Theodore Roosevelt: Spanish-American War, 26th President, Trust-Busting, Race Relations, World War I, and Massacre of Kurds, Syrians & Armenians

American Minute ^ | October 27, 2019 | Bill Federer

[painter]

Throw in the Treaty of Portsmouth [NH] (the second one, in 1905).

Some have argued that it sowed the seeds of WWI,

That is laughable ! I studied European history in college and during that time all the major countries in Europe went on a Huge military buildup while forming secrete alliances. These guys were spoiling for a fight, and Any excuse would start it.

Think about it. A Serbian terrorist throws a bomb into a car that kills The Arch Duke and his wife started that Damn War!

[DiogenesLamp]

Because of Roosevelt, we had interests in the Phillipines and other Pacific Islands. If we had stayed on our own continent, we probably wouldn't have given a flip what Japan did in the runup to WW II.

Okay, at least now I understand how you got to there from your statement. I think that this is a bit of an excessive extrapolation from too little data.

It might be correct, but I would have to give it a great deal more thought before I would agree that it was.

Yes, the Spanish American war gave us the Philippines, but if that was such a big thing to us, why did we give them up voluntarily?

Maybe our interest in stopping Japan hinged on our interests in the Philippines, but I'm not certain we wouldn't have intervened anyways.

I still don't see how you blame Teddy for us getting into WW1. I still see that as Wilson's blunder.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Teddy Roosevelt was from the other branch of progressivism. He was a nationalist, whereas Woodrow Wilson was an internationalist. Conservatives have never gotten along with either branch of progressivism.

TR spoke German and actually translated some of the works of Frederick Nietzsche, which he then liberally plagiarized for his own speeches.

In Europe, with had the same split, the nationalist progressives became fascists, and the international progressives embraced communism.

[Crucial]

Same

[Crucial]

Agreed. The Germans were biting at the bit to go to war. In those days war was still viewed in romantic terms. That ended when men saw their comrades torn apart by machine guns, asphyxiated with chemicals, shelled and made to endure trench warfare.