Theodore Roosevelt

For other people named Theodore Roosevelt, see Theodore Roosevelt (disambiguation).

Theodore D. Roosevelt'
26th President of the United States
In office September 14, 1901 – March 4, 1909
Vice President	Charles W. Fairbanks (1905–1909)
Preceded by	William McKinley
Succeeded by	William Howard Taft
25th Vice President of the United States
In office March 4, 1901 – September 14, 1901
President	William McKinley
Preceded by	Garret Hobart
Succeeded by	Charles W. Fairbanks
33rd Governor of New York
In office January 1, 1899 – December 31, 1900
Lieutenant	Timothy L. Woodruff
Preceded by	Frank S. Black
Succeeded by	Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In office 1897–1898
President	William McKinley
President of the board of New York City Police Commissioners
In office 1895–1897
Personal details
Born	(1858-10-27)October 27, 1858 New York, New York
Died	January 6, 1919(1919-01-06) (aged 60) Oyster Bay, New York
Political party	Republican (1897–1912) Progressive Party (1912–1916)
Spouse(s)	(1) Alice Hathaway Lee (married 1880, died 1884) (2) Edith Kermit Carow (married 1886)
Children	Alice, Ted, Kermit, Ethel, Archie, Quentin
Alma mater	Columbia Law School - dropped out; Harvard College
Occupation	Statesman, author, historian, explorer, conservationist, civil servant
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize (1906), Medal of Honor
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1898
Rank	Colonel
Commands	1st United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment (Rough Riders)
Battles/wars	Spanish-American War *Battle of Las Guasimas *Battle of San Juan Hill

Theodore D. Roosevelt (October 28, 1858 – January 6, 1919; Template:Pron-en) was the 26th President of the United States. He is well remembered for his energetic persona, his range of interests and achievements, his leadership of the Progressive Movement, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Bull Moose Party of 1912. Before becoming the 26th President (1901–1909) he held offices at the municipal, state, and federal level of government. Roosevelt's achievements as a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier are as much a part of his fame as any office he held as a politician.

Born to a wealthy family, Roosevelt was an unhealthy child suffering from asthma who stayed at home studying natural history. In response to his physical weakness, he embraced a strenuous life. He attended Harvard, where he boxed and developed an interest in naval affairs. A year out of Harvard, in 1881 he ran for a seat in the state legislature. His first historical book, The Naval War of 1812, published in 1882, established his reputation as a serious historian. After a few years of living in the Badlands, Roosevelt returned to New York City, where he gained fame for fighting police corruption. He was effectively running the US Department of the Navy when the Spanish American War broke out; he resigned and led a small regiment in Cuba known as the Rough Riders, earning himself the Medal of Honor. After the war, he returned to New York and was elected Governor; two years later he was nominated for and elected Vice President of the United States.

In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt became president at the age of 42, taking office at the youngest age of any U.S. President in history. Roosevelt attempted to move the Republican Party in the direction of Progressivism, including trust busting and increased regulation of businesses. Roosevelt coined the phrase "Square Deal" to describe his domestic agenda, emphasizing that the average citizen would get a fair shake under his policies. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement. On the world stage, Roosevelt's policies were characterized by his comment, "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Roosevelt was the force behind the completion of the Panama Canal; he sent out the Great White Fleet to display American power, and he negotiated an end to the Russian-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Roosevelt declined to run for re-election in 1908. After leaving office, he embarked on a safari to Africa and a trip to Europe. On his return to the US, a rift developed between Roosevelt and his anointed successor as President, William Howard Taft. Roosevelt attempted in 1912 to wrest the Republican nomination from Taft, and when he failed, he launched the Bull Moose Party. In the election, Roosevelt became the only third party candidate to come in second place, beating Taft but losing to Woodrow Wilson. After the election, Roosevelt embarked on a major expedition to South America; the river on which he traveled now bears his name. He contracted malaria on the trip, which damaged his health, and he died a few years later, at the age of 60. Roosevelt has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.

Family

Genealogy

The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid-17th century. Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family of Dutch origin; 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. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Roswell, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a United States 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. From his grandparents' home, the young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession when it came through New York.

