Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919)

Theodore Roosevelt (centre). He is shown here at a peace conference in 1905, at which he sought to bring an end to the war between Russia and Japan. In 1906 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his achievement.

The 26th president of the USA, Theodore Roosevelt, at the age of 43. A Republican, he was said by some to have pushed the powers of the presidency to unprecedented limits, shocking the nation by filing an anti-trust suit against J P Morgan's Northern Securities Corporation in his drive to regulate big business and offer Americans a ‘Square Deal.’

26th president of the USA 1901-09, a Republican. After serving as governor of New York 1898-1901 he became vice president to McKinley, whom he succeeded as president on McKinley's assassination in 1901. He campaigned against the great trusts (associations of enterprises that reduce competition), while carrying on a jingoist foreign policy designed to enforce US supremacy over Latin America. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906 for his mediation at the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904.

As president, Roosevelt became more liberal. He tackled business monopolies, initiated measures for the conservation of national resources, setting aside 190 million acres for national forests, coal and water reserves, and wildlife refuges. Other highlights of his domestic policy were the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration, and the Hepburn Act of 1906, which enhanced the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 1904, he announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, to the effect that the USA assumed responsibility for intervening in Latin America when countries displayed ‘chronic wrongdoing or impotence’ (the Monroe Doctrine declared that European intervention in Latin America would be regarded as a threat to the USA).

Alienated after his retirement by the conservatism of his successor W H Taft, Roosevelt formed the Progressive or ‘Bull Moose’ Party. He unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 1912. During World War I he strongly advocated US intervention.

Roosevelt was born in New York, graduated from Harvard in 1880, and was elected to the state legislature in 1881. He was police commissioner of New York City in 1895, and assistant secretary of the navy 1897-98.

During the Spanish-American War of 1898 he volunteered as commander of the 1st US Volunteer Calvary, known as the Rough Riders. He returned to New York as one of the most conspicuous heroes of the war, and was chosen by Senator Thomas C Platt as the Republican candidate for governor in 1998. Roosevelt won and served with distinction, although his independent, activist approach found little favour with Senator Platt. A brief period of relative inactivity as vice president ended September 1901, when President McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt became the youngest president in US history. In 1904, he was eager to be elected in his own right, and triumphed over Democrat Alton B Parker in a landslide. He vowed not to run for another term in 1908, a promise he later regretted making.

A feature of Roosevelt's presidency was the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which made possible the Panama Canal scheme - a feat that greatly enhanced US commerce. His foreign policy was influenced by ‘New Imperialism’, which envisaged a US ‘empire’ extending to include the Philippines, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

A big-game hunter (on one safari he killed over 3,000 animals), he refused in 1902 to shoot a bear cub, and teddy bears are named after him. He wrote historical and other works, including The Naval War of 1812 (1882) and The Winning of the West (1889-96).