Astro-Rayological Interpretation & Charts
Quotes
Biography
Images and Physiognomic Interpretation

to Volume 3 Table of Contents

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.

Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
(Mars in Capricorn in 8th house. Scorpio Sun.)

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
(Sun & Mercury in 5th house)

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

I am a part of everything that I have read.
(Mercury conjunct Sun. Jupiter in Gemini conjunct Ascendant.)

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.

In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
(Mars in Capricorn in 8th house)

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
(Neptune in Pisces in 10th house)

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
(Cancer Moon)

Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
(Saturn in Leo)

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
(Gemini Ascendant)

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
(Mercury conjunct Sun opposition Pluto)

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty."

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.
(Saturn opposition Chiron)

We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure.

Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

: To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing.
ATTRIBUTION: Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), U.S. Republican (later Progressive) politician, president. Speech, April 1917, Oyster Bay, Long Island.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

: No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.

Born October 27, 1858
New York, New York
Died January 6, 1919, age 60
Oyster Bay, New York
Political party Republican
Spouse (1) Alice Hathaway Lee (married 1880, died 1884)
(2) Edith Kermit Carow (married 1886)
Signature , Jr., (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as T.R. and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the 26th President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He served in many roles including governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy” persona.

In 1901, he became President after the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved 40 monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster." He was clear, however, to show that he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against their corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen, including regulation of railroad rates and pure foods and drugs, and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906, he moved left, attacking big business and suggesting the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt lost but pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.

As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the first U.S. volunteer cavalry regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1898. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books[2] include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.

Roosevelt understood the strategic significance of the Panama Canal, and negotiated for the U.S. to take control of its construction in 1904; he felt that the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.

Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter."[3] His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.

Childhood, Education, and Personal Life
at age 11Roosevelt was born at 28 East 20th Street in the modern-day Lemming 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).

The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 17th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. By the 18th Century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. Theodore's mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, "Uncle Jimmy", was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war.[4]

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. 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".[5]

To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons.[6] Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.

Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on young Theodore and was a life-long source of inspiration. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness."[7] Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken."[8]

Young "Teedie", as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek.[9] He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail.[10] He was an unusually eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest men and women. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book. During his adulthood, a visitor would get a not-so-subtle hint that Roosevelt was losing interest in the conversation when he would pick up a book and begin looking at it now and then as the conversation continued.

While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in numerous clubs, including the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt disregarded the advice and chose to embrace the strenuous life instead.[11]

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life.[12]

Early public life

Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photoRoosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal to the party and supported Blaine.[13]

First marriage
On his 22nd birthday, Roosevelt married his first wife, 19-year-old Alice Hathaway Lee, on October 27, 1880, at the Unitarian Church in Brookline, Massachusetts. Alice was the daughter of the prominent banker George Cabot Lee and Caroline Haskell Lee. The couple first met in 1878. He proposed in June 1879. However, Alice waited another six months before accepting the proposal. They announced their engagement on Valentine's Day 1880. Alice Roosevelt died exactly four years later, only two days after the birth of their first child, also named Alice. In a tragic coincidence, Roosevelt's mother died of typhoid fever on the same day, also at the Roosevelt family home in Manhattan.

Diary Entry Feb 14, 1884Although he noted her loss in his diary and made several references to her in the subsequent months, from the next year on Roosevelt refused to speak his first wife's name again (even omitting her name from his autobiography) and did not allow others to speak of her in his presence. With his daughter, Alice, the siblings were taught to call her "sister," and Alice's half-brother Ted, Jr. would have to ask "has anyone seen sister this morning?"

This practice put an early strain on his relationship with his daughter who was given his late wife's name. However, as she grew into adulthood and better understood her father's deep moral convictions, the bond between them became strong. Alice continued to support her father's ideas after his death in 1919.

Later that year, Roosevelt left the General Assembly and his infant daughter Alice, whom he had left in the long-term care of his older sister, Bamie. In letters to Bamie, he would refer to Alice as Baby Lee. Roosevelt moved to his Maltese Cross ranch seven miles from Medora in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory to live a more simple life as a rancher and lawman.

Life in Badlands
as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles 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. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western that one of the thieves was carrying.

While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241-245, 247-250)

After the 1886-1887 winter wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had purchased Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886, coming in a distant third.

