Theodore Roosevelt

On September 6, 1901, one of only 4 bullets to successfully kill a US president was flung by the gun of anarchist Leon Czolgosz into the body of William McKinley. McKinley, who was touring in New York, was immediately rushed to the hospital. At first, doctors were optimistic that McKinley would survive, noting the mild nature of all the wounds. However, over the next few days, the wounds devolved into gangrene, which killed McKinley on September 14, 1901. The country was devastated. McKinley was a popular president who had presided over economic health and a US victory in the Spanish-American War. That victory had dramatically expanded America's international power, further bolstering McKinley's approval. Now, the country was chaired by McKinley's youthful vice president: The 42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt. Like McKinley, Roosevelt would prove to be an extremely influential president who changed much of America's economic and political landscape. For the most part, were these changes positive or negative? I believe they were positive.

Despite being McKinley's vice president, Roosevelt shared very few policy positions with his predecessor outside of their mutual status as loyal Republicans. McKinley was a right-wing supporter of conservative capitalism. Roosevelt, though a staunch capitalist, was more moderate, endorsing progressive economic reforms and additional government intervention in the financial world. For this reason, after Roosevelt made a name for himself leading American forces to victory against Spanish troops in the Battle of San Juan Hill, he spent his time as governor of New York passing laws to protect the impoverished and working class. The American aristocracy was horrified, shuffling Roosevelt off into the seemingly-irrelevant office of vice president. McKinley would serve out his second term and Roosevelt's influence would be snuffed out. But when Czolgosz pulled the trigger, that all went awry.

At first, Roosevelt ignored his dislike of McKinley's domestic policy and continued to enforce the laws McKinley had supported. This was solely done out of respect for McKinley's memory. Once 1901 transformed into 1902, Roosevelt diverged from the habits of the Gilded Age, tearing apart the thin layer of cheap gold meant to cover up America's broken core and working to address those flaws. Roosevelt launched the Square Deal, a campaign to alter the US economy in a way that gave all Americans a fair shot at success and growth. For those unable to succeed and grow, Roosevelt wanted government protections to prevent them from staging a socialist coup. As Roosevelt fleshed out the specifics of the Square Deal, coal workers in Pennsylvania launched the Anthracite Coal Strike on May 12, 1902, in retaliation against their bosses' refusal to meet with union officials.

Initially, Roosevelt was hesitant to intervene in the Anthracite Coal Strike. But when it became apparent that the demonstration was disrupting the sale of coal (something that could cost Roosevelt's beloved Republican Party the 1902 midterm elections), Roosevelt decided he had to intervene. He threatened to hijack and assume federal control over Pennsylvania's mines if the managers continued to resist meeting with union leaders. The coal industry surrendered, agreeing to meet with Roosevelt and some labor advocates so long as prominent judges and geologists were also invited to the conference. The workers were overjoyed but then added their own demand: One more union leader must be allowed to attend. In response, the bosses demanded the presence of a sociologist instead. Roosevelt created a compromise: Another person who was both a sociologist and a labor advocate would participate in the conference.

Soon after, on October 3, 1902, the proscribed meetings took place, with the business leaders reluctantly going along with demands that the workers see a 1-hour reduction in their workday and a higher wage. On October 23, 1902, the Anthracite Coal Strike concluded. Roosevelt had secured for these workers less work with more compensation - the very same just compensation that they had been deprived of for so long. The Progressive Era was underway. Roosevelt also created the Department of Labor and Commerce to further regulate those two fields. In 1913, William Howard Taft split the agency into a separate Department of Labor and a Department of Commerce.

