Theodore Roosevelt

**Theodore Roosevelt Jr.** better known as **Theodore Roosevelt** and **Teddy Roosevelt** was the 26th president of the United States of America.

## History

Teddy Roosevelt was a military-officer who served as the 26th president of the U.S.A.. He was a famous explorer and adventurer who frequently wrote of his expeditions to locales such as South America however his information was highly dubious. Furthermore, while he was well known as a conservationist (having created the American national parks), he was also a prolific big-game hunter who hunted and killed several exotic and endangered species for fun. Additionally he was one of the presidents who most encouraged white-nationalism, a breed of bigotry and proto-fascism that was later used as direct inspiration for the Nazi Party of Germany with effects to modern day.

### Disney Parks

In 1898, Theodore resigned his position of Assistant Secretary to the Navy in-order to participate in the Spanish-American War. As a colonel, Roosevelt was second-in-command of the *1st United States Volunteer Cavalry*, better known as the, "Rough Riders" which fought in Cuba. During this time he had a personal physician in the form of one Joshua Sweet who often tended to the wounded of both sides. Due to being a mixed-race black/indigenous man, Sweet received no formal commendation for his service though Roosevelt did send him a letter personally thanking him.

At some point in the 19th century during his military service, Roosevelt became close-friends with a South American man known as Trader Sam whom he frequently drank with and went on adventures with. Sam ran a drinking-establishment which Roosevelt often frequented and also he made pit-tops at places of business run by Sam.

In 1899, Theodore became the running-mate of President William McKinley in his re-election campaign. Roosevelt adamantly campaigned for the president and the two eventually won the popular vote in a landslide election. In 1901, President McKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz with two gunshots to the abdomen. Following this, Roosevelt took up the position of President of the United States of America and at the age of 42 was the youngest man to have served the position.

In 1903, President Roosevelt went on a three-night camping trip in the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove alongside naturalist John Muir. During their time together, Muir managed to persuade Roosevelt to create the Yosemite National Park and the parks initiative over-all to prevent the natural world from being annihilated by ever-expanding American industrialization.

In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt was elected to serve another term as president during which time he used diplomacy to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War. Due to having ended this war, Roosevelt was awarded a *Nobel Peace Prize* in 1906 and was the first American to have ever done so. During his presidency, Roosevelt frequently collaborated with one Preston B. Whitmore, a statesman who was best known as the founder and sole-owner of Whitmore Industries. During his second term, Roosevelt took to grooming his friend William Howard Taft to take the presidency in the upcoming 1908 election, an election which Taft won.

At some point prior to 1913, Teddy was enlisted into a group known as the *Adventurers Club* as lead by the wealthy Merriweather Adam Pleasure. The Adventurers Club was a group of globe-trotters which Pleasure created via splintering from the *Society of Explorers and Adventurers*, a larger organization which he had become dissatisfied with. Other members of the club during its early years might have included the magic-practitioner Madame Zarkov who operated the Museum of the Weird, and the British military-officer Colonel Critchlow Sunchbench.

In 1909, Roosevelt travelled to British East-Africa with his son Kermit to hunt big-game and collect samples for the Smithsonian Museum, during which time they were joined by big-game hunter Frederick Selous. This safari was further joined by coffee plantation-owner Richard Medlicot and his friends the Jones family. On their expedition, Theodore took a liking to the 10 year-old Indiana Jones who he taught the skills of marksmanship and hunting along with passing on his ideals of science and conservation.

During this expedition, Jones became invested in finding a lost population of the Fringe-eared Oryx which he succeeded in. When Roosevelt attempted to kill the animals for sport and study, Jones stopped him from doing so and forced Theodore to face his own conservation ideals which the president regretfully did, realizing there were too few oryx left in the world to hunt.

On the March 20th of 1912, Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were part of the maiden-voyage of the *S.S. Columbia*. This voyage left from the harbour of New York City to Liverpool in England with their host having been the wealthy Cornelius Endicott II. Roosevelt's presence was so appreciated aboard the vessel that he would become the namesake for *Teddy Roosevelt Lounge* on the C-deck of the Steamship Columbia.

