The Other Teddy Roosevelts Read Online Free PDF Page A

could work anywhere else?”
    “No one cares about Whitechapel,” said Irma bitterly.
    “Well, they’d better start caring,” said Roosevelt. “Because if this butcher isn’t caught, you’re going to be so awash in blood that you might as well call it Redchapel.”
    “Redchapel,” repeated Shrank. “I like that! Hell, if we change the name, maybe they’d finally pay attention to what’s going on down here.”
    “Why do you think he’s going to kill again?” asked the bartender.
    “If his motive is to kill prostitutes, there are still hundreds of them left in Whitechapel.”
    “But everyone knows he’s crazy,” said Shrank. “So maybe he never had no motive at all.”
    “All the more reason for him to strike again,” said Roosevelt. “If he had no reason to start, then he also has no reason to stop.”
    “Never thought of that,” admitted Shrank. He gave Roosevelt a hearty slap on the back. “You got a head on your shoulders, Yank! What do you do back in America?”
    “A little of everything,” answered Roosevelt. “I’ve been a politician, a rancher, a Deputy Marshall, a naturalist, an ornithologist, a taxidermist, and an author.”
    “That’s a hell of a list for such a young bloke.”
    “Well, I have one other accomplishment that I’m glad you didn’t make me show off,” said Roosevelt.
    “What was that?”
    Roosevelt picked his glasses up from the bar and flashed Shrank another grin. “I was lightweight boxing champion of my class at Harvard.”
    ***
    My Dearest Edith:

    I must be a more formidable figure than I thought. No sooner do I agree to help apprehend Jack the Ripper than he immediately goes into hiding.
    I have spent the past two weeks walking every foot of the shabby slum known as Whitechapel, speaking to everyone I meet, trying to get some information—any information—about this madman who is making headlines all over the world. It hasn’t been productive—though in another way it has, for it has shown me how not to govern a municipality, and I suspect the day will come when that will prove very useful knowledge indeed.
    I know America has its rich and its poor, its leaders and its followers, but any man can, through his own sweat and skills, climb to the top of whatever heap he covets. I find England’s class system stifling, and I keep wondering where America would be if, for example, Abraham Lincoln had been forced to remain the penniless frontiersman he had been born. We have Negroes who were born into slavery who will someday hold positions of wealth and power, and while slavery is a shameful blot on our history, it was a system that men of good will and reason eventually destroyed. I see no such men attempting to bring about the necessary changes in British society.
    I walk through Whitechapel, and I can envision what a handful of Americans, with American know-how and American values, could do to it in five years’ time. And yet I fear it is doomed to remain exactly what it is until the buildings finally collapse of their own decrepitude.
    I have made some friends among the residents, many of whom have been extremely hospitable to an alien. (Yes, I know I was well treated by the Royal Society, but I came there with a reputation as an expert. I came to Whitechapel only as an outsider. And yet I find I prefer to rub shoulders with the common man on this side of the ocean, even as I have always done at home.)
    One special friend is a day laborer (who seems to labor as infrequently as possible) named Colin Shrank, who has been my guide down the fog-shrouded streets and filthy alleys of Whitechapel. As I say, we’ve discovered no useful information, but at least I now feel I have a reasonably thorough working knowledge of the geography of the place, a knowledge I will be only too happy to expunge the moment I return to our beloved Sagamore Hill.

    My best to Alice and little Ted.
    Your Theodore
    ***
    Roosevelt opened a letter, tossing the envelope carelessly on the