Theodore Roosevelt: Roughrider To Rushmore | Full Documentary | Biography

Of the more than 40 American presidents, only four have been memorialized on Mount Rushmore. George Washington was the founding father of the nation, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and Abraham Lincoln led the nation through the Civil War. But who was this other man, known during his time as the American Lion? His name was Theodore Roosevelt. He was born before there were automobiles and telephones, and yet he led America into the 20th century. Theodore Roosevelt basically created the modern presidency. Every president since Theodore Roosevelt has acted in Theodore Roosevelt's shadow. He was bubbling over with energy and ideas and thoughts, and when he entered a room, people knew it. His voice was one of the earliest as president to be recorded. We cannot afford to let any group of citizens live or labor under conditions which are injurious to the Commonwealth. He was the first president to travel abroad. And on an October morning in 1910, the first ever to fly in an airplane. He was always doing something. He was either reading or writing or chasing birds or hunting animals or being president or whatever. He was interested in so many issues, the conservation, nature, science. He was an exuberant family man. He loved the outdoors life. He lives almost five lives. Theodore Roosevelt lived life to the fullest. His energetic stamp of influence changed America and set a course for what would be called the American century. Theodore Roosevelt was born in 1858 to a well-to-do New York family. As a child, he was frail and often sick. Encouraged by his father, Roosevelt began exercising regularly. It's his father who grabs him and says to T.R., you have to make your own body. You have to give up influenism. You have to make yourself a strong man by exercising and sport and shooting. By the time he entered Harvard University at the age of 18, Roosevelt had transformed himself from a weak child into a strapping young man. He took an interest in political science, a subject his friends believed was beneath him. But Roosevelt was already seeing himself in power. As he later wrote, the people I knew did not belong to the governing class, and the other people did, and I intended to be one of the governing class. At 23, he became the youngest man ever elected to the New York State Assembly, to the shock of his friends and family. Politics in the 1880s was almost a variation on organized crime. So for somebody like Roosevelt to go into politics, it was almost to announce that he was going to join the mafia. Of course, that wasn't his conception, because he had an idea that he was going to change things. Roosevelt was perfecting his political style on the floor of the State Assembly, and he was enjoying a personal life at home. While at Harvard, he'd met Alice Hathaway Lee, and a year later, they were married. Roosevelt wrote in his diary, how I love her, and would trust her to the end of the world. Four years later, in February of 1884, while at the State Capitol in Albany, Roosevelt received a jubilant telegram. At home in Manhattan, Alice had given birth to a healthy baby girl. But the happy occasion would soon be marred. A second telegram arrived that same afternoon. Alice was suddenly and gravely ill. Roosevelt rushed home to be with his wife and see his new baby. When he arrived, he was stunned to find his mother also bedridden and burning with fever. With Roosevelt at her bedside, his mother died of typhoid fever. And upstairs, Alice was slipping away, her kidneys failing due to complications from the pregnancy. It was February 14th, Valentine's Day. Only hours after his mother's death, Roosevelt held Alice as she died. The simultaneous deaths of his mother and his 22-year-old wife sent a shock through Roosevelt. The entry in his diary for that day reads simply, the light has gone out of my life. He was so distraught that he simply, at that point, changed his life plans. He gave up on the idea of politics, and he essentially fled to the West. Roosevelt quit his job in the State Assembly, sold his house in New York, and headed for his ranch in Dakota Territory. While Roosevelt tried to dress the part, his Harvard education and privileged upbringing did not make for a good fit with the locals. He was way overdressed. He was better dressed than anybody. Cowboys didn't wear any distinctive sort of buckskin stuff. They wore just work clothes. Well, Roosevelt had this notion that cowboys dressed in such and such a way, and so he came out dressed like that. They were pretty sure that he couldn't survive a month or so of really being a cowboy. But when there's a blizzard, he pitches in, and when there's a roundup or a cattle to be broken, he's as game as anyone. Slowly, the local people start to think of him as something more than an Eastern dude. They like him. Roosevelt won friends that would last a lifetime. They admired his