Protesters Deface Roosevelt Statue Outside Natural History MuseumBy COLIN MOYNIHANOCT. 26, 2017 Protesters splattered red liquid onto the base of the bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt outside the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, and later published a statement on the internet calling for its removal as an emblem of “patriarchy, white supremacy and settler-colonialism.” “Now the statue is bleeding,” said the statement Thursday from the protesters, who identified themselves as members of the

Monument Removal Brigade. “We did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation.” The group said the museum should “rethink its cultural halls regarding the colonial mentality behind them.” City workers using a power washer, a sponge and soapy water later began cleaning the statue, the latest focus of debate over statues or monuments around the country that celebrate figures like Robert E. Lee and Christopher Columbus. In Pittsburgh this week, the city’s arts commission recommended the removal of a statue of Stephen Foster, the composer. The statue shows Foster standing above an African-American man playing the banjo. The statue of Roosevelt, a conservationist, has stood outside the museum since 1940. Created by James Earle Fraser, and owned by the city, it depicts Roosevelt astride a horse and flanked by a Native American man and an African man. Long regarded as a politician who battled corruption, challenged monopolies and championed Civil Service, Roosevelt has also been criticized for his views of certain peoples as inferior and his defense of colonial expansion. A spokeswoman for the museum, Anne Canty, said officials there understood that there might be debate over the statue but that they felt it is best channeled through a commission recently set up by Mayor Bill de Blasio to review the propriety of various city monuments. She said the museum was planning to update exhibits and was consulting, for example, with indigenous communities on a renovation and reinterpretation of the Northwest Coast Hall. The city’s cultural affairs commissioner, Tom Finkelpearl, one of two people who will head the city’s panel, said in an email, “There’s no place for vandalism in this conversation.” The statement from the protesters said they viewed the splattering not as vandalism, but as a “work of public art.”

Correction: October 28, 2017 A report in “Arts, Briefly” on Friday about the defacement of the Theodore Roosevelt statue outside the American Museum of Natural History described incorrectly one of the figures standing next to Roosevelt. The figure represents an African man, not an African-American. Because of an editing error, the article also misidentified which figure in a statue of the composer Stephen Foster was depicted playing a banjo. It was the African-American figure, not the figure of Foster.

https://monumentremovalbrigade.tumblr.com/PRELUDE TO THE REMOVAL OF A MONUMENT

“Now the statue is bleeding. We did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation. This is not an act of vandalism. It is a work of public art and an act of applied art criticism. We have no intent to damage a mere statue. The true damage lies with patriarchy, white supremacy, and settler-colonialism embodied by the statue. It is these forms of oppression that must be damaged again and again…until they are damaged out of existence.” This work of public art is in solidarity with the Second Annual Anti-Columbus Tour that took place on October 9th. Without any disrespect for those organizers, our tactics must be different. A thousand people assembled at the museum on that day, and amplified the following demands, originally issued at the first Anti-Columbus Day Tour the year before. 1) The museum should re-think its cultural halls regarding the colonial mentality behind them. 2) The City Council should follow the the lead of cities around the country and replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day (a related petition has garnered 18,000 signatures since October 9th, 2017) 3) Finally, it called upon the city to remove the monument to Theodore Roosevelt that frames the entrance to the Museum. In that monument, Roosevelt is pictured on horseback, reaching for his pistol as he gazes onto the horizon. He is flanked subserviently by a shirtless Black man and an “Indian chief….” They are both holding rifles, willing foot soldiers in the expansion of American Empire. A former NYC Police Commissioner and proud descendent of Dutch settler-colonists who first expropriated Manhattan from the Lenape, Roosevelt rose to fame for his role in the Spanish American war, which involved the colonization of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba. Roosevelt was also a staunch endorser of Eugenics, the pseudo-scientific movement whose calls for sterilization, population control, and racial purification would directly inspire the Nazis. Roosevelt was an open white supremacist and imperialist who is still lionized by the museum and the city plaza standing in front of it. In statements to the media, the Museum has claimed that the statue is the city’s problem, since legally it sits on public land (which is also to say, stolen Lenape land, like the rest of the city). To separate the statue and the museum is a technicality. The museum itself is an expanded monument to Roosevelt’s world-view, and the statue is what visitors first see upon approaching the institution. Millions of schoolchildren pass under this oppressive image every year as they visit the museum, where they are in turn exposed to grotesque, dehumanizing displays.

