TR’s Contemporaries and Historians Weigh In
Directions: Find the headings that pertain to your role assignments. Evaluate the source of the
information. These excerpts are taken from both primary and secondary sources and date from 1899 to
2012.
Underline comments that support TR’s actions and policies in black and use a different color to underline
comments that detract from TR’s accomplishments. These statements can be used in the debate with
citations.
TR Readings
Cuba
TR was acclaimed by the American Press as the foremost hero of the day. Certainly, he enthusiastically
led the Rough Riders into battle and was an inspiration to his men. He was also among the first group of
Americans to reach the summit of Kettle Hill. To many newsmen TR was the man who had led the charge
that had broken the Spanish defensive line and ensured victory. … TR was presented as the model
American citizen who had chosen to fight as a soldier for his country. … The image was forever etched in
public memory by Frederic Remington’s celebrated painting entitled The Charge of the Rough
Riders at San Juan Hill, 1898 that showed TR leading the charge. TR was certainly brave and
inspirational, but the fighting was so confused that it cannot be ascertained with any certainty exactly
which officer led the charge. There is no doubt, however that TR stormed Kettle Hill and not the more
formidable San Juan, a fact that both he and his admirers conveniently neglected to emphasize.
Joseph Smith, “Spanish American War Hero,” in Blackwell’s Companion to American History: Companion
to Theodore Roosevelt, 2011 (47).
The Rough Riders were the first volunteer regiment organized, armed, and equipped. They were the first
volunteer soldiers to land in Cuba. They raised the first flag flown by the military forces of the United
States on foreign soil since the Mexican War. They were the first regiment of the army to fire a shot at the
Spaniards, and the first man killed was one of them. Indeed, they bore the brunt of the first battle, and
they bore it with unexampled bravery. In the second battle, their colonel (Theodore Roosevelt) and his
men led the van and headed one of the most desperate charges in the history of warfare. From the first to
last they were always in the lead, and always a credit to themselves and to their country. …
My own connection with the regiment began the day after they landed in Cuba (where I had gone as a
war correspondent for the New York Journal), and lasted just twenty-four hours. It was then quickly put a
stop to by a Mauser bullet. Not more than six weeks ago Colonel, now Governor, Theodore Roosevelt
sent me the medal of the regiment, and was good enough to say that he was glad to consider me a
member of it.
Edward Marshall, The Story of the Rough Riders 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, New York: G. W. Dillingham
Co., 1899 (xxi-xxii).
The Philippines
Emilio Aguinaldo* “Proclamation to the Philippine People,” February 5, 1899
… In my manifest of January 8 last I published the grievances suffered by the Philippine forces at the
hands of the [American] army of occupation [after the end of the Spanish-American War]. The constant
outrages and taunts, which have caused the misery of the people of Manila, and, finally the useless
conferences and the contempt shown the Philippine government prove the premeditated transgression of
justice and liberty. …
I have tried to avoid, as far as it has been possible for me to do so, armed conflict, in my endeavors to
assure our independence by pacific means to avoid more costly sacrifices. But all my efforts have been
useless against the measureless pride of the American Government and of its representatives in these
islands, who have treated me as a rebel because I defend the sacred interests of my country and do not
make myself an instrument of their dastardly intentions.
*Aguinaldo led forces against the Spanish, and then against the occupying forces of the United States in
the Philippine-American War (1899-1901).
From The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America,
edited by Ronald H. Bayor, Columbia University Press, 2003 (accessed as an ebook).
Philippine Independence
… Although Roosevelt’s philosophy was rather ordinary in a transatlantic context, it was extraordinary
among Americans. At first wishing to retain the Philippines for several generations at a minimum,
President Roosevelt ended up preparing the islands for independence. He created in 1907 a Philippine
assembly that shared decision making between American appointees and elected Filipinos, and he left
office favoring the relinquishment of the islands within a single generation.
