History UsefulNotes / TheodoreRoosevelt

[[caption-width-right:320:[[Website/{{Cracked}} The last thing you saw before a brutal ass-kicking.]]]]

[[quoteright:320:[[BringIt https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/theodore_roosevelt.jpeg]]]]

-->-- '''Theodore Roosevelt'''[[note]]This was T.R.'s personal {{Catchphrase}}, which usually meant "great" or "awesome" [[HaveAGayOldTime at the time]].[[/note]]

-->'''Roosevelt:''' I'm into fitness, digging ditches through an isthmus, rough riding down to Cuba like ''[[{{Catchphrase}} What's up, bitches?!]]''

Teddy was also a real-life example of a GentlemanAdventurer and EgomaniacHunter. He was a big conservationist, eager to make sure he'd always have something to hunt. The "Toys/{{teddy bear}}" is named after him, because he refused to shoot a black bear cub just for the sake of it. The bear was put down -- the rest of his family had been already shot. Foreign ambassadors dreaded meeting him, as it usually meant that they would have to accompany him on his strenuous daily jog, with him making fun of them when they inevitably ran short of breath and started lagging behind.[[note]]He did this because he hated meeting with them, and felt that they should earn the right to talk to him.[[/note]] His relationship with his second wife, Edith Roosevelt, was a real-life example of a ChildhoodFriendRomance -- she had been a childhood playmate of his.

In case it wasn't clear before now, he was made of pure, condensed badassery, and is often depicted as being ''[[MemeticBadass even more so than he already was]]''. ''Within his own lifetime'', in fact, historian Henry Adams ''[[BlasphemousPraise explicitly compared him to God]]''. In fiction, he's frequently portrayed as a LargeHam, in keeping with his [[BoisterousBruiser boisterous]] nature and public persona. As his daughter Alice observed, "My father always wanted to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening." But she was giving as good as she got; Alice was a notorious handful: rambunctious, mischievous, and known to the press as "Princess Alice" due to her beauty and outgoing nature. Her father had once snarked, "I can either run the country, or attend to Alice. I cannot possibly do both." She would go on to become a Washington socialite and lobbyist whose razor wit, political savvy, and connections could build up or destroy any politician she set her sights on. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_blue A tint of light blue]] was even named after the color of her debutante gown.

In case it wasn't clear before now, he was made of pure, condensed badassery, and is often depicted as being ''[[MemeticBadass even more so than he already was]]''. ''Within his own lifetime'', in fact, historian Henry Adams ''[[BlasphemousPraise explicitly compared him to God]]''. In fiction, he's frequently portrayed as a LargeHam, in keeping with his [[BoisterousBruiser boisterous]] nature and public persona. As his daughter Alice observed, "My father always wanted to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening." But she was giving as good as she got; Alice was a notorious handful: rambunctious, mischievous, and known to the press as "Princess Alice" due to her beauty and outgoing nature. Her father had once snarked, "I can either run the country, or attend to Alice. I cannot possibly do both." She would go on to become a Washington socialite and lobbyist whose razor wit, political savvy, and connections could build up or destroy any politician she set her sights on.

However, Roosevelt was very much a product of the racist progressivism of the early 20th century and therefore deeply stuck in his own time on some issues. For instance, there was Brownsville affair where a unit of black soldiers were falsely accused of shooting up Brownsville, Texas: even though the evidence favored their innocence, Roosevelt had them all dishonorably discharged at the racist urging of the Army's Inspector General. He was incredibly racist towards Native Americans (but he improved as time went by, if only because he used to hate them so much that any change of opinion was an improvement) and his vocal support of eugenics and the concept of the "White Man's Burden," demonstrated by his imperialistic foreign policy which included a bloody suppression of resistance in the newly acquired American territory of the Philippines, and the acquisition of Panama that involved threatening Colombia with war. He was also unable to stop American corporate interests from carving up Cuba after the island had finally gained its independence from Spain after decades of guerrilla warfare.