Original subtitles

- Sir, nice to meet you.

Ma'am how are you doing?

- Vice president.

- What is it, papa?

- The president's been shot.

- Everything can change in a moment.

Theodore Roosevelt did everything he could

to be ready for that moment.

- Theodore Roosevelt is born into privilege

and great wealth.

- A very sickly child,

so he had to put up his dukes and fight.

- Roosevelt saw himself as the embodiment of America.

- He was the exemplar of the strenuous life.

- He suffers loss. He suffers grief.

- Here's a man who had everything;

Education, wealth, opportunities.

- But he felt all of that must be used

to help the lives of the unfortunate.

- Fairness, just as equity is what drove him.

- He woke up every day of his life saying, bring it on.

- He was the first celebrity president.

- There were thousands of people

yelling and screaming like he's a rockstar.

- He grasped

the power of the presidency with both hands.

- He had so much energy. He's always on his feet.

- He gave an 84 minute address bleeding from a chest wound.

- He becomes a folk hero.

- On the side of the underdog.

- He was multifaceted.

- He was America as a singular figure.

He wanted to change the country.

- He makes the United States a global power.

- And he's propelling America's best ideas.

- He dragged America,

kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

- He was always moving forward to change things,

to make his mark on the world.

- It's been confirmed,

President McKinley died this morning at 2:15 AM.

The tracks have been cleared,

the train will take you wherever you wanna go.

- Direct this train to Buffalo.

I must pay my respects.

- Theodore Roosevelt becomes, at 42 years old,

the youngest president of the United States in history.

- Roosevelt could never have walked in the front door

of The White House.

The Republicans never would have nominated him for president

- One of McKinley's closest advisers, Mark Hanna,

thinks T.R is an absolute maniac.

- Something has to be done.

We cannot have this cowboy running our country.

It was a mistake to push for him to be vice president.

- That's better

than giving him another term in New York.

- He will prove to be a bigger embarrassment

than any of us could ever have imagined.

- Gentlemen,

I realize I'm not your ideal choice

of successor, Senator Hanna.

But I need you to realize

that I do not undertake this responsibility lightly.

- Good.

And I need you to realize,

that this administration will remain loyal to McKinley.

We will not tolerate any changes.

- The wounds are still fresh.

- Indeed they are.

- I should take the oath at once.

I wanna say one thing.

In this hour, in our terrible national bereavement,

I wish to state that it is my aim to continue unbroken

the policies of President McKinley,

for the peace, prosperity, and the honor

of our beloved country.

- He said that he would

carry out the policies

of deceased President McKinley,

but he carried them out the way people carry out the garbage

- Theodore Roosevelt becomes President

on September 14th, 1901.

It's the first year of a new century,

and there's tremendous optimism all across the nation.

- Roosevelt becomes president

after 40 years of unbelievable economic growth,

urban growth, population growth.

It's the number one industrial economy in the world.

- This was the great era of immigration.

1 million European immigrants

were arriving in the United States every year.

- The United States goes from a rather insular growing power

in the Western hemisphere

to now being a global power.

- There's a new spirit in the land

and there's a new spirit in the White House.

Then Roosevelt calls it the White House.

It had been the Executive Mansion before that,

but suddenly he named it The White House

on a piece of stationary,

and The White House it became.

People in the country feel there's life and energy

in this new youngest president.

- Go, go, go, go.

- Hey, papa.

- Good book?

- You've now got

six boisterous kids in the White House.

- Oh, look at this. Look at you.

- Making lots of noise, having lots of fun.

- Beautiful!

Mwah!

Mwah!

- Roller skating on the floors,

bringing ponies up on elevators,

putting snakes in the couches.

- Come on, come on.

- T.R was unlike people of his generation,

he was very interested in his children

and he allowed them to come running in

in the middle of whatever he was doing.

- He had so much energy. He's always on his feet.

He meets sometimes hundreds of people a day.

- He set the world's record

for the number of hands shaken on a single day

in the White House, it was 8000 something.

- He reads a book a day.

I mean, even as a president, he reads a book a day.

- It's part of the golden age of journalism

that writers are taking on the social problems of the day.

And he reads these things like catnip,

and then the next thing you know,

those people are in the White House.

Then he has two hours every afternoon where he's exercising.

It could be a wrestling match, a boxing match,

a hike in Rock Creek Park.

- He was the first really celebrity president

of the United States.

Newspapers couldn't get enough

of what his daughter Alice was wearing,

or the pets that they were keeping in the White House.

- His oldest daughter, Alice,

was a teenager in the White House.

And she was a darling of the people,

they called her Princess Alice.

- Alice, what are those?

- I'll wear what I want.

- Theodore, we need to do something about your daughter.

- Edith, I can run the country,

or I can run my daughter's affairs.

I cannot possibly do both.

Mwah!

- Mr. President.

- Hm-hmm.

- Senator Hanna is at 10:00, not 11:00, and then Mr. Hay.

There's trouble with the coal miners in Pennsylvania,

so Attorney General Knox has been added into this afternoon.

You also have a meeting with Booker T Washington.

- Make that dinner, with Booker T. Washington.

- Yes, sir.

- When Roosevelt was president,

I think we have to remember

how profoundly racist this country was.

There were black codes, Jim Crow,

the fundamental suppression of the black people

and the black vote,

and demonizing and belittling of African-Americans

in every possible way.

There were still more than 140 lynchings per year

in the United States.

- One of the first things he does,

which in hindsight is quite remarkable,

is he invites the most prominent African-American

at the time, Booker T. Washington,

to have dinner with him at the White House.

Roosevelt sees this as a moment

to put his own mark on the race question,

by bucking the orthodoxies of white political leaders,

both Republican and Democrat.

- Booker T Washington had a very large network

of black Republicans who could deliver votes,

and T.R had federal jobs he could give to those people.

So let's make a deal.

Let's work together to keep blacks in the Republican party

and to do what we can to treat these people respectfully.

- Have you given more thought to Tyrell's appointment?

- It won't be easy getting a colored judge through.

- He'd be good for the city.

- Eh, you gotta pick your battles.

- Well, now that I'm here,

there are a few men we need to replace.

- You mean, Democrats.

- Can't you find anyone less inclined to look the other way

when men are being lynched?

- You know my feelings on the subject.

There's no excuse for it.

- They just burned a man alive in Tennessee.

No one lifted a finger.

I have a list here;

Reasonable white Democrats, moderate white Republicans.

I need more seats at the table,

and you're the only one that could make that happen.

At least consider my suggestions.

- I will.

Should we go in?

- Are you sure about this?

- Of course.

- The next day, the south castigated Roosevelt

with very mean-spirited political cartoons.

In the south, a black person

sitting down with a white person at dinner,

that was unheard of.

- Roosevelt had violated a key principle

of the racial etiquette of white supremacy and Jim Crow.

And the blow back was just tremendous.

Senator Ben Tillman of Georgia

said, "Roosevelt has weakened white supremacy

and we're gonna have to lynch 1000 black people

in order to re-establish it."

- "As things have turned out,

I'm very glad that I asked him.

For the clamor aroused by the act

makes me feel as if the act was necessary."

- Now Roosevelt said, ah, I'll invite Booker T. Washington

anytime I want to.

Well, he never invited him again.

Roosevelt understood he would get reelected

by making sure whites know

that he knew what the hierarchy was.

- We can't let him off the hook

for simply saying that he didn't want to sacrifice

the party's ability to get support from

whites in the south.

This was a tricky balancing act,

that many white people north and south

did not want more in the way of addressing race inequality,

but wanted more from the Republican party

in the way of addressing class inequalities.

- There were tremendous class divisions

in society at the time.

And there was serious discontent that people felt

as a result of getting left behind.

