biography
| name: |
Roosevelt, Theodore
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| |
known as Teddy Roosevelt
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pronunciation:
[rohzuhvelt, roozv
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1858–1919)
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| biography:
| US statesman and 26th president (1901–9), born in New York City, New York, USA, the fifth cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Born into a patrician family, he was sickly as a boy but built up his body and physical abilities. He graduated from Harvard (1880) and the next year gained election to the New York legislature (Republican, 1882–4). During the 1880s he also began his extensive historical writings, including such works as The Naval War of 1812 (1882), Essays on Practical Politics (1888), and The Winning of the West (4 vols, 1889–96). In 1884–6 he ran a ranch in Dakota Territory. He went to Washington, DC to serve as a US Civil Service commissioner (1889–95). Named president of the New York police board in 1895, his vigorous reformist efforts - and his tendency to get himself into the headlines - gained him a national reputation, which led to his being appointed assistant navy secretary by President William McKinley (1897). When war with Spain broke out in 1898, Roosevelt resigned to lead the ‘Rough Riders’, a volunteer cavalry unit whose celebrated charge up Kettle Hill in the battle outside Santiago, Cuba, made him a national hero. This helped take him to the governorship of New York (1889–1901) and then to the 1900 Republican ticket as McKinley's vice-president. Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency on the assassination of McKinley in 1901, and proved a powerful and effective leader in a time of national expansion, easily gaining re-election in 1904. Citing as his motto, ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’, he demonstrated American power on the world stage, including machinations that led to the creation of the Panama Canal, and built up the navy. In the ‘Roosevelt corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine he proclaimed the USA the policeman of the Western Hemisphere. Equally active on the domestic front, he pioneered in government regulation of big business with his prosecution of corporations for trust violations. He also created national parks, oversaw passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, and signed the Hepburn Act regulating railroads. During his campaign in 1904 he declared that he would not run again, and in 1908 he reluctantly promoted his protégé William Howard Taft in a successful presidential campaign. He moved on to a life of travelling, hunting, and writing, but by 1911 he was clearly unsatisfied with the conservative direction of the government. He made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1912 with the Progressive (‘Bull Moose’) Party. As World War 1 proceeded, he began to denounce President Wilson's cautious policy, and he was considering another run for the presidency when he suddenly died. Theodore Roosevelt can be claimed as a hero or villain by proponents of many ideologies or causes, but all would agree that he was defiantly one of a kind as both man and president. |
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