Second Marriage
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow.[14] They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt climbed Mont Blanc, leading only the third recorded expedition to reach the summit, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society.[15] They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin.[16] "Uncle Ted" was the godfather and favorite uncle of Eleanor Roosevelt, whom he gave away in marriage to their fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 17, 1905.

Roosevelt is the only President to have become a widower and remarry before becoming President.

Historian
In the 1880s, he gained recognition as a serious historian. His The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was the standard history for two generations.[17] By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial.[18] His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889-1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race" or people--the American people. He was using a Lamarkean model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the American Historical Association

Return to public life

New York City Police Commissioner 1896In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned for Benjamin Harrison in the Midwest. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895.[19] In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. 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), reappointed him to the same post.

In 1895, he became president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners. During the two years that he held this post, Roosevelt radically changed the way a police department was run. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt forces in America. NYPD's history division records that Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895."[20] Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and implemented standardized 32 calibre pistol practice.[21] Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits appointed not on the basis of political affiliation but solely for their physical and mental qualifications, opened admission to the department to ethnic minorities and women, established the first police meritorious service medals, shut down the corrupt police hostelries, and a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities. Roosevelt required his officers to be registered with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. 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.[22] He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897Roosevelt 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[23] 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".[24]

War in Cuba

Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American WarUpon 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 out of a diverse crew that ranged from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment.

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). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to dismount and walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions.[25] He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor.

Governor and Vice President
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" 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 few months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful.[26]

Presidency 1901-1909

Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera.
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on photo for background story.Main article: Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, on September 6, 1901. Vice President Roosevelt had been delivering a speech in Vermont when he got word of McKinley's shooting. He arrived in Buffalo the next day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox would recall that "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he [Roosevelt] was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it."[27] Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on the Bible nor on any other book, making him unique among presidents.[28] 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.[29]

: Coal Strike of 1902
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.[30]

Square Dealpromised 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.

Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon

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.

Regulation of industry
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other."[31] His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, granting the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the power to set maximum railroad rates; it also stopped free passes given to friends of the railroad. At that time it was universally assumed that railroads would continue to be a vast and powerful force. No one dreamed they would eventually be challenged by truck and automobile traffic, and hence struggle to survive under the provisions of the Hepburn Act designed to protect merchants and consumers.

In response to public clamor, Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market.[32]

Conservationist
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 1908Roosevelt 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.[33] 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.[34]

Roosevelt and his Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks.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.

Foreign policy
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 builds the canal—and shovels dirt on ColombiaRoosevelt 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 actions helped in a small way to avert a world war.[35]

Panama Canal
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).

Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At that time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic.

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 build the Panama Canal because illness spread quickly 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.

The Great White Fleet
Main article: Great White Fleet
Mort Kuntsler 1977 painting "The Great White Fleet Sails."
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruiseAs 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 banner 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. The visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo, Japan, which brought thousands of Japanese school children to line the beaches waving American flags purchased by the government, nevertheless, encouraged Japanese militarists who argued for an aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program.

Life in the White House
Roosevelt relished the presidency and seemed to be everywhere at once. He took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously.[36] In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time.[37] His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six."[38]

Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moanDuring his presidency, Roosevelt tried but failed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:

When nerly three centuries ago, the first settlers kam to the kuntry which has bekom this great republik, tha confronted not only hardship and privashun, but terible risk of thar lives. . . . The kustum has now bekum nashnul and hallowed by immemorial usaj.

The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.[39]

Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both."[36] In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."[40]

Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.

Presidential firsts
In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
Oscar S. Straus became the first Jew appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
Roosevelt in 1904, became the first former Vice-President who had succeeded to the presidency on the death of the incumbent, to be elected President in his own right or even win his party’s nomination for election.
In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
In 1906, 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.
He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
He was the first President to refer to the White House as such on his official stationery. Until then the mansion had been referred to simply as 'The President's House'

States admitted to the Union
During Roosevelt's Presidency, one state, Oklahoma, was admitted to the Union. This new state included the former Indian Territory, which had attempted to gain admission on its own into the Union as the State of Sequoyah. (Formerly, the state of Oklahoma had been divided into the Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory.) In 1906, a bill was introduced in Congress providing for the admission of the Oklahoma and Indian Territories as one state, and Arizona and New Mexico as another state. Although the bill passed on June 14 and was signed into law by Roosevelt, the people of Arizona and New Mexico rejected the offer of statehood.

