Theodore Roosevelt’s public career

During the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned for Benjamin Harrison in the Midwest. After Harrison was elected president, he appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Bureau. Harrison was defeated in the 1892 election, but President-elect Grover Cleveland retained him in office, even though Roosevelt was a supporter of the former president.

In 1895, Roosevelt became the New York City Police Chief. He held the post for two years and implemented drastic changes to the police department's operations. The New York police force was very corrupt at that time, and Roosevelt took drastic measures: regular inspections of fire protection facilities; annual physical fitness tests for police officers; recruitment of new police officers strictly based on physical and intellectual standards rather than political connections; recruitment of minority and female police officers ;Closing police-run business facilities that lead to corruption; Installing telephones in all precincts, etc. Roosevelt was fascinated by the navy and the history of naval warfare since he was a child. Both of his uncles served in the Union Navy during the Civil War. Roosevelt met U.S. Navy Captain Mahan in 1880. The latter published "The Influence of Sea Power on History from 1660 to 1783" in 1890, which studied the relationship between sea power and the rise and fall of great powers. The idea of ??sea power supremacy profoundly affected the Leaders of various countries also strengthened Roosevelt's belief that only by drastically expanding naval power could he be on an equal footing with the European powers. In 1897, President William McKinley appointed him Deputy Secretary of the Navy. Secretary of the Navy John Long claimed to be ill for a long time and ignored political affairs. McKinley was also not interested in the navy, which led to Roosevelt monopolizing power. He is committed to modernizing the Navy and vigorously promoting U.S. shipbuilding capabilities. His work provided excellent strategic preparation for the future Spanish-American War.

On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor. Roosevelt believed that a God-given opportunity had arrived to expel Spanish forces from Cuba and the Philippines, although McKinley did not think so. Ambition. The tenth day after this incident occurred was Friday afternoon. John Long was temporarily absent from the office for some reason. Roosevelt stepped in and issued a war readiness order to the commander of the Navy's Caribbean Fleet and the fleet anchored in Hong Kong. Minister Long later had no intention of pursuing this overstep of authority. On April 25, the U.S. Congress declared war on Spain, and the Spanish-American War broke out. The two main fleets of the U.S. Navy were already ready for war. The time for Roosevelt to show off his skills had arrived. The U.S. Navy achieved decisive victories in Manila Bay and Santiago de Cuba, completely destroying the Spanish ocean fleet. From then on, Spain was reduced to a minor player among the great powers. Not content to watch the battle from behind, Roosevelt resigned from his civilian job in the Navy Department and formed a regiment that included old cowboy friends from the west and old Ivy League alumni from the east, known as the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Brigade, with the rank of lieutenant colonel and later promoted to colonel. Although billed as a cavalryman, Roosevelt was the only man in the unit who could ride a horse. In two battles in Cuba in 1897, the brigade achieved outstanding results. In 2001, Congress posthumously awarded him the Medal of Honor.

After returning from Cuba, Roosevelt entered New York politics again and was elected governor in 1898. In the 1900 election, the Democratic Party selected him as McKinley's vice presidential candidate. McKinley won the election, and Roosevelt followed him into the White House. However, the idle job of vice president was obviously very boring for someone like Roosevelt. During this period, he made an impression by saying in a speech a famous saying that expresses his style of work: "A gentle word is spoken, but a big stick is carried."

During his term as president.

On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist and died on September 14. Roosevelt became the youngest president in American history. He is the only U.S. president who did not take the oath of office while pointing to a Bible. He retained the former president's cabinet and basic policy principles during his first term. After being re-elected in 1904, his political leanings began to shift to the left.

Mediating Coal Mine Strikes

In 1902, the United Mine Workers of America launched a coal miners' strike, threatening the city's heating fuel supply and triggering a national crisis. Roosevelt convened a meeting of mine owners and labor leaders at the White House to reach a compromise, shortening working hours from 10 hours to 9 hours a day, and giving workers a 10% wage increase, ending the 163-day strike.

Fair Trading

In 1901, in Roosevelt's first speech to Congress, he asked Congress to legislate to put reasonable restrictions on the business activities of trusts.

Congress took no action, but Roosevelt initiated 44 legal actions against large corporations, earning him the nickname "The Trust Tamer." His most famous antitrust action was the prosecution of the Northern Securities Company, which had a monopoly on transportation within a large area of ??railway operation, including the North Atlantic Railroad, the Quincy Railroad, and the Chicago Railroad, and eventually the Supreme Court ruled 5:4. The judgment found that the company violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.

