE soldier. Only an 87-year-old Dorsey Willis was still alive and was given $25,000 after nearly 67 years of shinning shoes for a living—as a dishonorable discharge is quite the blemish on a job application. In fact, a dishonorable discharge will actually disqualify a U.S. citizen from owning a gun…so damn, that is serious.
The Brownsville Episode is an ugly marker, but one worth confronting for supporters of Theodore Roosevelt. We need to see the faults in our choices, so that we can be humble in victory. Except perhaps for fans of the Cleveland Browns--a team who perpetually, and impressively, remains in the pantheon of the NFL’s top 30 teams or so.
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