American Experience

David Grubin
on How TR Changed the Presidency

You have to remember that before TR, the president wasn't expected to play such a dominant role in our national life. TR, by the very nature of his character, took that role, made the presidency an active force. He couldn't help himself. He was a man who believed in action and he believed that the government needed to play a role in our national life. He believed that it was up to the government to give everybody, as he said, a square deal.

We forget that the government was small then, that business really ruled the country. Roosevelt said it's important for the government to regulate business, it's important for the government to step in and balance the power of business. Well, we face the same problems today. What should be the relationship of government to the economy, government to business? Roosevelt was grappling with those problems right at the beginning of the century and it's now the end of the century and we still grapple with that problem. Roosevelt was also an interesting President and relevant to our times. Roosevelt is a President relevant to our times because he deals with issues relevant to our times. The relationship between the government and business, the relationship between government and the environment.

No president has acted as vigorously to protect the national resources as Roosevelt. Before Roosevelt presidents really weren't concerned with the, with our national resources. He was really the greatest conservationist president in our history and he faced down special interests to save over 230 million acres of wilderness for us and our descendants. Well, today we face similar problems. What should the government's role be in protecting our environment? For TR, there wasn't a question there. He went out and acted in the interest of the environment.

TR's was also fascinating to me because he was a man of, rich in contradictions. Here was a man who showed courage and fortitude charging up San Juan Hill. Indeed, it was a noble action in his own mind and was fearless. On the other hand, he loved war. He thought war was good for a man's soul. I found that a little more difficult to sympathize with but then again here's a man, TR, who believed that war was a cleansing force in a man's life, that it was good for a man's soul, good for a nation's soul. Yet he won the Nobel Prize for Peace for settling the Sino-Japanese War. And in the end, the story of Theodore Roosevelt is a dark and tragic story. Here's a man who believes in the virtue of war and teaches his children that it's important to be warriors, to be soldiers, to fight for what they believe is right, and then his children go off to World War I and his youngest son is killed.