During the 1904 presidential election, Roosevelt's main opponent in politics and the party died of illness, allowing him to easily obtain the party nomination and win the election.

Industrial Standardization

In the early 20th century, railroads were seen as a powerful force. Roosevelt believed that the government should strengthen the supervision and regulation of railway transportation and interstate trade, which led Congress to pass the "Hepburn Act" in 1906, which authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to set a ceiling on railway freight rates and also prohibited railway companies from transporting goods for free for related companies. . At the time, no one anticipated the challenges posed to railroads by the booming automobile industry in the future, and the bill provided a degree of protection for consumers and commercial enterprises. In the same year, he also pushed Congress to pass the Food and Drug Purity Act and the Meat Products Inspection Act to inspect livestock and meat processing companies and implement mandatory health standards. Congress amended the act to prevent sub-hygienic products from small slaughterhouses from damaging export and domestic markets.

Environmental Protection

Roosevelt was the first president to have long-term considerations for environmental protection and gained widespread support among hunters and fishermen. On March 14, 1903, he established the first National Bird Refuge in Florida, which was also the prototype of the wildlife refuge system. In 1905, he urged Congress to establish the U.S. Forest Service to manage national forests and lands. Roosevelt established more national parks and protected areas than all his predecessors combined, a total of 194 million acres. The world-famous Grand Canyon National Park is one of them. He is a frequent contributor to Outdoor Life magazine, outlining conservation ideas and reporting on national park progress. He wrote in an article: "Our development is closely related to the resource protection of permanent wealth." He is not an extreme environmentalist and believes that natural resources should be used effectively to avoid waste. In 1906, Roosevelt convened a national conference of governors at the White House to discuss the effective planning, analysis, and use of water, forests, and other natural resources. The wolves in the Kaibab Forest were ordered to be hunted down in order to protect the deer. Later, the wolves became extinct and the deer population increased to 100,000. However, the deer destroyed the forest in large numbers, causing the vegetation in the Kaibab Forest to decrease rapidly, and the deer population continued to increase. A plague reduced the deer herd to 4,000. Roosevelt suddenly realized that the wolves he ordered to kill were the protectors of the deer population, but there was nothing he could do to save the deer.

Foreign Policy

The Roosevelt administration was very active in diplomacy. In Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the Panama Canal Zone, he used military medical departments to establish public health systems. He built local infrastructure through the military. Roosevelt dramatically expanded the size of the U.S. Navy. In 1902, the Venezuelan government had financial problems and refused to pay its foreign debt. European countries dispatched navies to blockade its seaports, and the Venezuelan crisis broke out. The U.S. government followed the Monroe Doctrine and warned European countries not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Navy to patrol Venezuelan waters. Roosevelt launched a more aggressive "Roosevelt Policy" in 1904: In order to prevent third parties from taking actions in Latin America, the United States must maintain order in the Western Hemisphere on its own. If a country misbehaves, the United States has the right to intervene militarily.

The Russo-Japanese War began in 1905, and the Japanese army and navy defeated the strong with the weak. Although Roosevelt was uneasy about Tsarist Russia's ambitions in the Far East and admired the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army, he was not willing to let Japan dominate the Far East. Roosevelt convened representatives from both countries for peace talks in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Fascinated by his role as a mediator, he cajoled and intimidated the two countries into signing the Treaty of Portsmouth. Roosevelt gained great international reputation and won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. Later, he arbitrated the division of power between Germany and France in Morocco. Some historians believe that these two actions by Roosevelt went some way to averting a world war.

Panama Canal

Roosevelt’s most notable diplomatic achievement was the construction of the Panama Canal, which shortened the waterway between New York and San Francisco by 8,000 miles (approximately 14,000 kilometers). .

At that time, Panama was a province of Colombia. Colombia competes with Nicaragua for canal site. In 1902, Colombia negotiated a treaty with the U.S. government, whereby the United States paid for the purchase of equipment for the Panama Canal project from France. In 1881, France made a failed attempt in Panama.

After the treaty was signed, there was trouble in the approval procedures of the Colombian Senate. The Colombian Senate's asking price was $10 million higher than the treaty. The U.S. government refused to renegotiate the price, so Colombian politicians proposed a new proposal to kick out the French company as a third party in the treaty and pay the remaining balance to Colombia. The Colombian Senate was treacherous in its negotiations, and Roosevelt was disgusted by the deception of the French company.

