Frontier Rhetoric and 20th Century Presidents - Essay Example

Frontier Rhetoric and 20th Century Presidents Political power comes with a dual edged sword. With one hand a leader can make lives better for the masses and with the other he can the mortal coil that connects them to mortality. Very often the sword is required on one side to fill the empty bellies on the other. Beauty and violence in the same picture are part of American history. The hunger for the power to do good in the world can turn without warning into an excuse to do harm; the duality is often difficult to distinguish. History often confirms judgments, but just as of it denies them. The towering figure in the American myth is the frontiersman making his way out west with little but a few dollars in his pocket, a rifle and the hope for a better life. That better life has been achieved for his ancestors, but at the cost of genocide of those who stood in his way. Nevertheless, the frontiersman—and especially the iconic image of the cowboy—is the ultimate embodiment of the American myth and and so it should come as little surprise that farther we move away from the reality of that time, the more Americas leaders co-opt the romantic imagery associated with the westward expansion. The central determining term to suggest that Americans had not only the right, but the moral imperative to run roughshod over the native peoples of the west was the idea of Manifest Destiny. John L. O’Sullivan is credited with coining this phrase as well as defining the concept. O’Sullivan was the editor of the Democratic Review and took advantage of every opportunity to establish the proposal that American conquest of the continent was inevitable and necessary. O’Sullivan was convinced of the greatness of America and saw the enormous bounty of untrammeled land in th west as the key to creating everlasting prosperity (Weinberg, 1935, p. 62). It is a vital component to undertanding the full effect of the use of frontier imagery among 20th century Presidents to fully acknowledge and apprehend how Manifest Destiny played a part in the shaping of the western myth, as well as how that myth continues to be played out today. The country included in its desires for westward expansion those areas owned by Mexico. Texas had affirmed its independence in 1836, but war was on the horizon and it is not by accident that some of the most iconic images of the frontier came from that war. Davy Crockett was perhaps the most famous victim of the siege of the Alamo, and his mythical rise to pre-eminent status reminds one of the manipulation of image by political handlers today. The primary difference between contemporary politicians who pose for photos in a cowboy hat and boots, however, is that Dave Crockett a politician who really did live the life of frontiersman, although probably not nearly to the degree with which it was reported even in his lifetime. Crockett’s wild stories and often bawdy homespun humor amuse and fascinated reporters who helped to turn him into a mythic character in his own time. More than a few of the tales about Crockett were obviously embellished. But does spreading the story that Crocket was such a fearsome hunter that when he aimed his rifle at a racccon he has successfully trapped in a tree climbe down really any more of a explicit lie than the stories that later be published as fact concerning Teddy Roosevelt heroically riding his steed up San Juan Hill? The evolution of David Crockett from redneck Congressman to mythical American icon actually was initiated while Crockett was still alive, but in the decades since his death he has been elevated into the very personification of the American frontiersman, almost single-handedly hacking his way across rugged terrain to spread the ideals of America (Andrew, 1987, p. xiii). In essence, Dave Crockett the legend is also the personification of Manifest Destiny. Despite losing his life at the Alamo, the war was eventually won and Americans pushed their way incessantly across the continent, finally arriving at the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and the realization that there was no more continent to conquer. By the turn of the century, America was still looking to expand its influence, but the new form of Manifest Destiny was realized in economic conquering of foreign lands. The industrial revolution and the changing face of modernity and Europe following a century of wars saw American on standing on the precipice of a new frontier validated by boom increase in wealth and population. As a result, America was poised to take on new tests far away from its borders. These measures were analogous to the conceptions that made Manifest Destiny such a success. The country’s new imperialistic aims can be seen as little more than expansion of the goals that saw the opening of the west. The overseas expansion commence in 1898 with the Spanish-American war. It was not by sheer accident that Teddy Roosevelt fashioned his Rough Riders as contemporary cowboys hellbent on ensuring American dominance overseas. This territorial expansion that lay at the heart of the Spanish-America war was fully designed to be traced back to the concept of Manifest Destiny. American had run out of land and cowboys would look out of place strolling through the refined cities of Europe. In the pacific