Theodore Roosevelt: City Slicker to Cowboy President

Was there ever a more bold and brash character to occupy the White House than Theodore Roosevelt? Wilfred McClay, professor of history at Hillsdale College, tells the story of how this politician, cowboy, and war hero came to capture the American imagination.

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Script:

“Now look, that damned cowboy is President of the United States!”

That was the reaction of Ohio Senator Mark Hanna, after learning that his close political ally, President William McKinley, had been assassinated.

“That damned cowboy” was Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt had literally been a cowboy. He had also been a war hero, politician, historian, explorer, big game hunter, ornithologist, and serious amateur boxer—and that’s not even a complete list.

Now, he was adding another job: twenty-sixth President of the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 27, 1858, to a patrician family of Dutch heritage. Homeschooled for his entire youth, he benefited from tutors and widespread foreign travel. In 1876, he entered Harvard. When he wasn’t editing the campus literary magazine, he was rowing, boxing, and participating in a half dozen Harvard social clubs.

But it would be a mistake to think that TR had an easy life. As a boy, he suffered from asthma, poor eyesight, chronic headaches, fevers, and stomach pains. But he overcame those disabilities with the determination that would become his trademark.

Eventually, he increased both his strength and stamina, which he showed off to others with an irrepressible boyish enthusiasm that charmed many and annoyed many.

Inspired by his father’s civic-mindedness, he chose a career in politics. In 1881, he was elected to the New York State Assembly. Within a year—just 24 years old—he became his party’s minority leader.

Then, it all came crashing down.

Both his wife, Alice, and mother, Martha, died within hours of each other on, of all days, Valentine’s Day 1884.

Grief-stricken, Roosevelt fled the concrete canyons of New York for the real canyons of the Dakota territory. For two years, he distracted himself hunting buffalo, herding cattle, and writing about the American West. But he couldn’t stay away from politics.

When he returned to the city in 1886, he resumed his steady rise through the ranks of New York and national politics, first as a member of the Civil Service Commission under President Benjamin Harrison, then as the New York City Police Commissioner, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley.

While in this position, TR pushed hard for America to take the side of the Cuban rebels in revolt against their Spanish colonial masters. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, TR traded in his suit and tie for a military uniform.

His famous charge up San Juan Hill made him a national hero.

Armed with this new reputation, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. He immediately clashed with New York Republican Party boss, Thomas Platt. So anxious was Platt to get the independent-minded governor out of New York politics that he arranged for Roosevelt to become McKinley’s running mate in the 1900 presidential election.

As Vice President, Roosevelt nearly went crazy from boredom. McKinley, like most chief executives, gave his vice president almost nothing to do.

And then on September 6, 1901, McKinley was shot by a mentally disturbed anarchist in Buffalo, New York. Eight days later, he succumbed to his wounds. Theodore Roosevelt, the cowboy, was now president—at 42, the youngest man to ever occupy the office.

While he promised to fulfill McKinley’s agenda—and for the most part he did—Roosevelt was his own man with his own distinctive governing philosophy.

TR believed that the president should set the legislative agenda for Congress, not the other way around—which had been the norm for most of American history.

He was also not particularly deferential to the Constitution, which limits executive power. TR argued that a president was permitted to do anything that was not expressly forbidden by the Constitution.

For example, when coal miners went on strike in May 1902, Roosevelt threatened to send the army to operate the mines. Asked whether that would be constitutional, Roosevelt replied, “To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!”

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