Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Previously serving six months as vice president under William McKinley, Roosevelt became president after McKinley's assassination in 1901. He was 42 years old upon his first inauguration, making him the youngest person to hold the office.
A sickly child with debilitating asthma, Roosevelt overcame health problems through a regime of vigorous exercise, which he called "the strenuous life". He was homeschooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard University. His book The Naval War of 1812 established his reputation as a historian and popular writer. Roosevelt became leader of the reform faction of Republicans in the New York State Legislature. After the simultaneous deaths of his first wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt and mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, he recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. Roosevelt served as the assistant secretary of the Navy under McKinley, and in 1898 helped plan the successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish Army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, Roosevelt was elected New York's governor in 1898. Because the New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious state agenda, they convinced McKinley to choose him as his running mate in the 1900 presidential election. The McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory.
As a leader of the progressive movement, Roosevelt championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies after taking over as president, which called for fairness for all citizens, breaking bad trusts, regulating railroads, and pure food and drugs. His pursuit of antitrust litigation in particular earned him the nickname "the Trust Buster". Roosevelt prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments to preserve U.S. natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America, beginning construction of the Panama Canal. Roosevelt expanded the U.S. Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project naval power. His successful efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize. He was elected to a full term in 1904 and convinced William Howard Taft, his Secretary of War, to succeed him in 1908.
Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism yet failed to win the 1912 Republican presidential nomination. He founded the Bull Moose Party and ran in 1912; the split allowed the Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win. Roosevelt led a four-month expedition to the Amazon basin, where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the U.S. out; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. Roosevelt's health deteriorated and he died in 1919. Polls of historians and political scientists rank him as one of the greatest presidents in American history.
Early life and education
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan. His parents were Martha Stewart Bulloch and businessman Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister Anna (called Bamie), a younger brother Elliott, and a younger sister Corinne.
Roosevelt's youth was shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma attacks, which terrified him and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and his cousins formed the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals he killed or caught. At age nine, he recorded his observations in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects".
Family trips, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Hiking with his family in the Alps in 1869, Roosevelt discovered the benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits. Roosevelt began a heavy regimen of exercise. After being manhandled by older boys on the way to a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to train him.
Education
Roosevelt was homeschooled. Biographer H. W. Brands wrote that, "The most obvious drawback...was uneven coverage of...various areas of...knowledge." He was solid in geography and bright in history, biology, French, and German; however, he struggled in mathematics and the classical languages.
In September 1876, he entered Harvard University. His father instructed him to, "take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death in 1878 devastated Roosevelt. He inherited US$60,000 (equivalent to $1.71 million in 2024), on which he could live comfortably for the rest of his life.
His father, a devout Presbyterian, had regularly led the family in prayers. While at Harvard, young adult Theodore emulated him by teaching Sunday School for more than three years at the Episcopal Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When the minister at Christ Church insisted he become an Episcopalian to continue teaching, Roosevelt declined, and began teaching a mission class in a poor section of Cambridge.
Roosevelt did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses, but struggled in Latin and Greek. He was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist, and studied biology intently. He read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing, and was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society, the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) with an A.B. magna cum laude. Henry F. Pringle wrote:
Roosevelt, attempting to analyze his college career and weigh the benefits he had received, felt that he had obtained little from Harvard. He had been depressed by the formalistic treatment of many subjects, by the rigidity, the attention to minutiae that were important in themselves, but which somehow were never linked up with the whole.
Roosevelt gave up his plan of studying natural science and attended Columbia Law School, moving back into his family's home in New York. Although Roosevelt was an able student, he found law to be irrational. Determined to enter politics, Roosevelt began attending meetings at Morton Hall, the headquarters of New York's 21st District Republican Association. Though Roosevelt's father had been a prominent member of the Republican Party, Roosevelt made an unorthodox career choice for someone of his class, as most of Roosevelt's peers refrained from becoming too closely involved in politics. Roosevelt found allies in the local Republican Party and defeated a Republican state assemblyman tied closely to the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. After his election victory, Roosevelt dropped out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
Naval history and strategy
While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the United States Navy in the War of 1812. He published The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book included comparisons of British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. It was praised for its scholarship and style, and remains a standard study of the war.