islands and down through Central and South America, the pioneer spirit still ruled, however. There was still a place for a man riding a horse while holding a rifle in one hand could affect change. American’s destiny was no longer about protecting its own borders and interests, but about spreading its influence and directing world events. Teddy Roosevelt was a brilliant enough politician to understand the importance of imagery. He used the evocative images of the frontiersman to legitimize the imperialist ugliness beneath the hat and boots. Jon Roper invokes the mythic qualities of the cowboy figure when he links the idea of the solitary, taciturn frontier sheriff standing up against the onslaught of outlaws coming into his town. (Roper, 2004). On March 17, 2003, George W. Bush stood before the world like the sheriff in western movie or television show and essentially told Saddam Hussein he had until sundown to leave town. In fact, Pres. Bush’s exacts words indicated that he was giving Saddam Hussein a full 48 hours, but the declaration was clearly structured with the intent of positioning the President as the contemporary reincarnation of wild west sheriffs of a thousand movies of old. It was an ultimatum sent from the guy in the white hat to the guy in the black hat and the underlying motif was anything but hidden. Even the media, ever-ready to give Bush a free ride and go along with his playacting, recognised the theme at work. As the ramping up to the inevitable war in Iraq played out, editorials and opinion pieces in every type of media lent their support to President Bush’s misguided view of himself as a swaggering western hero coming in to clean up town by consistently portraying him in terms of a Wild West sheriff. Strengthening that image was the view that Sheriff Bush was going to have to go it alone—in good old-fashioned western movie tradition—as ally after ally refused to support his crusade. Those European leaders who resisted joining Bush’s posse were, in turn, often compared to the kind of cowardly characters who turned their back on Gary Cooper in High Noon. Of course, George W. Bush is hardly the first President to co-opt the image of the cowboy hero and to steep himself in the western mythos. The cowboy is America’s only unique contribution to mythology; he is the modern-day equivalent of the European myth of the chivalric knight. Just as America jettisoned the old-world ideas of kings and royalty and replaced them with the idea that any citizen could grow up to become its leader, so did it replace the outdated hero of courtly knights with the manly cowboys. In and 1893 essay, “The Significance of the American Frontier in American History,” Frederick Jackson Turner asserted that "the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines" (Turner, 1947, p. 4). This essay was a proclamation of the importance that the American frontier played in the creation of the American ideals of democracy and independence. Turner’s assertion basically stakes the claim that the wild west of American history was a primary component of the overall American character. It was the hardscrabble cowboys who had eschewed the niceties of European influence who truly stood for American ideals; the wide open west was democracy in its purest form where anyone could remake himself into a success and was not dependent upon the ties of history or class. After finishing his masters degree, Jackson became a scholar under the tutelage of a historian who maintain that the "germ theory" was responsible for sweeping historical change. The germ theory essentially posited that historical antecdent drives societal change and in America that meant all aspects of society would conform to the antecedents that had their foundation in Europe. Over time, however, Turner came to reject that theory, developing one of his own that situated historical developments in the arena of environmental influences. Turner could not acceptably explain the history of Wisconsin using the hereditary construction of germ theory due to the contradictions inherent in the influence of Native American culture in the region. Faced with the hardscrabble land of the wilderness, the European-influences of first frontiers were often overwhelmed by the land itself. The westward expansion was a tough exercise and in many cases the land became master of the man. Over time, however, as the land was settled and even tamed, the pioneers became the masters, creating architectural wonders where there had previously been nothing but nature. It was this process of actually building a nation from the earth up that effectively freed him from the shackles of European heritage and turned him into an American. Manifest destiny, in other words, was manifested by carving’s one individual destiny out of the solid earth. Turner’s assertion is that the taming of the frontier was a progression in which men first face their environment with awe and wonder before becoming confident masters of all they surveyed. The progression of pioneers mirrored human evolution, working from the water upward: first fur traders and hunters, then farmers, then ranchers, and finally the laborers. The prospective abundance of the frontier diminish the country’s economic dependence on Europe, but more significantly for the future growth of the ocuntry was the way the