- And this was a time when business

got beyond the control of government,

and Roosevelt thought that needed to be rectified.

So he said, if business is up here

and government is down here,

let's make government bigger

so it can basically duke it out with business

on its own level.

- So just two months after Roosevelt took office,

JP Morgan announces the creation of a railroad trust

called Northern Securities.

It was a combination

of three railroad lines in the Northwest

that covered an incredibly important part of the country.

- So trust is a monopoly that can dictate terms,

that can dictate prices,

and Roosevelt felt they weren't being fair.

- Mr. Morgan, I was not expecting you.

- Well, you are suing me.

- To be clear, sir, I am not personally suing you.

It's the United States government.

- If there was something you didn't like

about my railroad deal, Roosevelt,

you should have sent your men to see my men,

and that's how it's done.

- Well, that would be preferential

treatment, wouldn't it?

- You forget I was a friend of your father's.

- My father taught me everything I know,

including that every man, woman and child

deserves a fair shake.

- Do you intend going after my steel company next?

- Things have gotten out of hand,

law is here to restore a balance.

I'm merely enforcing the law.

- Spare me the lecture.

All I know is you're making my life a lot harder.

- Mr. Morgan, you're gonna have to play by the rules.

- The case makes its way to the Supreme Court

and Roosevelt wins.

It is the first time that a company

as prominent as Northern Securities,

a person as privileged as Morgan, has been

held to account.

It was really the first time

that people felt like the president would

not automatically

take the side of business, of the capitalists, of the rich.

- But still tensions are very high.

It was so clear to working class people

that they were not sharing in the vast wealth being made.

So they started to take action.

- There was a sense that workers should be treated fairly.

Unions had been growing in power.

And in the first year of Roosevelt's presidency,

almost 150,000 coal miners go on strike.

- The nation in 1902 runs on coal,

and so if coal suddenly becomes unavailable,

the economy comes screeching to a halt

and in wintertime people literally suffer.

And so when they do go on strike in the spring of 1902,

the owners won't even meet with the union representatives.

So there's a real standoff.

And as winter looms into the fall,

Roosevelt realizes he has to tackle these problems.

It's a different world,

and we need to make very significant adjustments

to that new world,

or our democracy is gonna go over a cliff.

- Let him pass.

- In the summer of 1902,

almost 150,000 coal miners go on strike.

And they're being met with silence

from the owners of the coal mines.

- In 1902, the coal industry was the biggest industry

fueling the economy of America.

The owners of the mines became rich beyond belief,

but coal miners were living in poverty.

There were no laws to protect against child labor,

they were getting sick from black lung,

being killed in astronomical numbers.

So many miners wanted to change

what was going on in these mines.

- While Roosevelt is trying to decide what to do

about the coal strike.

He goes on a speaking tour in Massachusetts

to campaign for his fellow Republicans.

- In September of 1902,

as he's driving through Pittsfield, Massachusetts,

a trolley tumbles into his horse drawn carriage full speed.

T.R is flown about 30 to 40 feet in the air

and lands face down on the ground.

Everybody who's watching this assumes the president is dead.

- One of his secret service men is killed.

Roosevelt's bruised, his glasses are broken

and his leg is very badly damaged.

He has serious surgery.

- While he's sitting there

recovering from the carriage accident,

the need for some sort of a solution to the coal strike

is becoming really urgent.

The weather is beginning to get cold and there's no coal

that's been stored up for homes.

Hospitals and schools are closing down,

there are riots in the streets commandeering coal carts.

There's real panic in the air,

but there was no precedent for a president getting involved

in a strike of this magnitude,

no constitutional right to do so.

He was told by his advisors,

if you get involved and you fail as you are likely to fail,

then the responsibility will be yours.

But he could not sit on the sidelines.

- Roosevelt has to do something,

and so he decides in early October

to do what no president has done before,

which is to say, look

rational people can come to rational agreements.

So I'm gonna bring in

the union representatives to the White House

and the coal mine owners to the White House,

and we're gonna hash it out.

- In that room, you have John Mitchell,

president of the United Mine Workers speaking for the union.

Mitchell started working in the mines himself

at around 10 years old.

Then you have George Baer, President of

the Reading Railroad speaking for the industry.

Baer actually said that God had appointed him

and people like him

to determine the destination of our country,

and unions were unnecessary.

- When Roosevelt started the meeting,

he said, "Is it all right

if I have a stenographer take notes?"

And they all said, yes.

- Well, the way I see it,

there are three main parties involved;

The operators, the miners, and the public,

and I'm on the side of the public.

So let's come to an agreement for the sake of the country.

- Sir, the union would abide by a presidential commission

to decide what's fair.

We wanna work.

- No commission is needed to get these mines running.

We've got 20,000 honest workers

glad to work for what we pay,

but they're intimidated by him and his lies.

- Our union only wants fair wages

and fair hours, nothing more.

- If you want the mines to run,

you must arrest those that are responsible

for the intimidation and murder.

- My men have been pushed to their limits

and they've made some mistakes, but they're not murderers.

- Let them rot in prison where they belong.

- It's your company police who start the trouble.

- We'll not listen to your lies.

- Gentlemen!

- Mr. President, I've told you my position.

It's up to them.

- We will never accept a proposal

with the union at the table.

- Never, you must!

- We will not let our business be dictated by a mob.

I would've thought a man of your breeding

would have known that.

You've wasted our time.

- Time is running out, Mr. President,

and I tried to do the right thing.

- Well, now I know what we're up against.

Did you get all that?

Good.

- The meeting ends in terrible failure,

and Roosevelt's very disappointed.

However, he reads the notes

and he realized that the attitude of the coal barons

was obstinate and the attitude of the union guy

was willing to come forth to some sort of solution,

that if he made it public,

then there'd be a demand for action.

So he sends the transcript

to the government printing office,

turning the stenos notes into a pamphlet,

which is then ready by midnight

to give to the press the next morning

so that it can be in all their newspapers.

And it changes the public mood.

Now they felt much more sympathy for the strikers,

they felt angry at the arrogance

on the part of the coal operators.

- Coal and iron police private guards came to the scene

and there was essentially a kind of a melee

of rock and stone throwing, shots fired.

- Dirty scabs!

- A guard shot another striker in Shenandoah last night,

killed him.

America needs its coal.

- We've received letters from 100 mayors, they need help.

- We've gotta end the strike.

- Yes, but how do we do that?

- Well, I've spoken to many mine owners myself,

they suggest military action.

- Military action?

- Yeah, you order the army to disband the strikers,

and then you get the non-union miners who wanna work in,

the union will fold.

Call in the army.

- Can we do that?

- Yes, bring in the army.

But, but not to disband the strikers.

If the owners won't negotiate

then we'll just use the army

to take control and run the mines ourselves,

that'll bring back to the table.

- That's not what I meant.

- And I'm not sure that's legal.

We can't simply interfere with private property like that.

- I have been reading John's biography of Lincoln.

Now there were times where he suspended the law

to get results, right?

- But Mr. President, those were different times,

we can't just- - We were at war.

- So are we.

- Lincoln really was for T.R, a hero.

And in the biggest crisis of his own presidency,

the coal strike,

Roosevelt's somehow managed to read

this multi-volume work by Nicolay and Hay

on Abraham Lincoln.

And he took solace from the notion

that there were times when Lincoln had to break precedent,

where he had to act without the law being on his side.

And it was necessary

because he had to be a steward of the people.

And so Roosevelt decides

I'm gonna send troops in to take over the mines

and operate them on behalf of the people.

I think he could say to himself, "Lincoln would do this,

if he needed to."

- Lincoln, did what it took to save the union,

including at times strain the constitution

to a breaking point.

That was Roosevelt's philosophy.

It's important to have a constitution,

but he always said the constitution

is not as important as the people.