This damage is being done as we speak. In response, we choose to act immediately with the means at our disposal: artistic expression. Against an artwork that does real damage–the Roosevelt monument–we offer a counter-monumental gesture that does symbolic damage to the values it represents: genocide, dispossession, displacement, enslavement, and state terror. The monument not only embodies the violent historical foundation of the United States, but also the underlying dynamics of oppression in our contemporary world. In highlighting the bloody foundations of the monument, we salute those movements struggling against the values epitomized by Roosevelt: past, present, and future. From the uprisings of Ferguson and Standing Rock, to popular self-defense at the frontiers of gentrification in the Bronx, in the ground zero of climate crisis in Puerto Rico, or in the crosshairs of ICE raids terrorizing immigrant communities. We also salute the history of artistic actions undertaken against the monument, especially the six Indigenous activists who temporarily marked it 1971 in solidarity with the occupation of Alcatraz Island by The American Indian Movement (AIM). On the base of the monument they inscribed: “Return Alcatraz” and “Fascist Killer.” Decolonization and Anti-Fascism remain the horizons of our time. After Charlottesville, Trump tweeted: “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments…Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who’s next, Washington, Jefferson?” A venerated U.S. president on the chopping block? Trump was on to something. The onus of decolonial and anti-fascist action falls to New York City, from whence the current president hails. Mayor Bill De Blasio has set up an advisory commission to investigate “hate symbols” across the city, but it will have no binding authority. The commission will at some point seek public input to identify eligible monuments and statues. We taek matters into our own hands now to kickstart the removal process. With this public artwork we are sparing the museum. We hope the museum will recognize the liability that the statue represents for its stated claims to be moving in the right direction, and use the leverage that it undoubtedly has with the City. At this year’s Anti-Columbus Day Tour, the NYPD made a massive show of force to defend the monument, with barricades, handcuffs, cops of every rank deployed–including two officers of color ordered to stand on the base of the statue itself just under the Black and Indian foot soldiers flanking Roosevelt himself. We imagine a day when the monument–and the museum standing behind it–will not have to be barricaded and protected by force of arms. We imagine Roosevelt instead moldering away as a ruin in the trash-heap of history alongside his brothers-in-arms: towering figures like Lee and Columbus, lesser-known monsters like J. Marion Sims and Henry Osborn, and so many others. The empty pedestals left behind at places like the museum would in turn clear space for new visions of reparation, freedom, and justice. In the meantime, while the Mayor’s Commission trudges forward, the Monument Removal Brigade hereby announces itself. Our membership is already legion, from Charlottesville to Durham to New York and beyond.–Monument Removal Brigade (MRB) October 26, 2017

Opinionshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/teddy-roosevelt-didnt-deserve-this/2017/10/27/beb79574-bb53-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.b00d4691bf8e

Teddy Roosevelt didn’t deserve this Latest to the vandals goes Teddy Roosevelt, whose bronze likeness astride a horse in front of New York’s American Museum of Natural History recently received a splash of red paint upon its base. “Now the statue is bleeding,” proudly pronounced a group of protesters in claiming credit for the makeover. “We did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation.” One wonders whether these poseurs know anything at all about the man they’ve targeted. The 26th president gave us national parks, industrial regulation and environmental conservationism, among other things. He was also the author of more than 40 books, some of which chronicle his expeditions and safaris that provided some of the basis for the natural history housed in the museum where he and his trusty steed keep vigil. Also, he died almost 100 years ago (1919). When are these self-important moderns going to get over themselves?

The New York vandalism, which isn’t directly connected to the recent flurry of protests against Confederate statues, is merely the most recent episode in a protest that gained traction in 2016 by the same groups that also want to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. What apparently triggered the freelance artists were two other figures — an indigenous American and an African — flanking Roosevelt’s horse. The jury is still out about what to do about the statue. Nothing would be a rational option, if a panel created by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio can handle some heat. Roosevelt may not be a civil rights icon like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but he was hardly the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, either. Indeed, in 1905, Roosevelt gave a speech at the New York Republican Party Club that paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln and addressed racial inequality, which Roosevelt said he aimed to change. That this radical social transformation didn’t occur within his time or tenure doesn’t affirm in itself that he was racist. In the speech, he did abysmally refer to whites as a “forward race.” But the focus of his address was to echo Lincoln in calling strongly for the raising of minorities’ status, which Roosevelt correctly said would benefit the entire country. And what about the two nonwhites in the statue? Let’s take a look. First, both men are walking in a proud, dignified manner, suggesting a parade in which the Rough Rider is accompanied by individuals who were part of his life experience. Second, we have to ask, what was the context of the time? Without the historical backdrop, criticism — of politics, art or literature — is meaningless. In 1901, when this Harvard-educated, wealthy, progressive, worldly Republican New Yorker became president, was he enslaving Indians and blacks? No. Was he hunting extensively in the American West and later in Africa? Yes. Quite a lot. Given this record, is it not possible that the other two figures represent his guides or scouts on his American West hunts and African safaris? The statue, created as a historical representation of the man and erected to honor his contributions to our knowledge of natural history, may be offensive to a few, but by what imperative are their feelings to be considered superior to the broader citizenry’s right to not see public property harmed, defaced or splattered with paint — or some facsimile thereof? Vandalism, contrary to the group’s claim that they’re performing “public art,” is the artless tantrum of a childish, self-absorbed mind. Defeating a block of stone or piece of bronze hardly requires courage or, obviously, intellect. Why not come up with something, I don’t know, classier? Make an argument. Present facts. Bring passion, but keep a cool head. One could argue, for example, that the protests over Confederate statues are substantively different from the objections to Roosevelt’s monument. Given that many Civil War statues in the South were erected during the civil rights movement, inarguably, they memorialize not Southern courage but Jim Crow, a cowardly, despicable period of state-sponsored terrorism against blacks who had the audacity to insist upon equality under the law. There. Put that on your plaque, if you care so much about history. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who hated the idea of memorials to the war, would probably be happy for his statues to settle in a statuary hall. As for Roosevelt, one only wishes the swashbuckling warrior-president could dismount for a few minutes and teach his vandals some manners. I’m guessing, but I suspect his two companions would lend him a hand.

