Theodore Roosevelt comes apart in layers. Most people, famous or not, do. But rarely does a person get to see the unraveling. The TR Symposium at Dickinson State University has been a chance to take a penetrating look at Roosevelt, a chance to see deeply beneath the surface, layer at a time.

This is the second year of Roosevelt symposiums at DSU. The first year, the focus was on the former president as an adventurer, and now the symposium looks at "Theodore Roosevelt and America's Place in the World Arena."

H.W. Brands, author of "TR: The Last Romantic," spoke to a full house at DSU's May Hall auditorium Thursday evening.

Brands, the keynote speaker, suggested Roosevelt believed he needed a war to prove himself, and that he thought the nation needed a war for the same reason. Roosevelt talked, before his presidency, about the "glories of war." Brands' comments came the same evening that President Bush spoke to the nation about the war in Iraq.

No one today thinks there's much good about the glories of war. And, oddly, no war was fought during the Roosevelt presidency; he became the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Brands was an engaging, personable speaker. He spoke without notes.

History, said Brands, is like a river. Major figures, such as Roosevelt, are like ship captains on that river, able to work with the current, navigating as they go, and, in extreme cases, able to go upstream for a bit. But in the end, the river will go where it wants to go.

Brands said, "Nations get the foreign policy that they can afford." He suggested that large vital economies generate equal foreign policy. When America's economy reached a world class status in the late 19th century, the nation joined the other major world powers at the table of global decision making.

If Brands is right about linking economy and foreign policy, then Clay Jenkinson suggested we all should think about China.

On Friday, symposium presenter Kristin Hoganson made the case that students of TR cannot necessarily separate his idea and his desire for a "strenuous life" - hiking, hunting and the outdoors - from his belief in the glories of war and imperialism, no matter what you call it. It's a hard combo to accept.

John Milton Copper, also a presenter, agreed to the extent that Roosevelt felt being in World War I would be, individually and nationally, ennobling.

With all of that testosterone and macho thinking going on in TR's head, it was sorrowful, personally, to hear from presenter Lori Lyn Bogle that TR wanted to do away with the Marine Corps.

The TR activities move to Medora today, where Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris will take part in the dedication of the Elkhorn Ranch (Eberts Ranch) acquisition in the afternoon.

(Ken Rogers is the managing editor of the Bismarck Tribune. Reach him at ken.rogers@;bismarcktribune.com.)