Theodore Roosevelt never said 'yes we can'

Theodore Roosevelt Accomplishments

President Theodore Roosevelt was surely one of the greatest United States presidents. He was a man of many accomplishments. Teddy Roosevelt was a volunteer Rough Rider in the Spanish-American War. Before becoming president, he was Secretary of the Navy. Roosevelt was a published author.  What many people may not know about Theodore Roosevelt is the deep gratitude we owe him. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to seriously think about saving some of the beauty of the United States for future generations. With Roosevelt in office, more than 200 million acres of land in the United States was conserved.

Theodore Roosevelt the Conservationist--Passenger pigeons became extinct about the time of Roosevelt's presidency. Roosevelt then established the first National Bird Preserve in Florida in 1903. This was the start of the Wildlife Refuge System in the United States. This would be the first of many acts by President Roosevelt to conserve land and important historical and archaeological sites throughout the United States.

The United States Forest Service was established while Teddy Roosevelt was president. Many national parks and preserves were set up by President Roosevelt. Some of the areas that President Roosevelt placed under protection were the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake National Park, and the Mesa Verde National Park.

Theodore Roosevelt's Antiquities Act--Theodore Roosevelt also passed the Antiquities Act in 1906. This act allowed presidents to preserve sites as national monuments without needing approval of Congress. The very first national monument established by Theodore Roosevelt was the Devil's Tower in Wyoming. This act also allowed Theodore Roosevelt to protect the Grand Canyon after failing to make it a national park. Since the Antiquities Act was passed, it has been implemented more than 100 times.

Tell me more!

---The Teddy Bear is named after Teddy Roosevelt. While hunting in Mississippi during his presidency, a few of the men in Roosevelt's party treed a small black bear and summoned Roosevelt so that he could take the shot. Roosevelt decided that killing the young, trapped bear was not sporting, and spared it. A New York toymaker heard the story, and asked Roosevelt's permission before styling a child's stuffed toy bear as the "Teddy Bear". Roosevelt gave his permission, noting that he did not expect many sales.

---Roosevelt had a photographic memory. He could read a page in the time it took anyone else to read a sentence.

---In 1912, Maxwell House coffee once asked the President what he thought of their product. He responded: "It’s good to the last drop". Sound familiar?

---He was the first President to ride in an airplane. He flew for four minutes in a plane built by the Wright Brothers on October 11, 1910.

---Once while preparing to give a speech on October 14, 1912 in the Milwaukee during a campaign, a crazed man attempted to assassinate Roosevelt, and shot him with a pistol at nearly point blank range. Roosevelt declared "it will take more than that to kill a bull moose!" and finished the lengthy speech before visiting a hospital. Even though the bullet entered his lung, he still gave the speech!

---Oddly, Roosevelt's wife and mother died on the same day, February 14, 1884.

---After Roosevelt retired from politics, he led an expedition in South America to find the source of a river known as "the River of Doubt". Most of the party died, and Roosevelt caught the fever yet survived. The river is now named "Rio Roosevelt."

---Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace prize in 1906 for his role of peacemaker in the Russo-Japanese War. Although an aggressive president when it came to military matters, he is the only president to have been awarded the honor while President of the United States andthe first American to ever win the award.

---After he left office in 1909, Roosevelt went on an African safari that netted many of the specimens that now stock the Smithsonian Institute.

---Roosevelt welcomed "the strenuous life"--engaging in daunting physical tests and venturing into hostile locations, even though, taking inflation into account, he was likely the richest president in history due to his family's estate.

---Most of the original National Parks and the National Park system were created by Roosevelt.

---Roosevelt was the first to dub the executive mansion "The White House".

---Roosevelt authored over 25 books.

Well...now we have Obama. Here is a partial transcript of (then) Sen. Barack Obama's remarks after he won the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina.

“Don't tell me we can't change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future. And as we leave this great state with a new wind at our backs and we take this journey across this great country, a country we love, with the message we carry from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire, from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast, the same message we had when we were up and when we were down, that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we will hope.”

“And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -- yes, we can.”

Obama….please stop campaigning…become a real President. Stop saying we can…and learn from the past...learn to do!!