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Complete Idiot’s Guide to American HistoryWeak and asthmatic as a child, Roosevelt was determined to build up his body and engaged in a regimen of exercise, sport, and outdoor activity he proudly dubbed “the strenuous life.” He was, by turns and sometimes simultaneously, an author, politician, and rancher. Appointed assistant secretary of the navy under McKinley in 1897, he advocated preparation for war with Spain over its colonial policies in Cuba. With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War the following year, Roosevelt helped organize a volunteer cavalry unit called the Rough Riders, serving in Cuba as its dashing colonel. His war record and reform reputation propelled Roosevelt to election as governor of New York in 1898. His crusading soon cramped the style of Republican party boss Thomas Collier Platt, who decided to “kick him upstairs” by arranging for his nomination as McKinley’s vice-presidential running mate in 1900. If the nation mourned McKinley’s assassination the following year, none did so more than Republican conservatives, who had little stomach for Roosevelt’s “Progressivism.” The new president took aim at the big corporate trusts, wielding the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 as a club ...» |
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