can-do spirit and restored a great deal of his confidence. Till now, he was a man of the East. He was a man of the big city. But after his Dakota experience, he was a man of the West. He discovered that he got on even better with the cowhands, with the ranch men, with the ordinary farmers and ranchers of the West, than he did with the politicians of the East. He would later say, I never would have been president if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota. Recovered from his heartbreaking loss, and after two years in the West, Roosevelt was eager to return to the sophistication of city life and politics. In one government position after another, Roosevelt made a name for himself by weeding out corruption and pushing for reforms. Roosevelt had a new spark in his love life as well. His childhood friend, Edith Carrow. One day, T.R. comes to his sister's house, and Edith's there. We don't know if it's an accident or a planned meeting. And he sees her, greets her, and realizes that he still has feelings about her. And she has always loved him. So they start seeing each other again, and it's clear that this is going to be the great romance of his life. Soon after their meeting, he proposed marriage, and she accepted. Edith was an intellectual companion to him, plus she was an incredibly hard worker. So she was willing to pick up the pieces of his life, follow him anywhere, and make his life possible. The new Roosevelt family grew rapidly, and by 1897, there were six children in all. Son Quentin was the baby of the family, with brothers Theodore Jr., Kermit, and Archibald, and sisters Alice and Ethel. The family spent time at Sagamore Hill, their home at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Life at Sagamore Hill is raucous and fun and wild. They all rode horses, they all enjoyed the little animals, the possums and the squirrels and the pets and the dogs. T.R. always played with the kids, and he is a father who enjoys that home and the kids and going riding with Edith or roaring across the Sound for a picnic. But Roosevelt never left his political ideals far behind, and his speeches made him a popular draw. We need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true, who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. He campaigned hard for Republican William McKinley, who was elected president by the largest majority of popular votes in 24 years. It was 1897, and the new president rewarded Roosevelt with the cabinet position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy. At the time, the U.S. Navy was not the strongest in the world, with only six steel-hulled battleships. Roosevelt wanted to build a stronger navy and was looking for the first opportunity to deploy it. He got that chance in Cuba. Spain had controlled Cuba for 400 years. Now the Cuban people wanted independence and were willing to fight for it. He was enough of a moralist to believe that the United States was the most advanced civilization on the face of the planet, and as such, it had an obligation to lead the rest of the world into the future. So when the United States found itself confronted by what Roosevelt saw as a backward, a retrograde civilization, Spain in Cuba, for example, it was for the benefit of the Cuban people, it was for the benefit of the Western Hemisphere of the United States, and probably for the benefit of Spain itself, for the United States to forcibly eject Spain from Cuba. Under Roosevelt's orders, the USS Maine steamed towards Cuba in January of 1898. One month later, while patrolling the waters off Havana, the Maine suddenly exploded. To this day, the cause of the deadly blast is disputed, but America charged Spain with Surprising his peers and his family, Roosevelt suddenly quit his high-ranking Navy position, donned a volunteer soldier's uniform, and headed for the battlefield in Cuba. To most people in Washington, that was a dumb thing to do, because objectively, he would have had much more influence on the course of the war in Washington as the person who was essentially running the Navy than as a common soldier in Cuba. But his own conception of his historical role, his own conception of himself, absolutely required that if bullets were flying, he be in the middle of that. Upon arrival in Cuba, Roosevelt assumed command of a volunteer cavalry known as Roosevelt's Rough Riders. On the morning of July 1st, 1898, Roosevelt led his regiment in an attack on Spanish troops in the strategic San Juan Heights overlooking the port city of Santiago. Theatergoers back home would get a front row seat to Roosevelt's heroism through these reenactments of the battle. The Rough Riders advanced under heavy fire, sustaining the highest casualties of the war. After a few hours of heavy fighting, they took San Juan Hill. Spain surrendered. He would later write, San Juan was the great day of my life. Roosevelt really did demonstrate his courage under fire, but it was an engagement that lasted