ExclusiveTheodore Roosevelt: The Man in the Arena

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannan. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories, but here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous and some are obscure, but each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans in our daily lives. There have been some great minds and great men who have been leaders and shapers of the United States. Many of these men have been U.S. presidents. It's always a difficult role for a vice president to have to take over for the presidency, but today we're going to talk about one of the greatest U.S. presidents, who was the first vice president to be well-regarded as a president himself after taking over for his running mate who was assassinated. Theodore Roosevelt, sometimes called Teddy or T.R., is one of the best regarded U.S. presidents. He's ranked alongside founding fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and great shapers of the nation like Abraham Lincoln as one of the greatest U.S. leaders. He's also alongside those other three greats as one of the four presidents honored on Mount Rushmore, but Teddy Roosevelt was the only one of these men who ascended to the presidency through chance rather than election for his first term. Teddy Roosevelt came from the state of New York and he distinguished himself in college as a very athletic young man being involved with rowing and boxing. This athleticism and adventurous spirit would remain with him throughout his whole life. Eventually, he studied and became a lawyer. His political career eventually led him to serving in the Spanish-American War. Eventually, his legal career led him to a place of political prominence and he became the second vice president under William McKinley. He first distinguished himself to the American public under McKinley's presidency, but not as vice president. You see, William McKinley had a different vice president for his first term in office who ended up dying, so it was in the second term that he appointed Roosevelt as his running mate. During the first term, however, Roosevelt was involved with the administration and McKinley sent him to Cuba as part of the Spanish-American War. In the year 1898, this war only lasted a few months, yet it proved extremely decisive in shaping McKinley's administration, of course, but also the new face of the United States and its holdings as this conflict led to the acquisition of many new lands. Roosevelt was in charge of a group of men known as the Rough Riders. These were men he knew from his own background. You see, although he was from New York, he loved the Great Plains and the rough area which was the Dakota Territory. He was a rancher out there and he owned a lot of land. He really threw himself into this after the death of his first wife, as he would often travel out to the badlands, and he loved riding around on horses. In this capacity, not only was he a landowner and a tattle rancher, but he grew to know the bravery and strength of these men who were cowboys and other ranchers. So, when the Spanish-American War came along, he got together a whole group of these men as volunteers, appointed himself their leader, and called them the Rough Riders. There are many photographs of Roosevelt. In fact, some of the most famous of him are in his signature uniform leading these men. He brought them to Cuba and managed to win some decisive victories which made him very prominent, helped America win that war, and would pave the way for his future political career. Thus, when McKinley was looking for a running mate, he chose Roosevelt. Roosevelt, at this point, was considered a progressive Republican. He was very aggressive in his new measures, wanting a lot of reform. Now, he certainly wasn't the first reform-minded Republican. In fact, you could say the whole spirit of the Republican Party from the very beginning with Abraham Lincoln was reform. But Roosevelt had some bold ideas. It turned out to be a very wise and foreseeing decision for Roosevelt to be the vice president. Right away, he started distinguishing himself by talking about foreign policy in a bold manner which not many vice presidents had done. The office of vice president is a notoriously vague one, especially historically, since the duties of that role were not too clearly outlined in the original founding documents of the nation. In fact, the first vice president, John Adams, famously said that it was the most inconsequential role ever devised by the mind of man. In fact, it was when the first president died in office, and that was 9th president William Henry Harrison, that John Tyler, his vice president, simply appointed himself the 10th president with very little outside consultation. By the time that Theodore Roosevelt was vice president under McKinley, four vice presidents had ascended to the presidency. Two of them when the presidents died of natural causes, and that would be John Tyler and Millard Fillmore, and two of them when presidents had been assassinated, that would be Andrew Johnson and Chester Arthur. Chester Arthur was the first of those four men who you could really say was a successful president. The other three were notoriously unpopular, and many people said that John Tyler was his accidency, not qualified for that position. Millard Fillmore was deemed very weak as a leader. Andrew Johnson was impeached and nearly escaped being thrown out of office. And Chester Arthur, although he did accomplish many of the goals that his predecessor James Garfield had established, failed to gain the nomination when running again for his own term. Then comes Theodore Roosevelt. It was when he was vice president that he famously said his quote on which he defined as On September 14th, 1901, just a few months after McKinley began his second term of office, Roosevelt would get the opportunity to show what kind of decisive action he could lead, because McKinley died from the wounds he sustained when he was shot eight days earlier. Roosevelt had to prove that he himself would be a good president, and he did what none of the four gentlemen preceding him were able to do. He quickly won the hearts of the nation and proved to be just as successful, if not more successful, than