A. Theodore Roosevelt on RaceOn February 13, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech at the New York City Republican Club as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln.  The speech, which also allowed Roosevelt to expound on his contemporary views of race in the United States, appears below. 

“…..All good Americans who dwell in the North must, because they are good Americans, feel the most earnest friendship for their fellow-countrymen who dwell in the South, a friendship all the greater because it is in the South that we find in its most acute phase one of the gravest problems before our people: the problem of so dealing with the man of one color as to secure him the rights that no one would grudge him if he were of another color. To solve this problem it is, of course, necessary to educate him to perform the duties, a failure to perform which will render him a curse to himself and to all around him…. Most certainly all clear-sighted and generous men in the North appreciate the difficulty and perplexity of this problem, sympathize with the South in the embarrassment of conditions for which she is not alone responsible, feel an honest wish to help her where help is practicable, and have the heartiest respect for those brave and earnest men of the South who, in the face of fearful difficulties, are doing all that men can do for the betterment alike of white and of black. The attitude of the North toward the negro is far from what it should be, and there is need that the North also should act in good faith upon the principle of giving to each man what is justly due him, of treating him on his worth as a man, granting him no special favors, but denying him no proper opportunity for labor and the reward of labor. But the peculiar circumstances of the South render the problem there far greater and far more acute. Neither I nor any other man can say that any given way of approaching that problem will present in our times even an approximately perfect solution, but we can safely say that there can never be such solution at all unless we approach it with the effort to do fair and equal justice among all men; and to demand from them in return just and fair treatment for others. Our effort should be to secure to each man, whatever his color, equality of opportunity, equality of treatment before the law. As a people striving to shape our actions in accordance with the great law of righteousness we can not afford to take part in or be indifferent to oppression or maltreatment of any man who, against crushing disadvantages, has by his own industry, energy, self-respect, and perseverance struggled upward to a position which would entitle him to the respect of his fellows, if only his skin were of a different hue. Every generous impulse in us revolts at the thought of thrusting down instead of helping up such a man. To deny any man the fair treatment granted to others no better than he is to commit a wrong upon him - a wrong sure to react in the long run upon those guilty of such denial. The only safe principle upon which Americans can act is that of "all men up," not that of "some men down." If in any community the level of intelligence, morality, and thrift among the colored men scan be raised, it is, humanly speaking, sure that the same level among the whites will be raised to an even higher degree; and it is no less sure that the debasement of the blacks will in the end carry with it an attendant debasement of the whites. The problem is so to adjust the relations between two races of different ethnic type that the rights of neither be abridged nor jeoparded; that the backward race be trained so that it may enter into the possession of true freedom while the forward race is enabled to preserve unharmed the high civilization wrought out by its forefathers. The working out of this problem must necessarily be slow; it is not possible fin offhand fashion to obtain or to confer the priceless boons of freedom, industrial efficiency, political capacity, and domestic morality. Nor is it only necessary to train the colored man; it is quite as necessary to train the white man, for on his shoulders rests a well-nigh unparalleled sociological responsibility. It is a problem demanding the best thought, the utmost patience, the most earnest effort, the broadest charity, of the statesman, the student, the philanthropist; of the leaders of thought in every department of our national life. The Church can be a most important factor fin solving it aright. But above all else we need for its successful solution the sober, kindly, steadfast, unselfish performance of duty by the average plain citizen in his everyday dealings with his fellows. I am speaking on the occasion of the celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, and to men who count it their peculiar privilege that they have the right to hold Lincoln's memory dear, and the duty to strive to work along the lines that he laid down. We can pay most fitting homage to his