Childhood

Theodore Roosevelt at age 11

Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–1878) and Mittie Bulloch (1835–1884). 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 future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt), and his sister Corinne (grandmother of newspaper columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop).

Sickly and asthmatic as a child, 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 child, who suffered severely from tone deafness. 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".

Roosevelt described his childhood experiences in a 1903 letter, writing:

As far as I can remember they were absolutely commonplace. I was a rather sickly, rather timid little boy, very fond of desultory reading and of natural history, and not excelling in any form of sport. Owing to my asthma I was not able to go to school, and I was nervous and self-conscious, so that as far as I can remember my belief is that I was rather below than above my average playmate in point of leadership; though as I had an imaginative temperament this sometimes made up for my other short-comings. Altogether, while, thanks to my father and mother, I had a very happy childhood I am inclined to look back at it with some wonder that I should have come out of it as well as I have! It was not until after I was sixteen that I began to show any prowess, or even ordinary capacity; up to that time, except making collections of natural history, reading a good deal in certain narrowly limited fields and indulging in the usual scribbling of the small boy who does not excel in sport, I cannot remember that I did anything that even lifted me up to the average."

To combat his poor physical condition, his father encouraged the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.

Paternal influence

Theodore, Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. 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."

In a 1900 letter, Roosevelt said of his father,

I was fortunate enough in having a father whom I have always been able to regard as an ideal man. It sounds a little like cant to say what I am going to say, but he really did combine the strength and courage and will and energy of the strongest man with the tenderness, cleanness and purity of a woman. I was a sickly and timid boy. He not only took great and untiring care of me—some of my earliest remembrances are of nights when he would walk up and down with me for an hour at a time in his arms when I was a wretched mite suffering acutely with asthma— but he also most wisely refused to coddle me, and made me feel that I must force myself to hold my own with other boys and prepare to do the rough work of the world. I cannot say that he ever put it into words, but he certainly gave me the feeling that I was always to be both decent and manly, and that if I were manly nobody would laugh at my being decent. In all my childhood he never laid hand on me but once, but I always knew perfectly well that in case it became necessary he would not have the slightest hesitancy in doing so again, and alike from my love and respect, and in a certain sense, my fear of him, I would have hated and dreaded beyond measure to have him know that I had been guilty of a lie, or of cruelty, or of bullying, or of uncleanness or of cowardice. Gradually I grew to have the feeling on my own account, and not merely on his."

Roosevelt's sister, Corinne, 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."

First marriage and response to catastrophic loss

Alice Hathaway Lee (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts – February 14, 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their child, Alice. Roosevelt's wife, Alice died of an undiagnosed (since it was camouflaged by her pregnancy) case of kidney failure (in those days called Bright's disease) two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother had died of typhoid fever in the same house, on the same day, at 3 am, some eleven hours earlier. After the near simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister, Anna "Bamie/Bye" in New York City. In his diary he wrote a large X on the page and wrote "the light has gone out of my life." (See diary photo).

File:TR the Light Has Gone Out.jpg

Diary Entry Feb 14, 1884

A short time later, Roosevelt wrote a tribute to his wife published privately indicating that:

She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; As a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine; there had never come to her a single sorrow; and none ever knew her who did not love and revere her for the bright, sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving , tender, and happy. As a young wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her—then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her. And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.

To the immense disappointment of his wife's namesake and daughter, Alice, he would not speak of his wife publicly or privately for the rest of his life and did not mention her in his autobiography. As late as 1919 when Roosevelt was working with Joseph Bucklin Bishop on a biography which included a collection of his letters, Roosevelt did not mention either his first marriage nor the circumstances of his second marriage which took place in London.

