Of all the biographical subjects of the Progressive Era, Theodore Roosevelt is one who continues to fascinate students. In part this is because his policies embodied many of the central paradoxes of the Progressive Era: nationalism coexisting with internationalism, reform used both to unsettle and maintain the status quo, and strategies for ensuring peace mixed with planning for war. Imperialists like Roosevelt justified America’s increased world power after the Spanish-American War by invoking traditional beliefs in America’s unique mission to uplift other peoples; yet acquisition of a small empire made the United States less exceptional (that is, more like Europe). Imperialism, however, was only one small portion of America’s relationship with the rest of the world at the turn of the century, and it would be inaccurate to claim that all of Roosevelt’s foreign policy ideas were rooted in imperialism. In recent years historians have taken another look at Roosevelt, a man whom previous generations dismissed as a warmonger, and they have come up with more nuanced answers to the question posed by this lesson plan.

Time Frame

This lesson takes two class periods and involves one homework assignment.

Objectives

Procedure

Theodore Roosevelt Timeline

1858: Theodore Roosevelt (TR) was born to a wealthy family in New York City.

1861-1865: Civil War. As a small boy, he saw parades and wounded soldiers and was caught up in the excitement of the war; he wanted to be a soldier, and later became fond of reading about military heroes.

1876-1880: TR attended Harvard College.

1880: He married Alice Hathaway Lee, began Columbia Law School, and read law with his uncle.

1881: TR was elected New York State assemblyman and served until 1884.

1884: Alice died of Bright’s disease after their daughter Alice was born; TR spent much of the next two years on his ranch in the Dakota territory.

1886: TR lost his race for mayor of New York City and married Edith Kermit Carow.

1887: He wrote magazine articles and history, and settled in Sagamore Hill, his estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island.

1889-1895: He served as U.S. civil service commissioner.

1895-1897: He served as president of the Police Commission of the City of New York.

1897-1898: TR served as assistant secretary of the navy, advocated a more powerful role for the U.S. in world affairs, and urged President William McKinley to go to war with Spain after the battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor.

1898: He served as lieutenant-colonel of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry (Rough Riders) in the Spanish-American War and became a war hero.

1898: TR was elected governor of New York.

1900: He was elected McKinley’s vice president.

1901: McKinley was assassinated; Roosevelt became president (1901-1909).

1899-1902: U.S.-Philippine War. He did not start the war, but supported it even after congressional hearings about U.S. troops’ use of the water torture and other means to suppress the Filipino fight for independence.

1902-1903: Venezuelan Controversy. Roosevelt said he prepared the U.S. navy to fight in case Germany tried to conquer by force any Venezuelan territory; he used diplomacy to resolve the controversy over debt.

1903: Alaskan Boundary Dispute. TR said he was ready to fight, but used diplomatic means to resolve the dispute with Canada over territory.

1903: He sent U.S. battleships to support the Panamanian Revolution against Colombia in 1903 and later built the Panama Canal to allow the U.S. fleet to move back and forth from the Atlantic to the Pacific if war threatened.

1905: Roosevelt mediated the end of the destructive Russo-Japanese War and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. He chose not to intervene militarily when Japan made Korea its protectorate late in 1905.

1906: Moroccan Crisis. Roosevelt used skillful diplomacy to avoid a war between France and Germany, though Germany was humiliated by the apparent French diplomatic victory. He also supported international arms reduction and the Second Hague Conference, which promoted peace and the arbitration of disputes in Europe.

1907: After a serious war scare with Japan, which followed San Francisco’s anti-Japanese school segregation and rioting, TR sent the Great White Fleet on a practice cruise around the world and in doing so built support in Congress for increased naval spending.

1909-1910: TR hunted in Africa and toured Europe; he also proposed a league to resolve international disputes and keep the peace.

1912: He ran for the Republican nomination for presidency against William Howard Taft and lost; then Roosevelt was nominated for president by a new third party, the Progressive or Bull Moose Party. He was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

1913-1914: TR made a good will tour of South America and explored the River of Doubt at the request of the Brazilian government.

1914: The European War began. President Wilson proclaimed neutrality, and Roosevelt supported him, but changed his mind after hearing Belgian atrocity stories.

1915-1917: Roosevelt became an active leader of the preparedness movement to ready the U.S. to enter the European War on the side of the Allies (primarily Britain and France). To prepare the country for war, he advocated the universal military training of all young men and compulsory military training in the public schools.

1917: Because of Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and heavy U.S. economic involvement with the Allies, the U.S. entered the European War to aid the Allies. TR asked President Wilson for permission to raise a regiment of army volunteers to fight in France; Wilson refused.