opening of the west served to encourage democratic ideals such as individualism and self-sufficiency. This was the age in which the cowboy became a mythic creation meant to exemplify all that was good and right about America. Typically, of course, the myth was far removed form the reality. This iconic image unquestionably masculiney, appropriate self-sufficient, entirely virtuous, and always of European descent. Once mythologized, this completely unrealistic new breed of American hero transformed into the standard-bearer for America’ greatness. From the earliest days of the nickelodeon the cowboy was a mainstay of cinema. Before that his image was cemented through traveling rodeos and wild west shows that showed off his riding, roping and shooting skills. But he was more than just someone who could ride a horse and shoot a gun. He was also the lone figure who stood between the potential for anarchy in the west and the introduction of law and order. That new All-American myth made some adjustments to the idea of a knight-errant that still resonates today. The cowboy did away with the clumsy armor of the knight and thereby freed him of more than just exterior constraints. The frontier knight seems to be sturdier than his Round Table counterpart; he is a quietly rugged individualist with a sense of honor and a disregard for any injustice, but especially injustices to those who can’t defend themselves (Murdoch, 2001, pp. 64-65). Long after the actual days when sagebrush might skitter across a dusty road as a small town western sheriff walked the streets with a five-star badge on his chest and a six-shooter strapped to his waste, the mythology of the cowboy was actually codified for the generation that produced America’s latest cowboy President. It was known as the Cowboy Code and was written by singing cowboy Gene Autry. Among the guidelines that Autry laid out for being a proper cowboy were such things as never taking unfair advantage, always telling the truth, never giving in to racial or religious prejudice and being clean in thought, word and deed (Wortham, 1999, p. 306). Clearly, being a cowboy for Americans means far more than wearing a hat and spurs and driving cattle across the Red River. Just like the knight before him, the cowboy is an ideal more than a real figure; he is something that little boys and grown men alike should aspire to like. Even before Gene Autry wrote what might be termed his cowboy commandments, however, that ideal was already in place as a result of dime novels that fictionalised what at the time was still quite recent history. In addition to dime novels that glorified a fictional cowboy on the fast path to mythological icon, an artist named Frederic Remington was working in the media of both paint and sculpture to add a third dimension to exciting stories found in the pages of those dime novels. At the turn of the century, as the literal deaths of the last of the infamous wild west outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid became the symbolic death of the end of an era, the frontier spirit borne by thousands of words on cheap paper and stunning sinews carved into bronze was about to reborn in the most unlikely of men. It was a stout little fellow born to the wealth of Eastern elite and educated at Harvard who would set the tone for the new breed of President in the 20th century. Theodore Roosevelt was a born politician and possessed the kind of acute political insight into orchestrating an image that would be the envy of contemporary politicians. TR went to great pains to present himself not as a sickly scion of great wealth, but rather as a robust frontiersman. Unlike the current old money President, however, Theodore Roosevelt possessed some impressive credentials to back up his façade; he owned and worked an actual ranch and not only drove his herd of cattle, but even hunted down his own food while doing so (Edward, 1989, p. 79). Roosevelt’s co-opting of the tough, manly, independent image of the Wild West began even before he moved into the Oval Office following the death of Pres. William McKinley. Upon the outbreak of what was probably American’s first manufactured war—over a century before the current manufactured war in Iraq—Theodore Roosevelt literally put on his spurs and climbed aboard his steed, creating a fighting machine that was quite literally made up of a bunch of cowboys, popularly known as the Rough Riders. It was a regiment of cavalry composed solely of cowboys, with one rather noticeable exception. In fact, the Rough Riders would in time be composed of companies of cowboys from Arizona to Florida, along with one company of New Yorkers headed up by Roosevelt. All of them, cowboys and Yankees alike, wore the distinctive cowpoke bandanna along with their uniforms and presented themselves as swarthy, earthy, strong and silent modern knights. Roosevelt’s image as a wild cowboy spirit was further charged, quite literally, in the mythology of his famous "Charge Up San Juan Hill.” These recreations in the media told of uniformed cowboys mounted on big horses and taking shots at the Spanish enemies. This story and these images were retold in papers and magazines all across the country, but was especially prominent in the newspapers of owned by the publisher who was instrumental in manufacturing the Spanish American