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Theodore Roosevelt II (October 27, 1858–January 6, 1919) was the twenty-fifth (1901) Vice President and the twenty-sixth (1901-1909) President of the United States, succeeding to the office upon the assassination of William McKinley.
Biography
Roosevelt was born in New York City, October 27, 1858 to Theodore Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch. He graduated from Harvard University in 1880, and was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1882-1884.
Sickly as a young man, he took up physical exercise and became a sporting and outdoor enthusiast. Roosevelt's concern for conservation grew out of his experiences in North Dakota. Roosevelt first came to the Badlands in September 1883 on a hunting trip, and became aware of the decline in numbers of the bison.
Before returning to New York, Roosevelt became interested in the cattle business and entered into a partnership to raise cattle on the Maltese Cross Ranch.
Early in 1884 later his first wife Alice and his mother Minnie Bulloch Roosevelt died on the same day. Grief-stricken, Roosevelt decided to leave the East and increase his interests in the cattle business. He returned to North Dakota in 1884 and established the Elkhorn Ranch.
During his years in North Dakota, Roosevelt thrived on the vigorous outdoor lifestyle and actively participated in the life of a working cowboy. Of this time he said, "I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood, and the value of instant decision...I enjoyed the life to the full." This was an important time in his development, and in fact, he once remarked that, "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota." Roosevelt actively ranched in the Badlands until 1887 but maintained ranching interest in the area until 1898.
Roosevelt became increasingly alarmed by the damage that was being done to the land in North Dakota and its wildlife, and became interested in conservation. "We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune."
He returned to New York City in 1886, where President Benjamin Harrison appointed him a member of the United States Civil Service Commission 1889-1895. In 1895 he became president of the New York Board of Police Commissioners, and in 1897 President William McKinley appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1898 he resigned this post to fight in the Spanish-American War, in which he rose to national prominence during the Spanish-American War as commander of the "Rough Riders". On his return from the war he resumed his political career in New York City and State politics, as police commissioner and state governor. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine" politics that, it is said, Republican leaders in New York advanced him as a running mate for William McKinley in the 1900 election simply to get rid of him.
Family
On February 14, 1884 his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, died, just after giving birth to their first daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, having suffered from a previously undiagnosed kidney ailment. In December 1886, he married Edith Carow. They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel, Archibald, and Quentin.
His eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism at Normandy during the D-Day invasion of 6 June 1944. This makes them one of two father-son recepients of the Medal of Honor. The other was Douglas MacArthur and his father, Arthur Macarthur.
Presidency
William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt won the presidential election of 1900, against William Jennings Bryan and Adlai E. Stevenson. Roosevelt was one of the youngest ever US vice presidents (John C. Breckinridge being younger than him.)
Roosevelt assumed the presidency after the assassination of McKinley, and then in 1904 ran for office in his own right. Roosevelt was the first vice president to win election to a second term on his own. One of his first notable acts as President was to deliver a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives on December 3, 1901 asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits". For this and subsequent actions he has been called a "trust buster".
Later in his presidency he gave tacit support to rebels in Panama to form a nation independent from Colombia. This was to ensure that the United States could build the Panama Canal. Roosevelt felt that a passage through the Isthmus of Panama was vital to create a strong and cohesive United States Navy.
He also worked on conserving environmental wonders and resources, and visited preservationist John Muir in Yosemite Valley in 1903.
Roosevelt helped mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War which, in 1906, earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to win the prize in any of the categories. On November 9, 1906 he made history by becoming the first sitting US President to make an official trip outside of the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the canal there. He was noted for other presidential "firsts", such as: first president to fly in an airplane on October 11, 1910), and first to go a submarine (aboard the USS Plunger in 1905).
Trust-busting
Theodore Roosevelt assumed the Presidency upon the death of President William McKinley, a beloved President launched the trust-busting era when he appointed the U.S. Industrial Commission (of 1898). This Commission, which included distinguished Senators and statesmen, including Andrew L. Harris of Ohio, investigated Rockefeller, Carnegie, Schwab, and other trust and corporate titans of industry. Roosevelt, once he became President, took the advice of the Industrial Commission and continued McKinley's trust-buster activities.