Stephen Wertheim, “Reluctant Liberator: Theodore Roosevelt’s Philosophy of Self-Government and
Preparation for Philippine Independence,” in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Columbia University,
2009. http://www.columbia.edu/~saw2156/ReluctantLiberator.pdf
The young jingo [Theodore Roosevelt] is to blame for the present embarrassing possession of the
Philippine Islands by the United States. He and Henry Cabot Lodge cooked up the attack on Manila
before hostilities in 1898 had begun. The order which eventually sent Dewey to the Philippines was
issued by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt one day after Secretary Long had gone home to
sleep—and Long never quite dared countermand it. It would make him look like a fool! But at the time
it was issued McKinley had not given a thought to the Philippines [then owned by Spain] and most
Americans didn’t know of their existence.
John Chamberlain, “The Progressive Mind in Action,” 1932, in The American Past Volume II: Conflicting
Interpretations of the Great Issues, edited by Sidney Fine and Gerald Brown, 1970.
Treaty of Portsmouth
Theodore, like his cousin Franklin, enjoyed world politics. His mediation in the Russo-Japanese War,
undertaken on the suggestion of the Japanese and German emperors, is the best example. … The
President negotiated directly with premiers and crowned heads, brought the two belligerents together,
and broke the deadlock from which the Treaty of Portsmouth (5 September 1905) emerged. The wisdom
of that treaty is now questionable. It probably saved Japan from a beating, but her government and press
persuaded the Japanese people that Roosevelt’s “big stick” had done them out of vast territorial gains.
And a few years later, in violation of the treaty, Japan annexed Korea [August 1910]. The treaty
established Japan as overlord in Manchuria and enabled her to become the dominant naval power in the
Pacific. Between 1941 and 1945 the United States paid heavily for the long-term results of Roosevelt’s
meddling, for which, ironically enough, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People, 1965 (832).
TR’s mediation, one must conclude, perhaps wistfully, marked the last time a great international dispute
proved susceptible to personal arrangement. His momentary success closed the diplomacy of the
nineteenth century. ... And TR was not only mediating, but mediating as a powerful actor with a clear
national interest in the sustaining or creating an Asian balance of power. … But Theodore Roosevelt
succeeded, and thus his work of 1904 and 1905 takes on special interest for the historian. TR did not
disclose his assertive role at Portsmouth to the Nobel crowds at Christiania in 1910. Nevertheless, the
compromise of August 28, 1905, remained a great personal victory. The peace treaty … was the turning
point. Without it, no peace would have ensued—good or bad. It was the cornerstone entitling TR to the
Nobel Peace Prize.
Eugene P. Trani and Donald E. Davis, “The End of an Era: Theodore Roosevelt and Treaty of
Portsmouth,” in A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt, edited by Serge Ricard, 2011.
Panama
Roosevelt’s critics have accused him of “fomenting” the revolution in Panama and have called it “an
ineffaceable blot of dishonor” upon his administration. But to the end of his life he was emphatic in his
insistence that “no one connected with his government had any part in preparing, inciting, or encouraging
the late revolution on the Isthmus of Panama”; and in this he was supported by the leading men in his
cabinet, John Hay and Elihu Root. ... Roosevelt did not instigate the revolution in Panama; when it was
started he refused to allow Colombia to try to put it down. We had a treaty with Colombia, dating from
1846, which gave us the right to intervene in Panama to prevent disorders which might interfere with free
transit across the Isthmus. And this right of intervention had been exercised many times in the half
century previous to the Panama revolution.
David Saville Muzzey, History of the American People, 1932 (543).
Roosevelt’s high-handed policy (with Colombia) won general approval in the United States—after all, the
President did get canal rights. What was more, the administration claimed to have acted legally, under a
Colombian-American treaty of 1846, which gave the United States the right to intervene to protect the
Isthmian transit route. But, in bullying Colombia, the United States won the animosity of many Latin
Americans. United States businessmen found it difficult to get economic concessions.
Finally, in 1921, the United States gave Colombia $25,000.000. Although the sum was not accompanied
by apologies, it was plain that the United Sates was asking the Colombians to forget the Panama affair—
and consider Americans for oil concessions. All this might have been avoided if Theodore Roosevelt had
been less impulsive, or more generous, in 1903.
