The Joy of Living
In Edmund Morris' robust biography, Theodore Rex , which chronicles Theodore Roosevelt's ascendency into the office of President and his first term, we get a window into the mind of the man. At this point, Roosevelt has solemnly sworn his Oath of Office, shortly after President McKinley's assassination, and has begun to reign in what would be his first term. After a couple years, Roosevelt embarks on a massive train tour of the nation. One of the stops on his tour was through the Dakotas. Morris writes, "When the train drew near the Badlands, darkness already had descended. The President went onto this rear platform and watched coulees etch themselves into the grassland, black out of silver, like a giant printer's block. Medora lay the deepest cut of all, a clutch of houses by the sand-choked Little Missouri. Here, twenty years before, he had come to shoot his first buffalo, and found himself "at heart as much as Westerner as an Easterner." (...