The first being its timeliness. As we face a president ial Election Year and prepare for it, it will be an insight that all of us can benefit from. The second is the speaker himself, our esteemed umw Professor Emeritus of history, william b. Crawley, who has just completed 50 years on the faculty of university of the mary washington. During that half century, dr. Crawley has contributed in innumerable ways, in significant ways. Certainly not least of all, the creation of our renowned Historic Preservation program and the creation of this amazing great lives 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 life of one of six highly interesting and sometimes controversial president s. And like many modern day president s, none is so straightforward as the story may recall, or that history may have told us. Dr. Crawley, would you please share with us now . Prof. Crawley thank you, lisa. Welcome, everyone, to todays lecture on Theodore Roosevelt, a pivotal figure in the history of the american presidency, and certainly one of the most colorful and dynamic figures ever to occupy that office. To understand roosevelts contribution as the first great president ial leader of reform and to appreciate how transformative his actions were, we need first to examine briefly the social, economic, and cultural environment in which he lived. Born in new york in 1858, roosevelt grew up in an era of rapid and vast growth in america, as the nation expanded dramatically in terms of geography, population, and, above all, wealth. The booming economy of that age was aided by the advent of inventions. It was, after all, the age of edison. And by the development of huge corporations, often growing to monopolistic proportions. And all underwritten philosophically by the prevailing popularity of social darwinism. Adherence to that philosophy, that is, applying darwins tenets of biological natural selection, that is, survival of the fittest, to the world of economics, business, and society in general, supported a government philosophy of laissezfaire, whereby businesses were allowed to develop unfettered by government regulations. One consequence was the accumulation of enormous wealth by some, with names like morgan, rockefeller, carnegie, vanderbilt, and others, socalled robber barons. But at the same time, the wealth was unevenly distributed, creating such vast inequalities. This situation inspired mark twain to term the era the gilded age, bright and shiny on the surface but increasingly built on a substratum of poverty. It was within this situation in that in the late 19th century, demands for reform again to arise. A movement promoted by the revelations of a group of activists known somewhat derisively at that time as the muckrakers. And it included sub prominent writers included such prominent writers as ida tarbell and her expose of a standard oil trust. And more widely known, upton sinclair, whose book, the jungle, focused on the unsavory, literally unsavory practices of the meatpacking industry. The first significant Reform Movement involved the populists led by Williams Jennings bryan in the 1890s. But that largely agrarianbased Movement Never gained sufficient support from middle and upperclass voters or from urban voters. So it was superseded around the turnofthecentury by a more broadly based movement known as progressivism. And the success of that movement in bringing about reform was largely owing to the energetic efforts of Theodore Roosevelt, often simply referred to as tr, or teddy. Roosevelt, it should be noted, was not a very likely candidate originally to become a reform 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 into such a leader for reform. He might well have been expected to be a firm conservative but that was not to be the case. Why wasnt it . Well, as a child, roosevelt had been week, sickly, troubled by asthma, terribly troubled by asthma, and weak eyesight. So he undertook to correct the shortcomings and worked hard to improve his health. He became a boxer. He became an ardent outdoorsman. He once spent a period of time working on ranch in the west. And his zest for physical activity, particularly of the belligerent kind, became legendary. It has become customary to explain roosevelts personality as being the result of overcompensation for his early physical inferiority. But whatever that case may be, Teddy Roosevelt certainly took great pleasure in the physical, the adventurous, and the dangerous. Surely, few men have ever been able to gratify their desires to such an extent. His life was indeed a full one, so let me just hit the highlights of it here at the beginning. He graduated from harvard in 1880, studied law afterwards at columbia, though did not receive his degree. He served one term in the near 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 assistant secretary of the navy. That might not seem like a terribly exciting job, but he made it exciting. It was he who ordered admiral dewey to the philippines in the spanishamerican war. And the cataclysmic and most important battle of that war, the battle of manila bay took place, as a result of deweys being ordered to the philippines. He also served one term as governor to new york. Now, in addition to all this, he was a wellknown author. He wrote a four volume