A lot of his negotiations involve a thread

that's either implied or specifically stated.

And in this case, he specifically stated it.

He said, if you all don't agree,

well then maybe the federal government

is gonna have to nationalize the mines

and force the workers back as federal employees.

- But before he put those plans in motion,

he knew he had one other option.

And that was to turn to John Pierpont Morgan,

the man who he was fighting in the courts,

but also the only man really who had any influence

over the coal mine owners.

- In Pennsylvania, the Reading Railroad owned the mines,

and guess who owned the Reading Railroad?

JP Morgan.

So he had the authority to help settle the strike.

- Morgan was starting to understand

that there could be unrest, that there could be disorder,

that there could be chaos,

and that that would be bad for business

and bad for the country.

So Roosevelt sent Elihu Root to New York,

and onboard Morgan's yacht they drafted an agreement

that created an independent commission

to mediate a settlement to the strike.

- The owners agreed to it. The union agrees to it.

They come to a settlement that settles both sides

and the coal strike comes to an end.

The hospitals open again, the schools are open,

people have warmth for the winter and the country loves it.

They love the idea that their president has intervened

on behalf of the people, and he's a hero.

In 1903, building on his success in the coal strike,

he decides to take on big business again

and create a government agency that will have powers

to look into the books of private industry

so that he will understand if there are corporations

that are not playing by the rules of the game,

that are violating antitrust.

This is a big deal.

- Theodore Roosevelt always maintained

that they were good businesses and bad businesses,

who used terrible anti-competitive tactics.

John D Rockefeller was one of the worst,

most ruthless businessmen.

His company Standard Oil had accrued an empire

by literally burning the competitors down

or by buying them out, or running them out.

- "I am amused at the shortsighted folly

of the very wealthy men.

And I am deeply concerned to find out

how large a proportion of them

stand for what is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest."

- Roosevelt's a fighter. He's always a fighter.

Now the fight is escalating.

He had taken on J.P Morgan earlier,

now he's taking on J.D Rockefeller,

perhaps the biggest character in this battle,

the Goliath to David.

- One of the reasons

why Roosevelt says these powerful people are dangerous,

is they are meddling in politics.

They have the power and the money to buy state legislators,

to buy senators.

And so Roosevelt at a certain point,

learns that John D. Rockefeller is allegedly doing just that

he's using his power and his wealth

to influence members of Congress.

Roosevelt tries to expose Rockefeller's shenanigans

in order to illustrate

that this is the undemocratic activities

that unchecked big business is capable of.

- As Congress was discussing the bill

Roosevelt was getting pretty frustrated.

But Roosevelt was masterful when it came to the press.

He was friends with lots of journalists

and he would invite a few selected reporters

in for a kind of strange ritual he had,

to talk while he was being shaved.

- Reporters are outside. They want a response to Rockefeller.

- So do I.

Of course, I can't get my bill passed.

Rockefeller's so rich,

he can pay senators off with spare change.

- If only you could prove it, sir.

- Maybe I don't have to prove it,

just get people to believe it.

Bring them in,

let's see if Rockefeller's up for a fight.

- Mr. President.

- Gentlemen.

- It looks like Rockefeller has gotten you bottled up,

you're gonna give up

in that bureau of corporations legislation?

- Since you can't the votes.

- I might have to,

it's easy for Rockefeller to win when he cheats the system.

- Cheats the system? How?

- Americans in the late 19th century

grow increasingly worried about the power of big business.

People like John D. Rockefeller, J.P Morgan, Andrew Carnegie

and many of these other industrialists.

Critics called them robber barons.

They're seen as really dangerous people

because of the power that they possess.

And so when Roosevelt comes to office,

he's aware of this growing concern

and he decides to do something about it.

- In 1903, Roosevelt has a bill before the Congress

to create a bureau of corporations,

which will have the power to regulate big business.

He wasn't against big business.

He was simply against big business

if it didn't play by the rules of the game.

But there's a huge outcry on the part of business.

The corporations start sending telegrams

to the Republican senators;

"Kill this bill. You must do that, you owe us.

You are our party."

So Roosevelt uses Rockefeller as the symbol of big business.

- Well, I've heard that Rockefeller

has been telegramming certain senators

telling them that he owns the Republican Party,

and demanding that they kill my legislation.

- So you think these senators are gonna cave in

because Rockefeller is twisting their arms?

- Well, you know, when they call the roll at Senate,

certain senators don't know

whether to answer present or not guilty.

- So which senators did he lean on?

- How many? Is he bribing them?

- What are you gonna do to stop it?

- Oh, what can I possibly do,

Rockefeller is a very powerful man.

- There's a story here.

- Do you really think there is?

- This could end up on the front page,

but I need some details.

- Oh, well, I guess I could give you a few names.

You didn't hear it from me though.

- So the story comes out and then no self-respecting Senator

is able to vote against that bill

fearing that they're gonna look like they're just slavishly

under the control J.D Rockefeller,

so they vote for the bill and it passes.

- Roosevelt has this vision

that government needs to act as a regulatory agent,

as an agent that will make sure that businesses

do what businesses are supposed to do.

- Roosevelt's understands that he has to educate

and shape public opinion.

He uses the bully pulpit, which he names.

He's the first one to call it the bully pulpit.

You know, and bully doesn't mean bully, mean,

it means wonderful, splendid, a great platform

that the president has.

- Roosevelt used it to get his message out

that the presidency and the federal government

is about ensuring that people have a fair shot.

- The sea change in the idea

that yes, the federal government is responsible

for the individual American citizen,

that is a vast change from only a few years before.

And he changed American foreign policy as well.

- Roosevelt felt Britain, France, the United States,

the great powers of the world,

should divide up taking care of the world.

And for America, having a passageway

from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean

was of paramount importance.

- The Panama canal was a priority for Theodore Roosevelt

for military reasons.

Secondly, it would be incredible for American commerce.

You wouldn't have to go all the way around,

it was a shortcut.

- Just travel between

the Eastern coast

and the Western coast

of the United States

would be cut by 8000 miles

Literally cutting a month off a travel time,

had major national security implications for a young nation

that's just stepped on the scene as a world power.

Now the French had tried to dig up Panama canal

from 1881 to 1889, and it's an abject failure.

So it sits there,

just a ruined shell of what could have been.

For Theodore Roosevelt this is an opportunity.

- Panama at the time was not an independent country,

Panama was part of Colombia.

The Panamanians had risen in revolt

every few years against Colombian dominance.

So to build a canal,

you had to conclude the treaty with Colombia.

But Colombia understood

that this was its greatest asset in the world,

how much is the United States willing to pay for this?

So Colombia rejects the treaty,

Roosevelt goes ballistic.

They are highway men, they are bandits.

- So he has a meeting with the French ambassador

to the United States, Jules Jusserand,

and Philippe Bunau-Varilla,

the kind of lobbyists for the French Canal company.

He often took diplomats and others to Rock Creek Park

to get some strenuous adventure.

And he took these stuffy French diplomats

to see if they could find a way to build the canal.

- I understand your thoughts about canal zone rights.

- Why don't we get Colombia out of the equation altogether?

- How?

- A revolution is coming to Panama.

- There's always a revolution coming to Panama.

- This time it's different.

It could be the opportunity you need.

- I wish to make it clear that the United States

does not meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations.

- Of course not.

I'm simply letting you know

that a new independent nation of Panama,

- In need of cash,

- Would be much more open to negotiations for a canal,

than a corrupt nation like Colombia.

- Well, obviously I need to send my own men down there

to confirm what you're saying.

- Of course.

- Theodore, what do you think?

- I think it is a fine day for a swim.

- Roosevelt's interest in the Panama canal is twofold.

One is, it's a monumental undertaking.

