Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) became the 26th President of the United States in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley and won a full term in 1904. A Republican from New York, he argued that the federal government should act as a fair referee between business, labor and consumers, a program he called the Square Deal. After leaving office he broke with his successor, William Howard Taft, and ran for president again in 1912 as the nominee of the Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party on a platform he called the New Nationalism.

Admirers credit Roosevelt with modernizing the presidency, launching federal consumer protection and building the modern conservation system, and he is often ranked among the most consequential presidents. Conservatives of his era and later critics argued that his broad view of executive authority and federal economic regulation stretched constitutional limits. Historians have also criticized his handling of the 1906 Brownsville affair, in which he discharged Black soldiers despite conflicting evidence, and his interventions in Latin America, which many in the region viewed as imperial. Both progressive and conservative movements claim parts of his legacy.