At some point following 1911, Roosevelt was one of many American celebrities who *Whitmore Industries* trusted with the knowledge of the lost nation of Atlantis. With the assistance of Whitmore Industries, Roosevelt would travel to Atlantis where he was hosted by the queen Kidagakash Nedakh and her prince-regent Milo Thatch. Roosevelt was also allowed to study the crystal of Atlantis which Thatch gave as a gift to Whitmore.

After losing the reelection, in 1913, Roosevelt joined Brazilian explorer Colonel Cândido Rondon on an expedition to the Amazon rainforest alongside Teddy's close-friend Trader Sam. This expedition was a combination scientific field-study and also Roosevelt's self asserted, "Last chance to be a boy" after losing the 1913 election. In addition to fellow naturalists, scientists and Trader Sam, Roosevelt was also joined by his son Kermit Roosevelt as his mother insisted he be there to protect his aged father.

The expedition lasted from the December of 1913 to the April of 1914 and was incredibly dangerous with Roosevelt having nearly died on multiple occasions. Due to the team's success in having mapped the *Rio da Dúvida* (“River of Doubt”), locals chose to rename the river as the Roosevelt River. Due to diseases contracted in the jungle, Roosevelt's body was degrading rapidly in the late 1910s. In 1918, Roosevelt had to be hospitalized for seven weeks due to his physical-condition. During his final years, he frequented Pleasure Island in Lake Buena Vista, Florida where he he attended get-togethers in the home of Merriweather Adam Pleasure and his wife Isabella. On the January 6 of 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep when a blood-clot detached from his veins and entered his lungs.

## Appearances and allusions

### The American Adventure

Teddy Roosevelt appears in this attraction alongside John Muir, standing on a rock formation while overlooking waterfalls during his presidency. It portrays the two deciding to create the National Parks so that not all of the ecosystem will be destroyed by industrialism.

### The Boneyard

Roosevelt is quoted in the Boneyard by Dino Institute employee, Sam Gonzales.

### The Hall of Presidents

Teddy Roosevelt is amongst the audio-animatronic presidents of the United States of America featured within this Liberty Square attraction in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

### Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar

Roosevelt is the namesake of the drink, "Teddy's Tea" in this bar belonging to S.E.A. member Jock Lindsey. The description of the drink alludes to Roosevelt as-well, with a quote from Jock saying, "Bully! A refreshing quencher for my teetotaling friends", imitating Roosevelt's speech patterns.

### Pleasure Island

The Pleasure Island Historical Plaques reference Teddy Roosevelt as having been a frequent guest of Pleasure Island in the home of Merriweather Adam and Isabella Pleasure.

### S.S. Columbia

Roosevelt is the namesake for the *Teddy Roosevelt Lounge* on the C-deck of the Steamship Columbia. It contains photographs, artifacts, and artwork from the 26th president’s life, rationalized by Roosevelt having been in attendance of the ship's 1912 maiden voyage to Liverpool, England.

### Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar

There are two photographs of Roosevelt framed in Trader Sam's bar, both with messages from Trader Sam which identifies them as having been familiar with one another. One of note shows Sam and Roosevelt together, planning Roosevelt's next expedition to South America. Another photo has a message from Roosevelt which reads, "*Sam, planning my next pit stop at your place- TR*".

### In other media

#### Film

##### Atlantis: The Lost Empire

He also was the former military superior of Dr. Joshua Sweet who later became a member of the Milo Expedition, in part thanks to Roosevelt's recommendations. In a special-features video produced by Whitmore Industries, he was shown outside the White House with Preston Whitmore.

##### Up

Roosevelt was mentioned in this film by Charles Muntz with the two supposedly having gone on safari together. It is however inferred that Muntz lied about the details of his many expeditions meaning this could be exaggerated or an elicit lie.

#### Television

##### The Legend of Tarzan

In this cartoon, Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders travelled to Tarzan's domain of the Congo where he befriends Tarzan and is taught the importance of nature conservation from him.

##### Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

Roosevelt appeared in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

#### Printed-materials

##### Atlantis Subterranean Tours

Teddy Roosevelt was one of the few individuals who billionaire Preston B. Whitmore allowed to observe his Atlantean crystal and learn of Atlantis' true nature.