Post-presidency

African safari
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safariIn March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in Africa. The trip was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society and received worldwide media attention. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, of which 262 were consumed by the expedition. This included six white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the number of animals was so large, it took years to mount them. The Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums. Of the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."[41] Although based in the name of science, there was a large social element to the safari. Interactment with many native peoples, local leaders, renowned professional hunters, and land owning families made the safari much more than a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of this adventure; "African Game Trails" describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.

Republican Party rift
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party—pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers—he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man.[42]

Handing off responsibility to Taft in 1909Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.

Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.

Election of 1912
Main articles: U.S. presidential election, 1912 and Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.

Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried 9 of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.

At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing that he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party", which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as tough as a bull moose." At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." The crusading rhetoric resonated well with the delegates, many of them long-time reformers, crusaders, activists and opponents of politics as usual. Included in the ranks were Jane Addams and many other feminists and peace activists. The platform echoed Roosevelt's 1907-08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests.[43]

While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after hitting both his steel eyeglass case and a copy of his speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt declined suggestions that he go to the hospital, and delivered his scheduled speech. He spoke vigorously for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died.[5]

Roosevelt failed to move the political system in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.

1913-1914 South American Expedition
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled up the River of Doubt.His popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip up the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.

Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.During the trip up the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103°F (39°C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of Dr. Cajazeira, and Rondon's leadership, Roosevelt would likely have perished.

Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization.[36][44]

When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.

Writer
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most important book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which traced the origin of a new "race" of Americans to frontier conditions in the 18th century.

World War I
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak". This caused him to develop an intense dislike of Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported Britain, France and the Allies of World War I because he admired their fight for civilization; he demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced those Irish-Americans and German-Americans whose pleas for neutrality Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused.[45]

Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918 because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most like him. It is said that the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss.[46]

Last years

Theodore RooseveltDespite his debilitating diseases Roosevelt remained upbeat to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddie Roosevelt's jingoism."[47]

On January 6, 1919, at the age of 60, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Young's Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead."[48] Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight."[49]

Personal life

Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and EthelRoosevelt was baptized in the family's church, part of the Reformed Church in America. He intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact out to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. Apparently, the pronunciation of his last name was [ru:z?v?lt], that is, with the same vowel as in the word "whose." (His cousin Franklin Roosevelt used the vowel sound of the word "rose.") He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church.[50] As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money.[51] He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to — namely to treat each man on his merit as a man."[52]

Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter.[53][54]

Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estateHe was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood.[55] Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician.[56]

His children made up what they called the "White House Gang".

Legacy

Roosevelt's face on Mt. RushmoreFor his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.

Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.

 

Trivia
Roosevelt was almost seven years old when a famous picture was taken showing him looking out his second story window (the one opened) at Abraham Lincoln's funeral train. [6]
On September 3, 1902 a landau carrying Roosevelt and Secret Service Operative William Craig was struck by a trolley in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Craig was killed and Roosevelt was injured.
In 1906-1907, when there were disagreements between Roosevelt and Senator Benjamin Tiller over the railroad rate bill, and also controversy between Roosevelt and "nature fakers," the press coined the term Ananias Club, which meant "liar."
Roosevelt was a judo brown belt, a very noteworthy achievement at the time. The Lion in White House (2006), a novel by Vichey about Roosevelt's adventures, thrilling stories, and about his activities in his domains, was published in Cambodia in the Khmer language.
Roosevelt's first appearance on US currency was on the reverse of the Mount Rushmore commemorative Dollar and Half Dollar.
He is the fifth cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
His coat of arms features roses and ostrich plumes, and is similar to that of Franklin Roosevelt.[61]

 

Roosevelt was more than just the 26th president of the United States. He was a writer, historian, explorer, big-game hunter, soldier, conservationist, ranchman and Nobel Peace Prize winner. It is not surprising that his philosophy of life was known as The Strenuous Life.
Theodore was born into a wealthy and socially prominent New York family in 1858. Although blessed with a quick mind he was not blessed with a strong body. He suffered from life-threatening asthma attacks throughout his childhood. Spurred on by his father, Theodore began to build up his body by strenuous exercise, and by adulthood he had become a model of physical courage and toughness. This early example of his character was indicative of the way he lived the rest of his life. He did not back down in the face of adversity, and he continually displayed remarkable physical and moral courage.

