Theodore Roosevelt

Background

Theodore Roosevelt was born to a rich family of Dutch origin who belonged to the city’s finest elite networks. Roosevelt, dubbed ‘Teedie’ by his parents, had terrible asthma from a young age, which his father tried to treat by taking him on vigorous carriage rides and outings to the countryside to get some fresh air. He went to Harvard University at 18 and spent four years there, splitting his time between literature and sports and excelling at both. After graduating from Harvard, he spent nearly a year studying in Germany before entering politics. He was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he served for three years and earned a reputation as a reformer. Due to ill health and the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt stepped down from politics. He put some of his father’s money into a cattle ranch in the Dakota Territory’s Badlands, intending to stay there for a long time. He became an avid hunter, particularly of large game, and a strong believer in the great outdoors, which provided him with health and vigor. Roosevelt returned to the United States in 1886, remarried, and got into politics yet again.

Following his election, President Harrison assigned Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission, of which he was ultimately elected president. He held this position for a while until he took over as chief of the New York City Police Department. Later in President McKinley’s cabinet, he was named assistant secretary of the Navy. While in this position, he eagerly prepared for the upcoming Cuban War, and when it broke out, he went to Cuba as lieutenant colonel of a volunteer cavalry unit he had organized from the West’s hunters and ranchers. He rose to prominence as the commander of these ‘Rough-Riders,’ whose story he recounted in one of his most popular works.

President Roosevelt worked diligently to establish the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague, which had been established in 1899 but hadn’t been used by any country during its initial three years of operation. The United States and Mexico had chosen to follow a historical dispute about California’s Pious Foundations to the Hague Tribunal. The 1899 arbitration system was finally implemented when other countries followed suit. He was also instrumental in expanding the use of arbitration to international conflicts in the Western Hemisphere, signing multiple arbitration treaties with European nations that were later rejected by the Senate. After several weeks of tense negotiations, President Roosevelt offered his services as a mediator, and in September 1905, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Japan.