memory by doing the tasks allotted to us in the spirit in which he did the infinitely greater and more terrible tasks allotted to him. Let us be steadfast for the right; but let us err on the side of generosity rather than on the side of vindictiveness toward those who differ from us as to the method of attaining the right. Let us never forget our duty to help in uplifting the lowly, to shield from wrong the humble; and let us likewise act in a spirit of the broadest and frankest generosity toward all our brothers, all our fellow-countrymen; in a spirit proceeding not from weakness but from strength; a spirit which takes no more account of locality than it does of class or of creed; a spirit which is resolutely bent on seeing that the Union which Washington founded and which Lincoln saved from destruction shall grow nobler and greater throughout the ages. I believe in this country with all my heart and soul. I believe that our people will in the end rise level to every need, will in the end triumph over every difficulty that arises before them. I could not have such confident faith in the destiny of this mighty people if I had it merely as regards one portion of that people. Throughout our land things on the whole have grown better and not worse, and this is as true of one part of the country as it is of another. I believe in the Southerner as I believe in the Northerner. I claim the right to feel pride in his great qualities and in his great deeds exactly as I feel pride in the great qualities and deeds of every other American. For weal or for woe we are knit together, and we shall go up or go down together; and I believe that we shall go up and not down, that we shall go forward instead of halting and falling back, because I have an abiding faith in the generosity, the courage, the resolution, and the common sense of all my countrymen.”Teddy Roosevelt's 'Shocking' Dinner With Washington In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited African-American educator Booker T. Washington, who had become close to the president, to dine with his family at the White House. Several other presidents had invited African-Americans to meetings at the White House, but never to a meal. And in 1901, segregation was law. News of the dinner between a former slave and the president of the United States became a national sensation. The subject of inflammatory articles and cartoons, it shifted the national conversation around race at the time. NPR's Neal Conan talks with Deborah Davis, author of Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation about the dinner that she believes changed history. "African-Americans were invited to meet in offices. They built the White House. They worked for the various presidents. But they were never, ever invited to sit down at the president's table. And when that happened, the outrage was just unbelievable. ... " 'Dining,' and I put it in quotation marks, was really a code word for social equality. And the feeling was, certainly in the South, that if you invited a man to sit at your table, you were actually inviting him to woo your daughter. He should feel perfectly comfortable asking your daughter to marry him. And so that's really the primary reason why people were so offended. It just shouldn't happen in 1901 that a black man would be able to ... have that entree into your family." On why Roosevelt extended the invitation, and Washington accepted "Theodore Roosevelt was known for being a very, very impulsive man. But this was a good impulse. He had an appointment with Booker T. Washington. At the last minute, he thought, 'Let's make it dinner.' He started to send out the invitation, and he hesitated for a second, thinking, 'Is this a bad idea because of this man's color?' And he was so ashamed that he hesitated, that he hastened to send the invitation out before he could change his mind. "Now, Booker T. Washington faced the same thing when he had to decide whether or not to accept the invitation. He thought, 'This is going to be a real problem for me, but I have no right to refuse. It's a landmark moment, and I have to accept this on behalf of my whole race.' ... "[But] he understood what the aftermath would be and the backlash." "There was hell to pay, first weeks, then months, then years, then decades. This story did not go away. And, you know, an assassin was hired to go to Tuskegee to kill Booker T. Washington. He was pursued wherever he went. Theodore Roosevelt was criticized in ways that presidents were not criticized. There were vulgar cartoons of Mrs. Roosevelt that had never been done before. This was all new territory."There were some interesting spinning sessions that went on among Republicans. One was to turn the dinner into lunch, because it seems that lunch would be a less objectionable

meal, and so the story went that, no, you know, Booker T. Washington didn't go to the dining room at the White House. He was sitting in the office, and they got hungry and they ordered a tray. And by the time they were finished, there was barely a sandwich on it. And that seemed to make the meal a little more palatable in the South. ... "And this persisted for decades, actually, until finally in the '30s, a journalist asked Mrs. Roosevelt, was it lunch or was it dinner? And she checked her calendar, and she said it was most definitely dinner."http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tr-environment/

Roosevelt and Imperialism A. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/books/review/true-flag-stephen-kinzer.html

“…..Supporters of the annexation of the Philippines similarly tossed out various arguments, like access to Asian markets and the uplifting of the Filipinos themselves. Theodore Roosevelt, whose participation in the war against Spain in Cuba made him a celebrity and put him on the path to the vice presidency and then the presidency, denied that the Spanish-American War and the war in the Philippines broke with American history. In 1899 in a speech titled “The Strenuous Life,” Roosevelt thundered at the anti-imperialists: “Their doctrines, if carried out, would make it incumbent upon us to leave the Apaches of Arizona to work out their own salvation, and to decline to interfere in a single Indian reservation. Their doctrines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States.” Supporters of the annexation of the Philippines similarly tossed out various arguments, like access to Asian markets and the uplifting of the Filipinos themselves. Theodore Roosevelt, whose participation in the war against Spain in Cuba made him a celebrity and put him on the path to the vice presidency and then the presidency, denied that the Spanish-American War and the war in the Philippines broke with American history. In 1899 in a speech titled “The Strenuous Life,” Roosevelt thundered at the anti-imperialists: “Their doctrines, if carried out, would make it incumbent upon us to leave the Apaches of Arizona to work out their own salvation, and to decline to interfere in a single Indian reservation. Their doctrines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States.”

