Where does he rank among history’s greatest presidents? “Should the Grand Canyon be opened for mining? Should you cut down sequoia trees? … He was willing to battle with business and argue that it was his generation’s responsibility to preserve nature wonders.”

what he wanted to preserve,” Goodwin said.

“He always loved being outside, going into the woods and eventually made that love of nature. “He goes for legislating the railroad companies, food and drug legislation, meatpacking legislation, child labor and minimum wage - things that will make life better for ordinary workers and for ordinary people.”īeyond the economy, his greatest legacy might just be the country’s national parks. “When he wins the presidency in his own right, then he can go forward to much more important, lasting legislation,” Goodwin said. … Here’s a guy protecting us against these big companies that are swallowing up small business.”Īfter being re-elected in 1904, he felt much more freedom in his second term. … He went after Standard Oil, he went after Northern Securities, this big railroad merger, and the meatpacking plants. “He focused his efforts in the first term on anti-trust. “In the first term, he had to move somewhat cautiously,” Goodwin said. What were the biggest accomplishments of his first term as president? “Teddy had three and a half years of McKinley’s term before running for his own term … so he really had almost a full two terms of the presidency and, boy, did he use that time to do a lot of things.” “He was so bored that he was going to go back to law school, he had never finished, but then McKinley was assassinated,” Goodwin said.

“He comes back east again and becomes a civil service commissioner, then a police commissioner, then he’s in New York in midnight rambles with the police department. Then he becomes a Rough Rider in the with a soldier’s point of view.”Īfter all of these experiences, he becomes governor of New York from 1899 to 1900, which leads to him running as William McKinley’s vice president in the election of 1900. His next macho chapter includes law enforcement and the military. “Then he becomes a cowboy and a rancher and understands the west.” “He goes to the Badlands to the west after his wife and his mother die on the same day in the same house, his wife in childbirth and his mother having come to take care of her,” Goodwin said. “He learns by being in the New York legislature that there’s other parts of life in New York City and he sees tenements for the first time.”Īfter a double family tragedy, he moves west to buy a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. “He starts out with a very privileged background, his grandfather one of the five richest in New York City,” Goodwin said.

Business & Finance Click to expand menu.

Theodore roosevelt history