20 years earlier, the French had tried to build the canal

and had failed,

but for Roosevelt and his sense of American destiny,

said, we have to build the canal.

And this also fit into his geopolitical vision,

which is that his presidency would be the one

that would announce to the world and make it real

that America was not just an Atlantic power,

it is both an Atlantic and now a Pacific power.

- Roosevelt wants to get this done

with one eye on the 1904 election.

Panamanians had risen in revolt every few years

against Colombian dominance.

Now a plan is hatched

that Panama will once again declare its independence,

will rise up and revolt against Bogota in Colombia,

the USS Nashville will be sent down to prevent

any Colombian troops from interfering in the uprising.

The Panamanians declare their independence,

about one hour after that's done,

the United States recognizes Panama

as an independent Republic.

- And then they turned around and signed a deal,

granting the United States control

of this Panama canal zone, and construction got underway.

And one of the Theodore Roosevelt's proudest moments,

and one of the greatest pictures that he loves,

is he's sitting in this white linen tropical suit,

but at the controls of one of the steam shovels

digging the canal.

Now, in fact it took 11 years until the canal was opened,

and Roosevelt was long out of the White House by then,

but he still considered it his baby.

- The building of the Panama canal

is one of the most extraordinary, technological,

and engineering achievements of the early 20th century.

It touts some of the great innovations

of the industrial revolution,

and he really chose to make this a pillar and anchor

of his foreign policy,

to have the US be the sole country

to assert influence in the Western hemisphere.

The canal is absolutely integral to that.

- It is the fulfillment of the United States

becoming a global power.

Theodore Roosevelt builds it

and then ensures that it's under United States control,

knowing that he has a world-class Navy to enforce it.

Diplomacy is made possible

because you are strong and powerful.

Speak softly and carry a big stick,

this is Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy.

And if we look at how world events play out

for the next century,

the Panama canal is still a key piece of terrain,

of global terrain, and he makes that happen.

It's an amazing meetup of man and moment.

Roosevelt has a very different vision

of what the president should do, what the president can do.

And that's really gonna mark his presidency.

- So before the 1904 election,

Roosevelt wants to take the pulse of the American people,

not simply to produce a majority for him,

but to help him knit the country together.

And what that meant

was that he wanted to listen to their concerns.

And how does he do that?

He takes a nine week transcontinental train trip.

- He goes on the most ambitious

presidential tour in history up to that time.

He went 14,000 miles to 26 states.

He gave hundreds of speeches.

He had a seven car special train,

it was kind of like the Air Force One on railroad wheels.

- And everywhere he stops,

he listens to the local reporters,

to the local officials.

What's bothering you? What can I do?

What should we do differently?

And then he also wants to talk to them.

This is where he's using the bully pulpit

to give the same message every stop along the way.

These train trips were his way to bring people together

on the basis of fundamental fairness

for the rich and the poor,

for the capitalist and the wage worker, the square deal.

- We should treat each man on his worth and merits as a man.

And we should see that each is given a square deal

because he is entitled to know more,

and because he deserves no less.

The working men should be treated as partners

by the large corporations,

and they should come together.

- Socialist!

- They should come together

to make this country a good place to live!

- You'll destroy us!

- Who said that?

Show yourself!

- I said it.

- Why?

- Business buys our produce.

- Tell me your name.

- Hal Peters.

- Hello, Hal Peters.

What do you grow?

- Corn mostly.

- Corn, bully! Heart of America.

Let me ask you, Hal.

How much does a bushel of corn costs these days?

- About $0.79.

- $0.79. How much does a railroad take to ship your corn?

- $0.60 a bush.

- Well, that leaves just $0.19 for you.

That's not much.

Where do you think the rest is going, Hal?

All right, let me put it another way.

Your wife-

- I'm not married!

- Well, get married!

- All right, all right.

Your mother bakes a pie

and you sell it at the county fair for $0.10,

you pocket $0.09, and you give a $0.01 to your mother.

- It's not fair. She's the one who baked the pie.

- And there you have it.

You're giving your hard earned profits to the railroad.

I mean, these folks at the railroad

they're not smarter than you,

they're not more talented than you.

They're just greedier than you.

And I'm gonna do something about it,

I'm gonna get justice for the working man.

All I'm asking is a square deal for every man!

- Yes!

- Thousands of people yelling and screaming

like he's a rockstar.

The actual notion of the president

as a steward of the American people,

that was new then.

When Roosevelt's talked about his square deal,

he meant this;

The government will ensure

that the cards you're dealt are fair.

It's up to you to play them to the best of your ability.

- When T.R wins his victory in 1904,

it's not just a victory.

It's a decisive victory.

- He won the largest popular majority

in American history till then.

He is absolutely elated

because he can now say I won the mandate of the people,

a great endorsement of my first term,

and now I'm really president of the United States.

- To President Roosevelt, he swept the country.

Four more years.

- And I need you to keep me out of trouble.

- No doubt.

- Congratulations, Mr. President. How do you feel, sir?

- I got something for you.

People have placed their trust in me,

so I'm gonna put everything I got into the next four years.

But after that,

well, I'll take a page out of George Washington's book,

I'm not running for a third term.

Can we print that?

- Absolutely.

- Theodore, are you sure about this?

Think about it, please.

- I'm no king.

- He just blurts it out,

he's not gonna seek reelection in 1908.

People can't believe he said it.

Reporters can't believe he said it.

Edith can't believe he said it.

Republicans can't believe he said it.

- It was an impulsive gesture

on the night that he won the election.

He made a mistake, perhaps the biggest of his career.

Boy, did he come to regret it.

- Roosevelt came to the presidency

at a time when corporations

operated with no apparent concern

for the health and safety of the American people.

There's a big expose in the early 20th century,

the book is called, "The Jungle", by Upton Sinclair,

an investigative journalist.

And exposes the horrors of the meat industry,

the exploitation of workers,

but also the horrible product.

The dangerous poisonous product

that meat packers are selling to the public,

and untold, thousands of Americans are dying of diseases

brought about by this poisonous meat.

- Roosevelt reads the book,

so he has Sinclair come to see him.

- "The Jungle" was a work of fiction,

but Sinclair had lived in Chicago.

He had essentially gone undercover

in the meat packing plants.

- Sinclair describes in the book,

how they take scraps of diseased meat,

meat that's been on the floor, that's been eaten by rats,

and put it into the vat.

But he doesn't know whether or not

Sinclair may have been exaggerating the facts.

So what he does is to launch his own investigation.

- You men will be my eyes and ears.

- But it's a book, the guy, Sinclair, probably made it up.

- Ah, sure it's fiction.

Sinclair has an axe to grind.

- All writers do.

- But there's always truth in fiction.

When I was in Cuba, I saw what bad canned beef

could to a person.

- But it's meat,

shouldn't this go to the department of agriculture?

- Have either of you men ever been

to one of these meat processing factories?

- No. - No.

- Good, then you're the right men for the job.

You're independent, you'll command complete autonomy.

- If they know we're coming they'll clean things up.

- Right, so you go in unannounced.

Your job is to go where they don't want you to go.

- See what they don't want us to see.

- I need facts.

Facts I can make change.

Don't let me down now.

- No, sir. - We won't, sir.

- What are you doing here?

And who the hell let you in?

- I'm inspecting this plant.

- Nobody said you was coming.

- The investigators go out to the plants

and he finds out the conditions are even worse

than what Sinclair had posited.

Roosevelt then has a bill before the Congress

to force the meat packing plants to clean up their act

and to label their food.

And they of course respond obstinately.

- Well, gentlemen, I believe it is our duty

to see that the pure food and meat inspection bills

are passed at once.

- Mr. President, these bills would ruin the food industry.

- Oh, I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking that.

Won't we begin?

