He never really knew a moment of rest. Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858, in New York City. The son of an affluent family, he battled debilitating asthma in his early years by taking to the boxing ring, going on hikes, and rowing. From this came his conviction of the strenuous life. Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in 1880, and was elected to the New York Assembly at age 23, quickly becoming a force against political corruption. In February, 1884 his wife Alice and his mother died on the same day. 

Suffering with profound depression, he moved to ranch and hunt, and to serve as a deputy sheriff in the Dakota Territory. From thereon the public saw him as an archetypal western cowboy. He would marry in 1886, his childhood sweetheart Edith Carow, and go on to have six children while living at his farm, Sagamore Hill, on Long Island. Returning to the east, he worked as a U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, and New York City Police Commissioner, for which he personally walked night beats to inspect his men. 

In the service of President William McKinley as Assistant Secretary of the Navy he readied the navy for war with Spain. He resigned his post in 1898, raised the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the so-called Rough Riders, led them up Kettle Hill near Santiago. This victory made him a national hero. Roosevelt returned home to New York, and was elected that November as governor. Two years later he was running with McKinley and was selected for the vice presidency. 

On September 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. McKinley died September 14, and later that day, Roosevelt took the oath of office at the age of 42, becoming AmericaÕs youngest president. As president Roosevelt called his program the Square Deal, asserting that the government had the right to mediate and to balance business and labor. One of his first acts as president was to sue the Northern Securities railroad trust company; he would go on to take over 40 antitrust cases as president. 

In 1903 he successfully won the passage of the Elkins Act to regulate railroad rate fixing, which led to the Hepburn Act in 1906 to regulate the rates and services. He would sign the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act in 1906 following the publication of Upton SinclairÕs sensational novel The Jungle. He believed most passionately in conservation. He worked to this end with the help of forester Gifford Pinchot to preserve about 230 million acres, creating 5 national parks, 18 national monuments including Devils Tower, Wyoming, and 150 national forests. Roosevelt viewed public lands as a trust that must be cared for the benefit of the future generations. 

Roosevelt was willing to blend negotiation and power. He mediated the Russo-Japanese War at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1905, for which he was awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to be so honored. He backed PanamaÕs separation from Colombia in 1903 and pushed ahead with the building of the Panama Canal. The summation of his foreign policy is said to have been that he would speak softly and carry a big stick. 

He left office in 1909 and bequeathed the presidency to William Howard Taft, but the two eventually broke with one another. He ran as the Progressive Bull Moose candidate in 1912, was shot October 14 by John Schrank in Milwaukee. He delivered an 84-minute speech from his chest, then went to the hospital. 

The split in the Republican Party helped to elect the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, as president. From 1913-1914 he led an expedition that tracked the River of Doubt in Brazil, but it ruined his health. He spent his remaining years writing and encouraging the U.S. to enter World War I. He passed away at Sagamore Hill, January 6, 1919. A contradictory man, an aristocrat with a passion for the frontier, a soldier with a Nobel Peace Prize, a reformer who enjoyed power, this restless personality remains an enduring part of our historical memory.