Teddy Roosevelt
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- Vice President to:
William McKinley - Republican, from Ohio.
- Dates Served: Teddy served as Vice President from March - September 1901, then as President till 1909.
- Political Party: Teddy was a Republican, from New York.
- Born: 1858.
- Died: 1919, at the age of 61.
- The presidential opponent during the 1900 campaign was:
- Campaign issues in 1900:
- This year there was yet another new dominant issue; American Imperialism. The currency
issue had faded into the background by this point. Gold had been discovered
on the beaches of Alaska, which had boosted the currency and had helped raise the country
out of the depression caused by the Panic of '93. As a result of winning the Spanish-American War,
the US now had increased its influence over vast new territories, reaching from the shores
of Asia to deep in the Caribbean. The Republicans argued that the US needed to step up to its
new responsibility as a leader on the world stage, bringing democracy and American ideals to
the "backwards peoples of the world". The Democrats argued that McKinley was letting the country
morph into an American version of a Colonial Empire, abandoning its basic principles of localized
government. Bryan was once again nominated as the Democrats' candidate and called for the independence
of all territories captured during the war. Newly-appointed Vice President Teddy Roosevelt criss-crossed
the country stumping for the improved economy under the Republican Administration, calling for "Four years more for the full dinner pail". McKinley won again by a wide
margin. But, wait, Bryan wasn't through just yet.
- Notable Facts about Teddy Roosevelt:
- Teddy Roosevelt liked to wear big hats and be photographed on horse-back.
- Teddy craved being the center of attention. A relative once said, "Teddy
wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every
funeral".
- Teddy was related to 2 presidents: he was a third-cousin, twice-removed of
Martin Van Buren, and a fifth-cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was also
Eleanor Roosevelt's uncle.
- Religious affiliation: Teddy was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. His
second wife was an Episcopalian so they church-hopped. While he was a student
at Harvard he taught Sunday School at Christ's Church for a while, until the rector
discovered the horrible truth that he wasn't Episcopalian, and promptly banned him from
further Sunday Schooling. Teddy had memorized large parts of the Bible. While he
was devoted to his faith he also believed that it was unconstitutional for the
US currency to contain the phrase "In God We Trust", due to the principle of separation
of Church and State, and he tried to have it removed during his term as President, but
failed.
- Teddy originally planned on becoming a Naturalist, but at the urging of
his girlfriend in college, he entered law school with the goal of entering
politics. He dropped out after one year to run for the State Assembly in
New York, in which he served from 1882 - 1884. He never went before the Bar.
- In 1884, Teddy's wife of 4 years died of Bright's Disease, at the age of 22.
On that very same day his mother also died, in the same house as his wife.
Partly in an effort to seek a change of pace, Teddy moved out West to the
Dakota Territory and became a cattle rancher. During this period Teddy served
for a while as Sherif, at age 26. After spending 2 years as a cowboy, Roosevelt
returned to New York in 1886 and ran for Mayor of New York City but lost.
- For the next 3 years he wrote political columns, got remarried in 1886,
and in 1888 campaigned for Benjamin Harrison's presidential campaign.
- From 1895 - 1897 he served as President of the New York City Police Board,
rooting out corruption and making enemies as a result.
- In 1897 President McKinley appointed Teddy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in
which capacity he served for 2 years. In 1898 the USS Maine was blown up in
the Havana Harbor in Cuba, igniting the Spanish-American War. Teddy resigned his post
and raised a militia - the popular "Rough Riders" - to fight in Cuba. His regiment
stormed up San Juan Hill on horseback and a new war hero was born.
As a side-note, the Rough Riders consisted of over 1,000 men. Roosevelt was
actually second-in-command, serving as Liutenant Colonel, under Colonel Leonard Wood
who had gained fame by fighting in several earlier Indian wars. The
last Rough Rider
out-lived Roosevelt by 56 years, dying in 1975; Jesse Langdon, from North Dakota,
joined up when he was 16 and was 94 when he died.