B. Theodore Roosevelt And Imperialism During his political career, Theodore Roosevelt and imperialism were closely linked. With imperialism as a rather new concept in the U.S., and the need to establish the country as a world power, it's no surprise that Teddy – renowned for being unabashedly progressive in both political and social arenas – led the charge.Imperialism was argued by Captain Alfred T. Mahan in his 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. Mahan argued that having a strong navy required that a nation have numerous ports (all over the world) in which to safely anchor their ships. He also argued that having these ports would lead to an increase in global trade for the country who possessed them. With the U.S. already having expanded to Alaska and Hawaii (continentally separated from the rest of the country), as well as the belief that it was the God-given responsibility of the 'white man' to protect and lead the world, the atmosphere was ripe for harvest. For Theodore Roosevelt imperialist notions meant securing as many ports and colonies as possible, to cement America as a global power in both military and trade capacities. At the end of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. was torn regarding disagreement over how to handle the colonies they had rescued from Spain. Many imperialists said the Philippines would be an ideal port and military base, while anti-imperialists' position was to let the citizenry become independent and any failure to do so was anathema. The U.S. eventually annexed the Philippines, leading to a decades-long battle lasting until 1946, which caused the deaths of more Americans than the entire Spanish-American War. In Puerto Rico, the same decision for annexation met with less resistance, and it was made a U.S. territory. Cuba was granted independence, but hindered by the Platt Amendment in their constitution, giving the U.S. power to intervene in Cuban affairs and final approval on any treaties. Theodore's actions in these decisions had a lasting impact on America, leading to the expansion of its

global dominance and military powers abroad. Teddy's staunch advocacy for feeding his country's insatiable need for expansion led to consistent involvement in foreign affairs, extensive involvement in creating favorable trade regulations, and a legacy of progress. Whether these results were negative or positive remains to be seen, and is, arguably, very subjective.Two famous Theodore Roosevelt imperialism quotes:"We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort." 1899, from his book, The Strenuous Life."We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond. Such a policy would defeat even its own end; for as the nations grow to have ever wider and wider interests, and are brought into closer and closer contact, if we are to hold our own in the struggle for naval and commercial supremacy, we must build up our Dower without our own borders." 1899, from his book, The Strenuous Life.

C. Theodore Roosevelt and American Imperialism

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/theodore-roosevelt-and-american-imperialism-2/

Under the leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States emerged from the nineteenth century with ambitious designs on global power through military might, territorial expansion, and economic influence. Though the Spanish-American War had begun under the administration of William McKinley, Roosevelt, the hero of San Juan Hill, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Vice-President, and President, was arguably the most visible and influential proponent of American imperialism at the turn of the century. Roosevelt’s emphasis on developing the American navy, and on Latin America as a key strategic area of U.S. foreign policy, would have long-term consequences. In return for Roosevelt’s support of the Republican nominee, William McKinley, in the 1896 presidential election, McKinley appointed Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The head of the department, John Long, had a competent but lackadaisical managerial style that allowed Roosevelt a great deal of freedom that Roosevelt used to network with such luminaries as military theorists Alfred Thayer Mahan and naval officer George Dewey and politicians such as Henry Cabot Lodge and William Howard Taft. During his tenure he oversaw the construction of new battleships, the implementation of new technology, and laid the groundwork for new shipyards, all with the goal of projecting America’s power across the oceans. Roosevelt wanted to expand American influence. For instance, he advocated for the annexation of Hawaii for several reasons: it was within the American sphere of influence, it would deny Japanese expansion and limit potential threats to the West Coast, it had an excellent port for battleships at Pearl Harbor, and it would act as a fueling station on the way to pivotal markets in Asia. Roosevelt, after winning headlines in the war, ran as Vice President under McKinley and rose to the presidency after McKinley’s assassination by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901. Among his many interventions in American life, Roosevelt acted with vigor to expand the military, naval power especially, to protect and promote American interests abroad. This included the construction of eleven battleships between 1904 and 1907. Alfred Thayer Mahan’s naval theories, described in his The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, influenced Roosevelt a great deal. In contrast to theories that advocated for commerce raiding, coastal defense and small “brown water” ships, the imperative to control the sea required battleships and a “blue water” navy that could engage and win decisive battles with rival fleets. As president, Roosevelt continued the policies he established as Assistant Naval Secretary and expanded the U.S. fleet. The mission of the Great White Fleet, sixteen all-white battleships that sailed around the word between 1907 and 1909, exemplified America’s new power. Roosevelt insisted that the “big stick” and the persuasive power of the U.S. military could assure U.S. hegemony over strategically important regions in the Western Hemisphere. The United States used military intervention in various circumstances to further its objectives, but it did not have the

