Theodore Roosevelt never seemed comfortable standing still. Born October 27, 1858, in New York City to a wealthy family, he fought childhood asthma with boxing, hiking, and rowing. That discipline became his creed of the strenuous life.
He graduated Harvard in 1880 and entered the New York Assembly at 23, making a name attacking corruption. In February 1884 his wife Alice and his mother died the same day. Grieving, he went to the Dakota Territory to ranch, hunt, and serve as deputy sheriff. The West gave him a permanent cowboy image. He married his childhood friend Edith Carow in 1886 and later raised six children at Sagamore Hill on Long Island.
Returning east, he served as U.S. Civil Service Commissioner and New York City Police Commissioner, famously walking night beats to check his men. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy under William McKinley, he prepared for war with Spain. In 1898 he resigned, raised the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the Rough Riders, and led them up Kettle Hill near Santiago. Newspapers made him a hero.
That fame won him the New York governorship in 1898 and the vice presidency in 1900. On September 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley in Buffalo. McKinley died September 14, and Roosevelt took the oath that day at 42, the youngest president in American history.
He called his program the Square Deal, insisting government must balance business and labor. In 1902 he sued the Northern Securities railroad trust, beginning more than 40 antitrust actions. He won the Elkins Act in 1903 and Hepburn Act in 1906 to regulate railroads. After Upton Sinclair's The Jungle appeared, he signed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act in 1906.
Conservation was his deepest legacy. With Gifford Pinchot he protected about 230 million acres, created five national parks, 18 national monuments including Devils Tower, and 150 national forests. He treated public lands as a trust for future generations.
Abroad he blended negotiation with strength. He mediated the Russo-Japanese War at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1905, earning the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American so honored. He supported Panama's break from Colombia in 1903 and pushed the Panama Canal. He summed up his diplomacy as speak softly and carry a big stick.
He left office in 1909 for William Howard Taft, then split with him. Running as the Progressive Bull Moose nominee in 1912, he was shot in Milwaukee on October 14 by John Schrank. He gave an 84-minute speech with the bullet in his chest before going to a hospital. The Republican split elected Woodrow Wilson.
A 1913-1914 expedition down Brazil's River of Doubt ruined his health. He spent his last years writing and urging American entry into World War I. He died at Sagamore Hill on January 6, 1919.
Roosevelt was contradictory, an aristocrat who praised the frontier, a warrior who won a peace prize, a reformer who loved power. That restless mix still defines his place in American memory.