- Fresh from his military adventure, Teddy returned home that same year and ran
successfully for Governor of New York. He continued his anti-corruption crusade
and made more enemies by limiting mandatory work-hours, child-labor, and signing
into law the first corporate state-taxes.
- With the death of Vice President Garret Hobart in office, Teddy Roosevelt was
nominated to run for the post with President McKinley in his campaign for
re-election in 1900. He received the hearty support of New York Party bosses,
largely in an effort to get him out of New York and end his inconvenient meddling
in their corrupt shenanigans. With McKinley's strong victory in 1900 Teddy became US
Vice President, a position in which he expected to spend 4 years in relative obscurity.
- Teddy had this to say about the office he now occupied, "I would a great deal rather
be anything, say professor of history, than vice president."
- After resigning himself to his fate, he had this to say of his new job title:
"The office of the Vice Presidency is like a fifth wheel to a coach... it is not
a stepping stone to anything except oblivion. I fear my bolt is shot". A shot,
however, from a gun, was to prove him wrong.
- Teddy served as Vice President for 6 months, ascending to the big chair at the
sudden death of the President. Ironically,
Teddy Roosevelt owed his ascension to the posts of both Vice President and President
to the deaths of both of his predecessors.
- Teddy was the youngest person to be sworn in as President, at
age 42.
- In his inauguration speech, Teddy became the only President to
not use the personal pronoun "I" even once during his speech.
- While President, Teddy kept a pet snake in the White House. He also kept a pet
black bear, several dogs, cats, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, guinea pigs,
a badger, a rat, and a talking parrot. Teddy loved a crowd.
- Teddy was the only President to ban Christmas trees from the
White House. Reason unknown.
- Teddy liked to box in his spare time while President. During one
match with an aid he received a hard left hook to his left eye
which detached his retina, going permanently blind in that eye.
- After Teddy's successful campaign for President in 1904 which, in his view,
legitimized his seat in office, he declined to run again in 1908, instead backing his
chosen successor William Taft. For the next year he embarked on a lengthy safari
in Africa where he collected many specimens for the Smithsonian Museum, followed
by a publicity tour in Europe. Upon his return in 1910, to throngs of devoted fans,
he gradually decided that he had made a mistake in his support of Taft, due to Taft's
increasingly Conservative policies in office. He came to the conclusion that he had
been duped and Taft was not the man he thought he was.
- In 1912 Teddy decided to run for President again and sought the Republican nomination.
However, he didn't get it, with the Party backing Taft instead. Teddy bolted in a huff
and formed his own party which he called the Progressive Party, but which was
popularly called the Bull Moose Party, due to Teddy's statement that he "felt as vigorous
as a Bull Moose". It all made for a lively election year, complete with an assassination
attempt against Roosevelt, in which he was shot in the chest on his way to a campaign speech,
but didn't injure him enough to prevent him from speaking for an hour prior to seeking
medical attention. But it predictably split the Republican Party and handed the election
to the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
- In 1913 Teddy sued the "Iron Age" magazine for libel, after it accused him of public
drunkenness. He demanded, and won, a fine of 6 cents from the magazine.
- During the next seven months he embarked on a new adventure, going on an Amazon expedition
down the "River of Doubt" in Brazil, where he caught malaria and lost 55 pounds, almost
dying in the forests. Brazil later renamed the river "Roosevelt River", in his honor.
- When the US entered World War I in 1916 Teddy volunteered to organize another militia like
the Rough Riders to go and fight in Europe, but President Wilson turned him down.
- Teddy Roosevelt died in January of 1919, one year after the end of World War I, as a result
of recurring problems stemming from his bout with malaria 6 years earlier in Brazil.
- The Teddy Bear was named after him, in reference to a cartoon that appeared in a
newspaper that showed him refusing to shoot a helpless bear while on a hunt.
