Contributor

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

In his youth Theodore Roosevelt was frail, asthmatic, and nearsighted, receiving his primary education from private tutors until he entered Harvard College in 1876. In 1897, a year before he organized the volunteer cavalry regiment that became known as the Rough Riders, Roosevelt declared in a speech, “No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war.” He assumed the presidency upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901 and won the presidential election of 1904.

All Writing

Miscellany

“Not one cent for scenery,” Republican House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon said in opposition to President Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation agenda. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson, at the signing of a conservation bill, said, “Today we are repealing Cannon’s law.”

Don’t hit a man at all if you can avoid it, but if you have to hit him, knock him out.

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1916

Voices In Time

1913 | Oyster Bay, NY

Class Act

On feigning fearlessness. More

Voices In Time

1908 | Washington, D.C.

Saving the Forest for the Trees

Theodore Roosevelt wonders what’s in a name. More

Voices In Time

1903 | Grand Canyon

Notes from the Edge

Theodore Roosevelt asks us to think of the children.More

Voices In Time

1900 | Albany

Making a Man

Theodore Roosevelt’s virtues for the American boy.More

Voices In Time

1893 | Cove Neck, NY

Taste for Blood

Theodore Roosevelt’s hunting habits.More

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903

Miscellany

After Panama declared independence from Colombia in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt attempted to quell suspicions that the U.S. had helped foment revolt in order to build the Panama Canal. Roosevelt asked Secretary of War Elihu Root if he had properly defended himself against accusations of wrongdoing. Root reportedly replied, “You certainly have, Mr. President. You have shown that you were accused of seduction, and you have conclusively proved that you were guilty of rape.”