Evaluating Theodore Roosevelt’s
Foreign Policy
On Jan. 6, 1919, the 26th
president of the United
States, Theodore Roosevelt,
died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at
age 60.
•Born New York City, 1858
•U.S. President 1901-1909
Source: New York Times
• What U.S. or foreign wars
frame TR’s life?
• How does the NYT convey the
importance of TR’s loss to the
nation?
• Does anything here convey that
the U.S. sees itself as a world
power?
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Lowell-Courrier-Citizen, Massachusetts
January 7, 1919
How important is foreign policy
when evaluating a president’s
legacy?
For what foreign policies,
ventures, and outcomes do we
remember presidents of the last
fifty years…
Examples:
• Johnson (1963-1969)
•Nixon (1969-1974)
• Carter (1977-1981)
•Reagan (1981-1989)
• G.W. Bush (2001-2009)
• Obama (2009- )
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Theodore Roosevelt
•Born New York City, 1858
•U.S. President 1901-1909
•Died 1919
The thesis that I especially
uphold, that the man who has
the power to act is to be judged
not by his words by his acts–– by
his words in so far as they agree
with his acts. All that I say
about peace I wish to judged
and measured by what I actually
did as President. TR 1910
“Two Views of the President”
Which One Was He?
World Empires and Colonies 1898
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What do these images
convey about TR’s
leadership of Foreign Policy?
• In what ways do both these images
convey TR’s leadership?
• How does the image to the left convey
the public’s admiration for TR, while the
one to the right criticizes him?
• What would you need to know to
determine the accuracy of both of these
images?
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But I have thought some more,
since then, and I have read
carefully the treaty of Paris, and I
have seen that we do not intend
to free, but to subjugate the
people of the Philippines. We
have gone there to conquer, not
to redeem. . .It should, it seems to
me, be our pleasure and duty to
make those people free, and let
them deal with their own
domestic questions in their own
way. And so I am an antiimperialist. I am opposed to
having the eagle put its talons on
any other land.
Mark Twain From the New York Herald,
October 15, 1900
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