Notable Events during his Vice Presidency:
- Construction of the Panama Canal. Initiated diplomatically in 1901, Britain conceded to
the US the right to pursue the project on the condition that there be no stipulations
placed on which nation's ships could pass through the canal. Originally planned to be
built across Nicaragua, Roosevelt instead decided to build it across the neck of Panama
and offered to purchase the desired area from Columbia, since Columbia's borders then
included what is now the nation of Panama. But Columbia played hardball and refused the
offer. With suspiciously convenient timing, a revolution suddenly erupted in the area
the US wanted to purchase and it seceded from Columbia, declaring itself the
independent nation of Panama. Three days after the revolution, in 1903, the US recognized
the new nation and purchased the strip of land from them for $10 million. The Canal was
completed in 1914 and was open for business in 1920, one year after Roosevelt died.
- On September 6, 1901 President McKinley was shot twice while greeting people in a
receiving line at the Pan American Expo in Buffalo, New York. One of the people in line
was a man named Leon Czolgosz, age 28, who was a member of an organization devoted to
the principle of Anarchy - the total abolition of all government. He was carrying a gun in
his hand, hidden under a bandage. As McKinley reached out to shake his hand Czolgosz fired
2 shots at point-blank range, hitting McKinley in the pancreas, just like President Garfield
had been exactly 20 years earlier. As with Garfield, doctors operated to try and remove the
bullet but couldn't find it. Ironically, on display at the Expo was a new invention called
an X-ray machine, but no one thought of using it on McKinley. He died 7 days later, of
gangrene that had developed around the bullet. His assassin was tried for murder, with him
refusing the right to an attorney since, as an Anarchist, he didn't recognize the authority
of the court or its laws. He was electrocuted the following month, and his body was dissolved
in sulfuric acid to quickly decompose it, since no one wanted a trace of him left in this
world.
Notable events during his completion of McKinley's Presidential term:
- The Big Stick Diplomacy. In President Roosevelt's messages to Congress in 1904 and 1905,
he stated that it was the United States' moral obligation to enforce the Monroe Doctrine
in the Americas and to intervene anywhere deemed necessary, in order to preserve order.
In reference to the US's role as enforcer in the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt said that
the US should "Speak softly and carry a big stick".
- The Anthracite Coal Strike, in 1902. From May through October, hundreds of thousands of
coal miners in Pennsylvania went on strike for the right to Unionize, demanding shorter
work hours and higher wages. The mining companies at first refused to
negotiate, but then had a change of heart after Roosevelt threatened to seize the mines
and negotiate with the workers on their behalf. The strike ended when the mining companies
gave in to all the demands, with the exception of recognizing the Unions.
- Conservation Policies. In 1902 the Reclamation Act was passed which created 125 million
acres of national forests and financed the construction of giant dams and irrigation
projects throughout the West from the sale of public lands. In 1906 he created the nation's
first National Monument, Devil's Tower in Wyoming.
- Louis Feinberg, later to become the Stooge named Larry, is born Oct. 5, 1902. (Later changes
last name to Fine)
- Bob Hope is born, on May 29, 1903. Tells his first joke 3 years later.
- Jerome Horwitz, later to become the Stooge known as "Curly", is born on Oct. 22, 1903.
(Family name later changes to Howard)
- In 1904 Teddy appointed William Howard Taft as his Secretary of War, a post he held until
1908 when Teddy backed him for the next Presidential term, which he won. What Taft really
wanted, though, was to be a Supreme Court Justice. He got his wish in 1921 when President
Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in which post he served until 1930.
Taft was the only president to move from the big chair to the really big chair.
- During his time in office, Teddy was the first president to:
- Travel outside of the United States while in office, when he travelled to Panama to
inspect the construction of the Canal then underway.
- Fly in an airplane. In 1910 he rode in a small plane at an airshow, which
reached a height of 50 feet and flew for 4 minutes.
- Go down in a submarine.
- Own his own car.
- Have a telephone in his house.