Vice president s lives. As we face a primary Election Year and prepare for it, it will be an insight that all of us committed to. The second is that the speaker himself, our esteemed professor, william b. Crawley, who has just completed 50 years on the faculty of the university of mary washington. During that half century, dr. Crawley has contributed in innumerable ways and significant ways, certainly not least of all the creation of our renowned Historic Preservation program and the creation of this amazing great life series. But it is for his excellence in teaching that he is perhaps best known, and certainly to literally thousands of our students who have come through our halls. He has received our institutions highest honors in teaching, both from his colleagues and from his students, many of whom through the years have voted him as the faculty member who has made the greatest impact upon their lives. Dr. Crawley through these years has become a true icon of this community. And so it is with great pleasure that i introduce Professor William b. Crawley who, drawing upon his 50 years of teaching political history, has truly learned and shared so much of his knowledge and will be sharing it again with us today as he looks at the lives of one of six highly interesting and sometimes controversial president s. And like many modern day president s, none so straightforward as the story may recall or that history may have told us. Dr. Crawley, would you please share with us now . Thank you, lisa. Welcome, everyone, to todays review of theodore roosevelt. He was the first great leader, and to appreciate how informative his actions were, we must first look at the socioeconomic and cultural environment in which he lived. In new york in 1858, roosevelt grew up in a rapidly fast growth in america with a lot of population, and above all, wealth. The booming economy of that age was aided by the advent of conventions, and it was, after all, the age of edison and by the development of huge corporations often growing to monopolostic proportions. There was a natural biological selection and to society in general, it supported a government philosophy where businesses were allowed to develop unfettered by government regulations. One consequence was the accumulation of enormous wealth by some with names like morgan, rockefeller, vanderbilt and others. At the same time, the wealth was unevenly distributed creating vast inequalitieinequalities. For such a situation, it was the gilded age with a bright and shining surface that increasingly built on a subst t substratum of poverty. It was in this situation that in the late 19th century, the mans reform began to rise. A movement promoted by the revelations of a group of activists known somewhat derisively, and even more wider known, the doppler sinclair whose book were about unsovereign practices in the meat packing industry. A populist led by William James obrien in the 1890s never gained significant support from middle and upper class voters, or from urban voters. It was superceded in the turn of the century known as progressivists. It was largely known to theodore roosevelt, often referred to as t. R. Roosevelt, it should be noted, was not a very likely candidate to become a reformed leader. He was, in fact, born into one of the wealthiest, most aristocratic of old new york families. It did not seem likely that one born into such a status would emerge as a leader for reform. He might well have been expected to be a concern, but that was not to be the case. Why was it . Well, as a child, roosevelt had been weak, sickly, troubled by asthma, terribly troubled by asthma. So he worked to correct those shortcomings. He worked hard to improve his health. He became a boxer, an ardent outdoorsman, worked on a ranch in the west and he became legendary. It has become custom to explain roosevelts personality. This being the result of overcompensation in his early fiscal inferiority. Teddy roosevelt took pleasure in the physical and the dangerous. Few men have been able to gratify such desires to that extent. We he graduated from harvard in 1880, studied law afterwards at columbia and received his degree. He served one term in the new york legislature. He served six years on the u. S. Civil service commission, he served two years as new york police commissioner, he served one year as a person in the military. He also served one term as governor of new york. In addition to all of this, he was a wellknown author. He wrote a fourvolume study on the war of 1812, he wrote a few biographies. He also worked in the dakota territories as a rancher, and what is pretty well known, he served his spanishamerican heritage, and he wrote about it. In cuba, they said roosevelt is so selfcentered, he should have titled it alone in cuba. He was a scholared and genuine intellectual, nevertheless. His life was certainly not without sorrow. He suffered one of the most grievous tragedies of any im aware of, and that is his wife, to whom he was extremely devoted, died after giving birth to their first child, alice, and within 24 hours of that, his mother died, so both his wife and mother were buried on the same day. Roosevelt was far from dull. People called roosevelt a lot of names and called him everything you could think of, but no one accused him of being dull. That he was not. In fact, it was his robust lifestyle, his enthusiastic approach to life, and to get to president , he took the role of Vice President. He wasnt excited about it. His Vice President running mate was the previous Vice President who had died in office. The reason roosevelt was offered that job was because there were people in the Republican Party who wanted to get him out of new york. He was making a nuisance of himself in the eyes of conservatives. They said, how can we get