Green TR â„¢

Calling all Tedheads!

Hello, I'm Theodore (aka, Teddy) Roosevelt - the 26th President of the United States. This MySpace page provides some information about me and my associates.

I'm interested in Conservation, Progressive Politics, International Affairs, History, and Literature.

I believe in the Strenuous Life and Activist Citizenship. My general attitude can be summarized as follows: "Do you what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Ghandi said the same thing a different way: "Be the change you wish to see in the world.")

I was the original Green Republican. I set aside 230 MILLION acres of wilderness during my presidency. I was also the first president to dust off the long-ignored Sherman Anti-Trust Act and actually USE IT to dismantle corporate monopolies. My third-party Progressive platform of 1912 called for national health care.

I wrote the following in 1916: "The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."

I'm annoyed at how energetically the current president, George W. Bush, has worked to undo my environmental legacy. And he shows no sign of stopping. Bush's proposed 2008 budget includes a plan to raise money by selling off several hundred thousand acres of America's public lands.

If you remember just one thing I said, remember this: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

I wasn't perfect. I could have benefited from a more enlightened view of blacks and native Americans. I cherished an absurd, Kiplingesque view of war as something romantic and glorious. And I was, as more than one historian has pointed out, a "confident imperialist" when such confidence was far from jusitified. But I was never dull. I believe my roles as conservationist and as domestic Progressive activist remain worthy of emulation to this day.

One must take one's heroes as one finds them. Being human, I had my weaknesses as well as my strengths. So do we all.