War, William Randolph Hearst. Even today, the reality that the charge took place mostly on foot and included over a thousand negroes in addition to the glamorous cowboys doesn’t seem to tarnish the image of Teddy Roosevelt one bit. That bandanna would later show up when Teddy Roosevelt ran for President in 1904, and the whole image became an easy target for political cartoons that depicted Teddy as a cowboy complete with bandanna, chaps and six-shooters. The image of Roosevelt as the first cowboy President was cemented when Mark Hanna remarked after hearing of the death of Pres. William McKinleys death, “Now that damned cowboy is President of the United States” (Collins, 1991, p. 153). Once he did become President, Theodore Roosevelt rarely wasted an opportunity to play the part of the cowboy. It is interesting that the first actual Texas to become President did so as the result of an assassin’s bullet that struck down a President whose image was built around the image of the knight. Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullet in the back of Pres. John Kennedy’s head put the final nail in the coffin of the image of the knights of Camelot as an apt image for America’s leader. No President since then has utilised that archaic image, but instead has only intensified their connection to the image of the long cowboy striding into town to clean up the more prosaic evils. Presidents don’t fight dragons; they fight bad guys. Lyndon Johnson was actually raised as a cowboy, brought up on a Texas ranch (Dugger, 1982, p. 26). Of course, being brought up on a ranch doesn’t make one a cowboy, and Lyndon Johnson may be seen as the antithesis of George W. Bush. While Bush is actually a member of the eastern elite born in Connecticut who tries his best to present himself as Texas cowboy, Lyndon Johnson was a Texas cowboy who presented himself as political wheeler/dealer. Johnson was a very smart man who hardly needed to hide behind a façade of the sheriff who commands respect simply by virtue of wearing a gun. Although Johnson made use of his Texas accent in a far more effective way than Bush, that probably has more to do with it being genuine than with making an effort. The fact that Lyndon Johnson failed to fully take advantage of his actual frontier credentials is an eerie reflection of the story of the cowboy writ large. Just as it would take actors to fully cement the image of the cowboy in social consciousness, so would it be left to an actor who was no more a real cowboy than Richard Nixon to totally realise the idea of the cowboy President. Just as actors who wore makeup and often didn’t even know how to ride a horse created much of the mythology of the cowboy in the minds of millions of Americans, so was it an actor who played the role of cowboy President to the hilt. Ronald Reagan grew up far away from the dusty towns of the old west; he was a Midwestern boy from Illinois who never rode a horse until he was making westerns in Hollywood. In fact, Reagan made only infrequent appearances in western movies; he was most famous for playing a doomed college football player and acting with a monkey. Even his famous western television show "Death Valley Days" featured him mainly as a host rather than an actor; in essence, he was more a spokesman for the sponsors than an actor. Nonetheless, Reagan was like someone from central casting when it came time to play cowboy politician. He made a name for himself as Governor of California by running on a tough platform promising law and order in the wild and woolly 60s. It is perhaps the ultimate in dramatic irony that Ronald Reagan appeared as a tough-talking sheriff in the days when the west was its wildest since the 19th century. In 1969, Reagan ordered the National Guard to deal with unarmed hippie demonstrators in Berkeley where they were gassed and even killed (Pemberton, 1998, p. 74).   Ronald Reagan’s popularity never waned even during the darkest days of the Iran/Contra Affair. No matter how much his policies stand in opposition to much of that cowboy code that Gene Autry forwarded, he was embraced. He is even still considered the big bad sheriff who brought down the baddest guys of the century: the Soviet Union and the communist threat. The idea that Reagan was responsible for single-handedly bringing down the Soviet Union should not be glibly discounted despite all evidence to the contrary. In believing that he genuinely was the guy responsible he reinforces that very idea of the importance of the frontier that Frederick Turner Jackson writes of. If Jackson is right when he attributes the American character to the opening of the west and if he is right when he says the west is the epitome of democracy, then Ronald Reagan is the epitome of the cowboy. Not only did he save democracy from the communist threat, but he did what all those eastern European countries could not do. If it is the cowboy and the myth of the wild west that tears asunder America’s relationship with Europe, then it is Ronald Reagan who established the primacy of America over the world. If only it were so. Alas, just as there is so much myth surrounding the stories of the wild west, so is there myth surrounding Reagan’s part in destroying communist. (Apart from the fact a billion Chinese might well argue communism is still alive and kicking.) The fact is that