study of the war of 1812. He wrote a book called, the winning of the west. He wrote a couple of popular biographies. He also worked out of the dakota territories as a rancher. And it was pretty well known, he served in the spanishamerican war, where he gloried in his role as the colonel who was the head of the volunteer outfit known as the rough riders. Much is known about those exploits because he wrote about them, so, many people learned about roosevelts activities and cuba, and someone at the time said the book was so selfcentered, roosevelt should have titled it, alone in cuba. In any case, he was a scholar, a genuine intellectual. It was a there he is as colonel roosevelt, rough rider. His life was certainly not without sorrow. He suffered one of the most grievous tragedies i think of any public figure i am aware of. That is his wife, to whom he was exceedingly devoted, died shortly after giving birth to their first child, alice. And within 24 hours of that, his mother died. So, both his wife and his mother were buried on the same day. Well, Theodore Roosevelt was far from dull. People called roosevelt a lot of names, his enemies attacked him, but nobody ever accused him of being dull. That, he was not. In fact, it was his robust lifestyle that made it surprising he became president because to get there, he took the office of Vice President. He was not all that excited about it. The reason he got the nomination to run with mckinley in 1900, as his Vice President a running mate, is mckinleys previous Vice President had died in office. The recent 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 a great idea of kicking him upstairs, so to speak. And after all, the vice presidency was harmless. Most people in the Republican Party were not bothered by that. One who was bothered was mark hanna. A firm, strong conservative, supporter of the business community. He said in discussing was both possible nomination, he said, dont any of you realize that there will only be one life between this madman and the white house . Well, apparently nobody cared. And then 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, there is not much to do. He ran for Vice President with mckinley and he were elected. So he became Vice President of the United States. And soon there was very much for this young man to do, because on september 6, 1901, William Mckinley was assassinated. And Theodore Roosevelt at the age of 42 became the youngest president in American History. And still is. And i know that some would say, what about jack kennedy . Watch this one, it could be a trick question. I never try to trick questions, but it is a bit tricky. It could be a jeopardy question, i guess. If you ask who was the youngest person to be president , it is still Theodore Roosevelt. If it is phrased who is the youngest person ever elected president , that is still jack kennedy. So i thought you might want to keep that distinction in mind. In any case, when he became president , the a for mentioned mark hanna was furious and said, i told William Mckinley it was a mistake to nominate that wildman. I asked if he realized what would happen if he should die and now that cowboy is president of the United States. America waited expectantly to see what tr would do. One historian wrote, americans in the early 1900s did not easily overlook an agitator who wrought one of the nations most aristocratic names who could charm sunday school class or later regiment and who happened to be president of the United States. Americans probably expected some excitement and they were not to be disappointed. As mark twain said, Teddy Roosevelt was the tom sawyer of the political world, always hunting for a chance to show off. One of his cabinet members put it this way, he sent a message to roosevelt, on roosevelts 46th birthday. The message read as follows. You have made a very good start in life and your friends have great hopes for you when you grow up. He was 46. Well, surely he sought attention and he always wanted to be the center of attention. It has been said that roosevelt was the kind of person who always wanted to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral. My favorite story to illustrate this is, may be apocryphal, but here is the story anyway. The story is 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. It was magnificent. There were 1000 sopranos. 1000 altos. 1000 basses. And the friend said, what about the tenors . To which roosevelt replied, i sang tenor. So, you get the idea. Well, what then was this Progressive Movement about under roosevelt . Lets look first at the domestic accomplishments and we will go through these rather briefly. 