Max Roberts
My fellow Americans, I have a radical proposition for you all. It is my stance that all of the presidents who now grace our currency: Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Grant, Jackson, et al.,should be replaced with portraiture of our nation’s greatest commander-in-chief, Theodore Roosevelt. I know, this may seem ludicrous, but putting Roosevelt at the forefront of our historical ardor would be the equivalent of putting a superhero on the five-dollar bill. Roosevelt was a veritable Superman among Clark Kents.
Although Roosevelt was born with terrible near-sightedness and asthma, he still managed, throughout his lifetime, to kick more ass than a twenty-legged ass-kicking machine with the “kick asses” dial set to 11. His formidable physical strength was complemented by his spectacularly sharp wit. During his childhood, he mastered both French and German, and during his time at Harvard University, one of his professors became so angry at the young Roosevelt’s tenacious debate, he famously yelled “Now see here Roosevelt, I am the one teaching this class!” Needless to say, the academic elite at Harvard did not appreciate TR’s tenacity.
When he proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Alice Hathaway Lee, she turned him down. Not one to be deterred from true love, TR proposed again and the two were married. On their honeymoon, the newlyweds climbed the Matterhorm, because they were just that X-treme.
At the beginning of his political career, Roosevelt was elected as a New York State Representative at the age of 23, the youngest person to ever hold the office. By comparison, most 23-year-old UT students spend their time playing X-Box and sleeping until noon.
His wife and mother both died on the same day, Valentine’s Day, 1884, causing Theodore to leave his infant daughter in the care of his sister and take off for the Dakota Badlands to try and overcome his grief. Called names like “four eyes” and “tenderfoot” by the rough characters of the West, TR gained the respect of the cowboys by thrashing every man who offended him with his steel fists or his iron wit.
Returning to New York, he became the NYPD Police Comissioner and made it his duty to clean up the notroriously crooked NYPD. Instead of hiding behind his desk like the commmish on Batman, TR prowled the streets as a beat cop, catching cops slacking off or taking bribes and succeeded in building the reputation the NYPD has to this day.
President McKinley later made Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but when the Spanish-American War started to heat up, TR was not content to sit idly by and let others fight without him. He resigned his post and founded the U.S. First Volunteer Cavarly, more famously known as “The Rough Riders.” TR accepted any man who wanted to fight for his country regardless of race, leading an integrated unit decades before such a thing became mainstream.
After winning the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Spanish-American War for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity,” Roosevelt decided to run for governor of New York. The crime bosses of the city remembered his time as NYPD commissioner and decided to funnel TR into a political dead-end: the vice presidency. Much to their chagrin, President McKinley was assassinated almost immediately upon taking office for his second term, making TR the youngest person to hold the office of the President.
As president, Roosevelt settled strikes, broke up powerful trusts, built the Panama Canal, desegregated Japanese schoolchildren in California, fought to preserve the independence of South American countries from Europe and worked to conserve the American outdoors by commissioning numerous state parks. One notable incident occurred at a speech he was giving in Milwaukee. After an assassination attempt wherein TR was shot in the chest, he proceeded to give a two-hour speech, going to the hospital only after he had finished speaking.
Roosevelt later invited Booker T. Washington to chill at the White House, marking the first time a black man had ever eaten dinner as an official guest at the White House, continuing his habit of desegregation before such a thing became fashionable. TR also won the Nobel Peace Prize for defusing the Russo-Japanese War. How many people in history can claim that they won both the Nobel Peace Prize for circumventing a war as well as the Congressional Medal of Honor for kicking asses and possibly even taking names?
After his presidency ended, Roosevelt didn’t slow down like most presidents do. He proceeded to travel the world, including a famous expedition in 1909 through the Amazon Jungle. In Brazil, TR battled disease, the weather, and hostile tribesman before discovering a new branch of the Amazon River, Rio Teodoro.
Returning to the United States in 1914, TR found that the world was being torn apart by the rising conflict in Europe which culminated in the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus precipitating World War I. TR volunteered to raise a regiment to fight in Europe, but his efforts were rebuffed by President Wilson. In response, TR returned to his editorial duties and engaged in tireless efforts to raise money and supplies for the war effort.
Theodore Roosevelt returned to his home and died in his sleep on January 6, 1919. His last words are reputed to have been directed at his manservant, James Amos, when TR said, “Please turn out the light.” The official cause of death was listed as a pulmonary embolism brought on by the combined effects of inflammatory rheumatism and recurrent malaria. Archie Roosevelt, his son, on temporary leave to recuperate from a leg wound, cabled his siblings still overseas with the simple message, “The Old Lion is Dead.” When the news reached Washington, D.C., the Vice President, Thomas R. Marshall, was reputed to have said, “Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.”
Theodore Roosevelt was not only one of the finest presidents the United States has ever elected; Theodore Roosevelt was also a faithful husband, a model parent, an enthusiastic citizen who sought to accomplish something great for his country and the world at large. TR was a prolific writer and tireless campaigner for the protection of basic human rights, a masterful politician who shaped the world around him, always basing his actions on the American concepts of freedom, equal justice under the law, and the pursuit of happiness. Perhaps replacing all of the presidential portraits would be excessive, but it my opinion that Roosevelt is vastly underappreciated by the majority of the American public. Okay, Department of the Treasury, I’ll make a deal with you. You can keep Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Grant, Hamilton, and Franklin, but how about we replace Jackson? Sounds fair to me.
