Self-Conquest
One Halloween evening, when he was about ten, Eisenhower’s older brothers received permission to go out trick-or-treating, a more adventurous activity in those days than it is now. Ike wanted to go with them, but his parents told him he was too young. He pleaded with them, watched his brothers go, and then became engulfed by uncontrolled rage. He turned red. His hair bristled. Weeping and screaming, he rushed out into the front yard and began pounding his fists against the trunk of an apple tree, scraping the skin off and leaving his hands bloody and torn.
His father shook him, lashed him with a hickory switch, and sent him up to bed. About an hour later, with Ike sobbing into his pillow, his mother came up and sat silently rocking in the chair next to his bed. Eventually she quoted a verse from the Bible: “He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh a city.”
Brooks, David (2015-04-14). The Road to Character (p. 52). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Chapter 3 Brooks uses the story of Dwight Eisenhower and his mother Ida to illustrate the value of self-conquest. Ike had a temper and everyone knew it, but he was raised in a culture of self-control, not self-indulgence or self-expression. It was Eisenhower’s mastery of duplicity that allowed him to become an effective military leader and an effective president of the United States. He was not authentic. His duplicity was a skill he had cultivated throughout his life and it was crucial for his ability to shape the world even for good.
Brooks shows himself in this chapter to be a conservative, to value the passing culture at the expense and to the derision of the present one. He gives us a nice brief biography of both Dwight Eisenhower and his mother and shows how the values of the passing world served.
Adams I and II in Ike Continue reading