an afternoon, and so this was a short war. There weren't a whole lot of conspicuous heroes, and Roosevelt was the one. He played the part very well, and he played the part for all it was worth. National opinion for Roosevelt's gallantry ran so high that within four months of the Battle of San Juan Hill, he was elected governor of the state of New York. But his politics were too ethical for the corrupt New York political machine. At the Republican Convention of 1900, New York politicians carried out a plan to get rid of him by nominating him as vice president of the United States. TR is excited to be asked to be vice president, but doesn't really want to do it because there's no work involved. There's no purpose. There's no principle. There's no great cause. The mild-mannered President McKinley needed Roosevelt's youthful vigor and charisma to jumpstart his campaign, and it worked. The ticket went on to win by more popular votes than any president before. President McKinley's manager said, don't you all realize there's just one life between that damn cowboy and the White House? But Vice President Roosevelt was more concerned that he had landed in a dead-end job. He gave speeches at the opening of medical colleges, war memorials, and even the YMCA. In the spring of 1901, he led the parade to open the Pan American Exposition in New York. But fate was about to play another hand in Roosevelt's life. On September 6th, President McKinley also visited the exposition. While shaking hands with admirers, he was shot by an assassin. For over a week, McKinley's life hung in the balance. But just when recovery looked hopeful, he suddenly died. Like the rest of the nation, Roosevelt was shaken. He would remark to Edith, it is a dreadful thing to come into the presidency this way. At age 42, Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest American president in the nation's history. He had a reputation as a military hero, but also a reputation as something of an unpredictable character. No one quite knew what the country was getting in Theodore Roosevelt. The American public loves the Roosevelts in the White House. The children make it their home. They throw snowballs at the White House policemen. They also throw icicles at the White House policemen. They roller skate in the East Room. They start little campfires in the backyard. They climb up the dumbwaiter. They bring a pony up the elevator. They have a lot of fun in the White House. As a husband and father, Roosevelt was generous and childlike. While First Lady Edith kept a tight rein on things, the new president would play with the children, crawling around on all fours beneath tables and behind chairs. He really had a very good relationship with his children. Some people have said that that's maybe because one of his best friends said, you know, you've got to keep in mind that Theodore Roosevelt is really only five years old. Along with others of their social class, the Roosevelt's lived a privileged life, rubbing elbows with the Astors and Vanderbilts of high society. But for the working class American, life was quite different. The average income was $430 a year, a rate of $1.37 a day for a common six-day work week. Yet immigrants continued to pour into Ellis Island by the hundreds of thousands, seeking new lives as working class Americans. This burgeoning labor force fueled the nation's industrial expansion. Huge fortunes were made by a handful of entrepreneurs. John D. Rockefeller was worth almost a billion dollars. Banker and financier J.P. Morgan created the world's largest corporation. Andrew Carnegie would sell his steel business for almost $250 million. Roosevelt felt that this handful of rich individuals had a stranglehold on the nation's economy. After only five months in office, Roosevelt cast himself in the role of a presidential Robin Hood and attacked the captains of industry and their huge monopolies. Within a very short space of time, the country realized that they had a president like none they'd ever seen before. He should have been on the side of the Morgans and the Rockefellers, the very wealthy people. He was a man of inherited wealth. But he wasn't. In fact, he opposed the captains of industry. And so when Roosevelt denounced the malefactors of great wealth and the criminal rich, he knew perfectly well what he was doing. And he knew that for every vote that he lost in the silk stocking Republican districts, he would gain 10 votes in the rest of the country. Roosevelt then turned to the public sector, launching a host of new social reforms, promising a square deal for all Americans. What he meant was a fair deal, that everybody should have a fair chance to do things, a fair chance to rise and be successful, and to have a fair shot at earning a decent living and supporting his kids and bettering himself and bettering the country. One of the first tests of his square deal policy was a front page rift between labor and management in the coal