rid of him in new york . Well, someone had the great idea of kicking him upstairs, so to speak. After all, the Vice President was from harvard. That didnt bother most people. Mark hanna, a supporter of the business community, said of his nomination, dont any of you realize there will only be one life between this bad man and the white house. Well, apparently no one cared and roosevelt was nominated. As i said, he was not enthusiastic about it. He said, quote, the vice presidency is a most honorable office, but for a young man and he was young there is not much to it. Nevertheless, mckinley was elected and he became Vice President of the United States. There was very much for this young man to do because on september 6, 1901, mckinley was assassinated and he became the youngest president in American History and still is. I know you ask, what about jack kennedy . It could be a trick question if youre taking a test. I never trick students, but it could be tricky. It could be a jeopardy question. When asked, who was the youngest president , it was still theodore roosevelt. The youngest man elected as president , thats jack kennedy. Keep that distinction in mind. In any case, he said, i told mckinley it was a mistake to nominate that wild man. I said, what should happen if he were to die. America waited to see what he would do. As one historian wrote, americans in the early 1900s did not easily overlook or agitate one of the most a rristocratic names. Americans were not to be disappointed. Teddy roosevelt was known as the tom sawyer in the political world, always looking for a chance to show off. One of his cabinet members said he sent a message to roosevelt on roosevelts 36th birthday. He said, you have a very good start in life and your friends are waiting for you to grow up. Its sad that roosevelt was the type of person that always wanted to be the bride at every wedding, corpse at every funeral. The story is that on one occasion roosevelt came up to a friend of his and said, i had the most wonderful dream last night. I dreamed that i died and went to heaven. And on the first night, the celestial choir sang. There were a thousand sopranos, a thousand altos, a thousand basses. The friend said, what about the tenors . Roosevelt said, i sang the tenor. So you get the idea. Well, what, then, was this Aggressive Movement about under roosevelt . Lets look first at domestic accomplishments and well go through these rather briefly. And the thing to remember as i talk about these different elements of his domestic program, the important thing to bear in mind is that they were path breaking. They constituted such pain, a dramatic break in the american past particularly in terms of government regulation. I used to ask my students at this point, how big a role did the United States government play in the daily lives of americans at that time . What did the federal government do . They posted frequent ads, and this is true, that the federal government was responsible for national security, the military. But that didnt affect people on an everyday basis, most people. So im saying how did the average american come into contact with the federal government . Normal normally. The answer is the government delivered the mail, the postal service. But aside from that, there was not much involvement or interference from the federal government in the daily lives of americans. This began to change, and the point is that is why roosevelts presence marked such an interesting and pivotal break with the past in terms of increased government regulation, increased role of the federal government. So i talk about specifics, but thats overarching the point about this. There are several areas that roosevelt was acting. On social darwinism, he didnt get involved. But there were calls for reform and change and to try to correct some of the inequalities, and that dealt with railroads. If you had anything to ship at that time, how are you going to send it . They had to use railroads. And so there was a lot of focus on trying to run some regulation. The first thing that did that was the elkins act passed in 1903. Suffice it to say that this particular act prohibited the giving of rebates. That is, refunds to large shippers, which meant the people had to pay for freight. But what a concept to have the government step in to a private economy and say, these private businesses cant be regulated that way. More about that sort of thing later. In the realm of conservation, here, too, this was always one of t. R. s main interests. He was able to secure a passage of an act which provided that the proceeds of the sale of Government Land should be used for federal irrigation projects. But the overall picture was the government was involved for the first time in conservation. Conservation wasnt on everybodys mind, it was on roosevelts mind. Thats one of the things he supported. Again, a past break with res ressitude. It doesnt take too much to figure out why the existence of monopolies could be detrimental to the consumer. So that was one of the big progressives, was some kind of restrictions of trust. And, indeed, i remember this from my high school textbook. You have to realize that was a pretty good followup, but i remember a cartoon showing roosevelt carrying a big stick. That was one of his things, speak softly and carry a big stick, and the cartoon showed roosevelt with a big stick bashing the truckst. Well, his idea was not so much to break up the trust, but his idea was to regulate, to do something to restrict some of the more damaging monopolistic practices. What could he do . It was unlikely he could get the kind of law passed that he wanted, so what he did was use what was available at the time, which was the sherman antitrust act. That had been passed in 1890 but had rarely been