- I'm with Aldrich,

having to inspect and date meat

which is being shipped across state lines,

that'd be too time consuming, expensive.

- Well, you know, I sent investigators

to observe meat packing practices.

Now, Senator Aldrich,

I wonder if you would do us the honor

of reading an excerpt from the report.

- Certainly.

- Just the underlined section, there.

- "We saw meat shoveled from the filthy wooden floors

piled on tables barely washed,

pushed from room to room in rotten box carts.

In all of which process it was gathering dirt,

splinters, floor filth,

and the expectoration is tuberculosis

from diseased workers.

- He publishes a small part of this report,

and finally that's enough.

And he gets this meatpacking bill.

- And for the first time,

the government begins to inspect

what comes out of these food processing plants.

He believed that the only agency

that could stand up for the interest, for the safety,

for the health of the American people

was the national government.

- What's really happening here

is that Roosevelt is creating a new relationship

between government and the people.

He as President, is steward of the people.

He represents the public interests.

- But Roosevelt has a real problem on his hands

because the only way that he can be the president

of the little person and protecting a square deal

on the basis of class and economic inequality

was to somehow figure out how to deal with racism.

Many historians see Roosevelt as not only deeply conflicted

about how to make sense of black people's role

in American society,

but profoundly contradictory

in his commitment to fairness and justice for them.

- Roosevelt's legacy on race is quite mixed.

On the one hand he does symbolic things

like invite Booker T. Washington to dine in the White House,

he appoints a lot of African-Americans

to low level positions throughout the

federal government,

which were actually very significant

relative to his predecessors.

On the other hand, there are other things that offset that;

Like the Brownsville incident in 1906.

- In 19O6, the 25th infantry of black soldiers

was stationed in Brownsville, Texas.

And this was a source of enormous racial tension

in the community.

There was kind of a riot and one white person was wounded,

another one killed.

- There was a report that those black soldiers

may have shot up the town.

But the evidence that was gathered

showed that that's probably not what happened.

- The black soldiers said, we did not do it,

we were in our barracks, we were where we should be.

This is a segregated military,

so they're under white officers.

The white officers said, "Yes,

all of our black soldiers were in their beds,

in their barracks, when that shooting took place.

They were not responsible for it."

And Roosevelt doesn't believe them.

And so after a short period of time,

Roosevelt summarily discharges

all 167 of these black soldiers.

- Roosevelt started his investigation

by believing that the soldiers were guilty,

he ended his investigation

by believing that the soldiers were guilty.

He did not take into account the fact finding mission.

It was a case of Theodore Roosevelt

having a very closed mind about this.

- The black press said, "This is a terrible betrayal

from somebody we thought was our friend."

- It shows that the system of justice

isn't gonna work for blacks.

And so a lot of black leaders said, "Enough with you.

I'd rather give up being a Republican."

- He wants equity,

but he also understands somebody has to be on top,

and that's whites.

For African-Americans, he defended some of their rights

but he didn't do anything to expand them.

- He talked about making the country

a good place for everybody,

but his notion of who everybody is

was obviously very limited.

- At the same time,

all kinds of other things are percolating;

Middle-class voters in particular want reform,

and they want the government to do things for them.

- Toward the end of his second term,

he's thinking about the future.

So he's got a sense of urgency to get things done

before he leaves the presidency.

- In his second term,

he wanted to create millions of acres of forest reserves.

- This is a president

that will say natural resource management

is the number one job of any president.

He is the only politician of that era

that saw the world as one pulsing biological organism.

And he was able now to see,

wow, this is the big issue of our time.

- Conservation of natural resources

is the fundamental problem.

Unless we solve that problem,

it will avail us little to solve all others.

- Roosevelt was able to explain to people

that if you allow unregulated strip mining,

or you allow loggers to just dynamite trees

so that they can get to better trees in the interior.

If you allow that you are risking the future of America.

- Congress is filled with people

that have no problem with private interests

in big business

carving up forests and strip mining mountains and so forth.

And so he begins to look around and ask his advisors,

what power do I have?

What authority do I have to save the wilderness?

- T.R realized he had executive power

to do all kinds of things

that he didn't need congressional approval.

And he was one of the first presidents

to use the executive power in imaginative ways.

- It is such a wonderful idea

to want to save these natural spaces.

And Teddy Roosevelt, I think did more

than any other president to make that happen.

He used his executive power in extraordinary ways

to save more than 230 million acres

of American land in different forms.

But the great irony of that is that in order to do that

Roosevelt and other presidents took that land away

from indigenous peoples, its rightful owners

who had been responsible stewards of the land

for thousands of years.

- Toward the end of his second term, because he had said,

"I'm not going to run for a third term."

Roosevelt started thinking, I need a successor,

someone who can carry on the Roosevelt tradition.

- Come in!

- You wanted to see me.

- Taft.

- I can come back.

- No, it's fine. Stay.

William, you're my most trusted advisor.

- I appreciate the confidence.

- And that's why you're gonna be the Republican nominee

for president in 08.

- Theodore, you should just run again.

I'm much more suited to the bench.

I'm not a fighter like you.

- Nonsense, you're a lawyer. Lawyers are trained to fight.

- I'm not the right man and you know it.

- All you have to do is follow my advice.

Do what I do.

Now, look at all the progress

I made for this country with your help.

Now you'll be doing it with my help.

- All right, Theodore. I'll run.

- Now, first of all never let them see you play golf.

It's a dudes game.

- Roosevelt absolutely loves Taft.

He thinks Taft is a wonderful person.

They have a very close relationship.

- T.R handed Taft this nomination in 1908,

thinking, oh, this is mini-me,

I'm gonna set him up for continuing my policy.

Well, that was a mistake. A big mistake.

- Part of this was Roosevelt fooling himself

and thinking that he was more persuasive

than he actually was.

Part of it was Taft being cannily silent

and letting Roosevelt project on him Roosevelt's own ideas.

And because this was an era of Republican dominance,

whoever got the Republican nomination was gonna win.

So in 1908, Taft won.

- When Roosevelt leaves office in 1909,

he's riding high and wherever he goes, he draws a crowd.

But this is another one of these moments of despair.

Like when his father died, when his wife and mother died,

he's kind of crushed by this new reality.

He's only 50 years old.

What is he gonna do with the rest of his life?

He's closed off the opportunity to run for another term.

- Once again, when there's a feeling of loss

in this case, the loss of the presidency that he had loved,

he has to do something with great forward motion

that will engulf him and take up every hour of every day

so he won't think about the loss that he sustained.

So he travels to these unexplored regions in Africa.

- His trip to Africa was so celebrated around the world.

Everybody was following him,

magazines were seeing everything that he did,

photographs were coming out.

It was a big deal.

And he got to then go to Europe

and give big speeches and get honorary degrees,

and it was a way of making himself a global president.

- Roosevelt comes back in June of 1910,

and it's like when the astronauts came back.

There were ticker-tape parades,

there was more confetti than had ever been seen before.

Whole sets of battleships were in the harbor.

- They're hanging teddy bears on the windows

and there's banners,

and they're all there waiting for him to be home.

It's really hard for him to damp down that desire

that I should never have left public life.

It's what I'm meant for, it's what I was born for,

it's what I wanna be.

- He came back to the United States

and didn't like the fact that he really had no power.

So celebrity ex-president, and Taft seemed to be ignoring

some of his preferences in policy.

- A strong case can be made that Taft had not done

what Taft had promised that he would do.

Roosevelt truly believed

that Taft had disappointed progressives,

and further, had disappointed the American people

as a president.

- I finally had to admit

that he had gone wrong on certain points.

And I then also had to admit to myself,

that deep down I had all along known he was wrong.

- Taft invites him to spend the weekend in the White House,

and Teddy rejects that invitation.