ability nor the inclination to militarily impose its will on the entirety of South and Central America. The United States therefore more often used informal methods of empire, such as so-called “dollar diplomacy,” to assert dominance over the hemisphere. The United States actively intervened again and again in Latin America. Throughout his time in office, Roosevelt exerted U.S. control over Cuba (even after it gained formal independence in 1902) and Puerto Rico, and he deployed naval forces to ensure Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1901 in order to acquire a U.S. Canal Zone. Furthermore, Roosevelt pronounced the “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, proclaiming U.S. police power in the Caribbean. As articulated by President James Monroe in his annual address to Congress in 1823, the United States would treat any military intervention in Latin America by a European power as a threat to American security. Roosevelt reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine and expanded it by declaring that the U.S. had the right to preemptive action through intervention in any Latin American nation in order to correct administrative and fiscal deficiencies. Roosevelt’s policy justified numerous and repeated police actions in “dysfunctional” Caribbean and Latin American countries by U.S. marines and naval forces and enabled the founding of the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This approach is sometimes referred to as “gunboat diplomacy,” wherein naval forces and marines land in a national capital to protect American and Western personnel, temporarily seize control of the government, and dictate policies friendly to American business, such as the repayment of foreign loans. For example, in 1905 Roosevelt sent the marines to occupy the Dominican Republic and established financial supervision over the Dominican government. Imperialists often framed such actions as almost humanitarian. They celebrated white Anglo-Saxon societies such as found in the United States and the British Empire as advanced practitioners of nation-building and civilization, helping to uplift debtor nations in Latin America that lacked the manly qualities of discipline and self-control. Roosevelt, for instance, preached that it was the “manly duty” of the United States to exercise an international police power in the Caribbean and to spread the benefits of Anglo-Saxon civilization to inferior states populated by inferior peoples. The president’s language, for instance, contrasted debtor nation’s “impotence” with the United States’ civilizing influence, belying new ideas that associated self-restraint and social stability with Anglo-Saxon manliness. Dollar diplomacy offered a less costly method of empire and avoided the troubles of military occupation. Washington worked with bankers to provide loans to Latin American nations in exchange for some level of control over their national fiscal affairs. Roosevelt first implemented dollar diplomacy on a vast scale, while Presidents Taft and Wilson continued the practice in various forms during their own administrations. All confronted instability in Latin America. Rising debts to European and American bankers allowed for the inroads of modern life but destabilized much of the region. Bankers, beginning with financial houses in London and New York, saw Latin America as prime opportunities for investment. Lenders took advantage of the region’s newly formed governments’ need for cash and exacted punishing interest rates on massive loans, which were then sold off in pieces on the secondary bond market. American economic interests were now closely aligned with the region, but also further undermined by the chronic instability of the region’s newly formed governments, which were often plagued by mismanagement, civil wars, and military coups in the decades following their independence. Turnover in regimes interfered with the repayment of loans, as new governments would often repudiate the national debt or force a renegotiation with suddenly powerless lenders. Creditors could not force settlements of loans until they successfully lobbied their own governments to get involved and forcibly collect debts. The Roosevelt administration did not want to deny the Europeans’ rightful demands of repayment of debt, but it also did not want to encourage European policies of conquest in the hemisphere as part of that debt collection. U.S. policy makers and military strategists within the Roosevelt administration determined that this European practice of military intervention posed a serious threat to American interests in the region. Roosevelt reasoned that the U.S. must create and maintain fiscal and political stability within strategically important nations in Latin America, particularly those affecting routes to and from the proposed Panama Canal. As a result, U.S. policy makers considered intervention in places like Cuba and the Dominican Republic a necessity to insure security around the region.

The Monroe Doctrine provided the Roosevelt administration with a diplomatic and international legal tradition through which it could assert a U.S. right and obligation to intervene in the hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the United States wished to promote stable, prosperous states in Latin America that could live up to their political and financial obligations. Roosevelt declared that “wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may finally require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore this duty.” President Monroe declared what Europeans could not do in the Western Hemisphere; Roosevelt inverted his doctrine to legitimize direct U.S. intervention in the region. Though aggressive and bellicose, Roosevelt did not necessarily advocate expansion by military force. In fact, the president insisted that in dealings with the Latin American nations, he did not seek national glory or expansion of territory and believed that war or intervention should be a last resort when resolving conflicts with problematic governments. According to Roosevelt, such actions were necessary to maintain “order and civilization.” Then again, Roosevelt certainly believed in using military power to protect national interests and spheres of influence when absolutely necessary. He also believed that American sphere included not only Hawaii and the Caribbean, but also much of the Pacific. When Japanese victories over Russia threatened the regional balance of power he sponsored peace talks between Russian and Japanese leaders, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

T. Roosevelt and the Spanish American War

The sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana’s harbor on February 15, 1898, left the assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, convinced that the fault lay with the Spanish. He was positive that the explosion was no accident–that Maine was a victim of ‘dirty treachery. Comments supporting the possibility of an accident were a particular worry to Roosevelt. As a pugnacious advocate of a strong navy, he bristled when Republican congressional leaders warned that such a disaster proved that the United States must stop building battleships. Roosevelt called such reaction weak and cowardly. He argued that even the most advanced naval powers had accidents–they were as inevitable as losses in war. The men who live aboard these ships recognize and accept the hazard. The nation which they defend cannot do less. The loss of the Maine was the price the country must pay to assume its role as a great power. But Roosevelt did more than talk. On the afternoon of February 25, Secretary of the Navy John Long left his office early and thus placed Roosevelt in charge. The fox was loose in the chicken house. The assistant secretary began to issue fleet orders as fast as the telegrapher could handle them. A general alert was sent to all ships, stations and fleet commanders throughout the world–ordering them to have their ships fueled and ready to leave port immediately. Even prior to the Maine disaster, Commodore George Dewey had sailed with his flagship, the cruiser Olympia, to Hong Kong. However, the rest of Dewey’s squadron was still at Nagasaki, Japan. Roosevelt changed that in a hurry. He telegraphed Dewey: Order your squadron, except the Monocacy, to join you at Hong Kong. In event of declaration of war against Spain, your duty will be to see that Spanish ships do not leave the Asiatic coast, and then begin offensive operations in the Philippine Islands. When Secretary Long returned to his office, he was surprised and upset at the actions Roosevelt had taken. But the orders to Commodore Dewey were not rescinded. On Friday, March 25, the Navy’s final report on the cause of the Maine disaster was delivered to the White House. The following Monday, President McKinley announced to the world that Maine had been destroyed by a mine. This was the news the American public had been waiting to hear. The nation’s press called for war, and the cry, Remember the Maine! went far to heal the festering wounds of the recent Civil War…..

