Theodore Roosevelt Quotes
The truth is that any good modern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man behind the gun.
Roosevelt, Theodore. African Game Trails. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910.
This is yet another quotation demonstrating that the image of early America as a gun culture where most men were armed, skilled with those arms, and ready to come to the defense of the country. It turns out that none of the three corresponded to any historical reality for most Americans.
This quotation is very controversial among historians. Beverly was in a sense the first American historian, although he had no formal training. His extolling the military and sharpshooting virtues of his fellows may or may not have been an exaggeration both as to their skill with firearms and their ability as soldiers. There is much evidence that only a minority of the people of Virginia possessed firearms at the time yet Beverly’s image is the one that has come down to us in the romanticized view of early America. Even fellow Virginian, George Washington {613056} complained that his Virginia civilians made poor soldiers compared with “regulars” who had been trained to shoot, and when Virginia militia reported for duty less than one quarter had firearms which were very expensive and not very accurate at the time.
The great cowboy gunslinger was much a myth in that the few that were very good shots became legends. The best shots in America generally were the hunters of small game like Annie Oakley and the military and sportsmen who studied the gun and practiced endlessly. Almost all were in the Midwest and East. In the case of Oakley, she learned to shoot small game for food in rural Ohio. Her first shooting contest was not on the frontier but in the big city of Cincinnati.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer, who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900 and the 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901. Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
