Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth President of the United States, was a man of large stature whose face was as distinct as his legendary personality. He had a prominent jaw, a thick and shaggy mustache, bushy eyebrows, and a big mouth full of large teeth. Being severely nearsighted, he always wore thick, oval, rimless spectacles which sat high on his cheeks whenever he would smile. Tireless in ever respect, Roosevelt practiced his philosophy of "strenuous virtue" with a religious fervor. He was an active sportsman, always keeping himself trim and physically fit, and a prolific writer, penning well over forty books over the course of his lifetime. As a statesman he was arrogant, pushy, and successful. His mediation in the Russo-Japanese War earned him the distinction of being the first American ever to receive the Noble Peace Prize. Domestically, Roosevelt was a reformer. He pushed civil service reforms, as well as legislation to curb the abuses of big business. Through his liberal use of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in breaking up big business monopolies, he came to be known as the "trust-busting" President. He was the motivating force behind the first food and drugs acts. And above all, Theodore Roosevelt was a big ham, a brilliant and colorful showman who loved the spotlight of the White House. He was perhaps the first President to use the word "fun" in describing his years in office.
Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858 at No. 28 East 20th Street in New York City. He was the second child of four born to Martha and Theodore Roosevelt, a wealthy New York banker and merchant from a well-respected family. Because his family frequently traveled abroad, young Theodore received his early education from private tutors. Chronic illness, however, hindered his ability to learn. A small, weak, and sickly boy, Theodore began an exercise program at the age of thirteen that improved his health dramatically. Theodore developed a fondness for all kinds of sports and soon built up considerable strength. He directed his new found energy towards his studies, and enrolled at Harvard in 1876. At Harvard, Roosevelt wrote his first book, The History of the Naval War of 1812, a project which he undertook mainly because he felt that all existing histories of that conflict were unfairly biased in favor of the United States. In 188o Theodore Roosevelt graduated from Harvard, twenty-first in his class and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honors society. He enrolled at Columbia Law School, but did not take an interest in his classes. He completed the year, but left without taking a degree.
On October 27, 1880, Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee. The couple had one daughter, also named Alice, who would marry Representative Nicholas Longworth (Speaker of the House 1925-1931) in a White House ceremony on February 17, 1884.
Theodore Roosevelt was elected to the New York State legislature in 1881. He quickly became leader of the movement to reform New York State's notoriously corrupt government. He was re-elected twice before a personal tragedy forced him out of public service for a number of years.
On February 14, 1884 Theodore's wife Alice died. Martha Roosevelt, Theodore's mother, died only a few hours later on the same day. Alice had given birth to the couple's first and only child (also named Alice) only a few days before her death. Grief stricken, Theodore moved to a cattle ranch in the Dakota Territory where he worked for two years as cowboy.
In 1886 Theodore Roosevelt returned to New York City where he made a bid for mayor, but was defeated.
On December 2, 1886 Theodore Roosevelt married Edith Kermit Carrow. The couple had four sons and one daughter. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. would be Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Harding, governor of Puerto Rico, and governor-general of the Philippines under President Hoover. Quentin Roosevelt would fight and be killed in World War I. Theodore and Mary bought a home (known as Sagamore Hill) along Oyster Bay, in Long Island, New York. Theodore spent the next three years writing extensively. He wrote a number of books on the history of the United States, politics, and contemporary life in the West.
President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission in 1889. He was re-appointed by President Cleveland in 1893. As a member of the Civil Service Commission, Roosevelt helped devise and refine the exams given to applicants of jobs classified under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1880. During the years that Roosevelt served, the number of jobs classified under the Reform Act doubled, and employment opportunities for women increased. Roosevelt left the Civil Service Commission in 1895 to serve as president of the New York City Police Commission, a position which he held for two years.
In 1897 President McKinley appointed Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Roosevelt was a strong advocate for assisting Cuba in its war for independence from Spain. On February 25, 1895, with Navy Secretary John Long out of town, Theodore Roosevelt ordered the Pacific fleet to prepare for war. He then sent them west to Hong Kong where the bulk of the Spanish fleet was stationed. Roosevelt had completely overstepped the bounds of his authority as Assistant Secretary, and was denounced by President McKinley and by Congress, which threatened punitive action. Commodore George Dewey's overwhelming victory at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, however, cleared Roosevelt of any and all charges.
