Theodore Roosevelt

In [Theodore Roosevelt’s] teen years, his violent side became apparent. After Roosevelt had a lovers’ quarrel with future second wife, Edith Carrow, he “nearly rode his horse to death, and when a neighbor’s dog barked at him, he took out a pistol and shot at it.” When Roosevelt was engaged to the woman who became his first wife, Alice Lee, he bought dueling pistols, which he planned to use if there were any rivals for her affection.

Later on in his life, he would characterize killing other men as the most dangerous game of all.

It was Roosevelt’s personal belief that the gov’t was not only better at understanding the people’s future needs but also better at striking a balance between the people’s present and future needs. Never mind that the political environment easily manipulates politicians, while corporations respond to market conditions.

Acting upon his goal, Roosevelt set aside 150 national forests, 4 national game preserves, 51 federal bird reserves, 18 national monuments, and 5 national parks, which amounted to a whopping 230 million acres of land.

[Roosevelt] publicly complained about “hyphenated-Americans” such as Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans. He even went so far as to applaud the brutal murders of a group of Italian-Americans in a prison in New Orleans in 1892, many of whom were in custody despite the fact that they had been exonerated of the crimes of which they had been charged. Roosevelt actually called these mass lynchings  a “rather good thing” and bragged that had made this statement in front of a group of “various dago diplomats.”

As open minded as his Progressive movement seemed at the time, Theodore Roosevelt still excluded blacks from attending his convention. He saw them as a corrupt element sent by the general Republican party to make his convention and the people of his party look bad. Roosevelt was a long believer that Anglo-Saxon whites were the dominate race, and he did not want to change by associating “lesser races” with his Progressives.

Roosevelt also hated immigrants, of which he said.

Source: Theodore and Woodrow. How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom. (2012) by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.

Roosevelt started his own political party called The Progressive Party. It’s platform called for among others:

• Social insurance, to provide for the elderly, the unemployed, and the disabled.
• A Constitutional amendment to allow a federal income tax.
• An inheritance tax.
• An eight hour workday.
• Direct election of senators.
• Farm subsidies.
• Woman’s suffrage

The “social insurance” platform was the precursor to social security. Yea, Roosevelt wanted to directly elect senators like Wilson did. The only good thing on his platform was woman’s suffrage. For the low-information people out there, that means the right for women to vote.