Theodore Roosevelt
Introduction
A.
In 1901 a.
he became President after the assassination of President William McKinley.
B.
Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican
Party into the Progressive camp.
1.
He distrusted wealthy businessmen
2.
and dissolved 40 monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster."
3.
His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for the average citizen, a.
including regulation of railroad rates b.
and pure foods and drugs.
C.
As an outdoorsman, a.
he promoted the conservation movement, b.
emphasizing efficient use of natural resources
D.
After 1906, a.
he moved left,
1.
attacking big business
2.
and suggesting the courts were biased against labor unions.
3.
In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor
William Howard Taft a.
but lost the Republican nomination to Taft b.
and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull
Moose ticket. c.
Roosevelt lost but pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912 d.
and the conservative faction took control of the
Republican Party for the next two decades.

E.
Roosevelts Youth a.
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th
Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City on October
27, 1858, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–
1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834–1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblings—his brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor
Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists,
Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
b.
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname c.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. To combat his poor physical condition To deal with bullies,, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise.
Roosevelt started boxing lessons.Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural
History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects".
[
F.
First marriage i.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill,
Massachusetts – February 14, 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and the mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease only two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to
Dakota Territory.
ii.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles
(56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri", Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt. There, in the waning days of the American Old West, he rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines iii.
Second marriage

iv.
Second Marriage a.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit
Carow.
[16]
They honeymooned in Europe, and
Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the
British Royal Society.
[17] They had five children:
Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald
Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin
G.
Roosevelts Public Life i.
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned for
Benjamin Harrison in the Midwest.
ii.
President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil
Service Commission,
1.
where he served until 1895.
[22]
In his term, a.
he vigorously fought the spoilsmen b.
and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws.
2.
In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner,
Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat) re appointed him to the same post a.
Bourbon Democrat- was a term used in the United
States from 1876 to 1904 to refer to a conservative or classical liberal member of the Democratic Party ) iii.
1895, he became president of the board of New York City Police
Commissioners. iv.
During the two years that he held this post,
1.
Roosevelt radically changed the way the police department was run.
a.
The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America.

2.
Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, a.
created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems b.
and standardized the use of pistols by officers. c.
Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, d.
annual physical exams e.
appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation f.
opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, g.
established meritorious service medals h.
and shut down the corrupt police hostelries-.
a hotel providing overnight lodging for travelers i.
During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities i.
and Roosevelt required his officers to register with the Board.
j.
He also had telephones installed in station houses. k.
Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty v.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
1.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by navies and their history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry
Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted
Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897.
(Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War [26] 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".

The War in Cuba
[

Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-
American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry
Regiment o out of a diverse crew that ranged from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. o The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders."

Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for their dual charges up
Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill).

Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions during the Spanish American War.

He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket.
He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" in the state of New York that Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator
Mark Hanna
. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated
William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but
McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence proved far more attractive to voters and he enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence.
Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world.
Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful.
[32]
On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far." Twelve days later, President McKinley would be dead, and Roosevelt would succeed him.

vi.
Theodore Roosevelt as President
c.
A.
In the sphere of race relations
1.
Booker T. Washington a.
became the first black man to dine as a guest at the
White House in 1901.
B.
Oscar S. Straus a.
became the first Jew appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
C.
In 1902, a.
in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6,
1901, b.
Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret
Service protection.
D.
Roosevelt in 1904, a.
became the first Vice President to be elected in his own right or even win his party’s nomination for reelection.
E.
In 1906, a.
Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
F.
In 1906, a.
b.
he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States,
visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9 .
President McKinley was shot by an anarchist on September 6, 1901. McKinley died on
September 14, vaulting Roosevelt into the presidency. He took the oath of office in the Ansley
Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after reelection in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders.
[26]
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a
10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up.
[27]

Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked
Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Mark Hanna was the rival power in the Republican party. Hanna died, and Roosevelt had an easy renomination and reelection in 1904. He won 336 of 476 electoral votes, and 56.4% of the total popular vote. He therefore became the first President who came into office due to the death of his predecessor to be elected in his own right.
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. His children were almost as popular as he was, and their pranks in the White House made headlines. His daughter, Alice Lee
Roosevelt, became quite popular in Washington.
Election of 1904
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in
February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-
38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908.
He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Second Adminsitration 1904-1909

Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White
House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on
March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife
Refuge system), on Pelican Island, Florida. Assuming the conservationist role was a natural step for him, and he decided that it was overdue to put the issue high on the national agenda. He worked with all the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter
Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined,
194 million acres. In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. This environmental record was unequaled until President Bill
Clinton's term, 90 years later.
[30] The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but he rejected Muir's philosophy that privileged nature, and emphasized instead the more efficient use of nature. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests.
In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources.
Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency,
Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine.
Roosevelt, like Pinchot (but unlike Muir), believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective.
[31]
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator,
Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils
Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.

Roosevelt's administration was marked by an active approach to foreign policy. Roosevelt saw it as the duty of more developed ("civilized") nations to help the underdeveloped ("uncivilized") world move forward. In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, he used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. He used the army to build up the infrastructure of the new possessions, building railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrading roads and port facilities.
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between
France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
.
The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for 10 million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia. The original deal stipulated that the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing that the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment.
Roosevelt ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help
Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903. A brief revolution, of only a few hours, followed the declaration, and Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms.
On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, a treaty was signed with Panama. The U.S. paid
$10 million to secure rights to build on and control the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to biuld the Panama Canal because illness spread quick in Panama. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt worked on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. Finally the health threat receded, and facilitated the construction of the Canal.

As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four
US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork with a red, white, and blue bann" on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the
Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the
Russians in the Russo-Japanese War and the US Navy fleet to the west was relatively small. The
Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet." When the fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waving American flags greeted the Navy brass as they came ashore. In February 1909, Roosevelt was in Hampton
Roads, Virginia to witness the triumphant return of the fleet and indicate that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet,
"Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for as well as the role of the United
States in the international arena.