Roosevelt, Theodore

Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919), assistant secretary of the navy, governor of New York, vice president, and twenty‐sixth president of the United States.Born to a wealthy New York family, a puny, asthmatic, and nearsighted child, Theodore Roosevelt seemed destined for a sheltered life. Instead, he developed his body and an appetite for public service in an obsessive quest to prove his masculinity and to assert his independence. He became a dynamic political leader.

Roosevelt embraced things military from an early age. Two years after graduating from Harvard in 1880, he published The Naval War of 1812, reflecting the navalist thinking later codified by Capt. Alfred T. Mahan. Roosevelt developed his political skills as a New York State legislator, U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, and New York police commissioner. In 1897, he became assistant secretary of the navy in the McKinley administration.

An ardent advocate of the Spanish‐American War, Roosevelt used his political connections to secure an appointment in 1898 as lieutenant colonel in the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry regiment, the “Rough Riders.” His friend Col. Leonard Wood commanded the unit initially, but he left for a higher command. Roosevelt's most famous military exploit came when he led a charge in the Battle of San Juan Hill (actually Kettle Hill) outside Santiago, Cuba. The well‐publicized exploit helped him win the New York governorship in 1898 and vice presidency in 1900.

Roosevelt became president in September 1901 after President McKinley's assassination. A moralist in tone but realist in practice, Roosevelt worried about competition with Germany in the Caribbean and, later, about tensions with Japan. Diplomatically, he acted as a mediator and won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Russo‐Japanese War in 1905.

A fervent believer in the Mahanian doctrine of sea power, Roosevelt paid particular attention to the U.S. Navy as the first line of defense and a primary instrument of American foreign policy. He used the navy to signal American concern during the Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03 and deployed naval forces to block Colombian suppression of the Panamanian revolt in 1903, clearing the way for construction of the Panama Canal. Roosevelt operated in effect as his own secretary of the navy. A competitor in the international naval arms race of the day, he won congressional approval for sixteen battleships, including new, powerful dreadnoughts, and he increased the naval budget by 60 percent.

Roosevelt also pushed for more realistic and frequent training exercises. He united the navy's battleships in a true fleet formation and then sent the “great white fleet” on a world cruise from 1907 to 1909 to test its ability to operate coherently and to demonstrate U.S. naval power.

With Secretary of War (and later State) Elihu Root, Roosevelt also sought to enlarge and modernize the army. He supported the General Staff Act, endorsed larger unit training, elevated able officers, and approved reform legislation in 1903 and 1908 to make the National Guard a more reliable federal reserve. He also pushed for the development of aviation and the machine‐gun service.

Roosevelt left office in 1909 and lost a bid for the presidency in 1912 on the Progressive Party ticket. As a former president, he played a leading role in the military “Preparedness” movement in 1915–17 for universal military training and for a larger navy. He assailed Woodrow Wilson's foreign and military policies, urging the United States to enter the war after the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Upon American intervention in 1917, Roosevelt asked to lead a volunteer division, but President Wilson refused. During World War I, Roosevelt denounced dissenters and urged a postwar coalition with Britain. He died shortly after the end of the war.
[See also Caribbean and Latin America, U.S. Military Involvement in the; Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.]

Bibliography

Howard Beale , Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power, 1956.
William Henry Harbaugh , Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, 1961; rev. ed., 1975.
Richard Collin , Theodore Roosevelt's Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context, 1990.
Lewis L. Gould , The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 1991.

Matthew Oyos