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 pathbreaking. They were, they constituted such a, in many cases dramatic break with 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 were usually stumped by it. And this is true, the federal government was responsible for national security, military, that is true. But that did not affect people on an everyday basis, most people. So, im saying, how did the average american come into contact with the federal government . Normally, before this era, before roosevelt . Well, 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 with the daily lives of americans. This began to change. The point is that is what roosevelts presidency marked such an interesting and pivotal break with the past. It increased government regulation. It increased role of the federal government. I will talk about specifics, but that is the overarching point of all this. There were several areas in which roosevelt was active. And one was business regulation. You know, the dictates of social darwinism, laissezfaire theories, government didnt get involved when a company ran its business. But there were calls for reform and change, to try to correct some of the inequalities. Much of it dealt with railroads. Again, i asked my students, why so much about railroads . Well, think about it. If you had anything to ship in country at that time, how are you going to send it . Unless you live a river, ship by boat. You had to use railroads. So, there was a lot of focus on trying to bring regulation to railroads. The first major thing that did that was the elkins act, passed in 1903. No need to get into specifics with this. Suffice to say, this act prohibited the giving of rebates by railroads, that is, refunds to large shippers, which meant large shippers got kickbacks and small people had to pay full freight. Literally full freight. And so, the point is, it was a different concept to have a government step into private economy and say, these private businesses can be regulated that way. More on that sort of thing later. In the realm of conservation, here too, this is one of trs , always one of his main interests. He was able to secure package of act,hing called the which provided for the proceeds from the sale of government lands should be used for federal irrigation projects. But the overall picture is the government was involving itself for the first time in conservation. Most people up till that time believed the country is so big and wealthy, so no need to conserve. Conservation was not on anybodys mind. But it was on roosevelts mind. And this is one thing that he supported. And again, a pathbreaking president here. Also, there was the problem of regulating trusts, these giant monopolies. You dont need to think too much to figure out why the existence of monopolies could be detrimental to the consumer. Allowing prices to rise and so forth. So, one of the big Progressive Movements was some kind restrictions of the trusts. And indeed, one of the pictures i remember from my high school textbook, i remember a cartoon showing roosevelt carrying a big stick. That was one of his mottos, speak softly and carry a big stick. And the cartoon showed roosevelt with a big stick bashing the trusts. Well, his idea was not so much to break up the trusts, that will come later with wilson. But his idea was to regulate them, to do something to restrict some of the more damaging monopolistic practices. And so, what could he do . Well, it was unlikely that he could get the kind of law passed that he wanted. So what he did was to 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 era of big business and so on. And so, the act had not really been used very effectively, if at all during that time. By and large it had not been used very much, certainly since the mid1890s. Well, roosevelt instructed his attorney general to bring a suit against one of the biggest trusts, maybe the biggest railroad trust, which was the Northern Securities corporation which controls essentially all of the rail traffic in the west, particularly the northwest. And so, they brought a suit against Northern Securities, calling for its breakup, on account of its monopolistic practices. And, sure enough, the courts agreed, and Northern Security was indeed broken up, setting, as i say it, that precedent. And, subsequently, other monopolies were broken up as well. Standard oil trust, American Tobacco company, and others. Well, as a result of these activities, his vigorous pursuit trusts and his conservation work, and so on, roosevelt was acquiring a very large following, and great popularity. So, that is not to say that everybody, the capitalists and monopolists themselves of course were not on his side, but the American Public really was entranced by roosevelt. And so in 1904, he was ready to seek the presidency in his own right. Which he did, but he did one thing that he probably wished he had not done, probably. And that is he promised that if elected, he would not seek another term, which he could have done there. There was no prohibition against it. Franklin d. Roosevelt proved as he was elected four times. But theodore promised he would not seek another term if elected. And he was elected. He was elected by a landslide. I bet very few people in this audience could tell me who he ran against. I scarcely remember it myself every time i talk about this. His name was alton b. Parker. As i have said to my students, not a household by name by any means, saving his own household. He was overwhelmingly defeated and set at the time when roosevelt sought the presidency in 1904 and was elected by acclamation, an overwhelming victory. Once he was president in his own right he became an even more aggressive advocate for progressivism and he promised a square deal for the american people. One thing he did to get the square deal, was to address again, the railroad problem. And this may see