one may well make a far better argument that it was the ill-conceived war in Afghanistan that did more to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union than anything Reagan did, and that quagmire was orchestrated during the administration of Jimmy Carter. Carter, of course, was well known for bringing Levi’s jeans into the White House, but his part in the development of the cowboy presidency really extends not much farther than fashion. No iconic figure in the American mythos resonates with the vitality as that of the cowboy. of the cowboy that resonates across the globe. Few Presidents over the course of the last half century have been able to deny themselves the opportunity to take up the rhetoric of the frontier and this has a deep and profound connection with the idea of Manifest Destiny. It is alive even today and appears dressed in a ten gallon hat and spurs when words like bringing back Osama Bin Laden “dead or alive” is used. President Bush never wastes an opportunity to frame his self-declared war on terror in terms of an old west showdown the terrorists who are, conveniently, half a world away from him. The cowboy myth is constantly invoked because of the image it instantly conveys to an American public raised on western movies and TV shows; a stoic leader who believes in patriotism and individualism, who denies the possibility of allowing injustices to be wrought upon the weak by the strong, and who conveys a quiet intelligence and respect for the traditions of the country. With the wild west being tamed by the pioneers and frontiersmen, the cowboy was enshrined into the American Valhalla of its founders, content to become a myth that bears little resemblance to reality, in much the same way that Presidents who wear cowboys clothes bear little resemblance to the traits associated with that disguise. The great irony of the predilection for Presidents to attire themselves in the appurtenances of the frontier is the real life cowboys may have the ones most responsible for the devastation of their own era. Real life cowboys of the old west lived dangerous lives with a high mortality rate and bad health. In addition, there was almost no such thing as job security. In a way, the closest parallel to modern day cowboys would be the illegal immigrants working in the fields. Clearly, that is not a comparison that any self-respecting politician would enjoy. Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush are the three 20th century President mostly closely associated with the mythic image of the cowboy and it is not surprising that they are farther away from the reality of the cowboy image than the iconic image. Each of the cowboy Presidents have a legacy of imperialist policies that left many innocent people dead. For Roosevelt it was in the Phillipines during the Spanish-American War, for Reagan it was his support of fascist dictators whose rule was every bit as iron-handed as the communists they were supposed to be protecting the people from, and for Bush it is the pile of dead bodies in Iraq. There is one very profound difference, however. Roosevelt undersood the consequences of Manifest Destiny on the infrastructure of America and took steps to preserve the actual natural state of America even as he may have taken steps to corrupt its ideals of freedom and equality. A century of westward expansion, and industrial growth had taken a environment, so Roosevelt responded in the same way that a real frontiersman who recognized his livelihood depended on taking care of his soil would: he instituted programs aimed at promoting wilderness preservation and better management of natural resources. Roosevelt also understood the necssity for a planned development of natural resources and so supported the National Reclamation Act of 1902. He understood the dynamics of policy that pit development against conservation and did his best to walk the fine between them. By contrast, the enviromental policies of the two other Presidents who have co-opted the image of the man who makes his living off the land have been a series of initiatives designed to line the pockets of elitist corporate interests while ignoring pressing environmental concerns. Works Cited A Beacon for Hatred. (2006, July 23). Sunday Mirror (London, England), p. 14. Andrew, P. H. (1987). A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Collins, M. L. (1991). That Damned Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and the American West, 1883-1898. New York: Peter Lang. Dugger, R. (1982). The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson : The Drive for Power, from the Frontier to Master of the Senate. New York: W. W. Norton. Edward, G. W. (1989). The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (1st ed.). Austin, TX: Yale UP / UT Press. Murdoch, D. H. (2001). The American West: The Invention of a Myth. Cardiff, Wales: Welsh Academic Press. Pemberton, W. E. (1998). The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Roper, J. (2004). The Contemporary Presidency: George W. Bush and the Myth of Heroic Presidential Leadership. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 34(1), 132+. Turner, F. J. (1947). The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt. Weinberg, A. K. (1935). Manifest Destiny A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. Read More