Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was the 26th President of the United States. He suffered from asthma as a boy but was able to work through it with the assistance of exercise. He worked in both the Police Department and the Navy Department.

When the Spanish-American War started he became a rough rider. Because of his well known assault on San Juan Hill and other patriotic acts he was nominated for Vice-President with incumbent William McKinley. When President McKinley was shot by an anarchist, Roosevelt automatically became President, and was reelected against a challenge by the Democratic candidate Alton B. Parker in 1904.

When Roosevelt's term was up he supported Republican candidate and then Vice President William H. Taft, but later he expressed disapproval of Taft's handling of the presidency and ran against him. He lost the Republican nomination to Taft but ran as an independent on the Bull Moose Progressive party. Both he and Taft lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the election of 1912.

Roosevelt once declared:

We must have but one flag. We must also have but one language. That must be the language of the Declaration of Independence, of Washington’s Farewell address, of Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech and second inaugural. We cannot tolerate any attempt to oppose or supplant the language and culture that has come down to us from the builders of this Republic.