Posted on 05/02/2009 10:58:55 AM PDT by 7jason
He set several records as President. Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest person, so far, to become President of the United States (POTUS). The youngest to be elected remains, as of this writing, John F. Kennedy who was 43 when elected. Roosevelt was 42 when he took office as the 26th President following the assassination of his predecessor in 1901. Although other Vice Presidents had taken office following death of the President, TR was first to go on and win an election in his own right, preceding Harry S Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson in the feat. He also remains (as of this writing, since there is possible space for one more) the first and only President of the 20th Century honored with his visage carved on Mt. Rushmore. TR was responsible for building the modern West Wing of the Whitehouse, is widely lauded for his conservation efforts with the National Park System, and was one of the first Presidents to be recorded on film (McKinley, his predecessor, was first but TR was filmed far more). Later, he was one of the first Presidential candidates to make extensive use of the phonograph, recording his voice for political and historical purposes.
(Excerpt) Read more at associatedcontent.com ...
You need to read up on TR.
“While he was not a devout believer in the religion of socialism, the effect of Teddy Roosevelt’s terms in office was to promote the liberal-socialist cause. Like all college-educated persons of that era, Roosevelt had been thoroughly exposed to the secular and materialistic doctrine of socialism, first as a Harvard undergraduate, then in public life. In his defense, it may be said that he confronted an America that was fundamentally different in the economic sphere from the America of 1776.
Surprisingly for a man who was well-educated in the classics, Roosevelt was heedless of the need to preserve the traditions of a government of laws, not of men. A clue was one of his favorite books, Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which advanced the theory that the rise of Christianity was the cause of Rome’s fall.
In power, Teddy was a headstrong man who consulted only his personal ideas of good, with indifference to legal precedent and the inherent rights of individuals under the Bill of Rights. It was the beginning of the “implied powers” doctrine that Teddy’s young cousin Franklin Roosevelt was to use twenty years later to impose a thoroughgoing system of socialism.
Teddy also set the pattern for our present-day expectation that the President is to be the dominant figure in national politics, grasping ever-greater measures of power at the expense of constitutional checks and balances. His legacy is an American public that labors under the delusion that a President can run the nation as if it were a private company. This, of course, is precisely the collectivized management and social-engineering demanded by liberal-socialists.”
He was energy personified.
Sounds familiar.
the most amazing thing about him is that he was shot in the chest on his way into a speech in Buffalo in 1912...and he still gave the speech with the bullet inside him before he got treatment.
incredible
He also helped spearhead efforts to prevent the U.S. from entering the League of Nations(largely because of his intense animosity towards Woodrow Wilson). Possibly one of TR’s greatest accomplishments.
His daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth(quite a character in her own right) once said something like this about her father:
“There was never a christening he went to where he didn’t wish he was the baby, a wedding he went to where he didn’t wish he was the bride, and a funeral he went to where he didn’t wish he was the corpse.”
Historians are finally realizing Teddy was basically a big-government socialist (and imperialist)who thought an intrusive government was good. Some of his actions were good, like the Pure Food and Drug Act, but he’s more like LBJ than Reagan.
He also served as a police commissioner in New York City for two years. He made sweeping changes to the department and every morning he cycled to work from his sisters house on Madison Avenue, where he and his second wife Edith were temporarily living, to his office at 300 Mulberry Street. After work he would tread the city’s streets at night alone, making sure patrolmen were walking their beats as they should instead of occupying the local taverns.
When Teddy took office, the police dept was full of corruption, kickbacks, graft, with policemen on the take from shopkeepers and salon owners. Roosevelt started his reform movement by firing two of the force’s most infamous members. He also started paying attention to the problems of the poor and exposed the deplorable living of the disadvantaged with the help of two of his journalistic friends, Jacob Riis and Lincoln Steffens. The measure of his success is undoubted, he left the city and the police force in far better shape then when he took office.
And it is said he came back to his NYC Police Headquarters, at 240 Centrre Street...as a ghost.
He was seen by one officer who tells how he was sitting in his office late at night typing a report when he slowly became aware he was not alone. Looking up he was a gentlemen had appeared, a short, stubby man with ruddy cheeks and despite his lack of stature, an imposing bearing. The policeman stopped typing and studied the shady figure. He thought he recognized him, but could not place him. It was only when the little man had disappeared back into gloom he realized where he had seen the same person, in history books.
There were other reports of his sightings. The police headquarters since has moved, no sightings have been seen at the new location.
He was what we today would call a Rockefeller Republican with brass balls and a spine.
“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.”
How was he a Rockefeller? He opposed illegal immigration and supported English as the official language. He supported a strong defense without the nation-building. Some of the regulatory stuff was needed at the time.
Regarding nation building... that's exactly what we did then with the newly acquired colonies.
Rockefellers BTW are also pro-defense.
No quarrel that Teddy was an awesome guy, great President, and without a doubt more Conservative than most Republicans today... but he also was part of those who paved the way for an increase in goverment interference.
The incident is covered here and includes photos of the spectacle case and manuscript that slowed TR's the bullet, and a copy of an x-ray of the bullet in his thorax.
(Scroll 1/2 way down and click to enlarge.)
TR not a “nation builder” What do you call Panama.
I’m sure that Obama would say that what he is doing is “needed at the time.” Come to think of it, I’m sure Wilson, FDR and even more than a few foreign despots could make the same argument.
:...Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which advanced the theory that the rise of Christianity was the cause of Rome’s fall.”
I’m no scholar, but I would say the fall of the Roman Empire was likely from the fact that they tried to run the whole known world back then. Many small city-states and impoverished countries to have to support and keep in line. To much to control for one government.
Spread themselves too thin.
Remember, John McCain's favorite potus was, TR.
It’s also telling that TR was one of McCain’s heroes, and apparently somewhat of a role model.
i personally am a huge fan of TR but i see his faults very clearly. at that time, regulation was needed, and TR made sure it happened. his best quote is that he is not president to serve only the republicans or only democrats, only the rich, or only business owners. he is there to serve the american people whether they voted for him or not.
I think the fall of Rome had a number of contributing causes, but Christianity wasn’t one of them.
He gave us the estate and gift tax as well.
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