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Presidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush ReviewRichard J. Ellis's "Presidential Travel" is a useful discussion of the evolution of the manner in which presidents have undertaken trips both within the United States and to other nations. As expected, the change over time is one of ever increasing complexity, concern for security, more logistics, and larger entourages.Ellis documents well not only the journeys, but preparations for them, and the responses they engendered within the U.S. For instance, his discussion of Lincoln's train trip to Washington in 1861 clearly indicates the relationship between the chief executive moving through the population and the expectations of the populace when confronted with a presidential visit.
Perhaps the fundamental change to presidential travel came as a result of the development of transportation. When a president traveled by horseback or in a carrage, even on the boat on a waterway, the trip was both slow and arduous, and required close contact with the people living along the route. Railroad travel separated the president somewhat from the people along the route as it roared past houses, farms, and fields and the president could stay in a private car. But even then the so-called "whistle stop" tours engaged the public. With the advent if air travel, the president's accessibility to the public took a much more difficult turn as he then flew from location to location without many, if any, intermediate stops along the way. The classic image of George W. Bush flying in Air Force One over the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 rather than participating in the action on the ground brought home the disconnectedness of presidential travel from fellow citizens of the U.S.
Ellis explicitly uses the story of how presidential travel has evolved to ruminate on the creation, especially in the twentieth century, of the image of an imperial presidency far removed from the people presumably served. This is an important issue worthy of consideration. The result is an accessible, reflective discussion of this subjectPresidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush OverviewIn office less than half a year, President George Washington undertook an arduous month-long tour of New England to promote his new government and to dispel fears of monarchy. More than two hundred years later, American presidents still regularly traverse the country to advance their political goals and demonstrate their connection to the people.In this first book-length study of the history of presidential travel, Richard Ellis explores how travel has reflected and shaped the changing relationship between American presidents and the American people. Tracing the evolution of the president from First Citizen to First Celebrity, he spins a lively narrative that details what happens when our leaders hit the road to meet the people.Presidents, Ellis shows, have long placed travel at the service of politics: Rutherford "the Rover" Hayes visited thirty states and six territories and was the first president to reach the Pacific, while William Howard Taft logged an average of 30,000 rail miles a year. Unearthing previously untold stories of our peripatetic presidents, Ellis also reveals when the public started paying for presidential travel, why nineteenth-century presidents never left the country, and why earlier presidents--such as Andrew Jackson, once punched in the nose on a riverboat--journeyed without protection. Ellis marks the fine line between accessibility and safety, from John Quincy Adams skinny-dipping in the Potomac to George W. clearing brush in Crawford. Particularly important, Ellis notes, is the advent of air travel. While presidents now travel more widely, they have paradoxically become more remote from the people, as Air Force One flies over towns through which presidential trains once rumbled to rousing cheers. Designed to close the gap between president and people, travel now dramatizes the distance that separates the president from the people and reinforces the image of a regal presidency.As entertaining as it is informative, Ellis's book is a sprightly account that takes readers along on presidential jaunts through the years as our leaders press flesh and kiss babies, ride carriages and trains, plot strategies on board ships and planes, and try to connect with the citizens they represent.
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