#26 Theodore Roosevelt

1901--1909

--Vice-President Roosevelt became president after William McKinley was assassinated. He was sworn in at the age of 42, the youngest of any U.S. president so far.

--Roosevelt attempted to move the Republican Party in the direction of Progressivism, including trust busting and increased regulation of businesses. As an outdoorsman and naturalist, he promoted the conservation movement. On the world stage, Roosevelt's policies were characterized by his slogan, "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Roosevelt was the force behind the completion of the Panama Canal; he sent out the Great White Fleet to display American power, and he negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize (Roosevelt was the first American to win the award).

--Roosevelt declined to run for a second term, but grew so upset at his successor, William Taft, that he formed his own political party, the Bull Moose (or Progressive) Party, to use to run against Taft in the 1912 election. Roosevelt became the only third party candidate to take 2nd place in a presidential election, beating Taft but not Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.

--While Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 14, 1912, a saloon-keeper named John Schrank shot him, but the bullet lodged in his chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket.

Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he wasn't coughing blood, the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung, and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for 90 minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."

Afterwards, probes and x-ray showed that the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him for the rest of his life.

--Teddy Roosevelt had a recurring dream involving a mannequin in a Spanish harlequin costume riding a Norwegian Fjord Horse, the meaning of which was never determined.