Roosevelt, Theodore

(b. October 27, 1858, d. January 6, 1919) Twenty-fifth president of the United States (1901–1909).

Theodore Roosevelt led the United States into the front ranks of the world's imperial powers at the turn of the twentieth century. He pushed for war with Spain during the 1890s and then served in the Spanish-American War. As president from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt promoted American overseas interests and modernized U.S. military forces. After World War I erupted in Europe, he argued for American military preparedness and intervention, and hoped to serve his country again on the battlefield.

Roosevelt was born into one of the richest families in New York City. Although asthma and physical frailty plagued him in his youth, he enjoyed a life of privilege. His formal education consisted chiefly of private tutors, studies in Germany, and a degree from Harvard College. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, he served in various governmental positions, but his major impact on national and international affairs started only after President William McKinley appointed him assistant secretary of the navy in 1897.

Roosevelt claimed that a large navy was essential for the United States to be a great power. He believed even more strongly that imperial struggles were essential for encouraging "frontier virtues" such as courage, self-reliance, and physical hardiness. With the American West now settled, the pursuit of overseas interests, he asserted, would help preserve those qualities in an increasingly urbanized and industrialized country. Roosevelt argued for war with Spain, in particular, because of reports of Spanish brutality in suppressing a revolt in its colony of Cuba. Even as he urged American intervention in Cuba, he prepared the navy for possible battle, which included orders for possible action against Spain's colony in the Philippines. When the U.S.S. Maine, sent to Cuba to observe conditions there, exploded in Havana harbor in early 1898, Roosevelt blamed the Spaniards. After President McKinley called for war, Roosevelt resigned his Navy Department post and gained an appointment as lieutenant colonel in the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, nicknamed the Rough Riders. Composed of men from the wilds of the West and elite colleges in the East, this diverse and colorful unit captured national attention. By June 1898 the Rough Riders sailed as part of an army expedition to Cuba.

The Spanish-American conflict was brief. American warships swiftly destroyed Spanish naval forces in the Philippines at the Battle of Manila bay. In Cuba, small engagements climaxed in battles to take the hills over-looking Santiago de Cuba, where a Spanish naval force lay anchored. On July 1, 1898, Roosevelt led his troops first up Kettle Hill, and then on to San Juan Hill, as part of coordinated American attacks. These charges were the defining moment of Roosevelt's national political career and of American imperialism. Reporters made him the hero of the day, and the public thrilled to read of the success of the expedition, which in reality suffered from supply and medical problems. Roosevelt returned home to become governor of New York and then the vice president when McKinley ran for a second term in 1900. McKinley's assassination elevated Roosevelt to the presidency in 1901.

Roosevelt made military matters one of his top priorities as president. A naval building program increased the fleet to twenty battleships by 1909, and to demonstrate American sea power he sent this force on a round-the-world cruise from 1907 to 1909. Roosevelt also supported reform of the National Guard, and signed legislation creating an army general staff to provide better planning and command. He imposed a physical test on army and navy officers to make them models of physical fitness and sponsored new technologies. Roosevelt became an enthusiast for submarines after a voyage on the U.S.S. Plunger and also promoted the military potential of aviation. His greatest military and diplomatic interest was, however, the construction of an interoceanic canal in Central America to speed the transit of the navy, and trade, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. To accomplish this goal, Roosevelt attempted, but failed to reach, an agreement with Colombia for a route through its province of Panama. Construction began only after Roosevelt encouraged a revolt in Panama and then used the U.S. Navy to support it. The canal opened in 1914, and Roosevelt considered it one of the country's greatest achievements, a symbol of American know-how and power. Reflecting the racial attitudes of his era, he dismissed the Colombians' bitterness over his actions.

In 1914 Roosevelt also focused on the outbreak of World War I in Europe. Although no longer in office, he still urged American military readiness and supported civilian training camps such as the one at Plattsburgh, New York, to prepare for any future mobilization. He also became increasingly outspoken in his support of Britain and France and in 1915 argued for war against Germany after 128 Americans died in the sinking of the British passenger liner Lusitania. Upon United States entry into the war in 1917, Roosevelt offered to raise a division to fight in France. President Woodrow Wilson declined the request, and Roosevelt instead could only send his four sons to war. Three survived, but the youngest, Quentin, died in combat in 1918. Roosevelt himself died soon after in January 1919.

Throughout his political career, Roosevelt rejected America's traditional isolationism to embrace a new role for the United States as a world power and colonial nation. Both roles were bitterly debated at the turn of the twentieth century. In particular America's war against insurgents in the Philippines who opposed U.S. rule was denounced by critics as abandoning the nation's traditional values and democratic principles. Despite entry into World War I, which Roosevelt favored, Americans later turned their backs on internationalism by rejecting Woodrow Wilson's dream of a League of Nations. America returned to isolationism until forced into war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Germany's declaration of war on the United States a few days later.

Imperialism; Journalism, Spanish American War; Wilson, Woodrow.

Brands, H. W. T.R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. New York: Knopf, 2002.

Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1979.

Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex. New York: Random House, 2001.

Reckner, James R. Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988.

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Rough Riders. New York: Scribner, 1902; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1990.

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