Dan Flores

And that's what these writers are trying to convey.

But

Burroughs and Roosevelt in particular pushed back.

They were resistant to that.

It makes for an interesting take on Roosevelt.

We tend to think of him in pretty heroic terms, but sometimes he wasn't right about things.

I think this may have been one of those times.

Well, I think, you know, and I'm not, not sure exactly when I began, um,

associating Jefferson and Roosevelt, although the West is a common denominator for both of them.

And in a podcast like this, I mean, we sort of started back in some of the early episodes with Jefferson and Lewis and Clark and the expedition up the Red River into the Southwest.

So there's a kind of a natural combination there, I think.

But at some point in my thinking over the years, I began to sort of look at American presidents and say, okay, so among them, who are the ones who are sort of interested?

And the kind of values that I'm interested in, in nature, in wilderness, in landscapes, in wild animals.

And the two, of course, who immediately pop to the top of that list are Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt.

And since Roosevelt, it's difficult to really find him.

another American president.

I mean, for one thing, we don't have very many presidents coming from the West, where as a result of the lifestyle we get to have in the American West, it's probably more possible for someone to be interested in those kinds of subjects.

But

Yeah, it's almost as if Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson are almost the only ones who have that kind of concern.

And so that makes them kind of particular heroes of people who are interested in Western history.