Gumption: America's Gutsiest Troublemakers

by Nick Offerman

  In 1838, having navigated a daring escape from Baltimore by stealing aboard a freight train with the uniform and identification of a free black seaman, traveling by train and then steamboat to Philadelphia and finally New York City, all in fewer than twenty-four hours, Douglass finally succeeded in claiming his rightful place in the Land of the Free. He later wrote of his indescribable feelings upon the occasion, at the tender age of twenty: “Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.”

  Before this book project I did not realize what a singular superman the abolitionist movement had found in Frederick Douglass. Right they were, the proslavery fuck-nuts, to fear that just such a firebrand as he would be powerfully instrumental in helping to bring about the end of slavery. I find it noteworthy that, despite his superior wits, it was his hard work and elbow grease that ultimately earned him the opportunity to utilize his genius for language. Once he had escaped to the free Northern states and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Douglass was still unable to find work as a ship caulker because of prejudice. He was unfazed, exhibiting no apparent bottom to his well of gumption.

  Finding my trade of no immediate benefit, I threw off my caulking habiliments, and prepared myself to do any kind of work I could get to do. Mr. Johnson kindly let me have his wood-horse and saw, and I very soon found myself a plenty of work. There was no work too hard—none too dirty. I was ready to saw wood, shovel coal, carry wood, sweep the chimney or roll oil casks,—all of which I did for nearly three years in New Bedford, before I became known to the anti-slavery world.

  The takeaway here is that this uneducated, escaped slave did not hesitate to perform any task of physical labor, as he said, “hard and dirty work,” in order to continue his rapid climb to the status of a free American who could use words like “habiliments.” He grasped, wittingly or no, the simple formula for success once he arrived in a (sort of) free country: Make your desired vocation known to those around you, then proceed to exhibit the most impressive work ethic in whatever occupation is at hand.

  Besides earning his keep by means of such labor, Douglass also joined the congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New York City, a black parish that included such abolitionist leaders as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. He quickly became a licensed preacher, as well as a Sunday school superintendent and sexton of the church. When examining photographs of Douglass, it’s easy to understand why the arrival of this fiercely handsome and intensely intelligent young man, who could inspire the flock with his fiery oration and also fix the roof and doors of the church in a pinch, would incite excitement. His appearance and demeanor can be described only as those of a full-on badass.

  By age twenty-three he was able to conquer his nervousness about public speaking, and he began addressing antislavery societies and conferences all over the free states. In the eloquence of Frederick Douglass’s oratory, the abolitionists had found a perfectly forged, priceless sword that wielded the devastating combination of searing common sense, an inspired talent for language, and a furious commitment to justice, all resting solidly upon the bedrock of his all-too-real history in bondage and brutality.

  Frederick Douglass continued to risk life and limb in disseminating his message, as even in free Northern states he often faced violent opposition from proslavery factions. Many white males did not want to relinquish one iota of the unfair powers afforded them by the suppression of the rights of African Americans and women, and they weren’t above resorting to intimidation to have their way. In fact, intimidation was often their opening move.

  It wasn’t long before Douglass recognized the similar oppression being dealt to women of the age and allied their cause to his own. At the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in upstate New York, Douglass said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He was quite aware that the world could begin to spin in anything approximating a rotation of fairness only if women were allowed to participate in the political arena as well. “In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.”

  Douglass’s rhetoric carried a very clear message that was powerfully successful in slicing away so much of the bullshit surrounding the issue of slavery. Many filthy antagonists wanted to discuss the abominable practice as a matter of economics and financial health, going so far as to mask their avaricious intentions by suggesting that the “Negro race” was less human than people of other skin colors, a pattern of “justice piloted by wealth” that we’ll see come up again in this book. It’s amazing, the wool the people in power of any nation will try to pull over the eyes of the citizens if there’s a buck to be made. Unfortunately, human nature seems to allow this to occur regularly, out of laziness and ignorance.

  As Douglass penned, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

  His cause was much more obvious, some 160 years ago, since slavery (as well as women’s suffrage) was such a clear and egregious violation of basic human rights, but it remains clear today, even after emancipation and integration and legalized voting, that the scales of justice are still considerably out of whack. Consider this quote concerning the law prohibiting African Americans to marry: “The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one-sixth of the population of democratic America is denied its privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of its humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?” This sounds rather familiar to me now in a land where a percentage of the population is being denied their marriage rights in exactly the same way, based upon sexual orientation instead of skin color.

