Title:  Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume:  Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement

Author:  Theodore Roosevelt

Release Date:  October 29, 2004 [EBook #13891]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS

BY JAMES D. RICHARDSON

Theodore Roosevelt

September 14, 1901

* * * * *

Messages, Proclamations, and Executive Orders to the end of the Fifty-seventh Congress, First Session

* * * * *

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-seventh President of the United States, was born in the city of New York, October 27, 1858.  His ancestors on the paternal side were of an old Knickerbocker family, and on the maternal side of Scotch-Irish descent.  He was educated at home under private tuition and prepared for matriculation into Harvard, where he was graduated in 1880.  He spent the year of 1881 in study and travel.  During the years 1882-1884 he was an assemblyman in the legislature of New York.  During this term of service he introduced the first civil service bill in the legislature in 1883, and its passage was almost simultaneous with the passage of the Civil Service Bill through Congress.  In 1884 he was the Chairman of the delegation from New York to the National Republican Convention.  He received the nomination for mayor of the city of New York in 1886 as an Independent, but was defeated.  He was made Civil Service Commissioner by President Harrison in 1889 and served as president of the board until May, 1895.  He resigned to become President of the New York Board of Police Commissioners in May, 1895.  This position, in which the arduous duties were discharged with remarkable vigor and fearlessness, he resigned in 1897 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy.  On the breaking out of the Spanish-American War in 1898, he resigned on May 6, and, entering the army, organized the First United States Volunteer ("Rough Rider”) Regiment of Cavalry, recommending Col.  L.G.  Wood to the command, and taking for himself the second-in-command as lieutenant-colonel.  He had gained his military experience as a member of the Eighth Regiment of N.Y.N.G. from 1884-1888, during which time he rose to the rank of captain.  The Rough Riders were embarked at Tampa, Fla., with the advance of Shafter’s invading army, and sailed for Cuba on June 15, 1898.  They participated