It's really hurtful to Taft,

and the beginning of Taft realizing

that something's happening between the two men.

And then more and more progressives go to Teddy,

they go out to Sagamore Hill

to tell him you've got to get into this fight.

We need you in this fight because we're losing this fight.

- So he gives the speaking tour in 1910

during an off year election,

and he goes all over the country.

And one of the speeches he gave was at Osawatomie Kansas,

and the crowd is so gigantic

that they bring out a wooden table

and T.R steps up onto the table

and gives this new nationalism speech,

which is widely regarded as the most radical speech

by a major player in American history.

He's actually becoming to a certain extent,

a radical progressive at this point,

he's really moving, what we would call to the left.

The eight hour workday, workman's compensation,

old age insurance, health insurance,

or health access for all, child labor laws,

in some ways suffrage for women.

But he had developed this really strong package of reforms

that pushed beyond anything that he had done before.

- The nation is moving forward

in a more progressive direction.

T.R is leading that charge and keeping up with that charge,

Taft is not.

So the nation is more with T.R in terms of its feelings

than it is with Taft at this moment in time.

And then he goes to Washington

and he decides to go to the White House,

even though he had refused to go

when he was invited by Taft,

knowing that Taft is out of town.

- They're calling it the oval office, sir.

- Oval office.

- Just finished.

- What happened to tennis court?

- You're standing on it.

- Oh.

- Everyone misses you and Mrs. Roosevelt.

- Thank you. The feeling is mutual.

- Thank you, sir.

- T.R is thinking, what do I do with myself?

The Osawatomie speech, the new nationalism,

is really a call to political change.

It's saying we need reform,

we need to look forward

and have a new sense of national purpose.

Taft's not dealing with the big issues at all.

So people knew what to read in that speech.

It was maybe he's feeling his oats again,

and maybe T.R is back.

- Oh, you're back. Did you get that out of your system?

- He's wrecking everything I've worked for.

What's all that?

- There are three more bags at the station.

- From Texas.

- You're going to run again, aren't you?

You promised me a quiet life from now on.

- Edith, I can't very well tell the public

not to write me letters.

People need me.

- They need you, that may be,

but I think you need them more.

If you must jump back in, jump with both feet.

- So as Roosevelt is touring the country,

drumming up support in 1910,

he is constantly thinking about why did he cut himself off

from the presidency?

And could he find his way back?

He grows increasingly angry

and frustrated with his successor, William Howard Taft,

who kind of begins to undo

some of Roosevelt's accomplishments.

So Roosevelt feels betrayed

and slowly but surely he begins to develop

the idea that he can run for president in 1912,

and that he must run for president in 1912.

- T.R was like a warhorse smelling battle.

Once you get that thunderous realization from the crowd

and you know that you're driving

the progressive movement forward,

he feels like he has to run for this time.

Even if it's running against his old friend Taft.

Even if it might split the Republican party in two.

He has this hope that there was a progressive majority

in the people as a whole.

- So finally, in the early spring of 1912

he announces by using,

for the first time in American history,

the phrase, "My hat is in the ring."

- Theodore Roosevelt got started late.

He didn't have as much money.

He did not control the Republican apparatus.

So while he had fame and the love of Americans on his side,

he didn't have the political operation

that he needed to have in place.

- There were contested primaries. It was bitter.

They got into baseball bat fights in some of the states.

- As the convention nears, the fight becomes more personal.

Roosevelt calls Taft a fat head, a puzzlewit, a traitor.

Taft then replies that if Roosevelt wants this third term,

why not want a fourth term? Why not a fifth term?

He'll stay in for the rest of his life.

The argument becomes so heated

that the New York Times writes an editorial.

They say, " This is not a rational argument

between the two sides, this is a mob."

- So the Republican national convention

convenes in Chicago in June of 1912.

Up to that point Roosevelt has competed for the nomination

in all the states that have primary,

and Roosevelt does extremely well.

He runs away with it,

including in William Howard Taft's, Ohio.

And so he fully expects that he is deserving of

and going to get the nomination.

- Massachusets went for Taft!

- It's rigged!

- You're a traitor!

- And you're a pack of thieves!

- Colonel, the phone line's hooked up.

- The results are coming in.

- Connecticut for Taft.

- Taft got Connecticut.

- Probably if there had been real democracy

in the Republican Party he would have won the nomination

because he was still just wildly loved across the nation.

But the way the apparatus was set up,

even though he won most of the primaries,

he did not get the nomination.

And Roosevelt felt that decisions

were made by the chairman of the Republican Party

that were deliberately undercutting his chances.

And in a fair fight, he would have gotten the nomination.

- Yeah?

- What happened?

- It's over. They stole it.

- What's our next move?

- We could just leave the party.

- Today did not go as we had hoped,

but, we're not gonna let it beat us.

I plan to listen to the people,

they are looking for progress.

So I'm gonna...

I'm gonna form a new party.

A progressive party.

Now, I don't expect any of you to follow me,

you've already done more than I could ever ask.

But if you're ready, I will welcome you with open arms.

- I'm with you.

- Me too.

- His supporters storm out of the convention,

chanting, "Thou shall not steal, thou shall not steal."

It's a very dramatic moment.

And that night they meet in a hotel

and draw up the blueprint for a new party,

the progressive party.

- He bolted and helped to form the progressive party,

which almost immediately became known

as the Bull Moose Party.

Because of course they asked him if he were up to it

and he said that he felt as strong as a bull moose.

The progressive party

was not like anything else that existed.

It's mostly middle-class people from around the country,

idealists and feminists who had nowhere else to turn.

And all these people gathered in Chicago a second time

at the Bull Moose Party convention.

- There were more women there than ever before

at a convention, it's called the petticoat convention.

Jane Adams is there, women's suffragettes are there,

'cause women's suffrage is one of the planks

of the new party.

- This was a group of people

who had been dreaming all of their lives

of a gentler, juster, more equalitarian,

a more progressive nation.

People who wanted reform in every possible way in life,

in our factories, in the way that healthcare was delivered,

and child labor, and you name it.

- When T.R gets to the progressive party convention,

and there's this extraordinary thunderous response.

- But a controversy emerged

when in the south whites came together

in a segregationist delegation,

which excluded black people.

- He was a very pragmatic politician.

He needed to pull progressive voters

from among the Southern Democrats,

and racist white Southern Democrats at that time

would not have come along had he seated the black delegates.

- It was a betrayal from the perspective of black leaders,

north and south,

the black community couldn't trust

the Republican party any longer

and particularly couldn't trust Roosevelt.

Meanwhile, in the democratic race, Woodrow Wilson,

who had been governor of New Jersey,

as well as president of Princeton University

came into the election of 1912

and quickly became the popular front runner.

- Wilson is probably the worst hand that T.R could be dealt

because Wilson's running

as an even more extreme progressive.

- Wilson was eloquent and idealistic,

his dad was a Presbyterian minister.

So he could preach to people

about, you know, the best in human character

rising up to the government.

He was really quite a good campaigner.

But T.R is scrappier, and he was a fighter.

He was like, "We're going to do this,

we're gonna do that."

And it's much earthier.

- Taft doesn't give very many speeches,

clearly the battle in 1912 is now between Teddy and Wilson.

- T.R campaigns harder in 1912,

than probably all of his campaigns combined.

He couldn't help it.

He had an insatiable appetite to put on a performance

and you see him doing this in the most trying times.

He just had an incredible sense of the moment,

and had to make something of the moment.

He does his whistle stop tours, he lambasts Taft.

He's the best version of himself.

- And drew wild, crazy, adoring crowds all over the country.

At the end of this very exhausting campaign,

they get to Milwaukee where he's gonna give

this major speech that night.

He's tired, his voice has given out.

- That's him, isn't it?