  Human beings are lazy. White people, especially males, still hold a disproportionate share of the political and financial clout in our country. If, as Douglass asserts, “power concedes nothing without a demand,” then it only stands to reason that these white men will not strive to right every possible wrong, refusing to rest until minorities and women are, say, earning a wage equal to theirs. We’re lazy assholes. That’s our nature, so I say let’s at least cop to it. We haven’t remotely righted every wrong; we’ve merely made things just good enough to stop people bitching as loudly. We eradicated slavery and we gave blacks and women the right to vote, but doing so did not magically remove all the racism or sexism in the states—not by a long shot.

  In the June 2014 issue of The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an incredibly eye-opening essay about the issue of reparations toward the families of former slaves. I call it “eye-opening” because personally, as a relatively comfortable and therefore lazy white guy, I was not immediately aware of the severity of injustices still being practiced upon the black population by white people in power. I’m not suggesting I’m naïve enough to think that racism hasn’t continued its rampant destruction in our land, but this article was a much-needed wake-up call to the fact that mass organized discrimination is alive and well, just cloaked more effectively in mortgage scams and voter fraud. “Voter intimidation,” by the way, can be open to some pretty horrifying interpretations.

  In 1946, Theodore G. Bilbo, an elected Mississippi senator and proud member of the Ku Klux Klan, called upon his “constituents” thus, on the radio, no less: “ever
y red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July second primary. And if you don’t know what that means, you are just not up to your persuasive measures.”

  I was so grateful for Coates’s article in a major national journal, because it reminds us that although the initial sins of slavery and genocide are behind us, the mess we made in the commission of such sins is still clinging to our character with all the tenacity of the red, white, and blue—colors, I’ll remind you, that most certainly do not run.

  This entire subject makes me angry and also embarrassed, because I share a species with sad turds like this Bilbo person. As a human animal, part of me wants to retaliate against such unthinkable stupidity and evil in kind, by punching my ham-fist into someone’s face. That Mississippi asswipe is thankfully dead, so maybe I should just go find another “red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man” to attack. “They’re all the same, right?”

  Then I stop myself and say, okay, hang on. Take a pill. No, those are addictive and bad; that’s just what Big Pharma wants me to think. I’ll take a breath instead. If Frederick Douglass and millions like him could withstand the animal temptation to take “an eye for an eye” after the plate of shit they were served, then surely I can refrain from punching out an Aryan Whole Foods stock boy. The point is that we are indeed all the same, not delineated by color or sex or any other factor. When Frederick Douglass began to publish his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, in the late 1840s, he got it. The slogan of his paper was: “Right is of no Sex—Truth is of no Color—God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.”

  Surrounded as I am by openminded individuals with whose politics I generally agree, although they are comprised of many races and every category of sexuality and various religious beliefs, I can easily become inured to the fact that our Manifest Destiny attitude is still dangerously pervasive in many regions of this country. When news items or “patriotic” messaging that suggest our flag is a license to murder, or even just a gung ho, extra-white country music video about “’Murica,” it reminds me unpleasantly of the absurd sense of entitlement we Americans seem to feel, “since we butchered our way to the ownership of this land, fair and square”; I often wish I could call upon Frederick Douglass to cut to the heart of the matter for me, as my own clear thinking is clouded by confusion and animosity and shame. Oh. I can:

  In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky—her grand old woods—her fertile fields—her beautiful rivers—her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal actions of slaveholding, robbery, and wrong; when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters; I am filled with unutterable loathing.

  PART 2

  IDEALISTS

  5

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT

  We have had an awfully pleasant look at four early examples of American luminaries, boasting a great wealth of character attributes worthy of emulation. Let us now leap forward with gusto to a fifth, an American for whom I have a healthy sense of rippling admiration. Theodore Roosevelt, our twenty-sixth president, was an avid sportsman, naturalist, writer, explorer, soldier, and historian, known for his lively, masculine personality and fondness for pugilism, in both his backyard and in his politics. His interests were varied and rich, amply served by his voracious appetite for books, adventure, the society of people, wildlife, and the great outdoors. We largely have him to thank for our National Park System, as well as a great deal more preserved wilderness, not to mention the Panama Canal; but before we get to that, let’s have a peek at his childhood.

  Young Theodore was, for lack of a better term, a wuss. He was stricken with asthma, which left him debilitated, weak, and rather an easy target for the other boys to bully. “Having been a sickly boy, with no natural bodily prowess . . . I was at first quite unable to hold my own when thrown into contact with other boys of rougher antecedents.” Ineffectual as he may have been on the playground, his prodigious brain was already enjoying an inspired regimen of reading, a pastime of which he never seemed to tire. A favorite title in his early years was the magazine Our Young Folks, which our young Theodore described as containing “interesting [stories] in the first place, and in the next place teaching manliness, decency, and good conduct.”