A letter written then to a young female friend of Roosevelt's sister Corinne, who had lost a loved one, demonstrated Roosevelt's method of dealing with catastrophic loss. After his death, in her memoirs, his sister Corinne described this letter as "full of a certain quality — what perhaps I might call a righteous ruthlessness specially characteristic of Theodore Roosevelt," because he had written, "I hate to think of her suffering; but the only thing for her to do now is to treat it as past, the event as finished and out of her life; to dwell on it, and above all to keep talking of it with any one, would be both weak and morbid. She should try not to think of it; this she cannot wholly avoid, but she CAN avoid speaking of it. She should show a brave and cheerful front to the world, whatever she feels; and henceforth she should never speak one word of the matter to any one. In the long future, when the memory is too dead to throb, she may, if she wishes, speak of it once more, but if wise and brave, she will not speak of it now." Roosevelt would later indicate that this was his only method of dealing with a such a debilitating loss, indicating to a grieving friend, "There is nothing more foolish and cowardly than to be beaten down by a sorrow which nothing we can do will change." or, in the words of his biographer, Edmund Morris, "Like a lion obsessively trying to drag a spear from its flank, Roosevelt set about dislodging Alice Lee from his soul. Nostalgia, a weakness to which he was abnormally vulnerable, could be indulged if it was pleasant, but if painful it must be suppressed, 'until the memory is too dead to throb.'"

Education

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 due to her untimely death) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt 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. He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876. 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. He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.

As a young Sunday school teacher at Christ Church, Roosevelt was once reprimanded for rewarding a young man $1 who showed up to his class with a black eye for fighting a bully. The bully had supposedly pinched his sister and the young man was standing up for her. Roosevelt thought this to be honorable; however, the church deemed it too flagrant of support of fighting.

While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing, the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and was a member of the Porcellian Club. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks.

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Theodore Roosevelt comments on his family life in exhibit at Niagara Falls, New York

In later years, pondering his largely home-based early education and his college experience in his autobiography, Roosevelt expressed mixed feelings about its value in preparing him for public service, writing:

All this individual morality I was taught by the books I read at home and the books I studied at Harvard. But there was almost no teaching of the need for collective action, and of the fact that in addition to, not as a substitute for, individual responsibility, there is a collective responsibility....The teaching which I received was genuinely democratic in one way. It was not so democratic in another. I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feeling that a man must be respected for what he made of himself. But I had also, consciously or unconsciously, been taught that socially and industrially pretty much the whole duty of the man lay in thus making the best of himself; that he should be honest in his dealings with others and charitable in the old-fashioned way to the unfortunate; but that it was no part of his business to join with others in trying to make things better for the many by curbing the abnormal and excessive development of individualism in a few. Now I do not mean that this training was by any means all bad. On the contrary, the insistence upon individual responsibility was, and is, and always will be, a prime necessity.... But such teaching, if not corrected by other teaching, means acquiescence in a riot of lawless business individualism which would be quite as destructive to real civilization as the lawless military individualism of the Dark Ages. I left college and entered the big world owing more than I can express to the training I had received, especially in my own home; but with much else also to learn if I were to become really fitted to do my part in the work that lay ahead for the generation of Americans to which I belonged."

Upon graduating, 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. He chose to embrace strenuous life instead. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa (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.

Early political career

First book published - The Naval War of 1812

While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the nascent US Navy in the War of 1812, largely completing two chapters of a book he would publish after graduation.

He would later recall that in the middle of Mathematics classes at Harvard, his mind would wander from his lessons to the accomplishments of the infant US Navy. Reading through literature on the subject, Roosevelt found both American and British accounts heavily biased and that there had been no systematic study of the tactics employed in the war. Although a challenge for a young man with no formal military or naval education, but helped in part by his two former Confederate naval officer Bulloch uncles, he did his own research using original source materials and official US Navy records. Unlike previous American and British books that ignored quantifiable facts to push a specific agenda, Roosevelt's carefully researched book was akin to today's modern doctoral dissertations, complete with carefully researched drawings depicting individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between American and British forces, and analyses of the differences between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. It is today considered one of the first modern American historical works. Published after Roosevelt's graduation from Harvard, The Naval War of 1812" was immediately accepted by reviewers who praised the book’s scholarship and style. The newly established Naval War College adopted it for study, and the Department of the Navy ordered a copy placed in the libraries of every capital ship in the Fleet. This book would help establish Roosevelt's reputation as a serious historian. Roosevelt brought out a subsequent edition including questions and answers from both scholars and critics. One modern naval historian wrote: "Roosevelt’s study of the War of 1812 influenced all subsequent scholarship on the naval aspects of the War of 1812 and continues to be reprinted. More than a classic, it remains, after 120 years, a standard study of the war."

Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman, 1883 photo

State Assemblyman

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 debated with his friend Henry Cabot Lodge the pros and cons of staying loyal. When asked by a reporter whether he would support Blaine, he replied, "That question I decline to answer. It is a subject I do not care to talk about." Upon leaving the convention, he complained "off the record" to a reporter about Blaine's nomination. But, in probably the most crucial moment of his young political career, he resisted the very instinct to bolt from the Party that would overwhelm his political sense in 1912. In an account of the Convention, another reporter quoted him as saying that he would give "hearty support to any decent Democrat." He would later take great (and to some historical critics such as Henry Pringle, rather disingenuous) pains to distance himself from his own earlier comment, indicating that while he made it, it had not been made "for publication." Leaving the convention, his idealism quite disillusioned by party politics, Roosevelt indicated that he had no further aspiration but to retire to his ranch in the wild Badlands of the Dakota Territory that he had purchased the previous year while on a buffalo hunting expedition.

"Retirement"

Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo.

Roosevelt built a second ranch, which he named Elk Horn, thirty-five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the Little Missouri, Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt. 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. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them (apparently yielding to established law procedures in place of vigilante justice), 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 sheriff, Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life.

Return to New York

After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle (together with those of his competitors) and his $60,000 investment, he returned to the East, where in 1885 he had built 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"; he came in third.

Second marriage

Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. 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. They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin.

Reentering public life

NYC Police Commissioner Roosevelt walks the beat with journalist Jacob Riis in 1894 - Illustration from Riis' autobiography

Civil Service Commission

In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. In his term, Roosevelt vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. Close associate, friend and biographer, James Bucklin Bishop, described Roosevelt's assault on the spoils system indicating that,

The very citadel of spoils politics, the hitherto impregnable fortress that had existed unshaken since it was erected on the foundation laid by Andrew Jackson, was tottering to its fall under the assaults of this audacious and irrepressible young man.... Whatever may have been the feelings of the (fellow Republican party) President (Harrison) — and there is little doubt that he had no idea when he appointed Roosevelt that he would prove to be so veritable a bull in a china shop—he refused to remove him and stood by him firmly till the end of his term.

During this time, the New York Sun described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic"

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), reappointed him to the same post.

New York City Police Commissioner

Roosevelt as NYPD Commissioner 1895

Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During his two years in this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. The 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." 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. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, established meritorious service medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses.

In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper journalist who was opening the eyes of New York's rich to the terrible conditions of the city's millions of poor immigrants with such books as, How the Other Half Lives. In Riis' autobiography, he described the effect of his book on the new police commissioner, remembering that

When Roosevelt read (my) book, he came. We were not strangers. It could not have been long after I wrote “How the Other Half Lives” that he came to the Evening Sun office one day looking for me. I was out, and he left his card, merely writing on the back of it that he had read my book and had “come to help.” That was all and it tells the whole story of the man. I loved him from the day I first saw him; nor ever in all the years that have passed has he failed of the promise made then. No one ever helped as he did. For two years we were brothers in (New York City's crime-ridden) Mulberry Street. When he left I had seen its golden age. I knew too well the evil day that was coming back to have any heart in it after that. Not that we were carried heavenward “on flowery beds of ease” while it lasted. There is very little ease where Theodore Roosevelt leads, as we all of us found out. The lawbreaker found it out who predicted scornfully that he would “knuckle down to politics the way they all did,” and lived to respect him, though he swore at him, as the one of them all who was stronger than pull. The peaceloving citizen who hastened to Police Headquarters with anxious entreaties to “use discretion” in the enforcement of unpopular laws found it out and went away with a new and breathless notion welling up in him of an official’s sworn duty. That was it; that was what made the age golden, that for the first time a moral purpose came into the street. In the light of it everything was transformed.

Always an energetic man, Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. As Governor of New York State before becoming Vice President in March 1901, Roosevelt signed an act replacing the Police Commissioners with a single Police Commissioner.

Becoming a national figure

Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval 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 gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War 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".

War in Cuba

Col. Theodore Roosevelt

Upon the 1898 Declaration of War launching the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department. With the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, Roosevelt found volunteers from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York, forming the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders."

Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood. In Roosevelt's own account, The Rough Riders, "after General Young was struck down with the fever, and Wood took charge of the brigade. This left me in command of the regiment, of which I was very glad, for such experience as we had had is a quick teacher." Accordingly, 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 dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898 (the battle was named after the latter "hill," which was the shoulder of a ridge known as San Juan Heights). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one with a horse – the troopers' horses had been left behind because transport ships were in short supply – and used it to ride back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill; an advance which he urged in absence of any orders from superiors. However, he was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill on foot, due to barbed wire entanglement and after his horse, Little Texas, became tired.

Colonel Roosevelt and the Rough Riders after capturing San Juan Hill

For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. As historian John Gable wrote, "In later years Roosevelt would describe the Battle of San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898, as 'the great day of my life' and 'my crowded hour.'.... (but) Malaria and other diseases now killed more troops than had died in battle. Roosevelt and other officers demanded that the soldiers be returned home. The famous 'round robin letter', and a stronger letter by Roosevelt, were leaked to the press by the commanding general, enraging Secretary of War, Russell Alger and President McKinley. Roosevelt believed that it was this incident that cost him the Medal of Honor."

Medal of Honor

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 Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. The medal is currently on display in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. He was the first and, thus far, 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. His oldest son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., would also posthumously be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Normandy on June 6, 1944.

After his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others working closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.

Governor and Vice-President

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Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor

On leaving the Army, Roosevelt was elected governor of New York in 1898 as a Republican. He made such an 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 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. 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."

Presidency 1901-1909

Main article: Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

On September 6, President McKinley was shot while at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Initial reports in the succeeding days suggested his condition was improving, so Roosevelt embarked on a vacation at Mount Marcy in upstate New York, across the state from Buffalo. He was returning from a climb to the summit on September 13 when a park ranger brought him a telegram informing him that McKinley's condition had deteriorated, and he was near death.

Roosevelt and his family immediately departed to go to Buffalo. When they reached the nearest train station at North Creek, at 5:22am on September 14, he received another telegram that McKinley had died a few hours earlier. Roosevelt arrived in Buffalo that afternoon, and was sworn in there as President at 3:30pm.

Roosevelt continued McKinley's cabinet and promised to continue McKinley's policies. One of his first notable acts as president was to deliver a 20,000-word address to Congress asking it to curb the power of large corporations (called "trusts"). For his aggressive attacks on trusts over his two terms he has been called a "trust-buster."

In the 1904 presidential election, Roosevelt won the presidency in his own right in a landslide victory. His vice president was Charles Fairbanks.

Roosevelt dealt with union workers also. In May of 1902, United Mine Workers went on strike to get higher pay wages and shorter work days. He set up a fact-finding commission which stopped the strike. It resulted in the workers getting more pay for less hours.

In 1905, he issued a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which allows the United States to "exercise international policy power" so they can intervene and keep smaller countries on their feet.

Roosevelt helped the well-being of people by passing laws such as The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and The Pure Food and Drug Act. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals in them. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs, that are impure or falsely label, from being made, sold, and shipped.

The Gentlemen's Agreement also came into play in 1907. This law banned all school segregation, yet controlled Japanese immigration in California.

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. After noticing the White House reporters huddled outside in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.

He chose not to run for another term in 1908, and supported William Taft for the presidency, instead of Fairbanks. Fairbanks withdrew from the race (and in 1912 he supported Taft for re-election, against Roosevelt).

Supreme Court appointments

Roosevelt appointed three 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 presidency, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by the legendary hunter-tracker R.J. Cunninghame and was joined from time to time by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer. Among other items, Roosevelt brought with him four tons of salt for preserving animal hides, a lucky rabbit's foot given to him by boxer John L. Sullivan, an elephant-rifle donated by a group of 56 admiring Britons, and the famous Pigskin Library, a collection of classics bound in pig leather and transported in a single reinforced trunk.

All told, Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. These included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. The expedition consumed 262 of the animals. 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." However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. Along with 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, to allow Taft to be his own man.

1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb, Jr. carries the "Big Stick"

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. Roosevelt was 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

Main articles: U.S. presidential election, 1912 and Progressive Party 1912 (United States)

The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.

Republican primaries

Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. Roosevelt, however, 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 nine 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 became later in the century. First, 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 caucuses later became. While Roosevelt was popular with the public, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.