- It's time, Colonel.

- Car here?

- Outside, sir.

- Good.

- How are you feeling, Teddy?

- Fit as a bull moose.

- Oh my God.

- Let's go to the nearest hospital!

- Wait, wait, wait.

There's no blood, there's no blood.

If the bullet had pierced the lung there'd be blood.

I'm good as new. Get me to the hall.

- You have to see a doctor, sir.

- I said, drive!

If I'm gonna die, I'd rather have my boots on.

- John Schrank had been stalking Teddy for several months,

following Roosevelt around the country,

looking for an opportunity to assassinate him.

John Schrank had a dream when McKinley died,

that Roosevelt was responsible

and McKinley had appeared to him in his bed

saying, "You must avenge my murder."

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy,

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy,

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy,

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!

- Friends, I will ask you to remain as quiet as possible.

I've, um...

I've just been shot.

It'll take more than a bullet to kill a bull moose.

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!

- Bleeding from a chest wound, he gives an 84 minute speech.

His life was saved by his steel spectacles case

and his 50 page speech which was folded up.

And the bullet went through the speech,

some pieces of it still exists.

And then Roosevelt was giving those away as souvenirs

to people in the front rows

because they would always be sacred relics

of the day that Roosevelt was shot.

It's impossible to imagine this happening

to anyone else in American history.

- One democratic supporter said

"The bullet that lodges in Roosevelt's chest

may have won the election for Roosevelt."

The dramatic incident and his response to it

had recreated that sense of magic that Roosevelt had.

- Win or lose, we shall not falter.

The movement itself will not stop.

We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!

- When T.R bolted from the convention

and started the progressive party,

the Republicans of course were horrified,

and they saw what was happening.

They knew they were split.

They knew they're probably gonna lose the White House.

Their only hope was to somehow stop it,

but T.R was such a volcano of energy

and there was little chance they could do it.

- One senator put it very concisely.

He said, "Now the only question is which corpse,

Taft or Roosevelt, gets the most flowers?"

Clearly nobody now had the chance to win

with the Republican party split in two.

- In the election of 1912

we have the first and perhaps the last

of the great presidential races

for independent third party politics in American history.

And in the end Wilson wins by a landslide.

- Taft came in third, Roosevelt came in second.

He got the largest third-party vote in American history.

- At first, T.R was proud

of the numbers that had voted for him.

But then when he realized that Progressives had lost

in city and state elections all across the country,

the regret was that he had hurt the progressive cause

by his decision to run in 1912.

- Democrats take both the house and the Senate.

So it's a devastating blow to the Republican party

and they are not gonna forgive Roosevelt.

And that hurts.

- He wasn't a man who typically lost at things,

he thinks this might be it for him.

So he gets very depressed,

and what does T.R do when he gets depressed?

He retreats to some version of the wilderness,

testing his body, testing his mind,

and doing something really brash.

He decides to head to Brazil.

- He'd been invited to give a series of speeches

and he wanted to make something of an adventure of it.

So he decided he would do some kind of river trip

in the Amazon.

And his first idea was to travel down a river

called the Tapajos, which was a fairly well-traveled river.

But when he got to Brazil,

the Brazilian foreign minister asked him

if he would like to go on an expedition

with a fellow named Colonel Rondon,

the Brazilian Lewis and Clark.

- There is a tributary in the Amazon nicknamed,

"The River Of Doubt" that had recently been discovered,

and he decides that he's gonna navigate it.

- And Edith said to Kermit,

"Go on this journey, watch over your father.

He needs your help now."

Edith understood that T.R was overweight, out of shape,

and that he hadn't prepared for this journey.

You have to be spiritually ready for something like this.

And he wasn't.

- T.R's trips to the wilderness,

whether it's the bad lands,

whether it's just a hunting trip in new England,

in African safari, there's always something about it

that is about reinvention and rediscovery.

He has to almost kill himself

in order to re-imagine himself.

- 100% humidity, starving, worried all the time

that they would be attacked.

They knew they were being watched.

The indigenous people would leave out little messages

like a severed monkey's head in a path around the rapids.

- He and Kermit both contract malaria.

There's these massive waterfalls

and they have to carry the canoes down.

And one of the canoes is stuck.

- This enormous current is forcing it into the rocks.

- T.R's leg was crushed against a rock

and this became septic, he became delirious.

- As the wound grows worse,

he becomes more and more of a liability

to the traveling party.

The problem is if you're Theodore Roosevelt,

nobody's gonna leave you behind.

- Go to my bag, the side pocket.

- What is it?

- It's morphine, it's a lethal dose.

I knew there was a chance

that this would be my final adventure.

- Papa.

- I refuse to slow this expedition down.

Every day you spend in this jungle,

is one day closer to your death.

- I respect your wishes.

But you've also got to respect mine,

and you've gotta know that if you die out here

I'll bring your body back to Sagamore Hill.

You're coming out of this jungle one way or another,

and it'll be a heck of a lot easier

if you were alive to help.

- The River of Doubt, it was discovered it went 850 miles

through very, very wild country,

with some extraordinarily difficult and dangerous rapids.

But eventually it flattened out.

When they got close to the bottom,

Rondon called everybody together for a little ceremony

where he officially renamed the river

from the Duvida to the Rio Roosevelt,

which is what it is today.

- It's the exact opposite of the Badlands trip.

When he goes to the Badlands, he bulks up, he toughens up,

he builds more resilience.

By the time he comes back from the Amazon,

I mean, he's a really sickly looking man.

- He was 55 pounds lighter

and suffering a great deal from the infection of his leg.

His medical record was an extraordinary series

of accidents and problems.

T.R once said that he wanted to wear out, not rust out.

- But when he returns from the Amazon

the world changed completely.

- In June of 1914, Archduke Ferdinand,

heir to the Austrian-Hungarian empire

is assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Montenegro.

This will light a crisis that becomes World War I.

By the winter of 1914, 1915,

there are already a million French men dead,

there are already a million Germans dead.

And there's already 18 nations involved.

This is not some small affair,

and Theodore Roosevelt is able to see

that ultimately the United States can not stay out.

- When the great war started,

Woodrow Wilson said that it was a European issue,

the United States should stay out of it.

- I know that you are depending on me

to keep this nation out of war.

So far, I have done so, and I pledge you my word

that God helping me, I will,

if it is possible.

- Woodrow Wilson in many ways

embodies everything Roosevelt hates,

Wilson, in his eyes is effete and equivocating,

and doesn't have that sort of sense of moral righteousness

and that warrior mentality.

So he's railing against Wilson

and saying, we need at the very least to prepare,

we need to be drafting people, building up our military.

So Roosevelt again is outside of power,

but using his influence to try to push the nation

towards a firmer footing

when it comes to being ready for the war.

- It is inconceivable to me,

the we should refrain from taking action.

We owe it not only to humanity,

but to our own national self respect.

- At the start of World War I,

German submarines were roaming the Atlantic

and picking off British ships.

They warned this British liner, the Lusitania,

we know that you're transporting guns to the war

and we might sink you.

And they put ads in the New York papers

and said, "Don't travel on the Lusitania."

But Americans rode the Lusitania anyway,

and the Germans sank it.

So T.R said it was murder on the high seas,

"Are you gonna stand up for us, Woodrow Wilson?

Well, probably not."

- Roosevelt would see that as someone has taken U.S lives.

They knew there were U.S lives on there,

and it's part of a president's responsibility

to protect United States citizens

no matter where on earth they are.

That's an act of war.

- If a nation will not protect

its women and children,

if it will not at once go to war

rather than submit to their murder,

it occupies a position of unspeakable degradation.

- After the outcry owed to sinking of the Lusitania,

Wilson got an agreement from the Germans

that they would suspend unrestricted submarine warfare.