Early Political Life

As a young man Roosevelt decided on a dual career; law and politics. At the time, New York politics was dominated by men involved in machine politics. These were not exactly the kind of people he had met at Harvard. Yet he persisted in getting to know and understand them, while at the same time attending Columbia Law School. Eventually he secured the friendship and patronage of an influential man named Joe Murray who was able to get him nominated as a 21st District State Republican Assemblyman. Together, with Murray's contacts and knowledge of machine politics and his own family and social connections, Roosevelt was able to easily win the election. He was 23 and in Albany.
Theodore served three terms in the New York Assembly. He became known as an outspoken and active opponent of the "wealthy criminal class" as he called them and of political corruption - of which there was no shortage. He was a rising progressive star. His ascent, however, was cut short by the presidential election of 1884. Roosevelt was a delegate to the Republican convention, and as a matter of principle he vigorously opposed the leading candidates - James G. Blaine and President Arthur. Roosevelt supported a reformer, Senator George F. Edmunds. In the end Blaine won the nomination, and this put Roosevelt in a difficult position. He did not believe that Blaine was honest, yet if he followed the example of other progressives and did not support him he realized he would be through in the Republican party. He supported Blaine. When Blaine lost Theodore received no political position, and his political career was over.

Ranchman

Roosevelt not only suffered political defeat in 1884 but deeply personal defeats as well. On the same day both his mother and wife died. These disappointments led to a radical change in Roosevelt's life. He decided to move to the Dakota Badlands to become a rancher. At the time many people thought that this was a good way to become rich. The Dakotas were not like the East - life could be a little wild and woolly. Resolution of disputes was done at the end of a gun, and thieves were often hanged as soon as they were caught. Roosevelt excelled at this rough and tumble way of life and earned the respect and devotion of the men around him. Roosevelt, however, did not excel at making money. He lost about half of his entire capital in ranching. But what he gained was, in the long run, of much greater value. The men he met there were to later join the famous Rough Riders whose exploits were the major impetus to his political success. In 1886 Roosevelt returned to New York to marry a childhood friend - Edith Carow. Highly intelligent, Edith was one of the few people who could actually manage Theodore. In order to control his free spending habits she put him on a strict two dollar a day allowance - even when he was president. Together they had a very successful marriage and produced five children in addition to Alice, Roosevelt's child by his first marriage.

 

Politics was still the place that Roosevelt wanted to be, but there were not many opportunities since his party was out of power. In order to support his family Roosevelt spent his time writing. This was not a new vocation for Roosevelt. Equally at home hunting for a book as hunting for a bear he wrote his first book The Naval War of 1812 while in law school and running for the New York Assembly. By the end of his life he had written and published dozens of books.

Reformer

In 1888 Roosevelt saw his chance to jump back into politics by campaigning for the election of Benjamin Harrison. When Harrison won he appointed Roosevelt to be a Civil Service Commissioner. It was with this job and later as Police Commissioner that Roosevelt made his reputation as a reformer. At the time both the Civil Service and the New York Police Department had serious corruption problems. Roosevelt did his best to clean up the corruption and make things work fairly. For example, as a Police Commissioner he took control of the police department, reorganized it, fired corrupt policemen and used to spend his nights walking through the city looking for policemen asleep on their jobs.