  Despite his sickly state, he was as smart as a whip and keen on any topic having to do with nature. After scrutinizing a dead seal at a local market, compulsively measuring the creature’s head again and again, Roosevelt was finally awarded the skull, which he employed as the tent-pole attraction in his first amateur museum of natural history at age seven, belying what would become a lifelong obsession with wildlife and its proper exhibition for public consumption. “That seal filled me with every possible feeling of romance and adventure.” He was determined to pursue the career path of a naturalist, a notion he eventually gave up, although his instinct to catalogue wildlife would comprise a great deal of his life’s writing.

  While hiking with his family in the Alps, a still wimpy Theodore happily discovered that the beneficial effects of the exertion were suppressing his asthma and bolstering his timid spirit. His father encouraged him to begin a program of rigorous exercise, including boxing and weight training, and this discipline had a tremendous effect in fortifying Roosevelt’s morale. For the first time in his life, but certainly not the last, he understood that with a properly applied dose of gumption, he could accomplish much more than the recently apprehensive version of himself could ever have envisioned. “I felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and who could hold their own in the world, and I had a great desire to be like them.”

  Theodore quickly came to love boxing, an exercise that not only exponentially improved his physical health, stamina, and coordination but also fortified his self-confidence in physical confrontations. Reveling in his newfound strength, he set about to make of himself an ideal specimen of masculinity, in both body and spirit. He also found that he loved to row a boat, another invaluable labor that served to redouble his love of the fascinating scenery and bracing elements in the out-of-doors. (I can personally attest that admiring nature from a boat, particularly one that is being propelled by one’s own muscle, and/or one’s own wife, has a nearly magical sense of satiated relish.)

  He wrote, “I suppose it sounds archaic, but I cannot help thinking that the people with motor boats miss a great deal. If they would only keep to rowboats and canoes, and use oar or paddle themselves, they would get infinitely more benefit than by having their work done for them by gasoline.” Not only will such a strenuous program reinforce a body’s muscle and circulation, but it also affords one the advantage of intimacy with all the ineffable pleasures to be found once one steps over the threshold of domestic comfort into the wonderland of woods or prairie. Perhaps within this sentiment lies a clue to enjoying one’s life with a Rooseveltian vigor; by metaphorically choosing a path of more resistance, a person can provide stimulating challenges to him- or herself on a daily basis.

  Roosevelt’s encouragement inspires me to get outside and hike, bike, or row rather than remain in the homogenized climate control of the gym. I am also warmed by his sure-footed stance regarding the balance of play versus work in a healthy life: “Play should never be allowed to interfere with work; and a life merely devoted to play is, of all forms of existence, the most dismal. But the joy of life is a very good thing, and while work is the essential in it, play also has its place.” In order to successfully execute such a life as Roosevelt’s, it’s apparently important to “keep one’s blood up,” maintaining a steady focus on victory, all the while cultivating the horsepower to leap dynamically into action. “It is only on these conditions that he will grow into
the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud,” he said, but I’m sure he meant to include girls in that pronouncement as well.

  Theodore Roosevelt Sr. was a substantial supporter of his son’s endeavors, morally and financially, as well as a role model of integrity. As number twenty-six wrote, “He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness,” and “I never knew any one who got greater joy out of living than did my father, or any one who more whole-heartedly performed every duty.” Theodore Sr. died tragically at forty-six of an intestinal tumor, while his son, nineteen, was attending Harvard. If he could have lived to see the life that Junior accomplished, he would certainly have been comforted by the striking resemblance the younger Roosevelt’s ideals bore to his own.

  Theodore Roosevelt rode his proactive methodology straight into a political career that started in the 1881 New York State Assembly, when he became the youngest assemblyman on the floor by winning a Republican seat at the age of twenty-three. Charging immediately into the fray by staunchly opposing the rampant corruption he found there led quickly to some heated altercations. As Edmund Morris writes, “‘Big John’ MacManus, the ex-prizefighter and Tammany lieutenant . . . proposed to toss ‘that damned dude’ in a blanket, . . . [but] fortunately Roosevelt got advance warning. . . . Marching straight up to MacManus, who towered over him, he hissed, ‘I hear you are going to toss me in a blanket. By God! if you try anything like that, I’ll kick you, I’ll bite you, I’ll kick you in the balls, I’ll do anything to you—you’d better leave me alone.’”