used because big business generally controlled the government during those years, the republican euro, big business and so on. The act had not been used very effectively, if at all, during that time. By and large it hadnt been used very much in 1890. Well, roosevelt instructed his attorney general to bring a suit against one of the biggest maybe one of the biggest railroad trusts of the Northern Securities corporation which controlled essentially all of the Railroad Traffic into the west, particularly the northwest. And so it brought a suit against Northern Securities, calling for the breakup of monopolistic practices. Sure enough, the courts agreed, and security was indeed broken up, setting that precedent. And subsequently other monopolies were broken up as well, standard oil trust, Tobacco Company and others. Well, as a result of these activities, a vigorous pursuit of the trusts and conservation work, roosevelt was acquiring a very large following of great popularity. That is not to say that everybody was on his side, but the American Public really wasnt entranced by roosevelt. So in 1904, he was ready to seek the presidency in his own right. Which he did, but he did one thing he probably wished he hadnt done, probably. And that is he promised that if elected, he would not seek another term, which he could have done then. There was certainly no prohibition against it as franklin d. Roosevelt did, getting elected four times. Roosevelt promised to seek another term if he was elected, and he was elected by a landslide. I bet very few people in this audience could tell who he ran against. I have to try to remember myself every time i talk about this. The mans name was alton d. Parker. Not a household, by any means. He was overwhelmingly defeated, and he said at the time roosevelt sought the presidency in 1904 and was elected by acclimation, which is an overwhelming victory. Once he was president in his own right, he became an even more vigorous activist for progressivism which he said was good for the American People. One of the things he did to get this square deal was to address again the railroad problem. This may seem i think it always seemed to my students kind of a petty sort of thing. It certainly was not. Not a really important thing, but it was. It turned out it was not that effective in force, because in order to get a change, or in order to address or readdress some of these grievances, it had to go through the court system. The court would often decide in favor of business as opposed to the consumer. So what roosevelt wanted was the ability the government to have the ability to actually set the rights that the railroad was in charge. That was put in the hepburn act. You had the government with the right of the rnc to actually fix the rates that railroads could charge without going through the court system. By provocation, the president was afraid the government might be able to affect other businesses by setting regulations and so forth. Did i say this . I dont know if i said it. Anyway, i should have said this was violated by hepburn. But another significant roosevelt achievement was the passage of what today we would call Consumer Protection laws. Im not sure they were called that then, but there were a couple of these that were particularly important. One was the federal Meat Inspection act, and you might assume that would influence the popularity of that novel, but what it did was provide a fair inspection of all meat products. And a second similar act was the drug act which prohibited the selling of products under false labels. This was important. For example, patented medicines arrived in those years and were very popular. They did oftentimes the bottled ones did, too, relieved pain and did help. The problem was, it didnt say it on the label, but it contained alcohol, almost 100 proof, so people would take it and feel better, but it wasnt certainly a permanent thing. So then you had to bottle and label things that were in the product. These were part of the Consumer Protection laws. With regard to social issues of the day, roosevelts performance, i think, we would have to say was mixed. Going to womens suffrage, for example, going back to 1908, he wrote, quote, i think that should be no question that women should have equal rights with men, unquote. Thats a pretty direct statement, is it not . While the president continued to support womens suffrage, they even included it in their 1912 platform. Well get to that briefly in a minute. But his public support was, shall we say, less than fervent. He said personally i believe in womens suffrage, but i am not an enthusiastic advocate for it because i do not regard it as a very imprudent manner. Another time he said, we know much about womens rights. While the men are doing that, the women should be attending to their duties. In any case, he did not live to see the passage of the 19th amendment and it was passed by congress in june of 1919. Racial matters were even more problematic. On one hand he earned the praise of progressives. He invited booker t. Washington to the white house for dinner, and this was regarded as an audacious act at that time. On the other hand, his record was besmirched by the role of the grand fighter, which was to discharge black soldiers who were alleged to have been involved in a disturbance in that texas town. Well, they were exonerated decades later as those individuals over time were exonerated in the 1970s. So his record, as i said, i think, was mixed. Now, to a large extent, t. R. s domestic actions were overshadowed by more dramatic events in the area of foreign affairs. Notably, his aggressiveness, his i impetuousness and h impetuousness. Well, to examine the complex machinations, i must talk about this diplomacy and International Intrigue which