'Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.' (
October 27 1858 –
January 6 1919), also known as 'T.R.', and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as 'Teddy', was the twenty-sixth
President of the United States, and a leader of the
Republican Party and of the
Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including
Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, per Roosevelt, is correctly pronounced "Rosavelt" ().
[2][3][4]
As Assistant Secretary of the
U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the
1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the
Rough Riders, during the
Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the
Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
[5]
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President
William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (
John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a
Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved 40 monopolistic corporations as a "
trust buster". He was clear, however, to show that he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against their corrupt, illegal practices. His "
Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against
labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor
William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912
election on his own one-time
Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt lost but pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat
Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt understood the strategic significance of the
Panama Canal, and negotiated for the U.S. to take control of its construction in 1904; he felt that the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the
Nobel Prize, winning its
Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the
Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter."
[6] His image stands alongside
Washington,
Jefferson and
Lincoln on
Mount Rushmore.
Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the
list of greatest American presidents.
Childhood, education, and personal life
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born at
28 East 20th Street in the modern-day
Gramercy section of
New York City on
October 27 1858, the second of four children of
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–1877) and
Mittie Bullock (1834–1884). He had an elder sister
Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblings — his brother
Elliott (the father of
Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister
Corinne, (grandmother of
newspaper columnists,
Joseph and
Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the
American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly
Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new
Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm
Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of
Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the
American Civil War. Theodore's mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in
Savannah,
Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle,
James Dunwoody Bulloch, "Uncle Jimmy", was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle
Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider,
CSS ''Alabama''; both remained in England after the war.
[7]
Sickly and
asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in
zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead
seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of
taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects".
[8]
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started
boxing lessons.
[9] Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on young Theodore and was a life-long source of inspiration. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. 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."
[10] Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken."
[11]
Young "Teedie", as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek.
[12] He matriculated at
Harvard College in 1876, graduating
magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published
ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail.
[13] He was an unusually eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest men and women. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book. During his adulthood, a visitor would get a not-so-subtle hint that Roosevelt was losing interest in the conversation when he would pick up a book and begin looking at it now and then as the conversation continued.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in numerous clubs, such as rowing and boxing. Other clubs included the
Alpha Delta Phi and
Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to
C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt disregarded the advice and chose to embrace the strenuous life instead.
[14]
He graduated
Phi Beta Kappa and ''magna cum laude'' (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered
Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for
New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life.
[15]
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a
Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the
Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated
James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat
Grover Cleveland, the
Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
First marriage
On his 22nd birthday, Roosevelt married his first wife, 19-year-old
Alice Hathaway Lee, on
October 27,
1880, at the Unitarian Church in
Brookline,
Massachusetts. Alice was the daughter of the prominent banker
George Cabot Lee and Caroline Haskell Lee. (George Cabot Lee's sister Rose Smith Lee was the paternal Grandmother of Massachusetts Governor
Leverett Saltonstall). The couple first met in 1878. He proposed in June 1879. However, Alice waited another six months before accepting the proposal. They announced their engagement on
Valentine's Day 1880. Alice Roosevelt died exactly four years later, only two days after the birth of their first child, also named
Alice. In a tragic coincidence, Roosevelt's mother died of
typhoid fever on the same day, also at the Roosevelt family home in Manhattan.
Diary Entry Feb 14, 1884
Although he noted her loss in his diary and made several references to her in the subsequent months, from the next year on Roosevelt refused to speak his first wife's name again (even omitting her name from his autobiography) and did not allow others to speak of her in his presence. Later, when Roosevelt had other children by Edith Carow Roosevelt, the Alice's step-siblings were taught to call her "sister," rather than her actual name, and Alice's half-brother Ted, Jr. would have to ask "has anyone seen 'sister' this morning?"