Roosevelt and ConservationRemembering Roosevelt, Theodore RooseveltFEBRUARY 17TH, 2012 By Michelle Werts On Monday, America celebrates Presidents Day, a holiday that is specifically meant to honor our nation’s first president, George Washington, who was born on February 22, 1732. But it’s also a good time to remember many of the other men who held our nation’s office. I particularly like to celebrate the man who is an icon for environment lovers everywhere: Theodore Roosevelt, aka TR and Teddy.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota. Credit: Vicki Watkins (jakesmome)/Flickr

When schoolchildren visit Mt. Rushmore, I’m guessing many of them have the same reaction I did: Who is that fourth guy? Which is a crying shame. Growing up, textbooks regal us with tales of our founding by Washington, Adams and Jefferson; mourn the loss of men like Lincoln and Kennedy; and remember the infamous like Jackson and Nixon, but often, everyone else gets lost in the shuffle with no major scandals, wars or conflicts to define them. Luckily, though, their legacies quietly live on and Teddy’s shines brightly. Our 26th president took office upon President McKinley’s assassination in 1901, and he used his almost eight years in office for some major conservation activities, including designating:150 national forestsFive national parksthe first 51 federal bird reservationsthe first 18 national monumentsthe first four national game preservesthe first 21 reclamation projects Put them all together and Roosevelt gave federal protection to almost 230 million acres across America. And he enabled dozens of presidents with the ability to follow in his footsteps with 1906’s Antiquities Act, which allowed presidents to proclaim historic landmarks and other objects of historic or scientific interest as national monuments — TR used this act to protect a large portion of the Grand Canyon before it became a national park. And these actions barely scratch the surface of the man’s impact: He was considered a leading expert on large mammals and small birds, teddy bears are named after him for his refusal to shoot a bear cub on a

hunting trip, he authored dozens of books, and we haven’t even begun to touch his non-conservation activities.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Environmenthttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tr-environment/

The Roosevelt Museum of Natural History opened its doors in 1867. Among its first specimens was the skull of a seal that had washed up in New York Harbor, begged from its owner by the museum's founder, eight year old Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Frail, myopic "Teedie," as he was known to his family, seemed an unlikely naturalist. But it was his mind, not his body, that made Roosevelt's precocious entry into the world of natural history anything but child's play. Inquisitive and single-minded, he would pursue his interests in nature relentlessly for the rest of his life -- a pursuit that would impact America's wild places for decades beyond his death. 

Fueled by Theodore's curiosity, the Roosevelt museum grew. Teedie collected everything within his reach and range of vision, and begged friends and family to bring him any specimens they found. He even paid other children to collect specimens for him. Yet he generously shared his collection. In 1871, he donated several specimens to another fledgling museum -- the American Museum of Natural History, which had been co-founded by his father.

The following year, having obtained spectacles to correct his vision and a shotgun to aid in capturing specimens, Theodore traveled with his family to Egypt and Syria, where he collected numerous birds. By then a skilled taxidermist, he skinned and mounted the birds himself. If young Roosevelt's collection methods seemed bloody and cruel, he merely followed the accepted practices of the leading naturalists of the time. Killing was the only way to make extremely accurate observations about the physical characteristics of unfamiliar animals.

While written in a childish hand, the notebooks in which young Roosevelt logged his studies reflected the zeal with which he pursued Nature. They contained complete descriptions of the animals collected, including size, sex, place and date collected, habits, and even stomach contents. In Vienna, where the family traveled after leaving Egypt, Roosevelt turned his hotel room into a virtual zoological laboratory, much to the dismay of the cousin who shared his lodgings.

At Harvard, where he studied natural history, Roosevelt similarly outfitted his off-campus apartment and continued collecting. In 1882, after being elected to the New York State Legislature, Roosevelt donated the bulk of the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History to the Smithsonian Institution. But his interest in the outdoors did not end with the museum's closing.

By the mid-1800's, many of the people closest to nature had come to realize that the wilderness could only suffer so much exploitation. Hunters, miners, and timber cutters threatened not only individual species, but entire ecosystems. Fortunately, forward-thinking sportsmen began to organize for the conservation of game and game habitat. Theodore Roosevelt, an avid hunter, joined the fight. Not surprisingly, the organization he helped to found would be among the most influential.

In 1887, Roosevelt and editor George Bird Grinnell of "Forest and Stream" magazine founded the Boone and Crockett Club. In the pages of his magazine, Grinnell had called for scientific forest management, clean water, and restricted use of natural resources-ideas considered quite radical by most Americans. Under Roosevelt and Grinnell, the Boone and Crockett Club would support these concepts, not only promoting the enjoyment of hunting, but the study and preservation of game animals and their habitats.

