Removing the Statues (T.R. and Others)
Readers discuss plans to remove the Teddy Roosevelt statue in front of the Museum of Natural History and controversies over other monuments.
June 27, 2020, 12:00 p.m. ET
To the Editor:
Re “New York Museum to Remove Roosevelt Statue” (front page, June 22):
I applaud the decision of the American Museum of Natural History, agreed to by the City of New York, to take down the equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt, riding high over a Native American and an African — a colossal monument to racism and colonialism. It has stuck in my craw for years, each time I passed it — especially in the last few years, on my way to the New-York Historical Society, where I am a docent, and whose portals are graced with statues of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass!
I applaud, too, that the museum will continue to honor Roosevelt’s contribution as a “pioneering conservationist,” which is consonant with its mission as a museum of natural history.
Carol S. Gruber
New York
The writer is professor emerita of history at William Paterson University.
To the Editor:
The question of where the Roosevelt statue will go might best be addressed closest to home. I suggest moving it to its own permanent exhibition space within the museum, surrounded by an expanded version of last year’s “Addressing the Statue” exhibition for lasting contextualization.
Susan H. Llewellyn
New York
To the Editor:
Reading about the long overdue removal of the statue led me to recall how a fellow Rutgers University student, along with an instructor, had courageously gone to New York to publicly call attention to the racist nature of this statue in 1971 and demand its removal. Their actions included throwing red paint on Roosevelt, for which they were arrested, were jailed briefly and had to pay fines. In 1971, it was seen as a radical act by many, but I think it now looks like a courageous act that was far ahead of its time.
John Ersek
Gorham, Me.
To the Editor:
After his presidency, Col. Theodore Roosevelt embarked upon expeditions through Africa and across America to garner specimens for exhibit at various natural history museums. This work was memorialized by the sculptor James Earle Fraser with the 1940 unveiling of a statue of Roosevelt on horseback, flanked by a Native American and an African standing.
The statue currently resides outside the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Now it is slated to be removed under pressure from self-appointed intellectuals and armchair historians who believe that the statue is a monument to white supremacy.
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Surely the intent of the statue should be left to the man who sculpted it. In Mr. Fraser’s own words, “The two figures at [Roosevelt’s] side are guides symbolizing the continents of Africa and America, and if you choose may stand for Roosevelt’s friendliness to all races.”
Tom Kirkman
High Point, N.C.
To the Editor:
In the 1970s I went to junior high school at I.S. 44 across the street from the American Museum of Natural History. We went to the museum often and I loved it, and still do. The principal at the time was the highly regarded educator Luther Seabrook. I remember learning that as a black man, he refused to walk past this statue to enter this museum.
That principled stance taught a little 11-year-old white girl something about seeing the symbols that teach racism. How monuments like this one, which quite literally elevates a white man over others, indoctrinate us and perpetuate the racist lies we’re taught about American history.
Over the many decades since, I’ve never walked past that statue without thinking of Mr. Seabrook, and when it’s gone, I will think of him still, and celebrate this small, yet meaningful victory.
Julia V. Goldman
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
As the author of the recent biography “Theodore Roosevelt: A Manly President’s Gendered Personal and Political Transformations,” I strongly agree with the museum’s decision to remove the statue.
While the biography lauds Roosevelt for his domestic policies — particularly his drive for food and drug inspections, workplace safety, and forest, bird, animal and natural resource protection — it condemns him harshly for his lifelong racism, mitigated somewhat only two years before his death. The statue is an express depiction of Roosevelt’s racism.
Whether he was writing about history or hunting, as he often did, his writing reflected a racist bias that descendants of Western Europeans were superior to the Indigenous populations of the Americas and Asia. Like the current administration’s policies, Roosevelt’s support of increased barriers to immigration was race-based. And his foreign policies reflected American race superiority.
Roosevelt’s racism was inconsistent with the Christian morality embraced by his construction of the manliness ideal. But for most of his life, he lived that inconsistency.
Neil H. Cogan
Whittier, Calif.
The writer is a professor of political science at Whittier College.
To the Editor:
The statue of Theodore Roosevelt at the American Museum of Natural History is racially offensive, but the memory of Theodore Roosevelt is not. While some of Roosevelt’s opinions and actions now offend us, his primary legacies are his leadership on progressive policies throughout a long career of public service, his visionary environmentalism, and his extraordinary learning, energy and curiosity. He is a very worthy role model, as shown in the museum’s other tributes to him.
