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Vice President Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt was only 42 years old when President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Teddy Roosevelt thereby became the youngest President in American history, a record that continues to this day (the minimum age required by the Constitution is 35 years old for the president). Athletically fit and vigorous, he brought an exciting level of aggression in leading America. He was a "progressive" but also an imperialist, pushing for a a strong foreign policy. As President Andrew Jackson had done over 70 years earlier, Teddy Roosevelt expanded the power of the presidency with a view that he should take whatever action he thought promoted the public good, as long as it was not expressly prohibited by law or the Constitution. "I did not usurp power," Teddy Roosevelt declared, "but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power."<ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.html</ref>
Roosevelt became famous as a "trust buster" for requiring the dissolution of a huge railroad conglomerate in the Northwest. The Roosevelt Administration took the case of ''Northern Securities Co. v. U.S.'' to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1904 that the Sherman (Antitrust) Act required breaking up the railroad trust. This decision had the effect of "resurrecting" or reviving the Sherman (Antitrust) Act, and Roosevelt used it to break up other monopolies. His popularity soared as a result; newspapers and the common man loathed the big corporations, and considered Teddy Roosevelt to be a hero in winning against the largest defeating large companies.
The breaking up of monopolies was part of Roosevelt's approach that he called the "Square Deal." This name resulted from his negotiation of settlements between striking workers and big corporations, which reportedly gave a "square deal" to both sides in the agreement. He campaigned in 1904 by taking credit for treating the owners and workers equally in resolving a nasty coal miner's strike in 1902, giving them both a "square deal."
Roosevelt was neither a liberal nor a conservative, and after serving as president he even left the Republican Party to start a new political party based on his own personality. He had his own "maverick" style similar to that of the 2008 presidential candidate John McCain.
Roosevelt approved many new regulations and assistance programs. He signed the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, which gave federal assistance to irrigate Western land for farmers and ranchers. He signed into law the Hepburn Act of 1906, which strengthened federal regulation of railroads by increasing the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). Later, in 1910, the Mann-Elkins Act empowered the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to suspend any increases in rates by railroads in shipping goods. The Act also extended the ICC's authority to include communications. The political support for this increased regulation was so broad that it passed by the huge margin of 50-12 in the U.S. Senate. 9Note (Note that there were not yet 100 Senators in the U.S. Senate then, because many states had not yet joined the United States).
In 1906 an influential book entitled "[[The Jungle]]" was published. Author Upton Sinclair exposed the filthy conditions of Chicago slaughterhouses. This resulted in swift passage in 1906 of both the Meat Inspection Act, which established federal regulation and inspection of slaughterhouses, and the Pure Food and Drug Act, which established federal regulation and inspection of food and medications (drugs).
=== Russo-Japanese War ===
The Russo-Japanese War was an astounding a remarkable victory by the relatively small Japan against the large Russia on Chinese soil in 1904-05. In June 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) was signed ending that war because Roosevelt invited Japan and Russia to a conference in New Hampshire to make peace. As a result of this treaty Japan expanded its influence in Far East, but Roosevelt rejected Japan's demand for reparations from Russia.
The Taft-Katsura Agreement in 1905 recognized (allowed) Japan's dominance in Korea, which Secretary of War (and future president) William Howard Taft approved. In return, Japan promised not to invade the Philippines, which was American territory at that time.
=== Other Treaties ===
In 1908 the Root-Takahira Agreement, yet another deal was reached with Japan by Secretary of State Elihu Root. This kept the status quo with Japan but established an "Open Door" policy allowing trade by many countries with China. Japan was allowed to annex Korea, which resulted in an animosity between Koreans and Japan that exists to this day.
Roosevelt's greatest accomplishment was the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, a treaty with Panama which granted to the United States a five-mile wide tract of land to build the Panama Canal, for a fee of $10 million plus $250,000 per year.
The reason Roosevelt is one of four faces on Mount Rushmore (the other three are Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln) is because he established the national park system to conserve the treasures of the nation's natural resources (Roosevelt was a "conservationist"). He was a big hiker and lover of the outdoors himself, even taking ambassadors from other countries on hikes in D.C. when they visited. After his second term ended in 1909, Roosevelt went on a safari in Africa. He declared that he felt as fit as a bull moose, and then named a new party that he started in 1912 the "Bull Moose Party." That political party was Teddy Roosevelt and little more, and disappeared quickly after he lost that election.
Roosevelt enjoyed support in newspapers, particularly among "muckrakers". Muckrakers were journalists who sensationalized the bad parts aspects of big business and machine politics. Whenever Roosevelt "took on" big business, he was glorified in the papers and he probably enjoyed that.
But Roosevelt was occasionally ridiculed too. In 1906, Andrew Carnegie proposed simplifying English so that it could become the most popular language for the entire world.<ref>http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/qt/trspelling.htm</ref> He set up the "Simplified Spelling Board" and placed famous Americans like Mark Twain on it to simplify the spelling of words like "ghost" ("gost") to make it easier for the rest of the world to learn and use.