McKinley. When he ran for re-election in the year 1904, he was wildly successful and he was unanimously re-nominated by the Republican Party and went on to win the biggest majority vote from the popular vote of any president since James Monroe, who had almost unanimously been re-elected. This was a testament to how Unlike the previous vice presidents turned presidents who were really seen as substitutes, Roosevelt was so successful as a president that I was surprised to learn that's how he became the president, because he's so well regarded for what he did on his own. He wasn't just a substitute and I think even if McKinley hadn't died, he most likely would have run to be president himself and would have been elected probably in the year 1904. A man with such leadership skills is sure to rise to prominence. His form of leadership was sometimes called the bully pulpit, which doesn't sound particularly flattering, but it was referring to the fact that he believed in a very strong leadership, hearkening back to his quote about carrying a big stick. He didn't believe in dominating other countries, but he did believe in having a strong presence, making the United States a strong force, and he established the U.S. Navy to be a much stronger form of protection. It's hard to list all the accomplishments which Roosevelt made during his time in office because there were so many. He was the first president to win a Nobel Peace Prize and that was for his negotiations during the war between Japan and Russia. He was able to help these two warring factions come to peaceful terms, which was an excellent accomplishment. He established the national park system, being a great preservationist himself. He also established national landmarks, since he believed that historic places and culturally significant sites should be preserved for future generations. He oversaw the beginning of construction on the Panama Canal. This was begun by William McKinley, who sought out that area of land, but Roosevelt actually traveled to Panama during his time in office to help oversee this project, which was huge, not only for the United States, but the whole world, in creating a passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. By making this trip, he was the first U.S. president to leave the United States during his time in office. He's perhaps best remembered as the namesake of the teddy bear. Now, Roosevelt was an avid hunter. He always loved hunting, both before and after his time in office, but he didn't believe in wasteful hunting, and he was very critical of hunting which would leave excess animals without their being used for some useful purpose. The incident which led to the teddy bear being named after him was when he came across a bear cub that was chained up, and he refused to kill it. Because of this, and his work with the national parks and his preservation efforts to say that bears and other animals, which were mothers, couldn't be killed, the stuffed toy was first named the Roosevelt bear and then the teddy bear after him. The cartoon showing him turning away from the bear cub which is chained up is arguably the most famous political cartoon of all time. During Roosevelt's time in office, the press was growing more and more powerful and openly critical, you could say. There were insulting, offensive cartoons made of him and his wife which would have been unheard of a generation earlier. Of course, offensive and critical cartoons go back long before even the foundation of the United States, but there began to be fewer rules, I would say, about what is sacred and what you can do to be critical. When he ran for office on his own term in 1904, Roosevelt made the bold statement in his inauguration speech that he would not even attempt to run for a second or technically third term in the year 1908. His wife was not aware that he was going to make this statement, and she was devastated when she heard that he had, because she knew he would regret it. She turned out to be right. He cultivated and promoted William Taft as his protege to be the next president, and he ended up being so, but as his wife predicted, Roosevelt was not happy with how he performed as a president, ending up being very critical of him, and he then regretted not running himself in the year 1908. He then tried to run again in the year 1912 as a progressive Republican, and he managed to divide the Republican Party to the point that the progressive branch was called the Bull Moose Party, because he often referred to himself as a bull moose, since he was so strong and stubborn. He managed to win a great deal of the popular and electoral votes. In fact, he came in second in this race, making him the only person to run as a third party and to actually come in second place. That's the only time that someone in a third party has been that successful. Despite that, he still came in second, and he did not win in the year 1912. Roosevelt was the youngest president to ever take office, since he was only 42 at the time. As a result, he remained very active after leaving the White House. He was part of a bold expedition down a Brazilian river after leaving the White House, and this river was later named the Roosevelt River in his honor. While on that expedition, he sustained a serious injury in his leg, which almost cost him his life. Although he did recover from it, he would have somewhat compromised health afterwards because of the infection that he sustained. He also traveled to Africa extensively, collecting specimens which were put into natural history museums and documented to show different types of species, which a lot of them were not well known to North Americans at that time. These included elephants and rhinoceros. In more recent days, he has sustained criticism for this, because to collect these specimens, they were killed, and some of these animals are now endangered. But at the time, it was a valuable way of informing people about what these animals were, since many people hadn't seen them, and afterwards they were studied extensively. Many of these specimens still remain in natural history museums, the various specimens which he collected himself. Roosevelt was famous for his long speeches, which he would have well documented in copious notes, although