The Adventurous Life of Theodore Roosevelt
By: Peter Preskar
Tags: USA, Adventure, Politics, Life, History

The Adventurous Life of Theodore Roosevelt

Cowboy. US president. War hero. Nobel Peace Prize winner

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Theodore Roosevelt had a remarkable life, full of amazing stories. He was a cowboy, a New York Police Department Commissioner, an explorer of Amazonia, and the youngest ever United States (US) president, just to name a few.

Born as a sickly child with serious asthma problems, his parents tried to confine him. But he had such superabundance of energy, he could not keep still. He was in perpetual motion — swimming, horse-riding, and shooting.

If he was born today, they would give him Ritalin and he would grow up as a clerk, never heard of.

Roosevelt learned to channel his energy into strength and drive and it enabled him to embark on amazing endeavors.

Theodore Roosevelt as a cowboy

Theodore Roosevelt posing in a deerskin hunting suit in 1885. He is without his trademark glasses (Image: picryl.com)

Roosevelt experienced a terrible personal tragedy in 1884. On February 12, his first daughter Alice Roosevelt was born. Two days later, on Valentine’s Day, his wife Alice Hathaway Lee died of kidney failure. On the same day, eleven hours earlier, his mother had died of typhoid fever.

Deeply hurt, the young man could not handle the emotional pain.

Roosevelt wasn’t capable of calling his daughter Alice by her first name. Instead, he referred to her as Baby Lee or Sissy. The name “Alice” always brought up too much pain. He even left his wife out of his autobiography.

To find some solace, he traveled West, became a cowboy, and operated a cattle ranch in Dakota. He learned to ride like a cowboy, rope, and hunt, earning the respect of other cowboys.

He became famous in Dakota after a bar fight in the Nolan’s Hotel in Wibaux. At the bar, he encountered a bully who mocked him for wearing glasses, calling him ‘Four-eyes’. Appreciative of a good jest, Roosevelt laughed with the bully and moved away. However, the bully pointed both of his guns at him and continued to insult him. Roosevelt, an experienced boxer from his time at Harvard, knocked the bully unconscious. In the following morning, the bully had left the town.

Theodore Roosevelt as the 26th US president

Mount Rushmore, US — Theodore Roosevelt is the third from the left (Photo by Terence Burke on Unsplash )

Roosevelt is the only US president to have received a Medal of Honor. The medal is the most prestigious personal military decoration in the US. He received the award posthumously in 2001.

You can see his face on Mount Rushmore, next to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson.

Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all US presidents. He read tens of thousands of books and wrote thirty-eight of his own throughout his lifetime.

Roosevelt was the first US president to leave his country during his term. In 1906, he traveled to Panama, to see the construction of his pet project — the Panama Canal.

One of the largest engineering projects in US history cost the United States over $12 billion in today’s value.

Panama is the product of his foreign policy, which is best summarized with an African proverb:

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

When he wanted to build the Panama Canal, Panama was part of Colombia. However, Colombia refused to grant the US the rights for the canal.

Roosevelt then organized the independence of Panama. He prevented Colombians from crushing the Panamanian rebels. As a result, the new leaders of Panama gave the US infinite rights to the Panama Canal.

During his presidency, the US became a significant power in the world of diplomacy.

Roosevelt received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for ending the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). He used back-channeling to arrange the peace treaty between Russia and Japan.