Today, October 27th, signifies the birthday of our 26th President, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s engaging personality enhanced his popularity. He was a much focused man who held countless accomplishments in his lifetime. Overcoming a very sickly childhood, Roosevelt was always very interested in school and continued on to Harvard University. He had been chosen for the New York Assembly in 1881, then for governorship in 1898 and then became vice-president in 1900. At age 42, he became the youngest President of the United States, before or since after the assassination of President William McKinley in September 1901. From the beginning, Roosevelt was dedicated to making the government work for the people. Being a conservative by nature, Roosevelt was open-minded in the way he embarked upon the nation’s problems and contemporary in his view of the presidency.
Roosevelt had many accomplishments during his presidency but one of his legacies is that the name ‘Teddy Bear’ comes from an incident that has occurred on a bear-hunting trip he had attended in November of 1902. While on the trip, he was one of the only hunters that had not killed an animal. A few of his attendants cornered, clubbed and tied an American Black Bear to a tree after a long chase with their hounds. They soon called Roosevelt to the site where they urged him to shoot the helpless bear. Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear, stating it was unsportsmanlike and demanded that the bear be put out of its misery. A political cartoon of this incident was published by Clifford Berryman showing a black bear lassoed by a handler with Roosevelt turning away and shunning the situation. This cartoon inspired Morris Michtom to create a new children’s toy in which he named the “Teddy Bear”. He sent on of these stuffed cubs to Roosevelt and received permission to use his name. In addition, he was a huge conservationist adding 5 parks to our National Park System. Theodore Roosevelt National Park located near Medora, North Dakota was established in honor of our great “Conservationist President” in 1947.
He left the presidency in 1909. One of his most influential speeches was delivered after he left the Presidency at the Sorbonne, Paris on April 23, 1910. Citizenship in a Republic, The Man in the Arena. Below is an excerpt from the speech:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
To read the speech in its entirety, visit: http://www.leadershipnow.com/tr-citizenship.html.
Roosevelt was politically and physically active until the very end. He died in his sleep on January 6, 1919 at the age of 60 as his family home in Oyster Bay, New York.
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