Back in 1890, Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, banning monopolies. Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and McKinley all struggled - or in McKinley's case, refused - to enforce the contents of the bill. Roosevelt didn't entirely enforce the statute either, but he still dramatically improved the manner in which the law was used. Throughout his tenure, President Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act against dozens of corrupt corporations that secured their monopoly status through illegal and immoral activities, with 40 lawsuits being filed in total. Roosevelt also signed the Pure Food and Drug Act. After abhorrent information regarding the meat industry - such as human flesh being present in certain foods and workers who had no idea what ketchup was being ordered to produce the ketchup a market sold - public demands for more regulation mounted. These demands were amplified by reports that for every 1 soldier who died fighting in the Spanish-American War, 5 died from eating the meats they were given. Under the Pure Food and Drug Act, corporations were banned from lying about the contents of meals and medicine, had to require prescriptions for certain drugs, and needed to place warning labels on addictive substances. The FDA was also founded to enforce the law.

Admittedly, I am critical of certain elements of the Square Deal. For instance, Roosevelt signed the Hepburn Act, which allowed the Interstate Commerce Commission (a government agency that regulated the railroad industry) to control prices on railroads and the transportation thereof. Price controls tend to be a poor policy, simply discouraging production by limiting profits. My protectionist leanings also make me uncomfortable with Roosevelt's calls for lower tariffs. However, Roosevelt ultimately was willing to trade lower tariffs for the passage of the Elkins Act, which banned rebates, a corrupt practice whereby large railroads would give enormous companies refunds to cover said companies' shipping costs, keeping their prices low and cornering competition. Roosevelt also demanded child labor laws, though it wasn't until Woodrow Wilson (elected in 1912) that we saw the first law against the use of child labor.

Economic reform wasn't Roosevelt's only strong suit. He also did a lot to protect the environment. Across his nearly 8 years in the White House (a title he lent to the president's home!), Roosevelt added 20,000,000 acres of land to conservation, more than most other presidents. Theodore Roosevelt also founded the Forest Reserve in 1905. Still in operation to this day, the Forest Reserve tends to forests and other woodlands under conservation by federal authorities. Lastly, Roosevelt signed the Newland Reclamation Act. Passed in 1902, the Newland Reclamation Act requires that in any instance where the federal government makes some money from the sale of its land to private settlers, at least a portion of the profits must be spent either protecting the environment or improving agriculture. The Newland Reclamation Act is still around today, but is rarely used since very little government revenue is still made from selling public lands.

Civil rights was a much more complex territory for Roosevelt, however. He did support the idea of giving citizenship to Puerto Ricans (again, an idea fully actualized under Woodrow Wilson) and he also appointed the first Jewish cabinet member. But he also made the Chinese Exclusion Act, something that was set to expire in 1902, permanent. It wouldn't be until the administration of the other Roosevelt - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - that the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. He did invite the first black person to the White House, housing a dinner with an intellectual and activist named Booker T. Washington, but he also was responsible for the Brownsville Affair, when he fired several black soldiers due to baseless allegations that they had killed a white man. A good symbol of Roosevelt's civil rights policies is the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907. An informal and unofficial deal brokered by Roosevelt and Japanese leaders, the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907 ended segregation between white and Japanese-American students in San Francisco in exchange for Japan prohibiting its residents from moving to the US. The only exception to the ban were wealthy businessmen and politicians. The Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, like the rest of Roosevelt's civil rights record, saw some minor improvements but major drawbacks.

Like civil rights and race relations, foreign policy was a mixed topic for the Roosevelt Administration. However, unlike civil rights, I'd say that Roosevelt's impact on diplomacy was generally positive, even if a lot of unfortunate negatives did exist. In terms of the damaging and corrosive, Roosevelt sponsored the abysmal Roosevelt Corollary, an amendment to the Monroe Doctrine that betrayed its anti-imperialist conception. Instituted by James Monroe in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine split the world into two geopolitical realms or "hemispheres": The Eastern Hemisphere, composed of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and the Western Hemisphere, composed of North and South America. Monroe then promised that the US would respect the sovereignty of nations in the Eastern Hemisphere. In exchange, however, he expected the same for countries in the Western Hemisphere. Any attempt by an Eastern Hemisphere power to manipulate the internal affairs of a Western Hemisphere power would be met with a declaration of war from the US.