Some believed Roosevelt's naval ideas were derived from author Alfred Thayer Mahan, who popularized a concept that only nations with significant naval power had been able to influence history, dominate oceans, exert their diplomacy to the fullest, and defend their borders, but naval historian Nicholas Danby states that Roosevelt's ideas predated meeting Mahan or reading his work.
New York State Assemblyman (1881–1884)
In 1881, Roosevelt won election to the New York State Assembly, representing the 21st district, which was centered on the "Silk Stocking District" of New York County's Upper East Side. He served in the 1882, 1883, and 1884 sessions of the legislature.
Roosevelt began making his mark immediately. He blocked a corrupt effort of financier Jay Gould to lower his taxes. Roosevelt exposed the collusion of Gould and Judge Theodoric R. Westbrook and successfully argued for an investigation, aiming for the judge to be impeached. Although the investigation committee rejected the impeachment, Roosevelt had exposed corruption in Albany and assumed a high and positive profile in New York publications.
Roosevelt's anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than two-to-one, an achievement made more impressive by the victory that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Grover Cleveland won in Roosevelt's district. With Senator Conkling's Stalwart faction of the Republican Party in disarray following the assassination of James A. Garfield, Roosevelt won election as party leader in the state assembly. He allied with Governor Cleveland to win passage of a civil service reform bill. Roosevelt won re-election and sought the office of Speaker, but Titus Sheard obtained the position. Roosevelt served as Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities, during which he wrote more bills than any other legislator.
Military service (1882–1886; 1898)
New York National Guard
While serving in the New York State Assembly, he commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 8th Regiment New York Army National Guard, serving a part time capacity for 4 years. He left with the rank of Captain.
Rough Riders
With the beginning of the Spanish–American War in 1898, Roosevelt resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, he formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. His wife and many friends begged Roosevelt to remain in Washington, but Roosevelt was determined to see battle. When the newspapers reported the formation of the new regiment, Roosevelt and Wood were flooded with applications. Referred to by the press as the "Rough Riders", it was one of many temporary units active only during the war.
The regiment trained for several weeks in San Antonio, Texas; in his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his experience with the New York National Guard enabled him to immediately begin teaching basic soldiering skills. Diversity characterized the regiment, which included Ivy Leaguers, athletes, frontiersmen, Native Americans, hunters, miners, former soldiers, tradesmen, and sheriffs. The Rough Riders were part of the cavalry division commanded by former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler. Roosevelt and his men landed in Daiquirí, Cuba, on June 23, 1898, and marched to Siboney. Wheeler sent the Rough Riders on a parallel road northwest running along a ridge up from the beach. Roosevelt took command of the regiment; he had his first experience in combat when the Rough Riders met Spanish troops in a skirmish known as the Battle of Las Guasimas. They fought their way through Spanish resistance and, together with the Regulars, forced the Spaniards to abandon their positions.
On July 1, in a combined assault with the Regulars, under Roosevelt's leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill. Roosevelt was the only soldier on horseback, as he rode back and forth between rifle pits at the forefront of the advance up Kettle Hill, an advance that he urged despite the absence of orders. He was forced to walk up the last part of Kettle Hill because his horse had been entangled in barbed wire. The assaults would become known as the Battle of San Juan Heights. The victories came at a cost of 200 killed and 1,000 wounded. Roosevelt personally killed one Spaniard with a revolver salvaged from the USS Maine during this assault.
In August, Roosevelt and other officers demanded the soldiers be returned home. Roosevelt recalled San Juan Heights as "the great day of my life". After returning to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel". "Teddy" remained much more popular with the public, though Roosevelt openly despised that moniker.
Cattle rancher in Dakota
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. Exhilarated by the western lifestyle and with the cattle business booming, Roosevelt invested $14,000 (equivalent to $400,000 in 2024) in hope of becoming a prosperous cattle rancher. For several years, he shuttled between his home in New York and ranch in Dakota.
Following the 1884 United States presidential election, Roosevelt built Elkhorn Ranch 35 mi (56 km) north of the boomtown of Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the banks of the Little Missouri. A cowboy, he said, possesses, "few of the emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does possess, to a very high degree, the stern, manly qualities that are invaluable to a nation". He wrote about frontier life for national magazines and published books: Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, and The Wilderness Hunter.