When Congress declared war with Spain on April 25, 1898, Roosevelt resigned as Assistant Secretary in order to fight in Cuba. He organized a cavalry and had himself commissioned in the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Roosevelt lead his "Rough Riders," as the Cavalry came to be called, in a charge up San Juan Hill, which overlooks the town of Santiago. The "Rough Riders" took heavy casualties, but eventually captured the hill. Though San Juan Hill was a minor battle with little to no effect on the outcome of the war, stories about the "Rough Riders" sold a lot of newspapers. In turn, Theodore Roosevelt became a national hero.
Late in 1889, Roosevelt returned home and was elected for governor of New York. Governor Roosevelt's refusal to submit to the party line angered the New York Republican Party leader, Thomas Platt. Platt found himself in a bind: he was against Roosevelt's big business reform policies, but he realized that there was no one else in the party as popular as Roosevelt. Platt decided that his best course of action would be to nominate Theodore Roosevelt to fill the Vice Presidential vacancy left by the death of Garret A. Hobart on the McKinley ticket. Platt's plan was to cash in on Roosevelt's popularity, while at the same time to confine Roosevelt to a virtually powerless position and get him out of the New York political scene. Roosevelt was reluctant to accept the nomination, but ultimately submitted to party pressure. Theodore Roosevelt was named the nominee for Vice President at the Republican National Convention of 1900. The McKinley/Roosevelt ticket won a comfortable victory over the Democrat ticket of Bryan/Stevenson.
Vice President Theodore Roosevelt presided over a five-day session of the Senate to ratify the appointees to President McKinley's cabinet and then returned to Long Island to do a little hunting and fishing. Vice President Roosevelt's vacation was interrupted, however, when President McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901. Vice President Roosevelt rushed to Buffalo, New York where he was informed that the President would more than likely survive. Not wanting to alarm the country any more than was necessary, Vice President Roosevelt returned to Long Island to continue his vacation. President McKinley's conditioned worsened however, and Roosevelt was re-summoned to Buffalo. He arrived on September 14; President McKinley had died earlier that day. Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the twenty-sixth President of the United States on September 14, 1901.
Though he promised to continue the policies of President McKinley and kept McKinley's cabinet as proof of the sincerity of his intentions, President Roosevelt was far too independent of a thinker and far too biased against big business to keep any such promise. His first act as President was to order Attorney General Philander Knox to build a case against the railroad giant, Northern Securities Company, for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Northern Securities was found guilty by the Supreme Court and ordered to disband in 1904.
In 1902 a coal miner's strike in Pennsylvania resulted in a coal shortage and skyrocketing prices. President Roosevelt, interested in offering the strikers a "square deal," ordered the strikers and owners to submit to a third party arbitration. When the strikers agreed, and the owners refused, Roosevelt threatened to take over the mine and use federal troops to get the business of coal moving again. The owners heeded the President's threats and submitted to third party arbitration. The commission set up by Roosevelt to settle the dispute found in favor of the strikers, who received a ten percent raise in pay and went back to work.
Plans to build a canal in Panama fell through when the Colombian Parliament refused to ratify a treaty leasing the required land to the United States. A revolution in Panama provided the opportunity President Roosevelt sought to save the canal project. Without first seeking the permission of Congress, President Roosevelt sent in the United States Navy to aid Panamanian rebels in overthrowing Colombian rule. The revolution was successful, Panama won its independence, and the United States got not only its canal, but a military base as well.
President Roosevelt secured the Republican nomination for re-election in 1904. He went on to win an easy victory over the Democratic candidate, Alton B. Parker, a prominent judge from New York.