Formation of the Bull Moose Party

At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. After two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing 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 fit as a bull moose." At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests.

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 and quoted again in his autobiography 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...

Assassination attempt

The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace

X-Ray of Roosevelt's ribcage showing the bullet at lower left

While Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank shot him, but the bullet lodged in his chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he wasn't coughing blood, the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung, and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, 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, probes and X-ray showed that the bullet had traversed three inches (76 mm) of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him for the rest of his life.

Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans 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 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.

1913–1914 South American Expedition

The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.

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 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 persuaded 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 Madeira 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 mapmaking and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position by 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.

Later years and death

See also: Roosevelt's World War I volunteers

Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted 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.

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 his favorite. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss.

Roosevelt's Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York

Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President

Despite his faltering health, 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 Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism."

Roosevelt was considering a third Presidential campaign in 1920, and was believed to have been the front-runner for the Republican nomination until he was laid low by illness. His family and supporters threw their support to Roosevelt's old military companion, General Leonard Wood, who was ultimately defeated by Warren G. Harding.

On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep at Oyster Bay of a coronary thrombosis (heart attack), preceded by a 2 1/2-month illness described as inflammatory rheumatism, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son Archie telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." The U.S. Vice-President at that time, Thomas R. Marshall, said that "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight."

Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Theodore Roosevelt

Immigration

In an 1894 article on immigration, Roosevelt said, "We must Americanize in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at relations between church and state. We welcome the German and the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such... He must revere only our flag, not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second."

Square Deal

Theodore Roosevelt introduced the phrase "Square Deal" to describe his progressive views in a speech delivered after leaving the office of the Presidency in August 1910. In this speech, he stressed equality of opportunity for all citizens, and government regulations to encourage such. Many of the specifics outlined in the address anticipate Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal..

Conservationist

Roosevelt was one of the first Presidents to make conservation a national issue. In a speech that TR gave at Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910, he outlined his views on conservation of the lands of the United States. He favored the use of America's natural resources, but not the misuse of them through wasteful consumption . See 'Conservationist'.

Corporate regulations

In the Eighth Annual Message to Congress (1908), TR mentioned the need for federal government to regulate interstate corporations using the Interstate Commerce Clause, also mentioning how these corporations fought federal control by appealing to states' rights. See 'Corporate Regulations'.

Writer

Template:Sample box end Roosevelt wrote many books, including several late in life. The still referenced The Naval War of 1812 was published the year after he graduated from Harvard at twenty-four in 1882. His most ambitious work, written at thirty-one, 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 throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.

Character and beliefs

Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel

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 church regularly. Of including the motto "In God We Trust" on money, in 1907 he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." He was also a member of the Freemasons and Sons of the American Revolution.

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 judo attaining a third degree brown belt and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter.

Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate

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. 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.

Legacy

Roosevelt's face on Mount Rushmore

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 for him 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.

File:ROLES2.JPG

1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910

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 that 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 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.

Among the schools, neighborhoods, and streets named in Roosevelt's honor are Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Washington, the surrounding Roosevelt neighborhood, the district's main arterial, Roosevelt Way N.E., and Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, Oregon.

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.

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles is named after him as well as the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

Popular culture

File:Theodore Roosevelt's 150th Birthday.jpg

Theodore Roosevelt impersonator Joe Wiegand performs October 27, 2008 in the East Room of the White House, during a celebration of Roosevelt's 150th birthday.

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.

Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. He would not shoot it because it was unsportsmanlike, and ordered it to be released. A local toy maker heard the story and asked TR if he could use his name on a toy bear. Roosevelt approved and the teddy bear was born. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter.

On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, 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."

Coat of Arms

File:Coat of arms Roosevelt of New York-Alexander Liptak .JPG

The coat of arms of Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt can trace his ancestry to Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt, a Dutch burgher whose coat of arms was white with a rosebush with three rose flowers growing upon a grassy mound, and whose crest was of three ostrich feathers divided into red and white halves each. In heraldic terms, the heraldic achievement could be described as, Argent upon a grassy mound a rosebush bearing three roses gules barbed and seeded proper all proper, and the crest that sits upon a torse argent and gules as, three ostrich plumes each per pale gules and argent.