industry. Immigrant coal miners worked 12-hour days in unbearable conditions. Children as young as eight worked side-by-side with their fathers, who earned $12 a week. In the spring of 1902, 140,000 miners walked off their jobs in northeastern Pennsylvania, demanding an eight-hour day and improved working conditions. The mine owners refused to talk with the workers and offered nothing. With winter approaching, Roosevelt feared a long coal strike would cripple the nation. He summoned both sides to the White House to break the stalemate, but the mine owners would not budge from their position. What infuriated him was the attitude of the mine owners and operators, who contended that they were the ones who had been entrusted by God with the destinies of this essential industry and the lives of the people who worked for them. Roosevelt couldn't stand that at all. He thought they had to be brought down a couple of pegs. Roosevelt threatened to send federal troops to take over the mines. After weeks of presidential pressure, the workers were back on the job, eventually gaining a 10 percent pay increase and nine-hour workday. For the first time, a president had successfully intervened in a critical labor dispute and Roosevelt won a major victory for working-class Americans. The growing nation had a monstrous appetite for raw materials, and lumber was consumed even faster than coal. Most Americans thought the trees would go on forever. They had no idea that this was a problem. And so T.R. realized that his first job was to convince the American people that this was a problem. And he hammered away at the people with, the environment is for all of us, not just for the few. One of the things he once said was that our grandchildren will not blame us for what we have used, but what we have misused. During his term as president, Roosevelt set aside 230 million acres in national parks, forests, monuments, and game preserves. That's 84,000 acres for every day he was president. During his second term in office, Roosevelt developed a two-part foreign affairs policy that combined his quiet diplomacy with the power of military might. He called it, Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick. Under Roosevelt's orders, the recently fortified U.S. Navy, known as the Great White Fleet, 16 ships and 14,000 sailors, set sail on a two-year tour of the world, flexing America's military muscle for all to see. But there was a problem. Naval vessels and cargo ships traveling from one coast to the other had to sail around the tip of South America, a journey that could take more than six months. Roosevelt proposed that a massive canal be dredged across the nation of Colombia. The canal would shorten the distance and time by half. But Colombia rejected Roosevelt's offer. Fed up with negotiations, he encouraged the province of Panama to revolt against Colombia. On November 13, 1903, with American gunships anchored offshore, the Panamanian army declared independence, and a new country was born. Within five days, it signed a canal treaty with the U.S. for $10 million. The ousted Colombians got nothing. He simply rode roughshod over the niceties of diplomacy. He engineered a revolution in Panama. And within two weeks of the creation of this new government, which was—its existence was guaranteed by the U.S. Navy, he extorted a deal that gave the United States a 99-year lease and rights to build this Panama Canal. And for the rest of his life, he was utterly unrepentant. As Roosevelt infamously put it, instead of debating for a half-century before building the canal, it would be better to build the canal first and debate me for a half-century. Roosevelt would leave his greatest mark on history with the Panama Canal, and it would set a precedent for American intervention in the politics of other countries when it suited the needs of the United States. At the height of his popularity, and after seven and a half years leading the nation, Theodore Roosevelt's term in office came to an end. Confident that he had left the reins of government in good hands with his friend William Howard Taft, Roosevelt and his son Kermit departed for a year-long African safari. Americans had grown fascinated by the Roosevelt story while he was president, and they weren't going to let it go. Roosevelt didn't disappear by any means. He kept filing these reports from the hunting front, so to speak, this serialized account of his safari. So Roosevelt was always in the forefront of the American consciousness. Fifteen months later, Roosevelt returned to a hero's welcome in New York. But greetings and parades were not enough action for Roosevelt. He jumped at the chance to lead a new independent party called the Progressives. Soon known as the Bull Moose Party for its formidable leader, Roosevelt campaigned on a platform of groundbreaking social reform based upon his square deal policies. He advocated workers' compensation, a woman's right to vote, a national