1918: Roosevelt actively supported the U.S. war effort with speeches, writing, and donations. His four sons enlisted; two were wounded and one, Quentin, was killed. Roosevelt called World War I tragic but necessary.

1919: Roosevelt died of an embolism at Sagamore Hill.

Introduction:
Was Theodore Roosevelt a Warmonger?

War had special meaning for Theodore Roosevelt (TR), before, during, and after his presidency. Ever since his impressionable childhood, which was overshadowed by the Civil War, he admired war heroes like Robert Gould Shaw, the officer who died commanding African-American troops at Fort Wagner. War became a central issue in his imaginative life; he loved reading war stories and wanted more than anything else to die nobly on a battlefield. As an adult, he volunteered to fight against Mexico, Spain, and Germany. Personal passion sometimes carried over into policy. Theodore Roosevelt lobbied vigorously for the Spanish-American War and U.S. entrance into World War I. Yet, did he always favor war as a way out of international disputes?

Many historians believe that when he was president Roosevelt avoided war on multiple occasions by using effective diplomacy. Others see his relatively peaceful presidency as the product of blind luck. For example, in a move that could have provoked regional conflict, TR sent American battleships to support the Panamanian Revolution against Colombia in 1903. No Americans were killed, and sending battleships and troops did not risk a general war. Yet Roosevelt has often been criticized for repeated warlike intrusions into the domestic affairs of Latin American countries. The winning of Panamanian independence made it possible for the U.S. to begin construction of the Panama Canal, which meant that in times of war the U.S. could move its navy from the Atlantic to the Pacific more quickly than ever before. Strategically, the Panama Canal put the U.S. in a much stronger position when it faced a two-ocean naval war during World War II.

TR has been praised by some historians for his diplomatic skill in averting war (1). In 1902, he sent armed forces to Alaska during a border dispute between the U.S. and Canada, but no one was killed. He eventually agreed to a tribunal which settled the dispute in the Americans’ favor. As president he supported movements to avoid war by using international tribunals and arbitration. He called for the Second Hague Conference, which resulted in great power discussions about ways to avoid war and settle international disputes. As president, he skillfully negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War, which had taken many lives. Though at times President Roosevelt threatened the use of force, his diplomatic skill was often used in the service of avoiding war while he was in the White House.

Historians disagree about the ultimate effects of one of TR’s last acts as president. After a war scare with Japan caused by anti-Japanese riots and school segregation in California, Roosevelt, without congressional approval, sent the entire Atlantic battleship fleet on a cruise around the world. His stated intent was to let other countries know of America’s increasing naval strength and its interest in peace. The Great White Fleet, as it was called, was cheered in San Francisco by a million Californians who viewed the cruise, not as an unnecessary wave of Roosevelt’s diplomatic “big stick,” but as a peaceful display of national power. Some historians see the cruise as a barely veiled warning to Japan, a rising world power with interests in the Pacific, and contend that in the long run it encouraged the rise of nationalistic and militaristic factions there. Others see the cruise as a simple gesture to assert American power as a potential peacekeeper and force for international stability, an act that did not ruffle Japan at all. Like his mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, some historians claim the voyage of the Great White Fleet helped improve America’s status as a respected world power (2).

President Roosevelt inherited a war, however. He did not pull U.S. troops out of the Philippine-American War until congressional hearings exposed the use of water torture and other sadistic treatment of Filipino soldiers by American troops. He defended the American soldiers and maintained that taking possession of the Philippines was a worthwhile venture because American institutions would improve life for the Filipinos, who in his eyes were not ready for self-government.

Nor does Roosevelt’s post-presidential career offer a simple answer to the question at hand. He was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for his advocacy of peace. When he accepted the prize he spoke in favor of an international organization that would arbitrate disputes and deter war. A few days later, TR saw Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin. Andrew Carnegie, wealthy industrialist and the president of the New York Peace Society, wanted help in building a new peace movement and had asked Roosevelt to talk with the Kaiser in an attempt to halt the naval arms race that would eventually bring Europe to the brink of war. But the conversation proved diplomatically awkward; TR and Carnegie were unable to hold a peace conference between the leaders of Great Britain and Germany. Roosevelt had been skeptical about his ability to talk peace with Europe as it armed for war, but in 1910 he worked hard to avoid military confrontation.

When the European War broke out in August 1914, ex-president Roosevelt initially supported President Woodrow Wilson’s policy of neutrality. Both the Allies (Britain, France, Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey) appeared to be at fault, but he changed his views when alleged German atrocities during the invasion of Belgium were brought to his attention.

