Elisha Benjamin Andrews

History of the United States Elisha Benjamin Andrews

Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City, October 27, 1858. He was graduated from Harvard in 1880. At the age of twenty-three he entered the New York State Assembly, where he served six years with great credit. Two years he was a "cowboy" in Dakota. He was United States Civil Service Commissioner and President of the New York City Police Board. In 1897 he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy, holding this position long enough to indite the despatch which took Dewey to Manila. He then raised the first United States Volunteer Cavalry, commonly spoken of as "Rough Riders," and went to Cuba as their lieutenant-colonel. Gallantry at Las Guasimas made him their colonel, the first colonel, Leonard Wood, having received a brigadier-general's commission. Returning from the war, Colonel Roosevelt found himself, as by a magic metamorphosis, Governor of his State, fighting civic battles against growing corporate abuses. He urged compulsory publicity for the affairs of monopolistic combinations, and was prominently instrumental in the enactment of the New York Franchise Tax Law. The party managers in the 1900 convention hoped by making him Vice-President to remove him from competition for the presidency in 1904. But the most unexpected of the many swift transitions in his career foiled their calculations and brought him in a moment to the summit of a citizen's ambition. The new chief magistrate was no less honest, fearless, or public-spirited than the recent one; it only remained to be seen whether he were not less astute and cautious. Coming to the office as he did, he was absolutely unfettered, which, in one of so frank a temperament, might prove a danger. He was more popular with the people than with politicians. Though highly educated and used to the best associations, he was more approachable than any of his predecessors. At a public dinner which he attended, one round of cheers was given him as "the President of the United States" another as "Roosevelt," and a third as "Teddy." Had McKinley been in his place a corresponding variation would have been unthinkable. President Roosevelt's temper and method were in pointed contrast to McKinley's. Whereas McKinley seemed simply to hold the tiller, availing himself of currents that to the eye deviously, yet easily and inevitably, bore him to his objective, Roosevelt strenuously plied the oar, recking little of cross currents or head winds, if, indeed, he did not delight in them. Chauncey Depew aptly styled McKinley "a Western man with Eastern ideas." Roosevelt, "an Eastern man with Western ideas." This aspect of the new President's character gave him hold on both West and East. Roosevelt was the first President since William Henry Harrison to bring to his office the vigor and freshness of the frontier, as he was, anomalously, the first city-born or wealthy-born incumbent.