Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, 26th President of the USA

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He also served as the 25th Vice President of the United States and as the 33rd Governor of New York. As a leader of the Republican Party during this time, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. His face is depicted on Mount Rushmore, alongside those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.

Roosevelt was born a sickly child with debilitating asthma, but he successfully overcame his physical health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle. He integrated his exuberant personality, vast range of interests, and world-famous achievements into a "cowboy" persona defined by robust masculinity. Home-schooled, he began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard College. His book, The Naval War of 1812 (1882), established his reputation as both a learned historian and as a popular writer. Upon entering politics, he became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York's state legislature. Following the near-simultaneous deaths of his wife and mother, he escaped to a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley, but resigned from that post to lead the Rough Riders during the Spanish–American War. Returning a war hero, he was elected Governor of New York in 1898. After the death of Vice President Garret Hobart, the New York state party leadership convinced McKinley to accept Roosevelt as his running mate in the 1900 election, moving Roosevelt to the prestigious but powerless role of vice president. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously and the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of peace, prosperity, and conservatism. Following McKinley's assassination in September 1901, Roosevelt became president at age 42, and remains the youngest president. As a leader of the Progressive movement, he championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. Making conservation a top priority, he established many new national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America, where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project the United States' naval power around the globe. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. He avoided the controversial tariff and money issues. Elected in 1904 to a full term, Roosevelt continued to promote progressive policies, but many of his efforts and much of his legislative agenda were eventually blocked in Congress. Roosevelt successfully groomed his close friend, William Howard Taft, and Taft won the 1908 presidential election to succeed him. In polls of historians and political scientists, Roosevelt is generally ranked as one of the five best presidents.

Frustrated with Taft's conservatism, Roosevelt belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination. He failed, walked out, and founded a third party, the Progressive, so-called "Bull Moose" Party, which called for wide-ranging progressive reforms. The split allowed the Democrats to win the White House. Following his election defeat, Roosevelt led a two-year expedition to the Amazon basin, where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized President Woodrow Wilson for keeping the country out of the war with Germany, and his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. Though he had considered running for president again in 1920, Roosevelt's health continued to deteriorate, and he died in 1919.

Find-a-Grave Memorial #898

------------------------------------------------------

• Theodore Roosevelt became the first American President to take seriously the concept of the preservation of nature. As President from 1901 to 1909, he designated 150 National Forests, the first 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 5 National Parks (including the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, and Mesa Verde), the first 18 national monuments (including the Chaco Canyon, Petrified Forest, Muir Woods and Devils Tower), the first 4 National Game Preserves, and the first 21 Reclamation Projects. Altogether, in the seven-and-one-half years he was in office, he provided federal protection for almost 230 million acres, a land area equivalent to that of all the East coast states from Maine to Florida. For more information on Theodore Roosevelt visit http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States. A leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Party, he was a Governor of New York and a professional historian, naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier. He is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. Originating from a story from one of Roosevelt's hunting expeditions, Teddy bears are named after him.

As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment—the Rough Riders—during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected governor. An avid writer, his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.

In 1901, as Vice President, the 42-year-old Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. As of 2008, he remains the youngest person to become President. He was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. He was the first U.S. president to call for universal health care and national health insurance. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested 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. He beat Taft in the popular vote and 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.

Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt 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, an interesting irony considering his promotion of national warfare as a useful tool.

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." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Roosevelt has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents. Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt were related but only distantly. They were fifth cousins

From: http://www.nnp.org/nni/Publications/Dutch-American/rooseveltt.html

The two youngest U.S. Presidents at the time they became president were Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Roosevelt was 42 and Kennedy was 43 years old upon becoming president. However, Kennedy was the youngest elected president. Roosevelt succeeded McKinley following McKinley's assassination in Buffalo, New York in 1901. Roosevelt was 46 years old when he was elected president for the first time in 1904.

Theodore Roosevelt was probably the most energetic U.S. president of all the presidents up to that time. He did not like to be depicted as fitting in a niche. To become a U.S. president you clearly must be a politician. But he was much more. He was a conversationalist, a historian, a naturalist, an art patron, a rancher, an advocate of social order and justice, an advocate of food and drug safety, a trust buster, an advocate of management-labor negotiation, an advocate of democratic politics including women's suffrage and a world peacemaker for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In other words he was a leader without peers. And by being all of the above he set a model for future American presidents. Unfortunately not many followed his example.

Theodore Roosevelt became president on September 14, 1901 when President McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York while visiting the Pan American Exhibition. Roosevelt was only 42 years old at the time of the assassination. He became the 26th US president, the youngest ever and since then. Interestingly, his inauguration took place in the State [New York] in which he was born on October 27, 1858, where he served as a New York State Assembly Man from 1881 to 1884, and where he served as a New York State Governor from 1897 to 1898. At the time of his inauguration he had only been a vice-president for six months, so as a result he would serve nearly a full first term. He was re-elected to another full term in 1904, and decided that it would be his final term, a decision he later clearly regretted.

The major areas where he left an impact during his presidency were conservation, the arts and history, order and social justice, foreign policy, including peace making, trust busting and food and safety legislation.

