Things to Ponder

1. What effect do you think Theodore Roosevelt’s childhood asthma had on his way of seeing the world? When his father challenged him to “make your body,” that is, to overcome his weakness and disease, what were Roosevelt’s choices? Later in life Roosevelt said that anyone can overcome virtually anything in life. Do you think he was right?

2. Of all the Presidents of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt seems to be the one who loved children most. Do you think it was ok for the Roosevelt children to slide down the White House stairs on dinner trays, to walk in stilts around the house, to shoot spitballs at paintings in the halls, to throw water balloons off the roof? Why do you think President Roosevelt let his child be so rambunctious in the official residence of the President of the United States?

3. How difficult do you think it was for Roosevelt’s first child Alice to live with a stepmother and five younger siblings?

4. What do you think the badlands of Dakota Territory felt like when Roosevelt first arrived in 1883? Make a list of things we count on and take for granted that were not available to Roosevelt in those years.

5. Roosevelt hunted all of his life. He loved to hunt for big game all over the world. Today we are not so sure we respect hunters who kill large animals for the pleasure of it. How should we evaluate Roosevelt the hunter?

6. Roosevelt was an “accidental” President. He was nominated to the Vice Presidency in 1900 and nobody expected him to move from that office to the Presidency. But then William McKinley was shot while attending an event in Buffalo, New York. What impact do you think McKinley’s assassination and the artificial way he became President had on Theodore Roosevelt.

7. Roosevelt thought the Panama Canal was his greatest achievement.
What do you think was his greatest achievement?

8. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to invite an African American (Booker T. Washington) to dine with him in the White House. It created a gigantic controversy and President Roosevelt was denounced by newspaper editors and public officials throughout the United States.
Why do you supposed he did what he did? Do you think it was a good thing to do? Why was there so much outcry?

9. In 1903 Roosevelt traveled through 26 states in a special seven-car Presidential train. Try to imagine what that must have been like. How was that different from the way Presidents travel today?

10. When World War I became an American war, former President Roosevelt sent all four of his sons to fight in Europe, if possible, on the front lines. One of his sons, Quentin, was killed in the war. Do you think it was a good idea or a bad idea for Roosevelt to send his famous sons into harm’s way?