Long periods of separation from his daughter, Alice, his consigment of her to his sister Bamie's care until his second marriage, Roosevelt's refusal to discuss his first wife or to even describe her to his daughter, Alice, all would put a strain on his relationship with his first daughter. Indeed, Alice would, in old age, indicate to one biographer, that all that she learned about her own mother she learned from her aunt, TR's sister, Bamie. As young Alice grew into adulthood and better understood her father's deep moral convictions, the bond between them became strong. Alice would become one of her father's trusted female political confidants taking over the position once occupied by Aunt Bamie, herself when she was ill and could not spend much time with her brother in Washington. Alice continued to support her father's ideas and memory after his death in 1919.
Later in 1884, Roosevelt left the General Assembly and put his infant daughter Alice in the long-term care of his older sister,
Bamie. In letters to Bamie, he would refer to Alice as Baby Lee. Roosevelt moved to his
Maltese Cross ranch seven miles (10 km) from
Medora in the
Badlands of the
Dakota Territory to live a more simple life as a rancher and lawman.
Life in Badlands
Theodore Roosevelt as
Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of
Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown,
Medora,
North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri", Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
There, in the waning days of the
American Old West, he rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the
Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in
Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western that one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous
Deadwood,
South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241–245, 247–250)
After a winter wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had purchased ''
Sagamore Hill'' in
Oyster Bay,
New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas". Despite his change of image, he still came in third.
Second marriage
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart,
Edith Kermit Carow.
[16] They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of
Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the
British Royal Society.
[17] They had five children:
Theodore Jr.,
Kermit,
Ethel Carow,
Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and
Quentin.
[18] "Uncle Ted" was the godfather and favorite uncle of
Eleanor Roosevelt, whom he gave away in marriage to their fifth cousin
Franklin D. Roosevelt on
March 17 1905.
Roosevelt is currently the only President to have become a widower and remarry before becoming President.
Historian
In the 1880s, he gained recognition as a serious historian. His ''The Naval War of 1812'' (1882) was the standard history for two generations. For that book, Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going as far as computing British and American
man-of-war broadside throw weights.
[19] As recently as 2006, no fewer than three American books on the birth of the US Navy and the War of 1812 quote from and comment extensively on Roosevelt's book.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of ''
Thomas Hart Benton'' (1887) and ''
Gouverneur Morris'' (1888) are considered superficial.
[20] His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, ''The Winning of the West'' (1889–1896), which had a notable impact on
historiography as it presented a highly original version of the
frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend
Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people. He was using a
Lamarkean model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the United States
American Historical Association.
Return to public life
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the
1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned for
Benjamin Harrison in the Midwest. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the
United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895.
[21] In his term, he vigorously fought the
spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the
presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner,
Grover Cleveland (a
Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
In 1895, he became president of the board of
New York City Police Commissioners. During the two years that he held this post, Roosevelt radically changed the way the police department was run. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records that Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895."
[22] Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers.
[23] Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down the corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required his officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty.
[24] He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by navies and their history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman
Henry Cabot Lodge, President
William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of
Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of
Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the
Spanish-American War[25] and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
[26][27]
War in Cuba
Colonel Roosevelt and his "
Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel
Leonard Wood, organized the
First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment out of a diverse crew that ranged from
cowboys from the Western territories to
Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to
Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment.
Under his leadership, the
Rough Riders became famous for their dual charges up
Kettle Hill and
San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to dismount and walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award.
[28] Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the
Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions.
[29] He was the first and,
as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace.
Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
Governor and Vice President
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "
machine politics" that Republican boss
Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in
the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator
Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated
William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence proved far more attractive to voters and he enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful.
[30] On September 2, 1901, at the
Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far." Twelve days later, President McKinley would be dead, and Roosevelt would succeed him.
Presidency 1901–1909
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera.
was shot by
Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on
September 6,
1901. When he first heard of the shooting, Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont. Assured by McKinley's people that the crisis had passed and that the President would recover, Roosevelt had gone on to a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks when a runner finally caught up with him and told him that McKinley's condition had greatly worsened and that he was on his death bed. Not wanting to simply show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death, Roosevelt was pondering with his wife, Edith, how best to respond to this turn of events, when additional news reached him that McKinley would soon die. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said only that the President had died. Turning the telegram upside down and reading it again, Roosevelt expressed a sense of helplessness that the telegram contained no additional information and said only that McKinley had died at 2:30 AM that morning. Officially having learned that he was now President of the United States, he continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that same day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of
Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor
Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox would recall that "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it."
