Theodore Roosevelt's African Safari
Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I memorialize the adventures of Theodore Roosevelt. March 23rd 1909, the former president departed New York City for Africa. He was accompanied by son Kermit and several employees of the Smithsonian Institution. Their purpose was to provide exhibits for the Museum of Natural History, then under construction. They collected eleven thousand animal specimens and ten thousand other items of scientific interest. The ten-month safari visited Kenya, Congo, South Sudan and Uganda. The event was popularized with toys and knickknacks. Responding to criticism for shooting so many animals, he said: "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." Back to Basics for the Republican Party is my civil rights history of ...