So far as I am aware, no one ever credibly accused Theodore Roosevelt of committing any acts that were actually illegal. As to his beliefs, “evil” is a very strong term. However, Roosevelt did hold a variety of beliefs that many people today would abhor.
Roosevelt believed in the idea of “big stick diplomacy.” He felt that the United States should use its military might to get its way in international affairs. He did not...
So far as I am aware, no one ever credibly accused Theodore Roosevelt of committing any acts that were actually illegal. As to his beliefs, “evil” is a very strong term. However, Roosevelt did hold a variety of beliefs that many people today would abhor.
Roosevelt believed in the idea of “big stick diplomacy.” He felt that the United States should use its military might to get its way in international affairs. He did not think that the US needed to worry much about morality or the feelings of people in other countries. This is, for example, why he used military force to prevent the government of Colombia from putting down a rebellion in Panama, which was then part of Colombia. He wanted the rebels to win because they would give the US better terms for the land where Roosevelt wanted to build the Panama Canal. Today, many people would say that it is wrong to believe that the US should use its power to take whatever it wants.
Roosevelt was also racist by any modern use of the term. He did not think that Native Americans or African Americans were really equal to white people. Moreover, like many Americans at the time, he believed that many people that we would call “white” today were racially inferior. He believed that many of the “New Immigrants” from places like Italy and Poland were racially inferior to people from places like England and Germany. Today, we typically think that people who believe things like this are, at best misguided and might even be evil.
Finally, Roosevelt believed strongly in the idea of eugenics. This belief went hand in hand with his belief that certain kinds of white people were better than others. He wanted the “good” white people to have more children. He wanted to force criminals and other undesirable people to be sterilized or to be forbidden from having children. Today, we think that this is a terrible idea. We think it is wrong to argue that poor people or people who are not very smart should not have children because we do not want them to pass their genes on to future generations.
While I think it is stretching things to say that these are evil beliefs, they are certainly beliefs that most people today would reject.
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