[31] Roosevelt took the oath of office in the
Ansley Wilcox House at
Buffalo,
New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on the
Bible nor on any other book, making him unique among presidents.
[32] Mark Hanna lamented that "that damned cowboy is president now," giving expression to the fears of many old line Republicans.
[33] Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders.
[34]
Anthracite coal strike of 1902
Main articles: Coal Strike of 1902
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the
United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up.
[35]
Square Deal
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of
trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "
trust-buster."
Mark Hanna was the rival power in the Republican party. Hanna died, and Roosevelt had an easy renomination and reelection in
1904. He won 336 of 476
electoral votes, and 56.4% of the total popular vote. He therefore became the first President who came into office due to the death of his predecessor to be elected in his own right.
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the
White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. His children were almost as popular as he was, and their pranks in the White House made headlines. His daughter,
Alice Lee Roosevelt, became quite popular in Washington.
Regulation of industry
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other."
[36]
His biggest success was passage of the
Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by
Upton Sinclair's book
The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the
Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the
Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market.
[37]
Conservationist
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as
Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a
passenger pigeon, and on
March 14,
1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system), on Pelican Island,
Florida. Assuming the
conservationist role was a natural step for him, and he decided that it was overdue to put the issue high on the national agenda. He worked with all the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter
Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the
United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for
national parks and
nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of
national forests, 53
national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the
Grand Canyon. The
Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the
Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with
John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but he rejected Muir's philosophy that privileged nature, and emphasized instead the more efficient use of nature. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the
Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for ''
Outdoor Life'' magazine. Roosevelt, like Pinchot (but unlike Muir), believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective.
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly
archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the
Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating
national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman
James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist
Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed,
Devils Tower National Monument in
Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to
geology than archaeology.
Foreign policy
Roosevelt's administration was marked by an active approach to foreign policy. Roosevelt saw it as the duty of more developed ("civilized") nations to help the underdeveloped ("uncivilized") world move forward. In
Cuba, the
Philippines,
Puerto Rico, and the
Panama Canal Zone, he used the Army's medical service, under
Walter Reed and
William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the
yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. He used the army to build up the infrastructure of the new possessions, building railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrading roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the US Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads as well as the infrastructure necessary for a modern society. Most notably, Roosevelt saw fit to create an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal—and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the
Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed as a show of force to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific.
[38] Roosevelt also added the
Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in
Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the
Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between
France and
Germany over the division of
Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a
world war.
[39]
Panama Canal
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the
Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between
San Francisco,
California and
New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival
Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At that time,
Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for 10 million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated that the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing that the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On
November 3,
1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named
Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid $10 million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases among the workforce. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
The Great White Fleet
Main articles: Great White Fleet
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four
US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of
circumnavigation from
December 16,
1907, to
February 22,
1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The
Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the
Russians in the
Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the
Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the ''real'' Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of
grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
Life in the White House
Roosevelt relished the presidency and seemed to be everywhere at once. He took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously.
[40] In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time.
[41] His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six."
[42]
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of
simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The ''New York World'' translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
''When nearly three centuries ago, the first settlers came to the country which has become this great republic, that confronted not only hardship and privashun, but terrible risk of their lives. . . . The custom has now become national and hallowed by immemorial usage.''
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic
Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on
December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.
[43]
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both."
In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."
[44]
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original
West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the
federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including
Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
Presidential firsts
#In the sphere of
race relations,
Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the
White House in 1901.
#
Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President
William McKinley on
September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant
Secret Service protection.
#Roosevelt in 1904, became the first former Vice-President who had succeeded to the presidency on the death of the incumbent, to be elected President in his own right or even win his party’s nomination for election.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a
Nobel Prize.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the
Panama Canal on
November 9.