In 1903, Roosevelt made the final decision to support Panama's independence out of consideration for the interests of the Panama Canal. The War of Independence lasted only a few hours, and the Colombian soldiers laid down their weapons after accepting a bribe of $50 each. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was born, using the constitution drafted in advance by the United States. Soon, the United States signed a treaty with Panama and owned the right to develop and use the Panama Canal for a price of 10 million U.S. dollars. The canal project started in 1904 and was completed in 1914.

Ocean Fleet and Far East Policy

At the end of Roosevelt’s second term, he dispatched a fleet of 16 state-of-the-art warships to circle the earth. The voyage began on December 1, 1907. From January 16 to February 22, 1909. Roosevelt showed the world that the U.S. Navy was capable of taking the world stage. This voyage had a subtle impact on the increasingly tense relations between Japan and the United States. After the Imperial Japanese Navy defeated the Tsar's fleet in the Russo-Japanese War, the U.S. Navy appeared weak in the Pacific. Roosevelt skillfully asserted U.S. naval control of the region. Roosevelt's naval strategy earned the United States respect among the great powers.

On December 3, 1907, in his annual consultation, Roosevelt asked Congress to authorize the reduction and cancellation of the excess of the Boxer Indemnity in excess of actual losses, and use the excess to fund Chinese education and students studying in the United States. In 1908, the United States returned half of the Boxer Reparations to China. Part of it was used to open Tsinghua Preparatory School for Studying in the United States, the predecessor of Tsinghua University. After Tsinghua University was established, a gymnasium was named Roosevelt Memorial Gymnasium.

The White House Years

Roosevelt remained true to himself after entering the White House. He likes to take friends and even cabinet officials on wilderness hikes, boxing in the White House, playing with children, reading aloud, etc. A boxing practice in 1908 left him permanently blind in his left eye. He was full of energy and had a fanatical interest in many affairs, so much so that the ambassador of a certain country said helplessly, "Remember, the president is like a six-year-old child." Roosevelt once tried to promote the English spelling reform program, forcing the new pinyin in government documents, and Ordered the government printing agency to adopt a new script. Even the president’s official documents on Panama Canal affairs used the new pinyin. The New York World's Thanksgiving announcement written in new pinyin: When nerly (nearly)three centuries ago, the first settlers kam(came) to the kuntry(country) which has bekom(become) this great republik(republic), tha (that) faced not only hardship and privashun(privattion), but terible(terrible) risk of thar(their) lives...The kustum(costume) has now bekum(become) nashnul(national) and hallowed by immemorial usaj(usage ). This reform caused great trouble to the public, and he was finally forced to withdraw his life. This move provided a lot of humorous topics for the public.

Roosevelt’s daughter Alice (Alice Roosevelt Longworth) is a distinctive and controversial figure.

Friends sometimes advised him to control his daughter, but he said: "I can be the president of the United States, and I can also take care of Alice, but I really can't do two things at the same time." Like father, like daughter, Alice described it harshly Her father loved to be in the limelight and "wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

Precedents Set

Roosevelt set many precedents during his presidency. In 1901, a black man (Booker T. Washington) was invited to dinner at the White House for the first time; Oscar S. Straus became the first Jew to be appointed as a cabinet minister; after McKinley was assassinated, Roosevelt became the first to accept the Secret Service He is the first president to wear a tie in official presidential portraits, and it has since become the attire convention for U.S. presidential portraits; he is the first president to succeed from the vice president and win re-election in the next election who. In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In the same year, he inspected the Panama Canal Zone, setting a precedent for a sitting president to visit a foreign country.

New member states of the Union

During Roosevelt's term, Oklahoma joined the Union. The Indian reservations included in Oklahoma attempted to join separately as the Sequoyah state. In 1906, Congress passed an act that admitted Oklahoma and Indian Territory to the Union as a state. At the same time, it was ruled that Arizona and New Mexico would join as one state. But this part of the bill was rejected by the people of these two states.

Chinese Exclusion Act

After Roosevelt became president, the "Law Concerning the Enforcement of the Provisions of Chinese Treaties" (i.e., the Chinese Exclusion Act) passed in 1882 came into effect for the second time in ten years. During this period, under the promotion of Roosevelt, the Chinese Exclusion Act was canceled in 1902 and became a permanent act. It was not until 1943 that it was canceled during the term of President Roosevelt. On October 6, 2011, the U.S. Senate passed the belated Apology Act to apologize to the Chinese who were insulted and harmed a century ago.