Theodore Roosevelt. [Credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.]
(born Oct. 27, 1858, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 6, 1919, Oyster Bay, N.Y.) 26th president of the U.S. (1901–09). He was elected to the New York legislature (1882), where he became a Republican leader opposed to the Democratic political machine. After political defeats and the death of his wife, he went to the Dakota Territory to ranch. He returned to New York to serve on the U.S. Civil Service Commission (1889–95) and as head of the city's board of police commissioners (1895–97). A supporter of William McKinley, he served as assistant secretary of the navy (1897–98). When the Spanish-American War was declared, he resigned to organize a cavalry unit, the Rough Riders. He returned to New York a hero and was elected governor in 1899.
As the Republican vice-presidential nominee, he took office when McKinley was reelected, and he became president on McKinley's assassination in 1901. One of his early initiatives was to urge enforcement of the Sherman Antitrust Act against business monopolies. He won election in his own right in 1904, defeating Alton Parker. At his urging, Congress regulated railroad rates and passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act (1906) to protect public health. He created national forests and set aside mineral, oil, and coal deposits for conservation. He and secretary of state Elihu Root announced the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which reasserted the U.S.'s position as protector of the Western Hemisphere. For mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War, he received the 1906 Nobel Prize for Peace. He secured a treaty with Panama for construction of a trans-isthmus canal. Declining to seek reelection, he secured the nomination for William H. Taft. After traveling in Africa and Europe, he tried to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1912; when he was rejected, he organized the Bull Moose Party and ran on a policy of New Nationalism. Though he lost the election, he secured 88 electoral votes—the most successful third-party candidacy in the 20th century. Throughout his life he continued to write, publishing extensively on history, politics, travel, and nature. &Seealso; Big Stick policy; Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
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