the strenuous life

The message he (Theodore Roosevelt) sent back east was that America needed more western vigor. The didactic theme that ran through his many western magazine articles and his major western books was that Americanness was a fierce frontier spirit more alive when plain folk fought their way west than when they settled into industrialized lives in the east. It was a frontier spirit he wanted to make national and to rekindle across class and regional lines. He used the west to teach the east that hunting and outdoor life "tend to bring out the best and manliest qualities in the men who follow them, and they should be encouraged in every way."

from "The Strenuous Life" by Kathleen Dalton (pg 98)

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