Roosevelt successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address the problems of overgrazing and other shared concerns, which resulted in the formation of the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association. He formed the Boone and Crockett Club, whose primary goal was the conservation of large game animals and their habitats. In 1886, Roosevelt served as a deputy sheriff in Billings County, North Dakota. He and ranch hands hunted down three boat thieves.
The severe winter of 1886–1887 wiped out his herd and over half of his $80,000 investment (equivalent to $2.44 million in 2024). He ended his ranching life and returned to New York, where he escaped the damaging label of an ineffectual intellectual.
Reentering public life
Upon Roosevelt's return to New York, Republican leaders approached him about running for mayor of New York City in the 1886 election. Roosevelt accepted the nomination despite having little hope against United Labor Party candidate Henry George and Democrat Abram Hewitt. Roosevelt campaigned hard, but Hewitt won with 41%, taking the votes of many Republicans who feared George's radical policies. George was held to 31%, and Roosevelt took third with 27%. Fearing his political career might never recover, Roosevelt turned to writing The Winning of the West, tracking the westward movement of Americans; it was a great success, earning favorable reviews and selling all copies from the first printing.
Civil Service Commission
After Benjamin Harrison unexpectedly defeated James G. Blaine for the presidential nomination at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Roosevelt gave stump speeches in the Midwest in support of Harrison. On the insistence of Henry Cabot Lodge, President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. While many of his predecessors had approached the office as a sinecure, Roosevelt fought the spoilsmen and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. The Sun described Roosevelt as "irrepressible, belligerent, and enthusiastic". Roosevelt clashed with Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who handed out patronage positions to Harrison supporters, and Roosevelt's attempt to force out several postal workers damaged Harrison politically. Despite Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection in the 1892 presidential election, the winner, Grover Cleveland, reappointed him. Roosevelt's close friend and biographer, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, described his assault on the spoils system:
The very citadel of spoils politics, the hitherto impregnable fortress that had existed unshaken since it was erected on the foundation laid by Andrew Jackson, was tottering to its fall under the assaults of this audacious and irrepressible young man... Whatever may have been the feelings of the (fellow Republican party) President (Harrison)—and there is little doubt that he had no idea when he appointed Roosevelt that he would prove to be so veritable a bull in a china shop—he refused to remove him and stood by him firmly till the end of his term.
New York City Police Commissioner
In 1894, reform Republicans approached Roosevelt about running for Mayor of New York again; he declined, mostly due to his wife's resistance to being removed from the Washington social set. Soon after, he realized he had missed an opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant political career. He retreated to the Dakotas; Edith regretted her role in the decision and vowed there would be no repeat.
William Lafayette Strong won the 1894 mayoral election and offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners. Roosevelt became president of commissioners and radically reformed the police force: he implemented regular inspections of firearms and physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, closed corrupt police hostelries, and had telephones installed in station houses.
In 1894, Roosevelt met Jacob Riis, the muckraking Evening Sun journalist who was opening the eyes of New Yorkers to the terrible conditions of the city's immigrants with such books as How the Other Half Lives. Riis described how his book affected Roosevelt:
When Roosevelt read [my] book, he came... No one ever helped as he did. For two years we were brothers in (New York City's crime-ridden) Mulberry Street. When he left I had seen its golden age... There is very little ease where Theodore Roosevelt leads, as we all of us found out. The lawbreaker found it out who predicted scornfully that he would "knuckle down to politics the way they all did", and lived to respect him, though he swore at him, as the one of them all who was stronger than pull... that was what made the age golden, that for the first time a moral purpose came into the street. In the light of it everything was transformed.
Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty. He made a concerted effort to uniformly enforce New York's Sunday closing law; in this, he ran up against Tom Platt and Tammany Hall—he was notified the Police Commission was being legislated out of existence. His crackdowns led to protests. Invited to one large demonstration, not only did he accept, but he delighted in the insults and lampoons directed at him, and earned goodwill. Roosevelt chose to defer rather than split with his party.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1897–1898)
In the 1896 presidential election, Roosevelt backed Thomas Brackett Reed for the Republican nomination, but William McKinley won the nomination and defeated William Jennings Bryan in the general election. Roosevelt strongly opposed Bryan's free silver platform, viewing many of Bryan's followers as dangerous fanatics. He gave campaign speeches for McKinley. Urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long was in poor health and left many major decisions to Roosevelt. Influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan, Roosevelt called for a build-up in naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean on McKinley and was adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba. He explained his priorities to one of the Navy's planners in late 1897:
I would regard war with Spain from two viewpoints: first, the advisability on the grounds both of humanity and self-interest of interfering on behalf of the Cubans, and of taking one more step toward the complete freeing of America from European dominion; second, the benefit done our people by giving them something to think of which is not material gain, and especially the benefit done our military forces by trying both the Navy and Army in actual practice.
