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President Theodore Roosevelt Born: October 27, 1858; New York, New York Died: January 6, 1919; Oyster Bay, New York Republican Vice Presidents: None (1901- 1905); Charles Fairbanks (1905-1909)

Roosevelt began his presidency after the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, becoming the youngest president in United States history at the age of 42. His presidency should stand out to all Americans for the work that he did creating anti-trusts and finding better ways to do things, and for this he deserves an **A****-**.

Roosevelt continued McKinley's plans to break up trusts with his "Square Deal", which was aimed to help benefit the middle class Americans by attacking trusts and at the same time, protecting business from unorganized labor. The most widely known example of the Square Deal was the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America, who threatened the heating supplies of most homes. Miners wanted better working conditions, including a 20% pay increase and less work hours, which averaged around 10 hours a day, stuck in a coal mine. So the miners went on strike for months before it ended, and the government worked with them until they reached a compromise of a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day. Another huge example was the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which helped regulate industry within the Railroad companies, but had little effect throughout the years. The Square Deal's last element was the antitrust suits against 44 different businesses. He promoted good trusts within companies and tried to demolish the bad ones. Roosevelt gave the companies guidance as to which were bad and which were good, since they couldn't figure that out for themselves. For example, Roosevelt didn't let Railroads give rebates to favored companies or set their own price. The government took over and regulated not only the railroads, but the food industry by creating the FDA, stopping the mislabeling of packaging, and cleaning up the slaughterhouses.

Roosevelt was also a strong consevationist, and put the issue on the Government's back. He instated several conservation acts, examples include the Newlands Reclaimation Act of 1902 which promoted building dams to irrigate small farms, and the Antiquities Act, which proclaimed 18 National Monuments. Roosevelt also created 5 National Parks, 150 National Forests, and creating the National Park Service in partnership with John Muir under his presidency. Roosevelts rationale for conservation was: "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees.", which agreed with Gifford Pinchot's ideas of conservation rather than Muir's idea of keeping the natural beauty of the world.

The "Big Stick" policy that Roosevelt came out with for dealing with Foreign Affairs was his low point, because the Big Stick Policy forced him to get desperate in creating the Roosevelt Corollary to expand onto the Monroe Doctrine. He did this just to keep European nations out of Latin America and stop them from Imperializing, but seemed hypocritical considering that America had already been imperializing the Philipines, Cuba, Hawaii, and other Pacific Islands. Roosevelt's work on the Panama Canal was certainly interesting, because he bullied his way into getting what he wanted with the Navy. When Columbia wouldn't let America create the canal in Panama, Roosevelt sent the Navy down to stop the French in Columbia from interfering.

Roosevelt's work on race in the country was not well noted, although he was against segregation and appointed many blacks to lower-level offices in the Federal Government.

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The White House, comp. "Theodore Roosevelt." __Biography of Theodore Roosevelt__. The White House. 27 Nov. 2008 .

See "Sources" "Theodore Roosevelt." __Theodore Roosevelt - Wikipedia__. 26 Nov. 2008. Wikipedia. 27 Nov. 2008 .