Nationalist

In the presidential election of 1896 the Republican William McKinley ran against the Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Roosevelt campaigned hard for McKinley, and he was rewarded by the job he coveted most - Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
It was during this time that Roosevelt first met William Allen White, a newspaper editor from Kansas. White's autobiography paints Roosevelt's personality perfectly "..and we sat there for an hour after lunch and talked our jaws loose about everything. I had never known such a man as he, and never shall again. He overcame me. And in the hour or two we spent that day at lunch, and in a walk down F Street, he poured into my heart such visions, such ideals, such hopes, such a new attitude toward life and patriotism and the meaning of things, as I had never dreamed men had. ...so strong was this young Roosevelt--hard-muscled, hard-voiced even when the voice cracked in falsetto, with hard, wriggling jaw muscles, and snapping teeth, even when he cackled in raucous glee, so completely did the personality of this man overcome me that I made no protest and accepted his dictum as my creed."
Being Assistant Secretary of the Navy provided this powerful young man his first chance to act on his foreign policy ideas. Roosevelt was a strong nationalist. He believed fervently that not only was the United States on the brink of becoming a world power, but that it had a responsibility and a duty to establish U.S. supremacy. For an explanation of these views in his own words see his speech The Strenuous Life. This faith in national supremacy spawned a host of related goals. In order for the U.S. to become a world power it needed to be able to transport its military quickly between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. At that time ships had to sail around the tip of South America to make that trip. If, instead, they could go through an isthmian canal it would cut weeks off the trip time. But having a canal meant that military control had to be established over the canal. To do this the United States would have to secure the Caribbean, and that in turn meant war with Spain. Spain's empire in Latin America was just a sliver of what it had once been, but it still controlled Cuba and Puerto Rico. This is why Roosevelt zealously worked to promote the Spanish-American War.
All wrapped around and through these ideas was the need for a strong navy. Toward this goal Roosevelt worked very hard while Assistant Secretary. He fought and pushed and prodded and on occasion was insubordinate in his efforts to strengthen the navy for war. His cause was helped enormously when the United States battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. This was just the sort of incendiary event needed to push the U.S. into war. The bombing was blamed on the Spanish even though nobody really knew who or what was responsible. War was officially declared on April 21, 1898.
It would have never done for Roosevelt to be stuck behind a desk while a war was on. He was just itching to become a soldier. He quit the Naval Department and joined the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. Together he and his superior officer, Colonel Wood, were responsible for raising volunteers for the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry regiment. By the time the war was over Roosevelt was the Colonel in charge, and his regiment, popularly known as Roosevelt's Rough Riders, was famous. For Roosevelt the war was the event that catapulted him politically. It was only three more years until he was the President of the United States.

New York Governor

When Roosevelt returned from Cuba he was a national hero and political gold. Men were lining up to beg him to run for office. Tom Platt, the boss of the Republican machine in New York was no exception, except that he was not real thrilled about it. Platt's political power base was big business, but here he was asking Roosevelt to run for governor - a man that had an annoying tendency to do what he felt was right rather than heedlessly protect powerful business interests. Unfortunately for Platt finding a man that could actually win was a bigger problem - a problem that Roosevelt could solve.
When Roosevelt became governor in January of 1899 he fulfilled Platt's worst expectations. He would not let Platt dominate his term or his decision making. In particularly he angered and defied Platt on the biggest issue of his term - utility franchise taxes. At that time public service corporations did not pay taxes on their franchises. They did pay Platt to make sure it stayed that way. Roosevelt felt that government should not give preferential treatment to big business, and that it had an important role in its regulation. In the end Roosevelt prevailed and utility companies were forced to pay taxes. This enraged both Platt and his supporters. In a weird twist it was this anger that helped paved the way for Roosevelt to become president.
In 1899 Garret Hobart, vice-president of the United States, died and in his death Platt saw his chance. He did everything he could to encourage the nomination of Roosevelt for vice-president. Others, with less selfish motivations, also thought it was a wonderful idea and applied pressure to both President McKinley and Roosevelt. Neither one of which was thrilled about the idea. McKinley had no particular interest in Roosevelt, and Roosevelt's active nature revolted at the thought of having a ceremonial and impotent political position. In the end they both relented, Roosevelt accepted the vice-president nomination and their ticket went on to win the 1900 presidential election against William Jennings Bryan. Roosevelt resigned himself to being vice-president.

Roosevelt's next opportunity also came at the expense of another person's death. In September of 1901, less than one year into his new term, McKinley was shaking hands with the public at the Pan-American Exposition when a young man named Leon Czolgosz walked up to him and shot him twice. At first it looked like McKinley would survive the shooting, but he ended up dying on September 14th. Characteristically Roosevelt was climbing a mountain when he got word that McKinley was dying, and that he would soon be President.

President of the United States

At the turn of the century the United States was a country rapidly coming into its own. Now it had a president that could not only keep up with it but push it even faster. Both on the domestic and international front Roosevelt aggressively expanded the power of the presidency, the federal government and the nation.