From 1915 to 1917 Roosevelt became a loud advocate of preparedness. He argued that building up the army and navy and providing universal military training would prevent war by showing other powers that the U.S. could defend itself. When in 1915 Germany torpedoed the Lusitania and other liners carrying American citizens, TR denounced both the Germans and President Wilson, who said there was such a thing as being “too proud to fight.”

As the European War stalemated in the trenches of France, Roosevelt thought that America had to ready itself to intervene. He served as one of the Allies’ most effective American defenders. After Germany’s announcement of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917, he called for President Wilson to ask for a declaration of war, which Wilson finally did in April 1917. Roosevelt opposed Wilson’s repeated efforts to end the war through a mediated settlement, because he believed this would leave Germany in a strong enough position to go to war again. Near the end of his life Roosevelt said that if he had been president he could have prevented the Great War.

Roosevelt’s general historical pronouncements show that he believed war was usually good for the United States. Certainly he believed in the positive cultural effects of war, but how different was he from his contemporaries in holding such attitudes? When he praised war as a supreme test of a man’s character and as a way for society to work together for common ideals, he had the Civil War in mind and always viewed it as the model of the “good war.” Because he believed that Americans cared too much about material possessions and not enough about their country or its high ideals, he said on more than one occasion that the U.S. could be energized and united by war. In his attitudes toward war he was neither “insane” nor unusual for his time. Indeed, for those living in the 1890s, an era of depression, strikes, racial strife, and intensifying inequality, the Civil War era appeared to be a time of heroism. Many in TR’s generation thus came to praise war as a force for national unity and idealism (3).

Evidence Sheet A

Evidence Sheet B

Document

Theodore Roosevelt to Andrew Carnegie—5 April 1907

“My Dear Mr. Carnegie:

I much regret my inability to be present with you....Harm and not good would result if the most advanced nations, those in which most freedom for the individual is combined with most efficiency in securing orderly justice as between individuals, should by agreement disarm and place themselves at the mercy of other peoples less advanced, of other peoples still in the stage of military barbarism or military despotism. Anything in the nature of general disarmament would do harm and not good if it left the civilized and peace-loving peoples, those with the highest standards of municipal and international obligation and duty, unable to shock the other peoples who have no such standards, who acknowledge no such obligations....These warnings that I have uttered do not mean that I believe we can do nothing to advance the cause of international peace. On the contrary, I believe that we can do much to advance it, provided we act with sanity, with self-restraint, with power; which must be the prime qualities in the achievement of any reform. The nineteenth century saw, on the whole, a real and great advance in the standard of international conduct, both as among civilized nations and by strong nations toward weaker and more backward peoples. The twentieth century will, I believe, witness a much greater advance in the same direction....More important than reducing the expense of the implements of war is the question of reducing the possible causes of war, which can most effectually be done by substituting other methods than war for the settlement of disputes. Of those other methods the most important which is now attainable is arbitration” (14).

Endnotes

1. Frederick W. Marks III, Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979).

2. Akira Iriye, Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897-1911 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); James R. Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988); and Richard D. Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).

3. Thomas C. Leonard, Above the Battle: War Making in America from Appomattox to Versailles (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Gerald F. Linderman, The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spanish-American War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974); Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); and Kathleen Dalton, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of War,” Theodore Roosevelt Journal 7, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 6-12.

4. “Bryan on Roosevelt,” newspaper clipping from 1904 campaign, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress, Reel 482.

5. Bernard de Voto, ed., Mark Twain in Eruption (New York: Harpers, 1940), 8.

6. Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), 510, 512.

7. By American he meant any country in the western hemisphere. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 746.

8. Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1989).

9. Theodore Roosevelt, Works of Theodore Roosevelt, memorial edition, vol. XVII, 472.

10. Roosevelt, Works, vol. VIII, 214.

11. Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920), 557.

12. Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 269. The best sources on TR’s presidency are Gould, especially 73-99, 173-95, 251-70; and William H. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (Newtown, CT: American Political Biography Press, 1997).

13. John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1983), 333.

14. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. V, 638-42.

Bibliography

In addition to sources cited in the endnotes, here are resources for learning more about Theodore Roosevelt and foreign affairs:

Beale, Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956.

Iriye, Akira. From Nationalism to Internationalism: U.S. Foreign Policy to 1914. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1977.

LaFeber, Walter. The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913. Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Ninkovich, Frank. Modernity and Power: A History of the Domino Theory in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Pérez, Louis A., Jr. The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

Kathleen M. Dalton, Ph.D., is an associate fellow at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard and teaches in the Master of Liberal Arts Program at the Harvard Extension School and at Phillips Academy, Andover. She is currently writing a biography of Theodore Roosevelt for Alfred A. Knopf Publishers.