Laurence Jurdem’s ‘The Rough Rider and the Professor’

These dynamics are as pressing today as they were in 1912, when a split within the GOP — between conservatives backing Republican President William Howard Taft, and progressives who favored former president Theodore Roosevelt — altered the nation’s trajectory. The consequences of this struggle and its impact on the friendship between Roosevelt and longtime senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts lie at the heart of Laurence Jurdem’s “The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History.”

It’s tough to make room for another book about Roosevelt. Renowned for his outsize personality, intellectual curiosity and adventurous streak, he would have been a biographer’s dream subject even if his tenure in the White House had been unremarkable. But his presidency — highlighted by his domestic program (the Square Deal), confrontation with corporate titans, environmental activism and aggressive internationalism — was instead among the most consequential in history. With so much sensational material at their disposal, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Edmund Morris and others have chronicled nearly every aspect of Roosevelt’s life.

Though Jurdem, a historian, doesn’t unearth major new discoveries about the 26th president, his exploration of the relationship between Roosevelt and Lodge poses enduring questions about political friendships as well as America’s current course as it faces many of the same challenges the two politicos encountered during the Gilded Age.

The 35-year bond that Roosevelt and Lodge first forged as up-and-coming Republicans during the 1884 presidential election drives Jurdem’s parallel narratives. Lodge, the elder of the two, served three terms in Congress before moving to the Senate in 1893. Over the next three decades, he advocated for a muscular foreign policy while battling political corruption and unbridled corporate power during an epoch dominated by party bosses and robber barons.

Roosevelt shared Lodge’s vision but lacked the senator’s political acumen. Whereas Lodge masterfully forged alliances, fortified his base and expanded his influence, Roosevelt’s outspokenness, “addiction to the limelight” and uncompromising stands infuriated party bosses: “I want to get rid of the bastard,” proclaimed New York’s Republican chief, Thomas Platt. Roosevelt’s reputation within the GOP never hampered his unmatched popularity, however. Combined with his larger-than-life adventures and authentic connections with people from all backgrounds, the very traits that exasperated Republican leaders made Roosevelt a favorite among voters and journalists.

Throughout the book, Jurdem situates the men in the leading issues of their time, from the early phases of their careers to the moments they took center stage. In an age marked by political mediocrities, the fact that they stood out as giants makes them a natural pairing for Jurdem, who, to his credit, doesn’t succumb to lionizing his subjects: He calls them out for manifesting imperialistic ambitions and embracing racial hierarchies.

He doesn’t just fixate on politics, either. Despite his subjects’ divergent personalities, Jurdem illustrates how Roosevelt and Lodge connected over shared interests. It helped that as scions of wealthy patriarchs who espoused bravery, honor and duty, they both came from the closest thing resembling American aristocracy. As they grew closer, Roosevelt came to consider Lodge and his wife “the only people for whom I really care outside my own family.”

The feeling was mutual. Serving as Roosevelt’s adviser, Lodge repeatedly recommended him for government positions, risking his own standing by reassuring leaders that Roosevelt would not stir trouble.

The strains in their relationship arose during Roosevelt’s presidency before erupting during the 1912 Republican convention. In deciding to run as a crusading reformer who sought sweeping measures to combat the excesses of industrialization, Roosevelt joined progressive calls for referendums, the popular election of senators and the recall of judicial opinions. His standoff against Taft, the party’s conservative standard-bearer, whom Roosevelt had blessed as his heir four years earlier, forced Lodge to pick sides — an agonizing process Jurdem recounts in detail, underscoring the toll that shifts in ideology and political allegiance take on friendship.

No corporate lackey, Lodge also sought to restrain large companies, only at a slower pace. Committed to working within America’s constitutional framework, he spurned Roosevelt’s insistence on participatory democracy.

With Lodge and the party’s bosses rallying behind Taft, Roosevelt bolted, running as a third-party candidate. Although he won more votes than Taft in the general election, the internecine split opened the door for Democrat Woodrow Wilson to prevail.

The election’s ramifications resonate to this day. Roosevelt’s defeat cemented the GOP’s ties to corporate interests and free-market policies. The election also demonstrated that while a third-party candidate could sway the major parties to adopt his ideas, it would be nearly impossible for such a candidate, even someone as popular as Roosevelt, to capture the presidency. Unbeknown to anyone at the time, the budding reliance on primaries planted the seeds for the eventual demise of party control over the nomination process 60 years later, opening the door to outsiders like Donald Trump to wrestle a candidacy away from party insiders.

Though historians have comprehensively examined the election’s legacy, “The Rough Rider and the Professor” serves as a reminder that people are not simply swept up by the currents of history. Their actions — in this case, byproducts of the internal struggles, divided loyalties and deeply held beliefs championed by Roosevelt and Lodge — can alter the direction not just of their lives but of a nation.

Unlike the long-lasting impact on the GOP, the rupture that had turned both men into “pitiable wrecks” proved to be short lived. As a result, it came as no surprise that Lodge delivered Roosevelt’s eulogy in 1919. “His ready smile and contagious laugh made countless friends,” the senator said near the conclusion of his two-hour encomium. Out of those many friends, Roosevelt prized none more than Lodge, whom he considered “his closest friend, personally, politically and in every other way.”

Michael Bobelian teaches journalism at Columbia University and is the author of “Battle for the Marble Palace: Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and the Forging of the Modern Supreme Court.”

The Rough Rider and the Professor

Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History