## Connections

### Adventurers Club

One of the messages from Trader Sam in the Enchanted Tiki Bar mentions how Teddy Roosevelt was one of the original members of the Adventurers Club.

### Disneyland Railroad

The Disneyland Railroad passes through the Grand Canyon National Park of Arizona. In real-life, the Grand Canyon was one of the locations saved by Roosevelt via his National Park act. Roosevelt also had personal expeditions within the Canyon in 1903.

### Tower of Terror

The S.S. Columbia belonged to New York City magnate Cornelius Endicott II, a rival of S.E.A. and Pillagers Brigade member Harrison Hightower III. It was partly designed by Cornelius' daughter Beatrice Rose Endicott who founded the New York City Preservation Society.

## Trivia

* Roosevelt was a major source in popularizing the myth that piranhas are ravenous man-eaters while in actuality will rarely-if-ever attack animals as large as humans and even then unsuccessfully. This is because while on an expedition to South America, a local tribe pulled a prank of him where they used netting within a riverbank to isolate a group of piranhas which they starved and then fed a cow head in-front of him to exaggerate their nature; additionally showing him unrelated scars, missing limbs and mutilations and telling him they were caused by piranhas. This myth is further perpetuated in the Jungle Cruise where the piranhas are vicious man-eaters that leap from the water to attack the boats.
	+ The Skipper Survival Guide tries to rationalize the Jungle Cruise's inaccuracy by claiming that the piranhas encountered in the attraction are starved due to dry-season isolating them from food and leading them to drastic measures (similarly to in real life with the netting prank).
* Roosevelt's affiliation with the Adventurers Club is likely an allusion to the historic New York Explorers Club which was founded in 1904 and of which he was a member of.
* A portrait from the Adventurers Club which was later moved to Aunty's Beach House in Aulani shows an 1899 lineup of the Pillagers Brigade in the Congo with one member greatly resembling Theodore Roosevelt. Said brigade being identified as an ancestor of the Adventurers Club of which Roosevelt was an original member, possibly inferring he was a member of that group as-well.
* The Teddy Roosevelt audio-animatronic of the Hall of Presidents has a copied mould within the EPCOT attraction Spaceship Earth where it is used for an Ancient Roman military-officer. This is somewhat poetic given Roosevelt's own military history.
* Roosevelt is not the only President of the United States to be featured within the Disney Park mythology:
	+ Andrew Jackson holds connections to the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tom Sawyer Island and Frontierland in-general. He used to appear in Fort Wilderness along with Davy Crockett on Tom Sawyer Island in Disneyland, representing a fort from the war of 1812. Historic New Orleans pirate and ally of Jackson, Jean Lafitte is subject to a mega-theme in Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and Tom Sawyer Island as-well and certain clothing-pieces which belonged to Jackson are within Constance Hatchaway's attic in the mansion. Additionally he was featured in the Davy Crockett miniseries which inspired Disneyland's Frontierland and his subordinate Tobias Norton from this series has his own shop in Thunder Mesa.
	+ Abraham Lincoln is well known for having been the first audio-animatronic figure of a human in both Disney and human history. A photograph of him is featured in Phantom Manor's Phantom Canyon scene. Abraham Lincoln is mentioned in the Haunted Mansion book *Tales from the Haunted Mansion: Volume I: The Fearsome Foursome* as having met the mansion's librarian Amicus Arcane.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/muir/
2. ↑ https://whitmoreindustries.tumblr.com/post/635182225247371264/newsreel-intro-for-atlantis-the-lost-empires-dvd
3. ↑ https://www.history.com/news/the-amazonian-expedition-that-nearly-killed-theodore-roosevelt
4. ↑ http://www.mainstgazette.com/2009/05/can-you-dig-it-baby.html
5. ↑ https://touringplans.com/blog/2016/06/27/teetotalers-review-jock-lindseys-hangar-bar/
6. ↑ http://www.mainstgazette.com/2009/08/estate-suitable-for-someone-of-their.html
7. ↑ https://foroparquesdisney.foroactivo.com/t2093-trader-sam-s-enchanted-tiki-bar-disneyland-hotel
8. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/BdK\_AWylVg2/
9. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/BdK88XzFdXc/
10. ↑ https://flickr.com/photos/frikitiki/6096357729/in/photostream/