Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was a remarkable victory by the relatively small Japan against the large Russia on Chinese soil in 1904-05. In June 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) was signed ending that war because Roosevelt invited Japan and Russia to a conference in New Hampshire to make peace. As a result of this treaty Japan expanded its influence in Far East, but Roosevelt rejected Japan's demand for reparations from Russia.

The Taft-Katsura Agreement in 1905 recognized (allowed) Japan's dominance in Korea, which Secretary of War (and future president) William Howard Taft approved. In return, Japan promised not to invade the Philippines, which was American territory at that time.

But issues with Japan continued, as Japan was growing into a world power that would lead to World War II less than 40 years later. Roosevelt reached the "Gentleman's Agreement" with Japan in 1907, which excluded Japanese immigrants from the United States.

Immigration

Note that even the Progressives, including Roosevelt, opposed immigration. Roosevelt was particularly concerned about preserving the English language in America:

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Other Treaties

In 1908 the Root-Takahira Agreement was reached with Japan by Secretary of State Elihu Root. This kept the status quo with Japan but established an "Open Door" policy allowing trade by many countries with China. Japan was allowed to annex Korea, which resulted in an animosity between Koreans and Japan that exists to this day.

Roosevelt's greatest accomplishment was the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, a treaty with Panama which granted to the United States a five-mile wide tract of land to build the Panama Canal, for a fee of $10 million plus $250,000 per year.

The reason Roosevelt is one of four faces on Mount Rushmore (the other three are Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln) is because he established the national park system to conserve the treasures of our nation's natural resources (Roosevelt was a "conservationist"). He was a big hiker and lover of the outdoors himself, even taking ambassadors from other countries on hikes in D.C. when they visited. After his second term ended in 1909, Roosevelt went on a safari in Africa. He declared that he felt as fit as a bull moose, and then named a new party that he started in 1912 the "Bull Moose Party." That political party was Teddy Roosevelt and little more, and disappeared quickly after he lost that election.

Roosevelt enjoyed support in newspapers, particularly among "muckrakers". Muckrakers were journalists who sensationalized bad aspects of big business and machine politics. Whenever Roosevelt "took on" big business, he was glorified in the papers and he probably enjoyed that.

But Roosevelt was occasionally ridiculed too. In 1906, Andrew Carnegie proposed simplifying English so that it could become the most popular language for the entire world.^[4] He set up the "Simplified Spelling Board" and placed famous Americans like Mark Twain on it to simplify the spelling of words like "ghost" ("gost") to make it easier for the rest of the world to learn and use.

Roosevelt was enthralled with this idea, and with his typically naive gusto embraced it completely. He quietly ordered the United States Government Printing Office to use the new spellings of 300 words as recommended by the Simplified Spelling Board. Newspapers, when they saw the result, mercilessly ridiculed Roosevelt's action in -- you guessed it -- political cartoons. Congress was angry for not being asked to approve this, and in December 1906 passed a resolution saying it would use the dictionary instead. Roosevelt had to sheepishly retract his order. But today many of the "new spellings" have been adopted by common usage anyway.

Roosevelt died at the age of 61.