Perhaps none of the club's efforts was more significant than one of their earliest -- the battle for Yellowstone. While Yellowstone had been officially designated a national park, the designation included no provision for its protection from commercial exploitation. When mining and railroad interests threatened to seriously damage the park, Boone and Crockett rose to the defense. 

With editorials, speaking engagements, and furious lobbying among Washington's rich and powerful, the B & C succeeded. In 1894, President Gover Cleveland signed a bill protecting Yellowstone. While this action alone might have been enough to enshrine Theodore Roosevelt as a Friend to Nature, it represented only a fraction of what he would do to preserve the natural world. Roosevelt's career as a politician/conservationist had only begun.

Roosevelt the President is almost universally remembered for his brash foreign policy. Yet Roosevelt the naturalist also lived in the White House. During his tenure, with the same type of bullishness as he exhibited in the international arena, he established a natural empire the like of which the world had never seen.

In March, 1903, Roosevelt visited Pelican Island in Florida, a nesting ground for numerous shorebirds. At the time, demand for plumes for women's hats had decimated shorebird populations, and Roosevelt was well aware of the danger of massive extinction. With the stroke of his presidential pen, Roosevelt created Pelican Island Bird Reservation. This was the first, but not by far the last, time Roosevelt would use such power. Before he left office, he would create 50 more such refuges. 

While his eye for beauty and his love of Nature for Nature's sake helped to drive Roosevelt's conservation efforts, they were motivated by practicality as well. Influenced by early wise-use advocates such as Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt believed that Nature existed to benefit mankind. In a conserved wilderness, timber could be harvested, sport could be had, water could be taken to irrigate farmland. All of these benefits would be lost if the wilderness were destroyed.

Acting on these beliefs, Roosevelt established the federal Reclamation Service in 1902. The agency, through the use of dams and irrigation, created arable land in areas that had been too dry to farm. Eventually, the Reclamation Service brought millions of acres of farmland into service.

In 1905, Roosevelt created the Bureau of Forestry, with Gifford Pinchot as chief forester. Pinchot believed that timberlands should be managed scientifically, with selected trees harvested and others left to grow, so that rain would not cause excessive soil erosion, runoff, flooding, or water pollution. The timbermen found this idea incompatible with their pocketbooks, and protested vigorously to their representatives in Washington. Bowing to industry pressure, Congress attached a rider to an agricultural appropriations bill that Roosevelt could not avoid signing. The rider limited the president's abilities to set aside Western forest lands for preservation. Roosevelt responded with characteristic panache; before approving the bill, he signed 16 million additional acres of Western forest into federal protection. The timbermen howled louder, but Roosevelt had trumped them again.

Year by year, act by act, proclamation by proclamation, Roosevelt built his natural empire. In Alaska, he created the Tongass and the Chugach forest reserves. In Hawaii, he set several small islands aside as the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation. Everywhere, it seemed, TR added acreage. Mount Olympus in Washington State. Lake Malheur in Oregon. Culebra Island in Puerto Rico. Mosquito Inlet in Florida. And perhaps his greatest achievement -- Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona.

"I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, sublimity, the

great loneliness and beauty of the cañon," Roosevelt said at a speech at the Grand Canyon in 1903. Under the auspices of the Antiquities Act, he signed the Grand Canyon National Monument into being on January 11, 1908. It was the 11th such monument he had created to date. He would create 18 in all, among them Montezuma Castle, Arizona -- Gila Cliff Dwelling, New Mexico -- Devil's Tower, Wyoming -- and Muir Woods, California.

No mention of Roosevelt the conservationist would be complete that did not include his friend John Muir. Though Muir, who favored keeping forest lands completely intact, often disagreed with Roosevelt on policy matters, they remained allies and admirers. It was during a memorable camping trip in Yosemite that Muir pressed Roosevelt to add Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa sequoia grove to Yosemite National Park. Roosevelt willingly complied.

When Roosevelt left office in 1909, his thoughts again turned to Nature. Under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, he led an expedition to Africa to collect specimens. Roosevelt and company bagged 512 animals, keeping about 24 and giving the rest to the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the San Francisco Museum. Although his days of pursuit had nearly ended, he would have one more adventure, as he said, "one more chance to be a boy."

In 1913, Roosevelt took his last major trek into the wilderness -- this time to the Amazon on an expedition sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. He and his companions traveled more than 1000 miles on the previously uncharted Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt), collecting 3000 specimens. During the voyage Roosevelt sustained a leg injury which became badly infected and contracted a tropical fever. This marked the beginning of decline for the relentless naturalist, who died without having regained his health on January 6, 1919. 

"The man should have youth and strength who seeks adventure in the wide, waste spaces of the earth, in the marshes, and among the vast mountain masses, in the northern forests, amid the steaming jungles of the tropics, or on the desert of sand or of snow. He must long greatly for the lonely winds that blow across the wilderness, and for sunrise and sunset over the rim of the empty world."