Theodore Roosevelt always appeared to be out of place. He was born October 27, 1858, in New York City, in a very rich family, and he combated childhood asthma by boxing, hiking and rowing. That was his creed of the strenuous life.

He graduated in 1880 and in 1883 became a New York Assemblyman at the age of 23 and made a name in attacking corruption. His wife Alice and his mother died the same day in February 1884. Sorrowfully, he took to the Dakota Territory to ranch, hunt and work as a deputy sheriff. He was accorded a lasting cowboy image by the West. In 1886 he married his childhood friend Edith Carow and had six children at Sagamore Hill on Long Island.

Coming back to the east, he worked as U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, and New York City Police Commissioner, where he is famous in his night beats to inspect his men. Being an Assistant Secretary of the Navy under William McKinley, he made preparations against war with Spain. He resigned in 1898, formed the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the Rough Riders, and commanded them over Kettle Hill near Santiago. He was a hero of newspapers.

The fame earned him the New York governorship in 1898 and the vice presidency in 1900. On September 6th, 1901, McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo. McKinley passed away on the 14th of September and Roosevelt swore in that same day at the age of 42 becoming the youngest president in the American history.

He named his initiative the Square Deal, and claimed that business and labor had to be balanced in government. He started over 40 antitrust cases in 1902 by suing the Northern Securities railroad trust. In 1903, he secured Elkins Act and in 1906, Hepburn Act to control railroads. In 1906, Upton Sinclair signed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, after his work, The Jungle, was published.

His greatest legacy was conservation. Gifford Pinchot with whom he preserved approximately 230 million acres, established five national parks, 18 national monuments such as Devils Tower and 150 national forests. He regarded state property as a trust fund to the succeeding generations.

On the foreign scene he combined conciliation with force. In 1905, he brokered the Russo-Japanese War at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, becoming the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to do so. He endorsed the secession of Panama in 1903 out of Colombia and advocated the Panama Canal. In summary, his diplomacy was to talk soft and to wield a big stick.

In 1909, he departed office to William Howard Taft, with whom he disagreed. In 1912, he was the Progressive Bull Moose nominee and was shot in Milwaukee on October 14 by John Schrank. He presented a 84 minute speech in which he had the bullet in his chest before he went to a hospital. Woodrow Wilson was elected by the Republican split.

An expedition down the River of Doubt in Brazil in 1913-1914 destroyed his health. During the remaining years, he wrote and encouraged the American to join World War I. He passed away at Sagamore Hill on January 6, 1919.

Roosevelt was contradictory, an aristocrat who glorified the frontier, a warrior who was a winner of a peace prize, a reformer who was an adorer of power. That troubled amalgamation remains his legacy in the memory of the Americans.