ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858-1919), 26th president of the United States, was born in New York city on Oct. 27, 1858. His father, Theodore Roosevelt, was of a Dutch family conspicuous for centuries in the affairs of the city of his birth; his mother, Martha Bulloch, came of Scotch-Irish and Huguenot stock, which had given men of distinguished quality to the service of Georgia and the South. Young Roosevelt's ill-health necessi tated tutors and withheld him from the rough-and-tumble com panionship of boys his own age ; but deliberately and with great persistence, he built up his frail body. He was graduated from Harvard in 188o and the same year married Alice Hathaway Lee, of Boston. At the Columbia Law school, and in the office of his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt, he prepared himself for the bar. But the law did not attract him. His interest lay rather in literature, in natural history and in the prospect of useful and strenuous activity, which the world of politics presented. Against the coun sel of his friends who urged that politics was a "dirty business" Roosevelt joined a local political club. His associates there were his first political mentors, they guided him (1880 through his initial campaign for the State legislature. Within six weeks of the opening of the session, Roosevelt made his mark at Albany when he offered a motion to impeach a certain highly respectable judge who had proved over-lenient to a group of notorious finan ciers. He was sharply and at last successfully opposed, but his characterization of the sinister forces behind a corrupt legislature as "the wealthy criminal class" stuck in the public mind. Roose velt was in the New York assembly three years; and in 1884 his party's candidate for speaker. He became the acknowledged leader of a small but potent group of young men who felt keenly the need of a new spirit in political life and were willing to fight both in the legislature and within the Republican party to keep the corrupting influences in check. As chairman of the New York delegation to the Republican convention in Chicago in 1884, Roosevelt supported the candidacy of Sen. George F. Edmunds, and with vigour and courage opposed the nomination of James G. Blaine. But when Blaine was chosen Roosevelt refused to desert the party, contending that Blaine, having been fairly nominated, had a right to the support of all loyal Republicans. It became
clear to him that, for the moment at least, his political career was ended. The death of his wife early in 1884, following the birth of a daughter, had been followed 12 hours later by the death of his mother. When the campaign was over, therefore, he betook himself to the ranch which he had established the previous autumn in Western Dakota. For three years he lived a ranch man's life, and at odd moments wrote biographies of Thomas H. Benton and Gouverneur Morris. Within six months of his corn ing, he virtually took the leadership of the forces of law and order in the region, organized a protective association to check the cattle-thieves and did active duty as deputy-sheriff. A call from the Republicans in New York city to be their candidate for mayor brought Roosevelt back into politics in 1886. The wide spread fear on the part of the propertied classes that Henry George, the candidate of the United Labor party, might be elected caused many Republicans, however, to vote for Abram F. Hewitt, the Democratic nominee, who was chosen, Roosevelt running third.