Theodore Roosevelt (26th president)
1901-09
Republican
“Now look! That damned cowboy is president of the United States!”-Republican power broker Mark Hanna.
Teddy Roosevelt was a scary prospect to Republicans and Democrats alike. He was an impulsive, charismatic, independent, unpredictable, uncontrollable force of nature. The Republicans had been so alarmed at his popularity within their own ranks that they neutralized him by making him William McKinley’s vice-president (a political dead-end job where troublemakers could often be set aside where they would do little damage). Unfortunately for the powers-that-were, McKinley got shot. TR may have had the justly earned reputation as a cowboy ruffian who was always ready to step in the ring for a boxing match (one of his favorite pastimes), but he was also one of the most intelligent men with the most diverse interests to ever inhabit the White House, with the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson. He was the kind of man who would indeed slog it out with you in a boxing ring, but after showering off in the locker room, he could sit down with you and engage in a discussion of taxidermy, political theory or religion.
The fears of party leaders were well founded. Teddy served more as a dictator than a president, but always claiming to be ruling through the will of the people. He once said, “I think it [the presidency] should be a very powerful office, and think the President should be a very strong man who uses without hesitation every power that the position yields; but…he should be sharply watched by the people and held to a strict accountability by them.” Well, he actually practiced the first part of that statement. Not so much the second part. He used what he called the president’s “bully pulpit” to rage against power unchecked, be they powerful monopolistic corporations, uppity unions or uncooperative foreign allies and enemies. TR saw his job as forcing justice upon all of these disparate elements, whether they wanted it or not. Fortunately, though, he actually did a fine job while in office, so despite his dictatorial tendencies, he still has a high ranking. The precedent was dangerous, though.
ABOVE: “When Theodore attends a wedding, he wants to be the bride. And when he attends a funeral, he wants to be the corpse.” – a Roosevelt relative
He completely dominated his era, making his name leading the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War. TR was a bold reformer in a time that needed reform badly, and he defined both the Progressive and Imperialist Eras in the United States.
Domestically, Big Business finally met its match in Teddy Roosevelt. The Carnegies, Rockefellers and J.P. Morgans of the country had called the shots for too long, and Roosevelt was here to wrest some of the power back from the private sector. Although much has been made of Teddy as a trustbuster, he was still a capitalist at heart, working for regulation and oversight, not destruction of these companies. Basically, he wanted to bring them to heel and show them that they did not have complete free reign over the economic life of this country. He decided to use the previously anemic Sherman Anti-Trust Act and set up a showdown with J.P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Company. In a landmark 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court sided with Roosevelt and the Company was split up. This set the groundwork for all future antitrust regulation. He created the Department of Labor, and urged Congress to pass child labor laws and worker’s comp regulation. But Roosevelt was equally willing to go after unions. While he threatened to nationalize the coal mines unless management came to agreeable terms with labor, he also used federal troops to bust many other strikes.
ABOVE: The teddy bear was, of course, named after Teddy Roosevelt. The story goes that Roosevelt was hunting with a group of friends in Mississippi. Some of his buddies captured a Black Bear and tied it to a tree in order for Roosevelt to bag a kill on the trip. Roosevelt refused to shoot it, claiming that it was unsportsmanlike to shoot the bear while tied down. He did order the bear killed to put it out of its misery, though (it had been wounded when it was captured). A political cartoon publicized the incident, a toy maker starting making the "Teddy Bear," and Teddy gave his blessing to the use of his name.
Like the rest of the nation, Roosevelt was shocked by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and so he pushed through the Meat Inspection Act as well as the Food and Drug Act. TR was an avid outdoorsman and hunter, and so he became the first environmental president. Previous presidents had set aside some token land for national parks, but Roosevelt set aside an astonishing 200 million acres of land for protection. He was an avid protector of our national resources, and it was Teddy Roosevelt who brought environmental protection into the national conscience. He also wanted to bring the Progressive spirit to Civil Rights, controversially inviting civil rights leader Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. But the country was not ready to embrace real civil rights at this juncture, and so Teddy backed away after the backlash for the Booker T. dinner.
ABOVE: TR and another one of his victims. Ironically, it is the Republican elephant. In the election of 1912, after failing to wrest the Republican nomination from sitting president William Taft, he bolted the party and formed his own 3rd party, the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party, and ran for a 3rd term, splitting the Republican vote and ensuring Woodrow Wilson's election
TR was just as vigorous on foreign policy. He famously took personal control over the Dominican Republic’s treasury when they defaulted on debts to European banks. The Europeans were still looking for excuses to reassert their power over their former Latin American colonies, but Roosevelt would have none of it. European powers, also stretching their Imperialist muscle during this time, saw an opportunity to use Latin American loan defaults as an excuse to take control of these countries. TR announced his Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the United States would “oversee” Latin American debt problems with Europe. Translation: this is still our neighborhood, and TR will use the military to protect our domain from European influence. He sent the Great White Naval Fleet around the world on a “goodwill” tour, stopping at major ports of call. Translation: we are now a naval badass, so don’t screw with us. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 when he mediated the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War (although some historians say that this laid the roots for Japanese Imperialism in the Pacific, leading to that Theater of World War II).
Of course, his crowning Imperialist achievement was the Panama Canal. This was pure Teddy Roosevelt. Colonial powers had dreamed for decades of building a canal across Central America to cut the Atlantic to Pacific trip down by thousands of miles. Teddy offered money to Colombia for a lease to build the canal across the Panamanian Isthmus, then a province of Colombia. Colombia refused. Teddy then decided to back the Panamanian “Revolution,” and sent warships to prevent the Colombians from putting down the Revolution. The newly recognized nation of Panama, naturally, granted the United States the desired lease for the Canal. As Congress dithered over whether we should do this, TR commenced with building the Canal, saying later “I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on, the Canal does also.”
ABOVE: Roosevelt's famous policy of "speak softly but carry a big stick" served him well in Latin American dealings
Pros:
• Strong use of the Bully Pulpit
• Dept. of Labor
• Regulation of trusts
• Labor laws
• Environmental policies
• Panama Canal
• Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts
• Expands America’s power across the world
• Mediates Russo-Japanese War treaty
• Roosevelt Corollary and actions keep Europeans from re-colonizing parts of Latin America
• Great White Fleet
Cons:
• Dangerous precedents set for an Imperialist Presidency (a precedent that cousin Franklin Roosevelt would use later with gusto)
• Backs down on Civil Rights, though he personally felt strongly on the issue
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