President Theodore Roosevelt Biography

President Theodore Roosevelt - A True American Idol
Theodore Roosevelt, who is portrayed as an American Political Icon and a man with multi-dimensional personality, was probably the most successful and influential President of United States ever elected. He was successful in giving people what they had expected from the government and helped America to come up as a supreme power in front of the world.

Life of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was born on 27th October 1858, Twentieth Street in the New York city. Theodore was born to a rich glassware merchant Theodore Roosevelt Sr. and his wife Martha Bulloch (who was from Antebellum Georgia). Roosevelt's ancestors were Dutch who stayed in Manhattan Island for more than two hundred years. Right from his childhood, Theodore learned strict manners and behavior from his parents and he followed them for his entire life.

Childhood
In his childhood, even when he lived in royal environment where there was hardly any problem of food and other facilities, Theodore owned a very thin and sickly body; he always kept falling sick and suffered from Asthma attacks. Theodore himself never liked the health condition he was having, so he decided to take up on exercising and planned a good routine for him to attain a healthy body. It was his hard work and desire, which helped him in developing a healthy body and pleasant personality.

Right from childhood, Theodore was interested in reading and adventures. He was a voracious reader and read almost every book he had. He was fond of reading science, nature, hunting etc. related topics and he found them very much fascinating. Hunting was one thing along with reading that attracted Theodore very much and he never left his hobbies of reading and hunting in his entire life.

Political career
Roosevelt's political career started immediately after he completed his graduation from Harvard University in 1880-81. In the same year (1880), Roosevelt was engaged to a beautiful lady Alice Lee and they married on the same day of his twenty-second birthday. Roosevelt further enrolled his name in Columbia Law School in 1880 to study law but came out of the college without even taking the degree in 1882. During the period from 1882 to 1884 Roosevelt was selected as New York State Assemblyman and was doing well at his post. Roosevelt could enjoy his married life only for a couple of years after which his wife Alice Lee (died of Bright's disease after giving birth to a baby girl) and mother died on the same day in 1884. Loss of his wife and mother drove him in deep sorrow and he decided to leave the place he was living and he moved to the Badlands of Dakota Territory to live in on his ranch. After staying at Badlands for some period, Roosevelt learned to control his emotions and decided to re-enter in politics.

Roosevelt married Edith Carow in December 1886 when he visited London. Roosevelt joined Republican Party and served the post of United States Civil Service Commissioner from 1889 to 1895. From the year 1895 to 1897, Roosevelt was selected at the post of New York City Police Commissioner, where he displayed his strategic thinking and was further appointed at the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897 to 1898, this offer came as a reward for the restless campaign and support given by him to William McKinley who stood in 1896 Presidential elections and was elected successfully as the next President of United States. Further, he joined army and was at the post of lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment during the American-Spanish war in 1998. He emerged as a hero while on war-front and was appreciated for his bravery and tactics. Further, Roosevelt was selected as one of the able candidate for New York State Governor seat in 1899. Roosevelt won the Governor seat and started his entirely new political life right from the day. He served the state honestly and followed some of the best policies to bring the state on the path of progress.

Presidency
Further in 1901, when Roosevelt was serving the state from his post, he got an unexpected opportunity to become US president and serve the nation after assassination of President William McKinley in September 1901. At the age of 42, Roosevelt became youngest President of United States. As if he knew what path he had to follow, Roosevelt started working the way people (actually better than) wanted the government to work. Roosevelt brought in various changes in the system and presented some policies, which could help US Economy to grow like anything. Roosevelt brought every person (wealthiest and even poorest) under one set of rules and regulations, which helped in growth of American Economy in every aspect, all the industries flourished and the standard of living reached a new height. Under his leadership, America became a super power and a world leader. Roosevelt even undertook some constructive work like Panama Canal, which helped America in increasing its trade and political and military interest in Eastern, Central and South part of America.

Domestic and foreign policies
Because of his policies and work towards progress, Roosevelt became very much popular among American people. Roosevelt had enormous power in his hands and he never felt like using it for his own purpose. Whatever he felt was in the interest of his nation, he did it openly and even challenged those who felt it was not right, he always tried to bring America as a supreme power among the world in all aspects and always tried to make his dream come true using his policies. His domestic and foreign policies are worth studying. Roosevelt always tried to suggest fair changes in the law-suites and tried to increase the efficiency of all the policies those were followed and applied domestically in US and tried to bring all the social fronts (e.g. business class, government law etc.) of US under one balanced control so that all can work towards the sole progress of US economy.

In year 1904 when he was again running in the Presidential race, he had promised that he wouldn't fight the next election for the presidential position. When his second Presidential term ended, he decided not to get into the race and honor the promise he had done and stayed back. Even when Roosevelt was away from the Presidential post, he was still active and worked hard to bring his dreams to life. He won a Nobel Peace Prize award for the important role he had played in ending Russian-Japanese war and bringing peace in the world. In 1912, Roosevelt once again became entered the politics, but this time he stood against the person whom he had chosen his successor for the post of President (H. Taft). Even though Roosevelt was very popular, Taft had his own ways to secure his position for the next term and he made it sure that he was nominated for the next term. This fight did not bring success to Taft and not even Roosevelt could win the position.

No matter what condition he faced, Roosevelt never slowed down in his life and lived it as he wanted to. Besides his political career, Roosevelt also lived the life he was fond of, he read, he went for hunting trip whenever he got a chance, he even wrote more than 30 books on different subjects. According to him, he had lived to his fullest and was very happy to be what he was. Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919 at his home when he was working.