“Born to wealth, with an inherited sense that it must be repaid with public service, he found himself increasingly repelled by those who went after money for money’s sake, or used it to buy power.”

Before Theodore Roosevelt became president at age 42, he had been a military hero, an author of 16 books, a governor of New York, and a cowboy. This wild mix of experiences and interests made him unpredictable.  Was he progressive?  Conservative? Sympathetic to workers? Or to the rich? He was a Republican who believed that the federal government needed to have a role in regulating trusts because he felt that they were taking unfair advantage of competitors, customers, and employees.  He could see problems from more than one perspective.  He said that what interested him most was “moral problems.”

Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001, p.360.