But by 1917 Germans aren't doing well,

so they have to roll the dice,

starting unrestricted submarine warfare again.

Wilson had said that would be the straw

that breaks the camel's back.

- And now he will ask for a declaration of war.

- T.R had believed all his life that if you took a position,

you had to stand up to it.

If the position was that you should go to war,

you should be willing to fight in it if you possibly could.

When the first World War came around,

of course he tried to get in.

He asked Wilson to allow him to create

another cavalry and go over to Europe.

- Thank you for seeing me

on such short notice, Mr. President.

- Of course.

- Well, I'll cut to the chase,

General Wood and I are training troops for battle,

preparing our countrymen.

- I'm aware of your efforts.

- I would like permission to raise a volunteer cavalry.

Now, if pressure on the allies

prompts an early expeditionary force,

I will personally escort a unit overseas.

- Unfortunately, what you ask is impossible.

- I beg your pardon.

- If we have to send an expeditionary force to France,

the command positions will be taken

by professional officers.

- Mr. President, you forget that I commanded troops

in the most important battle ever fought.

- I hear congratulations are in order.

- I beg your pardon?

- Your son, he's getting married.

- Yes, Archibald.

- I have three girls.

I love them, but they will not carry on the family name.

You're lucky to have so many sons.

- Roosevelt is in his 50s by this time,

he is blind in one eye, he's got gout, he's got rheumatism.

He's had a bullet in him.

He's basically a physical wreck.

And the last time he was on a battlefield,

the cavalry was still horses, not tanks.

- But Roosevelt still always kept

a kind of romantic idea about warfare.

Again, the father not serving in the civil war

while for the rest of Roosevelt's life,

the American soldiers who did serve

in the civil war were ubiquitous.

And so this is why Roosevelt absolutely

had to enter the war in Cuba,

and it's also why he pushed his sons

to enter the first World War.

- And certainly the four Roosevelt boys

know exactly what they have to do.

And one of them even says,

"it's time for us to practice what father preaches."

So father is not gonna be able to put on a uniform.

He's been denied that opportunity, but we can.

And so all four of them head off to war.

Teddy Roosevelt Jr will be gassed,

he'll be shot in the foot,

he'll never have feeling in his left heel again.

Archie will be wounded,

his kneecaps will be shattered, 100% disability.

Kermit is actually gonna get sent over to Mesopotamia,

and that's where he is gonna contribute.

And his youngest son, Quentin, he wants to be a pilot.

He's got bad eyesight, so he memorizes the eye chart.

He's got back problems, he lies about that,

and becomes an aviator.

- Quentin was the youngest and the favorite,

Little Quenty-kins, T.R called him.

And he fought dog fights in France.

And T.R was thrilled when he got a council,

how he had gone into a dog fight

and shot down a German plane

and had survived attack by other German planes.

- Dear Quentin,

I don't believe in all the United States

there is any father who has quite the same right that I have

to be proud of his sons.

These men who are going abroad in their millions

are sacrificing everything for the sake of a great ideal.

And when these men come home, they will demand a just life,

a just life.

Go, go, go.

- Here's the papers.

- Thank you, Edie.

- What is it?

- It's Quentin.

He's been reported missing.

He um...

Um...

He could still be alive.

A, uh, prisoner.

- His plane was seen falling from the sky.

- It's my fault.

My sons wanted to be brave because of me,

take chances they don't have to.

It's my fault.

- When the Germans came across Quentin

and they saw that it was the son of Theodore Roosevelt,

they held a full military funeral with honor.

- There is no use writing about Quentin,

for I should breakdown if I tried.

- When the war was coming to an end,

there was this desire on the part of the people

to make sure that the soldiers

and the country that they came back to was a better place.

T.R was exactly the right spokesman.

- When these men come home,

I believe that they will demand,

and I know that they ought to demand, a juster type of life.

They will demand a loftier idealism

in both our public and private affairs.

- He's talking about giving land

and jobs to returning soldiers.

He wants old age pensions.

He's talking about women's suffrage and women's rights,

social welfare programs, national service.

So much of what would be in FDR's presidency,

he is outlining right here, right now, for the country.

- My old friend.

- William.

- I'm glad to see you.

- Sit down.

- I was so very sorry to hear about Quentin.

I always thought he took after you.

- Thank you.

- I hear the Republicans wanna draft you

for Governor of New York, everyone's onboard.

What do you think?

- Well, I'm saving my strength.

I'm running in 20.

- Roosevelt never gives up on the dream

of reacquiring his position in the White House,

despite incredible sacrifice and tragedy

and physical ill health,

he is laying the groundwork for the nomination in 1920.

- He was so active in that period after the war

that he became once again the most popular man in America.

And I think that public sentiment toward him

made him realize that the kaleidoscope had shifted.

And yes indeed, he possibly could run again

and had a really good shot this time.

- Even though he was in miserable shape,

he still charged on in typical T.R fashion.

He was correcting proofs to his latest book,

he was concerned about various policy issues.

He was preparing for speeches he was going to give.

- You never stop, do you?

- Listen to this.

"There is no good reason why we should fear the future,

but there's every reason why we should face it.

To do so we must show the power of devotion

to a lofty ideal,

which made great men who preserved the Republic

in the days of Abraham Lincoln."

- You have my vote.

- Theodore?

- It's nothing, just a strange feeling.

- Should I call the doctor?

- No, no. No, I'm just tired.

- I'll get an extra blanket.

- Would you mind?

Would you turn off the light?

Thank you.

- He died on January 6th of 1919, just 60 years old,

of an embolism.

- Somebody quipped,

"Death had to come to T.R when he was asleep,

otherwise he would have put up a fight."

- He created himself as an endearing

and irrepressible character every step along the way.

And for people all over the country,

they had lived with him through all of his adventures.

They had gone with him along every step,

and now he was suddenly gone.

- There was tremendous outpouring of sorrow.

He was somehow impervious

to the things that harmed you and I,

and even the family had a hard time

understanding that T.R was gone.

- Roosevelt's son, Archie,

sent a telegram to his brothers who were still in Europe.

And he said, "The old lion is dead."

There are two types of presidents;

There are caretaker presidents,

which is almost all of them,

and then there are

presidents who define America

and help to move America in a new direction.

And Roosevelt is certainly one of those.

- Roosevelt said, there's this one great ideal

that we revere, individualism,

but he says, you know, there's another virtue

that we always forget about, and that's the common good.

We're all in this together.

- Roosevelt used the bully pulpit

to steward the soul of the country

and to tell people to follow their better selves.

Fairness, justice, equity is what drove him.

- The core values

that Roosevelt's expressed most of his life

really went back to his father, and Abraham Lincoln.

Essentially it's the idea

that every man should have a chance

to rise to the level of their talent and discipline.

He said he wanted the farmer's son and the mechanic's son

to have the same chance as a son of privilege.

- The greatest thing that Theodore Roosevelt did

was to understand the imbalance of power

between the common people and the elite.

I think that involved Roosevelt,

having to step outside of his own upbringing,

to look with sympathy or empathy on those who had so little.

That to me, that's heroic.

- I think if we could point to a president

who's coming of age story in the late 19th century

represents someone who could literally grab

the reins of power and shake up the rest of the world,

he was America as a singular figure.

- There's not another figure

in American history like Roosevelt.

That he almost did nothing in the whole course of his life

that wasn't somehow the basis of great stories,

great adventures, great revelations of his integrity

and his outsized heroic personality.

There's nobody else like him.

- T.R loved being president,

there wasn't anybody who had more exuberance, more fun,

really enjoyed himself in the White House than T.R.

- He was more than a president,

he was the most interesting man in America.

- It is not the critic who counts,

not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,

or where the doer of deeds could have done them better,

the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.