All people are complex amalgams of different traits. We should not stop reading the Declaration of Independence or rename our capital city because Jefferson and Washington were slave owners. The monuments we should remove are those of figures whose fame and legacy relate primarily to slavery.
Different moral views prevail in different times and places; we cannot evaluate historical figures by our current sensitivities. Our moral objection to slavery is one of the few views that can be considered permanent, objective and obligatory.
Ron Meyers
New York
To the Editor:
The planned removal the statue of Theodore Roosevelt from in front of the American Museum of Natural History is just one step in the struggle to confront the racist imagery that underscores the continuing oppression of those who are not descended from the European settler community.
Citizens of Indigenous nations, including my own Onondaga, applaud this reckoning with the centuries of racism and dehumanization by the larger society that continue today, and know that removing statues of Christopher Columbus is essential for that cleansing to continue.
The larger society needs to confront those oppressions head on, and realize that the symbols of that oppression go far beyond the Confederate flag.
Betty Lyons
Onondaga Nation, N.Y.
The writer is president and executive director of the American Indian Law Alliance.
To the Editor:
At the same time the Museum of Natural History has decided to remove the bronze statue of Teddy Roosevelt, plans are afoot to place a monument in Central Park honoring one of the great champions of the women’s rights movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, notwithstanding her unequivocally racist remarks uttered in opposition to the 15th Amendment giving African-American men the right to vote. She questioned whether women should stand aside and allow “Sambos” (her word) the right to vote.
Is there a double standard here? Why can’t Americans come to terms with our racist past without feeling compelled to demonize those we used to deify? Those American “icons,” including both Teddy and Mrs. Stanton, were mortals like the rest of us. We should not whitewash history in an effort to purify our souls. Instead we need to deal with the real problems of systemic racism today without obsessing about the past in a futile attempt to erase the stain on our nation’s soul.
Cornelius D. Murray
Albany, N.Y.
To the Editor:
A mob in Portland, Ore., has taken down a statue of George Washington. Mobs cannot be expected to be discriminating, but the Portland mob was clearly picking on the wrong patriot. Washington owned slaves, but he was among the few founders who (in his will) freed his slaves, and all of us are in his debt for the examples he set as the commander of the Continental Army who was deferential to Congress and a president who gave up power gracefully.
Fortunately, in Washington’s case, one mob does not a reputation break. As the British historian Marcus Cunliffe pointed out, Washington’s name has been securely attached not just to the capital of the United States and a national holiday, but also to “one American state, seven mountains, eight streams, ten lakes, thirty-three counties; for nine American colleges; for one hundred and twenty-one American towns and villages” — to say nothing of having his likeness on currency, postage stamps, Mount Rushmore and statues throughout the world.
Some statues should be moved from public squares to museums. That of Washington in Portland should be restored to the public square.
Ira D. Gruber
Houston
The writer is professor emeritus of history at Rice University.
To the Editor:
We should not attempt to destroy our history. We should learn from it. I fully understand the anger of having to view statues of Confederate leaders that appear in our cities. We should follow Hungary’s lead and dedicate a park where these “memorials” can be moved. In 1991 Hungary announced the creation of Szoborpark (Memento Park), where the statues of Lenin, Marx, Engels and many Hungarian Communists hold forth. They date from Hungary’s Communist rule from 1949 to 1989.
Arthur Lieb
Boulder, Colo.
To the Editor:
Re “How Statues Are Falling Around the World” (nytimes.com, June 24):
While various statues dedicated to racism are being toppled or removed, they remain at Gettysburg National Park in Pennsylvania. Off to the side of the battlefield are an array of statues and monuments dedicated to various regiments from different Southern states. What is most objectionable about these monuments are the words etched on the plaques that these soldiers died for a “just,” a “noble” or an “honorable” cause. Slavery is neither just nor noble and certainly not honorable.
Jane A. Gigler
Portland, Ore.
To the Editor:
Re “G.O.P. Defends Monuments to Traitors” (editorial, June 20):
On the day before Juneteenth, Nancy Pelosi announced that portraits of past House speakers who were part of the Confederacy would be taken down. Instead, plaques should have been added under these portraits to educate viewers about former House members who were on the wrong side of history and why.
I think it is harmful to try to rewrite or erase what has happened in the past; that makes us no better than totalitarian regimes. And though I am all in favor of renaming buildings that glorify those who promoted slavery and advocated for the dissolution of the Union, I do not support destroying or removing art. Sculptures, paintings and murals all provide an opportunity for learning about our country’s horrific past regarding racism.
Tom Goodman
Chicago
www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/opinion/letters/statues-theodore-roosevelt-race.htmlThe madness continues
