Timeline of Theodore Roosevelt’s Presidency

To keep Theodore Roosevelt from running for a second term as governor of New York, the state’s Republicans under the leadership of Thomas C. Platt conspired to get Roosevelt nominated as presidential candidate William McKinley’s running mate. McKinley won the election of 1900; however, he was assassinated on September 6, 1901, and died eight days later. On September 14, 1901, Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States. At the age of 42, he was the youngest president to assume office.

Until 1902, the United States had no permanent census bureau. Rather, temporary organizations collected information about the population instead. However, the temporary census office struggled to keep up with the amount of information needed from the US census. Theodore Roosevelt thus signed an act creating a permanent US Census Bureau, which is still in use today.

In the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, a labor strike threatened to leave thousands of people without coal as the winter approached. At the time, the United States government had little power to intervene in labor strikes, but Theodore Roosevelt feared “the untold misery . . . with the certainty of riots which might develop into social war.” Roosevelt formed a commission to investigate the strike. Both the mine operators and the union accepted the commission and voted to end the anthracite strike. As an example of Roosevelt’s Square Deal, his negotiations set a precedent for relations between government and labor. On October 23, 1902, the 163-day strike officially ended as the miners returned to work.

Theodore Roosevelt believed the federal government should take the lead in conservation. After learning about the uncontrolled killing of birds on Pelican Island in Florida, he established it as the first bird refuge, making it the first of 561 national wildlife refuges. Pelican Island remains protected today and is an essential breeding ground for migratory birds.

Theodore Roosevelt added a “corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine during his Fourth Annual State of the Union address. In 1823, President James Monroe had warned European powers that the United States would oppose any further colonization in the Western Hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary went a step further, stating that, if necessary, the United States would intervene to restore order in Latin America.

Among other firsts, such as owning an automobile and flying in an airplane, Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to ride in a submarine on August 25, 1905. He rode in the USS Plunger for nearly three hours with the submarine’s commander, Lieutenant Charles Preston Nelson. Roosevelt enjoyed the experience, even briefly taking the controls himself, and stated afterwards, “I believe a good deal can be done with these submarines.”

When Theodore Roosevelt’s son, Ted, was injured in a college football scrimmage, he realized how close some colleges were to ending the sport due to safety concerns. Roosevelt met with the heads of Princeton, Yale, and Harvard and insisted that they reduce the brutality of football. It is believed that these safety reforms may have saved the future of football. The NCAA even named their highest honor after Roosevelt: the “Teddy.”

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt signed the Enabling Act, which allowed Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona to join the United States. Oklahoma Territory was granted statehood in 1907, while New Mexico and Arizona joined in 1912.

In August 1906, a race-related incident in Brownsville, Texas resulted in the death of one white civilian and the wounding of another. The townspeople of Brownsville blamed the Black soldiers of the 25th Infantry who were stationed at nearby Fort Brown. In November 1906, Theodore Roosevelt discharged the entire regiment of 167 men without honor despite their assertion of innocence. The white officers were exempted. After a reinvestigation in 1972, the U.S. Army confirmed that the 25th Infantry was innocent, and the regiment was given an honorable discharge, mostly posthumously as only two men were still alive.

After Theodore Roosevelt promoted the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty between Russia and Japan, the Russo-Japanese War ended in September 1905. Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful negotiations. He was not able to accept the prize in person. Instead, American minister to Norway Herbert H. D. Peirce accepted the prize and gave a speech Roosevelt wrote on the president’s behalf.

At a White House reception, Theodore Roosevelt set a Guinness world record when he shook hands with 8,513 people. Roosevelt’s reputation for shaking hands and telling people he was “dee-lighted” even made it onto postcards such as the one pictured.

Both Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory entered the United States as the single state of Oklahoma, the 46th state. This occurred a year-and-a-half after Theodore Roosevelt signed the Enabling Act, which allowed Oklahoma to enter the Union.

Theodore Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to declare the Grand Canyon a National Monument and set aside over 800,000 acres of land in Arizona. In an earlier visit to the Grand Canyon, Roosevelt had said, “Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.” In 1919, after the creation of the National Park Service, Grand Canyon National Park was established.

Theodore Roosevelt signed the Appropriation Act, which increased the president’s salary from $50,000 to $75,000. During the 120 years since George Washington’s presidency, the president’s salary had only increased once before. Beginning in 1908, Congress debated increasing the salary again effective with the beginning of Taft’s presidency. The act passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate and was signed by Roosevelt on March 3, 1909—the day before he left office.