Theodore Roosevelt: Progressive Side

Theodore Roosevelt was president from September 14, 1901-March 4,1909 and was considered one of the more progressive presidents to come from that century, even being compared to Abraham Lincoln himself. Like Abraham Lincoln, he was one for the common man and as a very sporty, active, and bold man. Many Americans related to these qualities and admired him.Theodore Roosevelt was the first president after a long line of political puppets for political parties to break apart from the typical mold. He was a generally progressive president and many would say he increased the power of the presidency and tested the limits of congress. The American people were glad to see such an active and charming man as president and for a large portion of his presidency he was quite popular.  Theodore started of as the governor of New York and he supported regulations on factories, work with with labor movements and pushed to preserve parks. This made him very unpopular with Republican conservatives and as a way to limit his power they placed him in the position of vice president. He was considered a reformer and this was what many disenfranchised people needed, but he was a man who couldn't be as easily controlled and the party feared this hence their plan to keep him a powerless vice president. Needless to say, the party's plan failed when  President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Theodore then became the president of the United States. As president he was against large companies and the money hungry business men of wall street. He broke up many of the major trusts and even had greedy businessmen prosecuted. One of the biggest trusts he broke up was JP Morgan's railroad trust. On the case of industrial workers such as coal minors he was the first president to use police force to threaten the businesses into allowing 8 hour work days and reasonable wages for the dangerous work minors. He saw this as simple justice, a square deal, as he would describe it. Along the lines of his progressivism he was an intellectual man and is one of the most educated presidents to date. Roosevelt created Federal maintenance inspections to protect consumers and created reforms for the purity and safety of drug, medicine, and food with the Pure Food and Drug Act. His greatest cause was conservation. He believed in the value of nature and resources and so he created national parks, national forests, and millions of acres of American land under protection. In his years as president he made many progressive moves, but he defiantly had sides of him that were less aligned to the values of progressivism. I'll leave that for the next post though. What other ways was Theodore Roosevelt a progressive president and do you think he was progressive enough?