Passed Presidents - # 26 – Theodore Roosevelt

2014 political realities can’t help but flavor this story.  Teddy Roosevelt went to his reward on this day, 95 years ago...another great Republican spinning in his grave because the Grand Old Party today would blow him off the stage for his evil ways.

We’ll have to remove his image from Mt. Rushmore because of his ‘Square Deal’ domestic policies...built on the ‘Three ‘C’s’ – conservation of natural resources, control of corporations and consumer protection.

He did so many un-Republican things like create the National Forest Service which designated 150 national forests.  He doubled the number of national parks and created numerous national monuments and wildlife refuges. 

J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller threw darts at his image because he actually enforced the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and broke up their monopolies.  He signed the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 so we wouldn’t get poisoned by adulterated food and medicine.  He had the nerve to pass the Meat Inspection Act so the slaughterhouses had to clean up and stop passing rotten meat to consumers.  What was he thinking with all that radical, socialist, regulatory nonsense?

 

Sagamore Hill, the Roosevelt home in Oyster Bay, NY (26 August 2003)

The 26^th president was born to wealth and privilege.  His family had settled in the colonies in the mid-1600’s.  After earning his Harvard degree, he entered New York politics and married.  When his mother AND young wife passed away on the same day in 1884, he left the east for the life of an outdoorsman and rancher in the Dakota Territory.  That set the stage for many of the exploits he is known for.  He was a sickly child but vigorous exercise produced a fit and active adult.  He said, “I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life.”

The President and his St. Bernard, Rollo

(Photo taken at The Newseum exhibit of presidents’ pets; 15 May 2011)

An honest rich man he was.  President Harrison appointed him to the new U.S. Civil Service Commission where he vigorously fought to reform the spoils system and enforce civil service laws.  After that, he was the New York City Police Commissioner and again made a reputation as a fighter against corruption.  When he continued as a no-nonsense, reform governor of New York, the party bosses urged the McKinley campaign to take Teddy as the vice presidential candidate so they could be free to return to their corrupt ways. Six months after the inauguration, McKinley was dead and at 42 years old, Teddy became our youngest president to date.

Quentin Roosevelt’s Grave Marker

Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, NY (26 August 2003)

All four of Teddy’s sons enlisted in World War I. Quentin was the 

youngest and he was shot down in France in 1918 at age 20. 

He was buried in France and when his brother, Theodore died

 in France during WW II, they were buried together in the 

American Cemetery in Normandy. After that, Quentin’s 

original grave marker was moved to the family home.

He was the first American to win a Nobel Prize...the Peace Prize for his settlement of the Russo-Japanese War and he was the first president to travel outside the United States while in office.

My only visit to Teddy’s grave was in the pre-digital era.  We joined my sister for a few beach days in the Hamptons and stopped in Oyster Bay on the way home.  He lies behind a fence in Young’s Memorial Cemetery between the town and the Sagamore Hill estate.

 Theodore Roosevelt

26th President; Served 1901-1909

Born: October 27, 1858, New York, NY

Died: January 6, 1919, Oyster Bay, NY

Grave Location: Young’s Memorial Cemetery, Oyster Bay, NY

Date Visited: 8/26/2003