Domestic Policy

It was in the business arena that Roosevelt most aggressively extended the power of the federal government. Until his administration the dominate idea that governed the relationship between government and business was laissez faire. The government passed few business regulations and in general left businesses to do as they saw fit. Roosevelt was the first president that felt it was the proper role of the federal government to make sure that business was responsive to public needs. Because of this he actively sought to regulate business by enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and pushing new regulatory legislation through Congress.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act had been passed in 1890, but it had never been used to prosecute a trust - only unions. Meanwhile the changes in the business environment were phenomenal. Whole industries became dominated by a single company or a combination of companies controlled by a trust. Once it had a monopoly a trust could unilaterally control prices and rack up huge profits. The king of trusts was J.P. Morgan, a banker, who was to become the first target of Roosevelt's assault.
Many progressives felt that all trusts were bad and should be abolished. Roosevelt was more moderate. He thought that the era of big business was inevitable, and that it had important economic benefits such as increased productivity and efficiency. In his opinion, there were good trusts and bad trusts. The good ones were responsive to the needs of the public, and he wanted to leave those alone. He only wanted to go after ones that did not act in the public interest. In order to do this he came up with the radical idea of actually enforcing existing law.
On February 18, 1902 he directed the Justice Department to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prosecute the Northern Securities Company run by J.P. Morgan. Morgan had created this trust to control the activities of several powerful railroad companies. He was a rich and powerful adversary, but Roosevelt was victorious in March of 1904 when the Supreme Court ruled against the Northern Securities Company and forced it to break up. This marked an important shift in the scope of government. For the first time the federal government was taking an active, regulatory position in regard to business.
Roosevelt could not achieve all he wanted with existing law. So he worked to pass two landmark pieces of legislation - the Pure Food & Drug Act and a meat inspection bill. These laws were intended to protect consumers against the food industry - especially meat packing. Meat packers used diseased and rotten meat, processed meat in unsanitary conditions and put labels on their cans that had precious little relationship to the actual contents. This was a problem that Roosevelt had personally experienced. He wrote the following about the meat supplied to his regiment in the Spanish-American War. "If we had been given canned corn-beef we would have been all right, but instead of this the soldiers were issued horrible stuff called "canned fresh beef." There was no salt in it. At the best it was stringy and tasteless; at the worst it was nauseating. Not one-fourth of it was ever eaten at all, even when the men became very hungry". Roosevelt's greatest ally in his struggle against meat packers was the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Its descriptions of the conditions in meat packing horrified and enraged the public, who in turn motivated their political representatives to support Roosevelt. As a result, on June 30, 1906 the President signed both of his consumer protection bills into law.
Roosevelt was also the first president to use the power of the federal government as a broker in the conflict between labor and capital. In May of 1902 the coal miners of eastern Pennsylvania went on strike. They were working 12 hour shifts, six days a week for an average wage of $560 per year. The mine owners rejected their demands, and the strike continued through the summer into the fall. Eventually the prospect of a winter without heat began to frighten people, and Roosevelt decided to intervene in the interest of the public. He invited the leaders of both sides to come to Washington to meet with him. At that meeting he proposed that an arbitration committee help them settle their differences. The union agreed to this but the mine owners rejected it. By that time Roosevelt had become very put off by the attitude of the mine owners. He threatened to send in federal troops to take charge of the mines. Eventually they gave in and agreed to arbitration. The miners won a 9 hour day, a 10% wage increase and the right to have their own representatives present when the coal was weighed.