Conservationism
Theodore Roosevelt is considered by many to be the nation's first Conservation President. "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred," he said. Theodore Roosevelt is the only President of the United States to have been awarded the Medal of Honor.
During his presidency, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments. He also established the first 51 Bird Reserves, 4 Game Preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States placed under public protection by Theodore Roosevelt totals approximately 230,000,000 acres (930,000 km²).
Today, Roosevelt's dedication to conservation is remembered with a national park that bears his name in the North Dakota Badlands. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is home to a variety of plants and animals, including bison, prairie dogs, and elk.
Square Deal
Determined to give Americans what he called "a Square Deal"; i.e., a more just and equitable society, Roosevelt worked to increase the regulatory power of the federal government. He persuaded Congress to pass laws that strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission and established a new federal Department of Labor and Commerce. Under his leadership, the federal government also brought forty-four suits against corporate monopolies. In addition, TR was instrumental in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres (930,000 km²) under federal protection. His record in race relations was less constructive and a bit of a contradiction. On the one hand he invited African American leader Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, but in 1906 approved the dishonorable discharges of three companies of black soldiers involved in the Brownsville, Texas, riot.
Naval build-up
Theodore Roosevelt was a naval enthusiast who urged the United States to build a strong navy. He knew that U.S would soon be pulled into war with the Japanese and urged for readiness. With the completion of, what he called the Great White Fleet due to its painted white color, Roosevelt order the Fleet stationed in Hampton Roads to San Fransisco and finally then on to Japan in 1909. He hoped to aid in ceasing Japanese-U.S. related tensions and to show them as well as the rest of the world the United State's military might.
Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
T.R. in U.S. culture
Teddy bears are named after him. His childhood nickname was Teedie, his adult nickname was Teddy (which he despised and considered improper), and toy bear manufactures took to naming them after him because once on a hunting trip he refused to kill a bear cub.
Roosevelt is depicted fictionally in Gore Vidal's novel "Empire," Harry Turtledove's How Few Remain, and the movie The Wind and the Lion written and directed by John Milius.
Post-Presidency
On March 23, 1909, shortly after the end of his second term as President, Roosevelt left New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society and received world-wide media attention.
In spite of his popularity, he decided not to run for reelection in 1908 (a move that he would later regret for the rest of his life). Instead he backed longtime friend William Howard Taft who he thought would carry on his policies. After Taft won, however, Roosevelt became increasingly annoyed as Taft proved to be his own man with his own policy agenda (which often ran counter to what Roosevelt would have liked).
As a result in 1912, Roosevelt ran for president on the United States Progressive Party ("Bull Moose") ticket, thus undermining popular support for Taft. While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank in a failed assassination attempt on October 14, 1912. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivered his scheduled speech. (He was not seriously wounded although his doctors thought it too dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet lodged in his chest and he carried it with him until he died. The gun used was a Colt Police Positive revolver in .38 S&W caliber, serial number 58714.) In spite of this he not only lost the race but split the Republican vote, thus ensuring a win by Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt disliked Wilson even more than his former friend Taft and ran again in 1916 in an effort to prevent Wilson from being reelected. He lost that election as well.
Theodore Roosevelt died at Oyster Bay, Nassau County, New York on January 6, 1919, and was buried in Young's Memorial Cemetery.
Related articles
External links
- Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt Organization
- Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
- Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
- State of the Union 1901
- State of the Union 1902
- State of the Union 1903
- State of the Union 1904
- State of the Union 1905
- State of the Union 1906
- State of the Union 1907
- State of the Union 1908
- Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
- Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
| Preceded by: William McKinley |
President of the United States 1901-1909 |
Succeeded by: William Howard Taft |
| Preceded by: Garret Hobart |
Vice President of the United States 1901 |
Succeeded by: Charles W. Fairbanks |
| Preceded by: Frank S. Black |
Governor of New York 1899–1900 |
Succeeded by: Benjamin B. Odell, Jr. |