included the u. S. And columbia, of which panama was a part of at that time. The gist of it is a treaty was written by the u. S. And colombia in which a bridge would be built across panama in the amount of 250,000. But before it could be finalized by the respect active governments, colonel bolt, who denied to ratify this, said it would be sovereignty. Roosevelt was furious, appalled that they would impede what he believed to be one of the greatest projects in the history of civilization. The truth is that roosevelt was generally contentious of latin americans, anyway, referring to the federal government as contemptible Little Creatures of bogata, corruptionists, and said, we may have to give a lesson to these jackrabbits. One day when it was mentioned that america had every right to do what it pleased, roosevelt said, i want the canal boat. To talk about roosevelt, denmark is absurd. The analogy is more like a group of sicilian bandits. You cannot look at the columbian rule any more than his back was against the wall. What that turned out to be was an essence of devious involvement in arranging for panama to declare its independence from colombia, which it succeeded in doing with what appeared to be roosevelts surreptitious support. It remained murky, but the consensus was it didnt have a hand in conniving for the achievement and moreover signed a treaty that gave the u. S. A right to a 10mile canal zone in that part of the country. Work soon began on this enormous project and was completed in 1914 just on the eve of world war i. One residue of the whole affair was resentment to the u. S. Understandable. Not surprisingly, roosevelt defended his actions to panama of confirming respect to what he called the highest and finest government ethics. But on another occasion later on, he came more closely to the truth when he boldly declared, quote, i took the canal zone and let congress debate. While the debate goes on, the canal goes on. In any event, this was not roosevelts finest hour and certainly not his most admirable one. Then there was the matter, a problematic one, of the socalled roosevelt contention with latin america. The original doctrine had proclaimed in 1894 that latin america was no longer part of a proclamation. A uniform proclamation had gone largely unchallenged in other decades. Germany threatened to intervene in certain latin american countries to collect debts, and roosevelt began to answer to this socalled corollary. Latin americans were in financial trouble, and the u. S. Would intervene. They would go to the customers house and pay off the debts and that way they were in accordance with the monroe doctrine. The u. S. Did actively intervene in some instances, known as the dominican republic. An attitude predictably sent the volatile t. R. Into a tirade, saying this. Just at this moment i am so angry with that infernal public. All they wanted was for him to behave himself. He started utterly acting justifiable, that they had no alternative. Well, malcolm was opposed to such a move and fearful that the u. S. Would use it as an opportunity to annexation, they vehemently denied. It certainly did not result in an annexation, but it did lead to distrust and hatred of the United States for many years until the corollary was officially reversed by roosevelts good neighbor. He was determined to bring an end to the war. Despite those efforts, roosevelt was awarded the nobel peace prize, and i can say to you that he is the most unlikely recipient to receive a peace prize, given his aggressive tendencies. It was, however, an early example of americas increasing international involvement, and it was during roosevelts presidency that the u. S. Began to establish itself as a world power. Roosevelt attempted to illustrate that emergence through a symbolic and somewhat controversial episode known as the boys of the great white fleet. His idea was to send the entire naval fleet on an aroundtheworld tour. Congress noted its refusal to fund such a trip and roosevelt came up with an audacious strategy. He let them know he already had money in the current budget to send the fleet halfway around the world, which he intended to do, and if congress wished their return, they would have to appropriate the necessary funds. They got the ships, and he made it white over the gunmetal gray. In japan there was considerable hostility at that time. The fleet was warmly welcomed on its voyage, particularly in japan. The boys were significant in illustrating americas increasing world prominence which would soon be more relevant in world war i. As his term neeared its end, it was clear roosevelt could easily be reelected to a new term in 1908. But in 1904, he did not. Instead he opted for an African Safari and said he hoped everyone would do his duty. Before he left, roosevelt was careful to pick his successor, a man he thought would continue to carry out his aggressive programs. The man he chose was his friend, William Howard taft. It was a choice he would live to regret. Shortly before leaving office, fdr talked about his future plans in a poignant letter to his daughter, in which he wrote, every now and then, people come to me and tell me their country can face the problem of what it would do with expresident s. I always answer them that there will be one expresident that wont give themselves the slightest concern what he will do for himself. He didnt waste any sympathy on me. I had to enjoy my term in the white house more than any other thing ive enjoyed. Im going to enjoy myself thoroughly when i leave the white house. Whats more, there is a possibility to do some type of work that will count. As it turned out, roosevelt didnt accomplish any particularly great achievements. After all, though not for lack of effort. He became to be in a path of restful retirement. After all, there were only a certain number of allies to kill. People perceived it as a lack of aggressive commitment by his successful and soon to be former friend president taft. His pentup zeal was evident in what was probably the bestknown speech of his entire career often quoted as the man in love speech. Youve probably heard it before, parts of it, but let me quote part of it because i think it so eloquently reveals roosevelts base character. And i think you will agree that is a powerful speech aan and it eloquently expressed. Its not the critic who counts, he said. Not the man who points out the strong man or what the doer of deeds could have done better. Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat and blood, who strives battling for errors, who comes up short again and again. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who knows best in the end to try for high achievement and who knows the worst if he fails, so that his place should never be with those cold and timid souls who would know victory, i would think. Fearing that progressivism was riddled by taft, roosevelt decided to run again with the establishment, popularly known as the bull moose party, after taft declared himself as strong as a bull moose. In that election, the split between him and the incumbent taft committed the campaign of woodrow wilson. It was during this that roosevelt was in an attempted assassination. He was hit a an assassins bullet. I would say most people who are shot probably have a superficial recall today. 1914 is enraged. Roosevelt was an ardent advocate, no question there, but he raised it in europe. Roosevelt declined for which he earned roosevelts lasting contempt. Incidentally, roosevelts youngest son quentin was killed, and some believe it drastically deserved roosevelts belligerent attitudes. In any case, by the time he died in early 1919, and he was not an old man, late 50s, i believe. He worked to secure his legacy. What was that legacy . Theodore roosevelt made many contributions to the Aggressive Movement. He was unique, well equipped by his perseverancperseverance. He seldom grabbed onto any political leader before or since. He was not a man with whom the American Public could identify. A popular poem at that time described the following rhyme. T. R. Is chasing a senator, t. R. Is chasing a bear, he is breaking National Trust by likes t. R. As one observer put it, he was just a great big boy. I was charmed by his personality. You could not resist the man. Historian versus generally agreed with the popular feeling of his contemporaries, Teddy Roosevelt was unique in modern American History. As one of them put it, if the rough rider was not the greatest of presence, he was undoubtedly the noisiest. He carried a big stick, all right. But the soft speaking resembled a bull moose during mating season. He became an iconic figure, partly no doubt the teddy bear. That story began with an alabama bear hunt, he had a great hunter that he was, great outdoorsman that he was, he had for some reason expressed his desire to go on a bear hunt in alabama. Apparently the bear had to be shot so he went. And to his i guess the first effort he found no bears. So his host didnt want him to be disappointed, believe it or fought, found a bear, somehow, and tethered the bear, apparently tethered the bear to a tre tr a tree. So when roosevelt came back, he could see the bear. He did not shoot it. But ordered the bear be released. Well, this story made the rounds and it was heard by, among others, a brooklyn candy store owner, who also sold toys, handmade by him and his wife. And so they were inspired to make a brown plush bear with button eyes to put in his store window and he labeled it teddys bear. Now to read you the description of the unfolding legend, from a prominent roosevelt historian who wrote, quote from that modest start, the most beloved and famous toy in the country was launched. No nursery could be without it. He became the security plank et, for literally millions of children, including, of course, the ones whose father had inspired it. They took the teddy ba tore their hearts, over time, it became the standard second racing of all their rallies, at the debtors and social gaffe vel to bid him farewell as he were leaving the presidency, teddy bears were arranged in each place. They called him the teddys weep. Beneath the fading christmas tree, their long, long, visual teeth, you heard the little teddy bears in the stillness softly weeping. We join them in their sad lament traditions in their keeping. For he who meant so much to us, their patron saint is sleeping. In his book president ial greatness, Thomas Bailey summed it up this way, he wrote, roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great personality, a great showman. He dominated the era just as he dominated conversations. Sometimes people wondered whether they had an administration or circus. He was a great egoist, a great self glorifyer, exhibitionist and headline catcher. So much stuff some critics felt he had degraded the dignity of his high office, but the masses lobbying, he proved to be a great popular idol and great vote getter. The consummate politician and great leader. So i would say in conclusion, that thee der roosevelt would have been better balanced if he had a perpetual adolescent some called him. He would have been perhaps a greater man, maybe a greater president. Then he would not have been theodore roosevelt. One of his friend perhaps summed up best the feeling that the American People told t. R. When he said to roosevelt shortly after the rough riders death. You have to hate the colonel an awful lot not to launch. You are watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past. Cspan cspan3, brought to you today by your television provider