Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President

Nearly everyone who wanted Teddy back in the job on Cafferty's website wanted him back to take on big business in America today. They want Teddy the Trustbuster. I'll give him that. He saw the inherent dangers of capital being concentrated in the hands of too few and how that disrupts the "free" in free market.

He is also remembered fondly for his conservationist efforts. Again, I find no fault with that.

Here's where I start to have problems with him, or at least the now popularly remembered version of him: he walked softly and carried a big stick--well, at least carried the big stick in a threatening manner if American interests were in doubt and swung it when American interests were actually threatened. Case in point: the Canal. Yes, it was a great thing for commerce, and for the world, but somehow I think the Panamanians got the short end of the, er, stick on that one. (And to think of the pomposity of some in the Carter years to refer to it as their canal!)

Some fondly think of him leading the charge of San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American war (that bestowed upon US Puerto Rico and the Phillapines)... but that is sometimes seen as the beginnings of American Imperialism... but I should ask the Cherokee when they think American Imperialism began...

But he is earnestly remembered as being a man of conviction, a bull moose. Yet men of conviction have demonstrated to be problematic, i.e. Hitler--not that I'm saying Teddy was any where like Hitler, only trying to argue that what convictions are matters not simply that one has them.

I will also credit him being one of two American presidents being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On Roosevelt's part, it was for mediating peace to the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05.