#He was the first and to date only president from
Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to refer to the White House as such on his official stationery. Until then the mansion had been referred to simply as 'The President's House'
#He was the first President to receive a black composer when he met the British composer
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor who had great success with his Hiawatha Trilogy and settings of poems by
Paul Lawrence Dunbar the black poet and novelist.
#He was the first President to fly in an airplane.
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
Administration and Cabinet
Supreme Court appointment
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
★
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. – 1902
★
William Rufus Day – 1903
★
William Henry Moody – 1906
States admitted to the Union
★
Oklahoma – 1907
Post-presidency
African safari
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a
safari in Africa. Financed by
Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the
Smithsonian Institution and for the
American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by
Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from
insects and
moles to
hippopotamuses and
elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare
white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to
Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to
mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other
museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the
National Museum, the
American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."
[45] However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of
science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the
flora and
fauna he collected in the name of science.
Republican Party rift
Roosevelt certified
William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in
1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate
William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party—pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers—he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting
Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator
Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man.
[46]
Handing off responsibility to Taft in 1909
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator
Robert LaFollette of
Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired
Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior
Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
Election of 1912
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried 9 of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the
Republican Convention in
Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing that he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the
Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as
Pinchot and
Albert Beveridge created the
Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "
Bull Moose Party", which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as tough as a bull moose." At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at
Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." The crusading rhetoric resonated well with the delegates, many of them long-time reformers, crusaders, activists and opponents of politics as usual. Included in the ranks were
Jane Addams and many other feminists and peace activists. The platform echoed Roosevelt's 1907–08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests.
[47]
:"To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the
statesmanship of the day." - 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to him
[48] and quoted again in his autobiography
[49] where he continues "'This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.' This assertion is explicit. ...
Mr. Wilson must know that every
monopoly in the United States opposes the Progressive party. ... I challenge him ... to name the monopoly that did support the Progressive party, whether ... the Sugar
Trust, the
Steel Trust, the Harvester Trust, the
Standard Oil Trust, the Tobacco Trust, or any other. ... Ours was the only programme to which they objected, and they supported either Mr. Wilson or
Mr. Taft..."
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace.
While campaigning in
Milwaukee,
Wisconsin on
October 14,
1912, a saloonkeeper named
John Schrank failed in an
assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank ''did'' shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's
chest only after hitting both his
steel eyeglass case and a copy of his speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt declined suggestions that he go to the hospital, and delivered his scheduled speech. He spoke vigorously for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died.
[50]
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken out of the final months of the race. The effect was that he failed to move the political system in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in ''third'' place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But
Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only
Eastern state; in the
Midwest he carried
Michigan,
Minnesota and
South Dakota; in the
West,
California and
Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents
Martin Van Buren and
Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
1913–1914 South American Expedition
Roosevelt's popular book ''Through the Brazilian Wilderness'' describes his expedition into the
Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader,
Brazilian explorer
Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father
John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the
American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the
River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the
Amazon River. It was later renamed
Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long)in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel
Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the
American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in
Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on
December 9,
1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on
February 27,
1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the
Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted
malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named
Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in
Oyster Bay.
Writer
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of ''Outlook'' magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his ''Autobiography'', ''Rough Riders'' and ''History of the Naval War of 1812'', ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative ''The Winning of the West,'' which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
World War I
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak". This caused him to develop an intense dislike of Woodrow Wilson. When
World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported
Britain,
France and the
Allies of World War I because he admired their fight for civilization; he demanded a harsher policy against
Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for
Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced those Irish-Americans and German-Americans whose pleas for neutrality Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "
hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused.
[52]
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son
Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most like by him. It is said that the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss.
[53]
Last years
26 Steps Leading to Roosevelt's Grave Commerating his Service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the
Scouting movement. The
Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of 'Chief Scout Citizen', the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddie Roosevelt's jingoism."
[54]
Death
On
January 6,
1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary
embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Young's Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son,
Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead."
