In his early 20s, Theodore Roosevelt divided his life between politics and
writing.  He served three one-year terms in the New York Assembly, where he
supported civil service reform, legislation benefiting working people, and
bills to improve the New York City government. Following two years in the
Dakotas as a rancher, he returned in 1886 to run for New York City mayor.
Roosevelt finished third in a three-way race.  He continued his writing, with
three major works completed by the end of the decade.

In 1889 President Benjamin Harrison named Roosevelt civil-service commissioner.
He left in 1895 to become president of New York City's Board of Police
Commissioners, leaving two years later to become assistant secretary of the
navy in the McKinley administration.

A nationalist and expansionist, he used his office to prepare the nation for
war with Spain.  With the onset of the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt helped
organize the Rough Riders.  He saw considerable action in Cuba, returning to
the U.S. as a colonel.

Roosevelt's fame propelled him to the forefront of New York politics, and he
won a close election for governor of the state in 1898.  In that office he
championed civil service and approved bills supportive of labor and social
reform.

Being McKinley's running mate in 1900, assassination of the president in late
1901 moved Roosevelt to the presidency.  The following year he brought action
under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against Northern Securities Company, a
railroad monopoly of the northwest.

The suit began a "trust-busting" crusade against big business that carried over
into his second administration.

When the anthracite coal miners struck in 1902, Roosevelt became the first
president to intervene in a labor-management dispute.  He threatened to seize
the mines to persuade owners to accept mediation.

A proponent of conservation, he backed Gifford Pinchot in expanding the
nation's forest reserve, setting aside millions of acres of coal lands and
encouraging conservation on the state level.

On the international scene, he was even more bold than he was domestically.
After Colombia in 1903 rejected a treaty giving the United States rights to a
canal across the isthmus of Panama, he supported a Panamanian revolt and then
negotiated a similar treaty with the new nation.  He then supervised the
construction of the Panama Canal.