he often would deliver them by memory. Quite famously, when he was attempting to run for re-election in the year 1912, he was giving a speech when he was shot by an attempted assassin, making him the third of the last six presidents who had had bullets fired into them. Because he had a very thick speech and an eyeglass case in his pocket, the force of the bullet was lessened, although it did go into his abdomen and stay there for the It didn't stop him, though, because not only did he not collapse, but he didn't stop giving his speech. In fact, many of the onlookers didn't even realize he had been shot. To those who were aware of what had happened, he said, ladies and gentlemen, I have just been shot, but it takes more than one bullet to take down a bull moose, and he proceeded to give the rest of his 99-minute speech. I think the speeches which Roosevelt gave are some of his greatest legacies. Besides his political actions, many things he said are so inspiring that I think they're just great advice, just wonderful, inspiring quotes, whether you're interested in his politics or not. His progressive activism, I'd say, transcends Republican versus Democrat, and one must bear in mind how different the parties were then, because he was considered very progressive for a Republican, and at that time Republican and Democrat were more based on fiscal ideas. They were more about economics and less about ethics than it is now. Roosevelt called his policies a square deal, and that was because he believed in fairness for everyone, overall fairness. Doesn't matter if you're Republican, Democrat, everybody deserves a square deal. He based his political policy on the three C's, natural conservation, consumer protection, which involved tariffs, because most Republicans were in favor of tariffs at the time, and control of corporate corruption, and that included cracking down on the robber barons and other people who had monopolies, like certain oil companies at the time. So that really shows you what he tried to do. Conservation, that was establishing the Antiquities Act, the National Forests, these historic sites. He wanted to conserve and protect the beauties of this nation. He was good friends with John Muir, the conservationist, and there's a particularly beautiful photograph of him and John Muir in the Yosemite National Park, where you can see the falls in the background. He believed in protection of the consumer, and that involved fair wages for local workers, and not as much or as high of tariffs as his predecessor, McKinley, but enough to be fair. It really was to protect the American public, because if tariffs get too high, then it can hurt the consumer, because it makes goods too expensive. He aimed to keep tariffs at a fair level, which would be just enough to protect American industry, and then of course, cracking down on the corruption. So with these three C's, he managed to give everyone a square deal and be very successful and popular. In 1905, he famously gave his square deal speech. This was shortly after he began his second term, but his first term of his own winning. It began, We must act upon the motto of all for each and each for all. There must be ever present in our minds the fundamental truth that in a republic such as ours, the only safety is to stand neither for nor against any man, because he is rich or because he is poor, because he is engaged in one occupation or another, because he works with his brains or because he works with his hands. We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less. Finally, we must keep ever in mind that a republic such as ours can exist only by virtue of the orderly liberty which comes through the equal domination of the law over all men alike, and through its administration in such resolute and fearless fashion as shall teach all that no man is above it and no man below it. He struck a brilliant balance between monarchy or some kind of an aristocracy, whether this privileged class, and communism or socialism, where everybody's given something. If you read all his quotes and look at Roosevelt's own life, you'll see that he was a huge advocate of doing things. He was a bold man who was instilled with the virtue of hard work from his mother in his education as a young boy, and he overcame personal grief with the death of his first wife and his mother within one day, but he rose above that to keep doing things. One of his quotes is, do what you can with what you have where you are, and this showed that he was saying you don't have to come from a lot to make a lot of yourself. He also said nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort. He also said you can't choose your potential, but you can choose to fulfill it. Do something now. If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when? His most famous speech was given after he left the White House. It was given on April 23, 1910, actually in France at a college, and it's often called the man in the arena speech, but it really, the correct term is citizenship in a republic, and in it he began by praising this French university and its ancient standards of equality and knowledge, but the best part of it stands apart from politics, and of course he had some excellent quotes on politics about what it means to be patriotic, how you should support the nation, not the individual politician, but I think his citizenship in a republic speech is an even better way to conclude what his legacy truly was. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt was indeed one of those great souls. He strove, he did bold and great things in so many different areas of life. He was a great scholar, an adventurer, a conservationist, a political leader, someone who was a strong supporter as a good vice president and a great leader as a president, someone who managed to have supporters from both political sides of the aisle because he believed in doing what was right for himself, not just following some party. In fact, he shaped the party rather than being shaped by it. Roosevelt is a great example to all presidents, all political leaders, and all citizens of what it means to be an American patriot. Thank you for spending this time with me and I hope you'll join me next time for more American Legends.