Theodore Roosevelt: My Favorite President

Theodore Roosevelt is one of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore. The other three are famous for something: George Washington was the first president, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. But Teddy Roosevelt is up there because he simply kicked *** as the president.

There are so many things I love about Roosevelt. He was an outdoorsman and conservationist to his last days (and was one of the earliest advocates of conservation in America):

During his tenure in the White House from 1901 to 1909, he designated 150 National Forests, the first 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 5 National Parks, the first 18 National Monuments, the first 4 National Game Preserves, and the first 21 Reclamation Projects.

He was a champion of consumers' rights, workers' rights, children's rights, and civil rights. Regarding that last, Roosevelt was actually the first president to invite a black man (Booker T. Washington) to the White House for dinner, which was actually scandalous at the time.

Finally, he was a diplomat, winning a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a truce between Russia and Japan.

There's obviously much more to the man, and I'm just scratching the surface here. I just wanted to give a tip of the hat (for no particular reason) to my favorite president.

--YY