In the area of conservation he provided federal protection for nearly 230 million acres equivalent to almost 360,000 square miles, an area 600 miles long and 600 miles wide. This area came to include 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reservations, 5 national parks, 18 national monuments, 4 national game preserves and 21 reclamation projects.

Other areas where he stood out were as a patron of the arts, as one of the founding members of the American Institute of Arts and Letters, as the founding member of the Long Island Bird Club, as president of the American Historical Association, and as a naturalist. He led two major international expeditions to Africa and South America to collect information, data and artifacts for American museums. As a result of the above activities he was recognized as a historian, a naturalist and a man of letters. He was also interested in collegiate sports and founded the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

His platform in the 1912 presidential election, on the Bull Moose Party ticket, consisted of the democratization of American politics, reversal of judicial decisions by popular vote, direct election of U.S. Senators, women suffrage, and direct popular vote on legislation. Earlier as U.S. President he supported labor-management negotiations through his donation of $40,000 to a foundation which supported labor-management relations. Many of his platform proposals were subsequently adopted by the Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt Administrations.

In the foreign policy area he was exemplary. He was able to defuse the Russian-Japanese war in the Far East, for which he was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. During his nearly eight years as president not a single member of the U.S. forces died in combat. He expanded the U.S. Navy and had the Navy conduct a world tour from 1907 to 1909 to show case and demonstrate U.S. sea power. He was the driving force behind the building of the Panama Canal and the establishment of the Canal Zone in Panama which allowed the building of the Canal. Unfortunately he used strong arm tactics to accomplish the Canal Treaty for which he received a considerable amount of criticism.

Roosevelt was a major trustbuster. Although he was not anti-business at all, he felt that the large railroad, bank and oil trusts had too much power which enabled them to fix prices and control markets. He instituted more than 30 court cases, mostly successful, against corporations. He also forced the coal mine operators to negotiate with the mine workers. The Hepburn Railroad Act and the Elkins Act also strengthened the enforcement power of the Interstate Commerce Commission in its control over the railroads.

The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were established in 1906. Both acts established new standards and provided protection and safety in the consumption of food and the use of drugs. Consumer Protection was needed and overdue.

Unlike his fellow Dutch-American President, Martin Van Buren who was born in an apartment above a tavern and was the son of a tavern keeper, Roosevelt was born in an affluent family in New York City on October 2, 1858. The Roosevelt family lived in a house on East Twentieth Street built by Theodore's grandfather. His parents were Theodore Roosevelt [1831-1878] and Martha Bulloch [1834-1884]. Both of his parents died at relatively young ages. His paternal grandparents were Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt [1794-1871] and Margaret Barnhill [1759-1861]. Where the family's wealth came from is unclear.

Roosevelt was able to attend Harvard University and earned his A.B. degree in 1880. He then went to Columbia University's School of Law, but only stayed for one year. The reason of why he left is unclear, but he probably had a taste for politics even then. The same year he left Law School he became a New York State Assembly Man and served from 1881 to 1884. From 1889 to 1895 he was the U.S. Civil Service Commissioner. In 1895 he became the president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners. Two years later, in 1897, he became an Assistant Secretary of the Navy and served in that position until 1898. He served as Governor of New York State from 1899 to 1901, whereupon he became a Vice President of the United States in the McKinley Administration.

Roosevelt married his first wife, Alice Hatheway Lee, on his birthday, October 27, 1880, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Alice died in childbirth in 1884, on the same day Roosevelt learned of his mother's death. Fortunately, the baby survived and Alice Lee Roosevelt [1884-1980] became Theodore's first child. As a devoted family man the two deaths were a major shock, and he retreated to a ranch in Wyoming where he stayed for two years. In 1886 he returned to run for mayor of New York City, but he lost. That same year he also traveled to London, England to marry his second wife, a childhood friend, Edith Kermit Carow on December 2, 1886. Edith would bear him five children consisting of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. [1887-1944], Kermit Roosevelt [1889-1943], Ethel Carow Roosevelt [1891-1977], Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt [1894-1979], and Quentin Roosevelt [1897-1918].

Theodore Roosevelt had two sisters and a brother. They were Anne Roosevelt [1855-1931], Corinne Roosevelt [1861-1933] and Elliott Roosevelt [1860-1894]. Elliott was the father of Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt passed away on January 6, 1919 at his Sagamore Hill Estate in Oyster Bay, New York. There are many sites across the country that commemorate the most unusual and most energetic president this country has ever had. The sites consist of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic site in New York City, the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, New York, The Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, New York, and the Theodore Roosevelt Island in McLean, Virginia.

The Roosevelts, Theodore, Franklin Delano and Eleanor, were all descendants of Claes Martenszen Van Rosevelt [?-1658] and Jannetje Toms [?-1660], who were both part of the original contingent of Dutch immigrants who settled in New Amsterdam in the 1640's. Their grandsons, Jacobus Roosevelt [1692-1776] and Johannes Roosevelt [1689-1750], became the forefathers of the two Roosevelt clans that produced our Roosevelt presidents. The Jacobus branch was called the Hyde Park branch, and the Johannes branch represented the Oyster Bay branch.

Theodore Roosevelt was the great great great grandson of Johannes Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt was the great great great grandson of Jacobus Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt. She was thus the fifth cousin of Franklin Roosevelt once removed.