The arms are in a style of heraldry called canting, which describes a family name pictorially, usually with a pun. The surname van Rosenvelt means "from the rose field" in Dutch, and thus the rosebush and grassy mound are a clear play on words with the name.

The coat of arms, and the symbolic rose, would be important to the heritage of Roosevelt’s family. His daughter, Alice, said that her father and family “had roses in book plates and crested rings. Roosevelt babies always had cascades of roses tumbling down their christening robes.” She would also wear a dress embroidered with roses at her White House wedding.

Media

Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. A 4.6-minute voice recording, which preserves Roosevelt's lower timbre ranges particularly well for its time, is among those available from the Michigan State University libraries. (This is the 1912 recording of The Right of the People to Rule, recorded by Edison at Carnegie Hall). In what some consider the best example of Roosevelt's animated oratorical style, an audio clip sponsored by the Authentic History Center includes his defense of the Progressive Party in 1912 wherein he proclaims it the "party of the people" in contrast with the other major parties.

• Parade for the school children of San Francisco, down Van Ness Avenue
• Collection of video clips of Roosevelt

• Roosevelt goes for a ride in Arch Hoxsey's plane in October 1910 – the first flight by a (then-former) U.S. president

Electoral history

Main article: Electoral history of Theodore Roosevelt

See also

• Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
• First inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt
• Second inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt

• Roosevelt family
• Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
• List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
• List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Spanish-American War
• William Allen White

Notes and references

Primary sources

• Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
• Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
• Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
• Edwards, Adolph (1907). The Roosevelt Panic of 1907 ( – ^{Scholar search}). Anitrock Pub. Co. {{cite book}}: External link in |format= (help)
• Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
• Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at [1]
• Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951–1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
• Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
• Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
• Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
• Roosevelt, Theodore, The Naval War of 1812 Or the History of the United States Navy during the Last War with Great Britain to Which Is Appended an Account of the Battle of New Orleans (1882) (New York: The Modern Library, 1999). ISBN 0-375-75419-9.

Secondary sources

• Blum, John Morton. (1954). The Republican Roosevelt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Series of essays that examine how TR did politics OCLC 310975
• Brands, Henry William. (1997). T.R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books. Reprinted 2001, full biography OCLC 36954615
• Brinkley, Douglas. (2009). The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. New York: HarperCollins. 10-ISBN 0-060-56528-4; 13-ISBN 978-0-060-56528-2;
• Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
• Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
• Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
• Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52–59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
• Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
• Goldman, Eric F. Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform. (1952) Bancroft Prize, 1953, ISBN 1566633699
• Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
• Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
• Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
• Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18–45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
• Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
• McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
• Mellander, Gustavo A. (1971). The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Daville,Ill.:Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568.
• Mellander, Gustavo A.; Nelly Maldonado Mellander (1999). Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1563281554. OCLC 42970390.
• Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901–1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
• Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900–1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
• Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
• O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
• Pearson, Edmund. Theodore Roosevelt. 1920.
• Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Examines TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective. ISBN 0307237222
• Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
• Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
• Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
• Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
• Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.

Foreign policy

• Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
• Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
• Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
• David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (1977).
• Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17–26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
• Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
• Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)

Further reading

• Testi, Arnaldo (1995). "The Gender of Reform Politics: Theodore Roosevelt and the Culture of Masculinity," Journal of American History, Vol. 81, No. 4, pp. 1509–1533.
• THE WILDERNESS WARRIOR; Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, By Douglas Brinkley, 2009

External links

• Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
• Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
• Theodore Roosevelt: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
• "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
• "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845–1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
• PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
• My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
• Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
• Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
• Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
• Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
• Quotes
• Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
• Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
• Works by Theodore Roosevelt at Project Gutenberg
• Works by/about Theodore Roosevelt at Internet Archive
• Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
• Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
• Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
• State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
• Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
• Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
• Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
• Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
• Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
• Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
• Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site: Birthplace of the Modern Presidency, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
• Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
• Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
• White House biography
• Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
• Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
• Theodore Roosevelt Links
• Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
• Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
• On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
• Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
• How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
• Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
• Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
• still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
• different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
• Template:Worldcat id
• Theodore Roosevelt at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-07-03
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Theodore Roosevelt with video, audio, pictures and other sources from Library of Congress and National Archives