minimum wage, unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and the abolition of child labor. We stand for a living wage, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit a reasonable saving for old age. We hold that the employment of women over 48 hours per week is abnormal and should be forgiven. We hold that a seven-day working week is abnormal. We hold that one day of rest in seven should be provided by law. The Progressive Party policies, however, were too far ahead of their time. Roosevelt lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Defeated for the first time, Roosevelt returned to private life. But he didn't stay there long. European powers were preparing to fight a monumental war. On August 3, 1914, Germany declared war on France, initiating World War I. President Wilson was convinced that America needed to remain neutral in the European conflict. Roosevelt disagreed and called Wilson's inaction criminal, and dubbed his foreign policy timid and spiritless. It just galled him no end that Wilson, this person who didn't know the first thing about foreign policy, who, by most evidence, had really not given foreign affairs a serious thought before he became president, was in charge of the United States, was commander in chief of American forces during the greatest war in history. And he, Theodore Roosevelt, was not. In 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Eight days later, Colonel Roosevelt, as he liked to be called, met with President Wilson. By then, he was blind in his left eye, suffered serious hearing loss, and hobbled on gout-swollen ankles. Yet he asked Wilson for permission to lead a division of troops into battle. But Wilson had every reason to fear Roosevelt politically, and turned him down, telling his aides, the best way to treat Mr. Roosevelt is to take no notice of him. Roosevelt went home. A soldier no more, he could only watch as war engulfed the world. But watching was not Roosevelt's strong suit. As America prepared for combat, Citizen Roosevelt became an outspoken supporter of the war effort, rallying the public and young recruits. Proudly for Roosevelt, his four sons enlisted in the armed forces. Roosevelt could no longer go into battle. So what did he do? He sent his sons into battle. He pulled every political string he could to get his sons into the thick of battle where their chances of getting killed were absolutely the greatest. Kermit Roosevelt was decorated for bravery with the British Military Cross. Ted Jr. led his men in the French Battle of Contigny. Archie showed courage in battle as well, and suffered serious injuries. Youngest son Quentin was a pilot, flying sorties behind enemy lines. And for the first time, I'm convinced, for the first time, Roosevelt understood the costs of his own earlier vision of courage. He thought the highest form of courage was to bare your breast in battle and to charge up in the galling fire of the enemy, risking your own life. What he didn't understand was that it could be equally hard, maybe even harder, to stay at home waiting to get that telegram. On July 17, 1918, news arrived that Quentin was missing in action, shot down behind enemy lines. Two days later, Quentin's death was confirmed. He was 20 years old. Heroism in battle. His son has exhibited this, and what has it gotten him? He's dead. And Roosevelt then is left to ask himself, have I deluded myself my whole life? During those last several months of Roosevelt's life, people who knew him would report that he would just sit in the window, staring out, and just saying, poor Quintin. On the evening of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt commented to Edith that he did not feel well and retired to bed. That night, Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep. He was 60 years old. His son Archie sent a telegram to his brothers in France. It read simply, the old lion is dead. Buried with Theodore Roosevelt is a monumental chapter of American history. But through that history, he lives on in the nation that he helped to build, in the ever-evolving programs of social reform that he devoted his life to. The thing we see most today is what he did for conservation, because he changed America's attitude about the environment. He launched the presidency in a different direction. He changed the course of American government. And we recognize now, we've got a very strong presidency on our hands. With Theodore Roosevelt, the president comes to center stage. And to a certain extent, he yanked the United States quite clearly into the 20th century. The U.S. would have got into the 20th century eventually, but it wouldn't have come with such a rush and with such a bang. For the 60 years that he lived, Theodore Roosevelt was a man both of his time and ahead of his time. An American icon, he reached for every opportunity for himself and for the country that he loved. As he wrote, the joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.