Monday, Jan. 6, 1919
Local politicians cross party lines today to pay tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, who dies early this morning at the age of 60. Roosevelt was a historian, state assemblyman, federal civil service commissioner, New York City police commissioner and assistant secretary of the Navy before his military heroism during the 1898 Spanish-American War made him a national celebrity. He was elected governor of New York as a Republican later that year and served one term before becoming Vice-President of the U.S. in March 1901. He became President following William McKinley’s assassination that September and was elected in his own right in 1904. “News of the death of Col. Theodore Roosevelt this morning proved a shock to this city and many were the expressions of regret at the passing of such a prominent figure in our national life and history,” The Record reports. Roosevelt succumbed in his sleep to a pulmonary embolism at his home in Oyster Bay. His health had been in decline since his Brazilian jungle expedition in 1914. With Roosevelt’s passing “the United States loses an ardent champion and a remarkable figure,” states Troy mayor Cornelius F. Burns, a Democrat. “While I did not approve of many of his ideas and policies, I could not but admire his resourcefulness, unlimited energy and tenacity of purpose.” The mayor orders all municipal flags lowered to half staff in Roosevelt’s honor.
A leading local Republican, former state senator George B. Wellington, praises Roosevelt’s “wonderful personality, gathering into itself idealism and common sense so rarely seen in combination…. He was our leader, who carried with him our respect and admiration even when he did those things which were called mistakes by men who work for and see only the present. He is not dead. He is immortal.”
Roosevelt broke with the GOP in 1912 after failing to unseat his handpicked successor, President William Howard Taft, at the Republican national convention. He ran as an independent on the Progressive or “Bull Moose” ticket and survived an assassination attempt to outpoll Taft while losing to the current President, Woodrow Wilson. He reconciled with Republicans in 1916 and had been seen as a likely presidential candidate once more in 1920.
A Record editorial notes that Roosevelt “caused acrimonious dissension in the Republican party,” but adds: “This, however, is not the time to raise old political rancors….History in its saner moods will review the events of this period and give credit where credit is due. Suffice it to say that the United States has lost one of the greatest chief executives it ever had.”
—Kevin Gilbert