As in his first term, President Roosevelt's domestic policies during his second term were geared toward reform. Early in 1905, President Roosevelt read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and was so affected by its horrible descriptions of abuses within the meat packing industry that he ordered a federal investigation. The resulting report was even worse than President Roosevelt had feared. The Pine Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were signed into law in 1905. The Hepburn Act, which gave the federal government the power to regulate railroad rates, became law in 1906. Before the Hepburn Act, it was standard practice for railroad companies to offer cut-rate service to certain manufacturers, enabling them to undersell and drive the competition out of business.
In foreign affairs, a massive debt to European powers incurred by the small nation of Santo Domingo resulted in the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine which President Roosevelt issued in 1904. The Roosevelt Corollary announced that the United States maintained the right to interfere in the affairs of the other nations of the Americas so that the nations of Europe did not have to. President Roosevelt ordered United States troops to seize the Santo Domingo customs house and to take charge of its affairs until all of Santo Domingo's debts in Europe were paid off.
Tensions between the United States and Japan escalated during the years of President Roosevelt's second term. Japanese immigrants were seen by the American workers as a threat to what little job security they had. In 1906 the San Francisco School Board began segregating Japanese Americans from the public school system. The segregation of Japanese Americans did not exactly help the United States' already strained relationship with Japan, and President Roosevelt asked the San Francisco School Board to repeal the measure, which they promptly did. In order to quell the fears of the American worker, however, President Roosevelt established a "Gentleman's Agreement" with Japan that prohibited Japanese workers from immigrating to the United States. In 1908 the Root-Takahira Agreement between the United States and Japan was signed. In this agreement both parties promised not to seek territorial gains in the Pacific. The agreement also reinforced Japan's commitment to respect the Open Door Policy with China, established by the United States during the McKinley Administration.
President Roosevelt played a major role in organizing a peace between the warring nations of Russian and Japan. In 1904 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, becoming the first American ever to receive this award.
President Roosevelt had always been an advocate of a powerful army and navy. In years to come, Roosevelt's philosophy of "Speak softly and carry a big stick" would become to advocates of a large peacetime military what the Monroe Doctrine was to isolationists. President Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet," consisting of seven state-of-the-art iron battleships, was ready for the water in 1907. The President ordered the new fleet on a two-year tour of the world as an international display of the military power of the United States; the tour was primarily intended to impress Japan.
Because of a campaign promise he had made at his inauguration in 1904, President Roosevelt declined to run for re-election in 1908. He supported his friend and Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, for the nomination. Thanks largely to President Roosevelt's support, Willam Howard Taft went on to become the twenty-seventh President of the United States. Roosevelt traveled to Africa with his son Kermit to hunt big game.
When Roosevelt returned from Africa, he was disappointed with what he perceived as President Taft's lack of adherence to progressive policies. Former President Roosevelt challenged President Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. When President Taft succeeded in winning the national Republican nomination, a fraction group of Republicans formed the Progressive, or "Bull Moose" Party, and nominated former President Theodore Roosevelt as their candidate. The Democrats nominated Woodrow Wilson. The presence of former President Roosevelt in the election of 1912 split the Republican vote, enabling Wilson to win the election by a narrow margin.
In October of 1913, Roosevelt and his son Kermit went on an expedition to explore the River of Doubt in the Brazilian Jungle. Illness befell the party, and Roosevelt was one of the worst hit. He recovered, but not completely, and the damage done to his health during this trip would be a contributing factor to his death five years later.
The Progressives nominated Roosevelt again in 1916, but he declined the nomination, throwing his support instead to the Republican Charles Evans Hughes. Hughes was defeated by President Wilson in the general election.
Former President Roosevelt was a strong critic of President Wilson's refusal to get involved in World War I. He began to solicit volunteers for a military company which he himself planned to command. When the United States finally entered the war in 1917, Theodore Roosevelt petitioned President Wilson to commission his volunteers into the United States Army. President Wilson declined, and a frustrated Roosevelt returned to Sagamore Hill.
During the final years of his life, Theodore Roosevelt played an active role as a leader of the national Republican Party. In 1918 he was diagnosed with rheumatism. He died of an arterial blood clot on January 6, 1919, at his home in Sagamore Hill, New York.
