Who Am I?-Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
An eRumor sometimes labeled “Who am I?” or “Quiz” asking what GOP VP nomination was less than 45 of age, governed a state less than two years, had many children, loved the outdoor, hunted, was a Republican reformer and had taken on the Republican party establishment. The answer is Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.
The Truth:
Theodore Roosevelt at the age of 42 was sworn into office as the 26th President of the United States after the assassination of William McKinley. To this day, Roosevelt is the youngest man to ever hold the office of President, and it wasn’t until nearly six decades later that John F. Kennedy became the youngest man to win a Presidential election.
According to the Theodore Roosevelt Association, prior to being a US Vice President Roosevelt was a New York State Assemblyman, Governor of New York, deputy sheriff in the Dakota Territory, Police Commissioner of New York City, U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Colonel of the Rough Riders. He was married to Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt and had 6 children, Theodore Jr. (actually III), Kermit, Ethel, Alice, Archie and Quentin.
Roosevelt lived in the Whitehouse from 1901 to 1909 serving two terms as a Republican President. He had many accomplishments while in office but is best know for his stewardship of the land and as a conservationist he provided federal protection for close to 230 million acres. He became the first US President to win a Nobel Prize, introduced his “big stick” policy to build up the Navy making the United States a super power and reduced the National debt by over $90,000,000.
In 1912 he decided to run for a third run for office against President William Howard Taft (GOP) and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt ran under the progressive “Bull Moose Party” with one of his platform planks being the woman’s right to vote. There was an assassination attempt on his life and Roosevelt was shot while on the campaign trail. Two weeks later he gave a speech at Madison Square Gardens and held up this bloody shirt with two bullet holes in his shirt to the audience stating, “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose!” Wilson defeated Roosevelt by 347 electoral votes.
After his defeat, Roosevelt sank into a brief depression, according “The River of Doubt”, a biography written by Cadice Miller. He eventually pulled himself together and organized an expedition into the territory surrounding an uncharted river called Rio da Duvida or River of Doubt in South America. This was done at the request of the Brazilian government and The American Museum of Natural History and the expedition forever changed the map of the Western Hemisphere. The 1,000-mile-long Amazon tributary Rio da Duvida was later renamed to Rio Teodoro in Roosevelt’s honor. This expedition on foot over land and on the water in dugout canoes saw lots of adventure but proved to be Roosevelt’s greatest physical challenge which he almost did not survive.
Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919 at the age of 60.
Click for The Theodore Roosevelt Association web site.
Click for the 1935 Time Magazine article on the River of Doubt
updated 09/15/08