Mascot of the Month: Teddy Roosevelt

Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt was an amazing man.  It's probably easiest to focus on his work as President, but he was a man who believed in public service as a good, not as a means to an end.  He

His official portrait by Sargent

was the youngest President, taking over when President McKinley was assassinated by an admitted anarchist in 1901.
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He was a populist that followed through on items of of the public good - I will pull some info from Wikipeida here - he sponsored the meat inspection act, the clean food and drug act.  His administration (in arbitration between Unions and the Trusts) created a 40 hour work week and the idea of overtime.
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He also acquired the National Park lands of Yellowstone and Yosemite - the two jewels of the US National Park system, among others public lands.  There was no "National Park" system in place then, but he did acquire the land for federal protection paving the way for us all to enjoy them.
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And though he was a contemporary man who didn't believe in the equality of the races, he did pass laws to ensure the equal treatment of the races; an important step in the history of the nation that had regarded blacks and native Indians as inherently less important than the whites.
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Yosemite - A Special place for me...

It is hard to judge him by modern standards, since things he did, like going game hunting in Africa for the Smithsonian Institution, are looked at completely differently today.  But he was a man of the people, who believed n the common good, the primacy of human treatment, preserving our environment for future Americans and in science.  He was a Republican, and every now and then in the pst two decades, some Republicans have expressed an admiration for him.  If they followed that through (or really believed it), it would give great hope to me.

Yellowstone - an enduring monument to Teddy Roosevelt