[55] Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time
Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "
Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight."
[56]
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the
Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an
Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at
Grace Reformed Church.
[57] As President he firmly believed in the
separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have ''
In God We Trust'' on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money.
[58] He was also a
Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to — namely to treat each man on his merit as a man."
[59]
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "
the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced
jujutsu and continued his habit of
skinny-dipping in the
Potomac River during winter.
[60][61]
He was an enthusiastic
singlestick player and, according to
Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General
Leonard Wood.
[62] Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with
Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician.
[63]
His younger two sons made up a part of what was called the "White House Gang".
Legacy
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the
Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from
Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the
National Archives. On
January 16,
2001, President
Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the
Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with
George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson and
Abraham Lincoln at the
Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The
United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The
Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the
Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1919 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved
TR's birthplace, "
Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian
Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter — the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God — he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents.
[64][65]
Popular culture
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the
Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of
Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The phrase is also used in a popular
Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Bugs runs for office against a crooked
Yosemite Sam. Bugs in the dress of Roosevelt proclaims the phrase, then Sam runs in, shouting "Well, I speak LOUDLY, and carry an even bigger stick!" Then Sam bops Bugs with the stick on the top of the head.
The well-known
Nicaraguan poet
Rubén Darío published in 1905 a poem entitled ''A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt)'' (see
[1]), which was included in ''Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)''.
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt (or characters using his name loosely based on him) has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture.
In the
Scrooge McDuck comics by
Keno Don Rosa, Roosevelt appears several times, often as the mentor of an
adolescent Scrooge, teaching him the values of self-confidence and self-reliance.
Theodore Roosevelt was used in an episode of the Disney cartoon version of ''
The Legend of Tarzan'' on his African excursion after the Presidency. He is voiced by
Stephen Root.
Roosevelt made an appearance as the founder of a zoological museum in the Futurama episode ''
Less Than Hero.'' Like most 20th century celebrities in the series, Theodore Roosevelt was depicted as a head in a jar.
He is also a major character in
Harry Turtledove's fictional
Timeline-191 alternate history, along with
Caleb Carr's novels ''
The Alienist'' and ''
The Angel of Darkness'', and is the protagonist of
Benito Cereno's ''
Tales From the Bully Pulpit''
comic book. In the comic play and movie ''
Arsenic and Old Lace'' part of the zany atmosphere is created by a character who holds the delusion that he is Theodore Roosevelt.
In an episode of ''
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'', ten-year-old
Indy goes on a
safari in
British East Africa with Roosevelt and his son
Kermit.
[66]
In a episode of "
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams",
Charles Martin Smith played a young Teddy Roosevelt learning his way in the wild in the first season episode "Tenderfoot."
[67]
Roosevelt appeared as a guest host in the ''
Histeria!'' episode "The Teddy Roosevelt Show". The episode opened with a sketch where Roosevelt meets with the show's "writers", and it featured a sketch in which Roosevelt appears as 'Panama Teddy' (a play on
Indiana Jones) to help with the construction of the Panama Canal, and also a song based on his nickname "Trust Buster" (sung to the tune of the theme from ''
Ghostbusters''). Also, the episode "Presidential People" included a song about Roosevelt, named after his catch phrase, "Bully!" (which, as
Toast put it, he liked to say instead of "cool").
Roosevelt and his daughter were the title characters in the short-lived 1987
Broadway musical ''
Teddy & Alice''.
Filmmaker
John Milius directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: ''
The Wind and the Lion'' (1975) in which he was played by
Brian Keith; and ''
Rough Riders'' (1997) in which he was played by
Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy is the stuffed toy bears (
teddy bears), named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured
black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter.
[68]
On
June 26,
2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of ''
TIME'' magazine with the lead story, "The Making of America—Theodore Roosevelt—The 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
[69]
Claude Akins played him in
''Incident at Victoria Falls'' (1991 TV film).
Roosevelt (in Rough Rider garb) is also in the movie ''
Night at the Museum'', played by
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