Merle Curti, Richard H. Shryock, Thomas C. Cochran, and Fred Harvey Harrington, An American History
Volume Two, 1950 (337).
Imperialism
… Roosevelt shared with other imperialists a sense of Anglo-Saxon superiority to peoples over whom we
were extending our rule and also superiority to some of those with whose imperialism we would compete.
Roosevelt’s sense of superiority was not the usual sort of racism preached by the more extreme leaders
of his day … (27). Unlike many promoters of racism of his day he did not regard the “backward people” as
permanently or inherently inferior. … Finally, in Roosevelt’s race attitudes there were was no element of
contempt for an individual member of a race who had attained qualities superior to other members of a
backward people. So thoroughly imbued was he with what he considered the American quality of
individualism, such respect did he have for the sacredness of the individual personality that he judged
separate men as individual human beings, not as members of a class, a race, or a nation. … When he
spoke of national groups, or race, or peoples he spoke in general and classed each as a group in a
category superior or inferior to others groups. Individuals, though, he judged as individuals.
Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power, 1956 (30-31).
The responsibility of U.S. imperialism, as Roosevelt saw it, was to unselfishly deliver with a vigorous spirit
the blessings of if its civilization. Self-government and American-styled democracy was one of the most
advanced institutions of U.S. civilization that it could tender to the world, according to TR. … It should not
be forgotten that these duties were also about U.S. control and dominance wrapped up in what it viewed
as its strategic and material interests. With these imperial responsibilities also came access to the world
stage as a “great power.” Dominance over Cuba ensured long held U.S. aspirations for a stabilized
trading relationship and the expulsion of another European power [Spain] from
America’s backyard. Smaller acquisitions such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and Hawaii gave the US strategic
coaling stations [needed to supply steamships] that helped to realize Alfred Thayer Mahan’s dream of
U.S. naval preponderance and trading advantage. The acquisitions made demands for a trans-isthmian
canal more sensible. It was an ambitious “large policy.” …
Michael Patrick Cullinane, “Imperial ‘Character’: How Race and Civilization Shaped Theodore Roosevelt’s
Imperialism,” in America’s Transatlantic Turn: Theodore Roosevelt and the “Discovery” of Europe, edited
by Hans Krabbendam and John M. Thompson, 2012 (32).
Roosevelt Corollary
During the conflict over Santo Domingo, Theodore Roosevelt gave to the world a new interpretation of the
Monroe Doctrine thoroughly imperialistic in letter and spirit. … Foreign Powers, he declared, are not to
seize nay more territory in this hemisphere, as the old Monroe Doctrine affirmed. … Then he also
proclaimed a new doctrine all his own: if governments in Latin America cannot keep order and pay their
debts the United States, having prevented other Powers from acting, must intervene, stop disorders, and
make sure that just debts are paid. This pronouncement by the President of the United States was
immediately characterized in Latin America as crass “Yankee imperialism.” Nevertheless, on this theory,
presidential actions in the Caribbean region were multiplied.
Charles and Mary Beard, A Basic History of the United States, 1944 (352-353).
President Roosevelt was eager to prevent any European country from interfering in the affairs of the small
nations of the Caribbean. These countries were all poor, and most of them were badly governed. Their
governments frequently borrowed money from European banks and investors and did not repay them
when the loans fell due. Sometimes, European governments sent in warships and marines to force them
to pay their debts. Before he became president, Roosevelt did not object. “If any South American state
misbehaves toward any European country,” he wrote, “let the European country spank it.” After Roosevelt
became president, he had second thoughts. Any European interference in the affairs of Latin American
nations violated the Monroe Doctrine, he decided. Debts, however, must be paid. If a nation in the
Western hemisphere did not pay its debts, the United States must make it do so. That way justice could
be done to the lenders, there would be no European interference in the hemisphere. This policy became
known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine.
John A. Garraty, The Story of America, 1989 (776-77).