On February 15, 1898, the armored cruiser USS Maine exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. Without approval from Long or McKinley, Roosevelt sent out orders to several naval vessels to prepare for war. George Dewey, who had received an appointment to lead the Asiatic Squadron with the backing of Roosevelt, later credited his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay to Roosevelt's orders. After giving up hope of a peaceful solution, McKinley asked Congress to declare war on Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
Governor of New York (1899–1900)
Shortly after Roosevelt's return, Republican Congressman Lemuel E. Quigg, a lieutenant of New York machine boss Thomas C. Platt, asked Roosevelt to run in the 1898 gubernatorial election. Prospering politically from the Platt machine, Roosevelt's rise to power was marked by the pragmatic decisions of Platt, who disliked Roosevelt. Platt feared Roosevelt would oppose his interests in office and was reluctant to propel Roosevelt to the forefront of national politics, but needed a strong candidate due to the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican governor, Frank S. Black. Roosevelt agreed to become the nominee and to try not to "make war" with the Republican establishment once in office. Roosevelt defeated Black in the Republican caucus, and faced Democrat Augustus Van Wyck, a well-respected judge, in the general election. Roosevelt campaigned on his war record, winning by just 1%.
As governor, Roosevelt learned about economic issues and political techniques that proved valuable in his presidency. He studied the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. G. Wallace Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state". The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large".
By holding twice-daily press conferences—an innovation—Roosevelt remained connected with his middle-class base. Roosevelt successfully pushed the Ford Franchise-Tax bill, which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys". He rejected Platt worries that this approached Bryanite Socialism, explaining that without it, New York voters might get angry and adopt public ownership of streetcar lines and other franchises.
Power to make appointments to policy-making positions was a key role for the governor. Platt insisted he be consulted on major appointments; Roosevelt appeared to comply, but then made his own decisions. Historians marvel that Roosevelt managed to appoint so many first-rate people with Platt's approval. He even enlisted Platt's help in securing reform, such as in spring 1899, when Platt pressured state senators to vote for a civil service bill that the secretary of the Civil Service Reform Association called "superior to any civil service statute heretofore secured in America".
Chessman argues that as governor, Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the poor. Roosevelt sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations and radical movements.
As chief executive of the most populous state, Roosevelt was widely considered a potential presidential candidate, and supporters such as William Allen White encouraged him to run. Roosevelt had no interest in challenging McKinley for the nomination in 1900 and was denied his preferred post of Secretary of War. As his term progressed, Roosevelt pondered a 1904 run, but was uncertain about whether he should seek re-election as governor in 1900.
Vice presidency (1901)
In November 1899, Vice President Garret Hobart died, leaving an open spot on the 1900 Republican national ticket. Though Henry Cabot Lodge and others urged him to run for vice president in 1900, Roosevelt issued a public statement saying that he would not accept the nomination. Eager to be rid of Roosevelt, Platt nonetheless began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination. Roosevelt attended the 1900 Republican National Convention as a state delegate and struck a bargain with Platt: Roosevelt would accept the nomination if the convention offered it to him but would otherwise serve another term as governor. Platt asked Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay to lead the campaign for Roosevelt's nomination, and Quay outmaneuvered Mark Hanna at the convention to put Roosevelt on the ticket. Roosevelt won the nomination unanimously.
Roosevelt's vice-presidential campaigning proved highly energetic and a match for Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan's barnstorming style. In a whirlwind campaign that displayed his energy to the public, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. He denounced the radicalism of Bryan, contrasting it with the heroism of those who won the war against Spain. Bryan had strongly supported the war itself, but he denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism. Roosevelt countered that it was best for the Filipinos to have stability and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. The voters gave McKinley an even larger victory than that which he had achieved in 1896.