Monroe created this tradition to prevent Europe - particularly Spain - from recapturing newly-independent former colonies in Latin America. Under the Roosevelt Corollary, Roosevelt required US intervention in the internal affairs of any Western Hemisphere country with a struggling economy. This was a disgusting imperialist move that insulted the legacy of James Monroe. The authors of the Roosevelt Corollary could have been wiping their noses with Monroe's obituary and still be just as respectful. Roosevelt also used military force to make sure Latin American nations paid off their debts to Europe and would only give the Dominican Republic loans in exchange for getting to select who would enforce their tariff laws. Over in Asia, Roosevelt fortified US imperialism in the Philippines by recognizing Japanese control over Korea in exchange for Japanese recognition of American authority in the Philippines.

While there were horrendous lows in Roosevelt's foreign policy, there were also wonderful highs. On December 9, 1902, British, German, and Italian naval vessels placed a blockade around Venezuela in protest of that country's failure to pay off debts to three aggressor powers. With this, the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902 began. Cipriano Castro, the president of Venezuela, reached out to Roosevelt, asking for assistance. Roosevelt agreed to aid Castro and brokered the Washington Protocol. Signed on February 13, 1903, the Washington Protocol said that once Italy, Britain, and Germany withdrew their forces from Venezuela, the Venezuelan government would start using 30% of the money it made from tariffs to pay off debts owed to those 3 nations. Just under a week later, on February 19, 1903, European naval forces left Venezuela, ending the Venezuelan Crisis.

Roosevelt brokered the Hay-Herran Treaty, in which Colombia gave the Ismuth of Panama over to the US in exchange for a pledge that a canal would be built there. In exchange, Columbia received $10,000,000 upfront and $25,000 every year afterward. Colombian legislators considered this compensation inadequate and so rejected the treaty. Roosevelt then dispatched the USS Nashville to Panama (then a province of Colombia) and shut down American railroads operating in Colombia to halt the transport of Colombian troops. As a result, Panama felt comfortable declaring independence on November 3, 1903, with Roosevelt then creating a repeat of the Hay-Herran Treaty with the newborn country. Many consider Roosevelt's actions here a negative, but I think of them as positive. Contrary to popular belief, Panama wasn't summoned out of the aether by Roosevelt. There was a strong, popular independence movement already on the horizon in Panama. Roosevelt's motives were cynical, but he still helped a country yearning for autonomy obtain the freedom it always desired.

Finally, Roosevelt did a lot to curtail the rising influence of the Empire of Japan. He helped modernize the US navy to fight the growth of Japanese expansion. In 1890, Russia began building a railroad across all of Siberia, producing fears in Tokyo that the tsar wanted to annex Japanese-occupied Korea. Realizing that Russia valued its naval ports in Manchuria (which, unlike Russian naval ports, didn't freeze in the winter), Japan offered to recognize Russian rule in Manchuria in exchange for Russian recognition of Japanese rule in Korea. Russia declined, provoking a Japanese declaration of war on February 8, 1904. Once Russian troops surrendered in May 1905, Roosevelt helped broker the peace deal. The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on September 5, 1905, did begin Japan's status as a global superpower by giving it the previously-Russian territories of Port Arthur, southern Sakhalin, and the Liaodong Peninsula and securing Russian recognition of Japanese authority in Korea, these advances were coming whether or not Roosevelt was involved in the peace process. Roosevelt did, however, convince Japan to rescind its demands for Russian reparations, which would have funded additional Japanese expansion.

While he had many flaws, Theodore Roosevelt was a good president. He may have restricted immigration, supported irresponsible price controls, entrenched imperialism in the Monroe Doctrine, and have been responsible for the Brownsville Affair, but for every 1 mistake he made, he must have accomplished at least 5 advancements in the history of America and, to a lesser extent, the entire globe. He fought for the working class, made American food safer to eat, crusaded against corrupt monopolies and the immoral practices sustaining them, ensured Panama's birth as an independent nation, diffused the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902, controlled Japanese expansionism, and signed numerous pieces of legislation to preserve the natural beauty of the US. For every word of criticism that he genuinely deserves, he warrants a sentence of praise.