Foreign Policy

International affairs was marked by the same activism as domestic affairs. He was definitely not an isolationist. He aggressively positioned the United States as a new world power in order to establish a leadership position and protect national security. For example, in 1901 the U.S. was the fifth strongest naval power in the world. By 1907 it was in second place behind Great Britain.
In 1823 the United States had issued the Monroe Doctrine which stated that the American continents were to be free of European interference and conquest. This expression of territoriality came before the U.S. really possessed the force necessary to back up its words. But by the turn of the century this was no longer true. European countries were quickly gaining respect for the might of the new american power. It was Roosevelt, of course, who added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This confirmed the restriction on European activities in the Western Hemisphere but added the idea that when a country in the Western Hemisphere did not "behave", such as by not paying their debts to European countries, the United States had a responsibility to discipline them. This is where the idea of the United States fulfilling the role of world policeman got started. A role still being played by the U.S. in places like Haiti and Bosnia.
In 1905 Roosevelt got his first chance to put the United States in this new role of policeman. Internally the Dominican Republic was a mess and among other things was not able to pay off its debts to its European creditors. The United States took control of the collection of customs receipts, using them to pay off the creditors and put the country back on a stable footing. It should be noted that this was all done at the request of the Dominican Republic not against their will.
Roosevelt's extension of control over all of the Western Hemisphere and in particular the Caribbean was directly connected with his intent to build the Panama Canal. Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in Central America had been a dream of many for decades. The advantages were enormous and obvious, but the problems were daunting. The French had already tried and failed. There were huge technological problems to be worked out. Yellow fever killed 22,000 workers during the French attempt. In addition, there were political problems like how to end the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty which committed the United States to building the canal with Great Britain and sharing control. Roosevelt did not want to share control, he wanted to have control. In addition there was disagreement within the U.S. government about what route to take; through Panama or through Nicaragua.
Roosevelt, however, was not a man to let a few problems to stand in his way. He stretched his power to the maximum, and in the end it was due to him that the canal finally got built. In 1901 Great Britain agreed to give up their right to share control of the canal with the United States, and in 1902 the Congress finally decided on the route through Panama. The way was clear for Roosevelt to negotiate with the Colombians for a right-of-way. At that time Panama was part of Colombia - but not for long. Colombia decided it wanted more money, and it rejected the negotiated treaty. Roosevelt was angry. Angry enough to make it clear (unofficially) that a revolution in Panama would be supported by the United States. Panama obliged by declaring their independence on November 4, 1903. The United States got its canal, Panama got $10 million and Colombia got nothing.
Roosevelt's unorthodoxed actions in central america were controversial, but they powerfully illustrated the power of the nation he commanded. In addition they contributed to the growth of that power by giving the United States total control over a strategically crucial waterway. It was one of the most important accomplishments of his administration.

Post-Presidency

Roosevelt was a man that thoroughly relished the power and responsibility of being president. He really enjoyed his position. But while running for president in 1904 he had made a rash promise to not seek another term in 1908. He decided to honor that promise. He did, however, hand pick his own successor - William H. Taft. Taft was expect to follow his predecessor's progressive policies.
Roosevelt was not the kind of guy to spend the rest of his life retired at his Long Island home. Just his life after the presidency was enough to eclipse the accomplishments of most. Once Taft was inaugurated in 1909, Roosevelt went on a year long hunting trip through Africa and followed it up with an European tour. On his African trip he collected animal specimens for museums and wrote articles for Scribners, which were later turned into a book. He made a triumphant tour through Europe and picked up his Nobel Peace Prize - awarded for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese War.
Roosevelt returned to the States in June of 1910. He had been kept posted on Taft's activities while he had been gone, and he was not happy. Taft had turned from Roosevelt's progressive policies to a more conservative position. Roosevelt was angry, and he decided to contest Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination.
Roosevelt was still extremely popular and won a majority of delegates. Taft, however, controlled the party machinery which made sure he was nominated. A part of the Republican party split off to begin the Progressive Party and made Roosevelt their nominee. This split divided the Republican vote and put the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, in office.
After this failure, Roosevelt still did not slow down. He went to South America for a speaking tour and to make a wilderness expedition to map the Rio da Divuda river in Brazil. The trip started in January of 1914 and included one of Roosevelt's sons - Kermit. It was a horrendous trip. Roosevelt injured his leg, got dysentery and malaria and at one point begged to be left behind so that he would not slow down the rest of the group. But in the end he made it, and in his honor Brazil renamed the river Rio Roosevelt.
Roosevelt returned to the United States in 1914, the same year that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and World War I began. He agitated for preparedness and entry into the war. He even wanted to join up to fight but was refused this wish because of his age. In the end he had to be content with sending all four of his sons to war, one of them to his death.
Theodore had always been a man determined to wear out - not to rust out. He accomplished this goal like few others ever have. His journey ended on January 6, 1919 when he died of an embolism at his home while still working.