Progressive Politics

Progressive Politics

Progressive Politics of Roosevelt

President of the United States from 1901 through 1909, Theodore Roosevelt believed in giving all Americans a “square deal” and worked to create a federal government responsive to citizens caught in the anomie of industrialism. Roosevelt's legacy was the sustained use of an increasingly powerful federal government on behalf of the American people. His political vision and acumen galvanized Progressive Americans during the first two decades of the twentieth century, and his willingness to transgress the mores of the Republican Party resulted in reforms that remain a part of the social and public policy landscape today (A Progressive Republican, 1902).

Hero of the Spanish-American War; vice president under the 25th U.S. president, William McKinley; 26th president; leading Progressive; and groundbreaking conservationist. Mark Hanna, the legendary moneyman in Republican Party politics around 1900, suggested that the rambunctious Theodore Roosevelt be put in the innocuous position of vice president on the ticket with William McKinley, who was elected president in 1901. Roosevelt had been the governor of New York from 1898 to 1900. He was well known by Americans because during the Spanish-American War, he had played a major role in taking the Philippines—as assistant secretary of the Navy in 1897 and 1898, he had ordered U.S (Bowles, 2011). Commodore George Dewey to engage the Spanish fleet in the Philippines in the event of a war. He resigned his government position to form the Rough Riders, a volunteer unit, and gained a reputation as a war hero during the Spanish-American War (1898). Roosevelt became president in September 1901 after McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition.

As president, Roosevelt used his office to extend his masculine ideologies to national politics. He gave speeches and wrote public letters that called on white men to be active in politics and strong patriarchs at home. He also argued that it was their public responsibility to procreate. In 1903 he published his now infamous letter on “race suicide,” promoting his belief in the superiority of the white race in America and abroad. In addition, he advocated a strong military, increased the size of the U.S. navel force (his stated policy was to “speak softly and carry a big stick”), and began the building of the Panama Canal (Friedenberg, 1990).

Theodore Roosevelt transformed the office of the presidency and the nation's economy. He held a stewardship theory of the presidency, ...