

CHAPTER XXIX 

 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION 

 FROM 1905 TO 



THE second layman to receive a unanimous election as 

 honorary vice-president of the National Tuberculosis 

 Association was Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. He honored 

 the Association by his acceptance of the office in 1906, during 

 his first term as President of the United States. Of all the 

 statesmen of this and foreign countries, there has perhaps never 

 been a man whose name has been more familiar to the masses 

 than that of Theodore Roosevelt, nor any man of whom there 

 have been written more eulogies and more biographies. The 

 high and the low, the rich and the poor, men and women in all 

 walks of life, have felt a deep admiration for this wonderful man. 

 No public character in American history has ever combined such 

 boundless energy and exuberant enthusiasm with such versatility 

 of achievements. In the present sketch we shall consider mostly 

 what Theodore Roosevelt has meant to public sanitation and 

 medicine in general and to the tuberculosis problem in the 

 United States in particular. 



Theodore Roosevelt, the son of Theodore and Martha Bulloch 

 Roosevelt, was born October 27, 1858. He received his early 

 education partially from private tutors and by attending the 

 Cutler preparatory school. He entered Harvard, graduating in 

 1880. Then began a career so varied, so interesting, and so full 

 of achievement that each of the various positions he occupied and 

 the distinction he received therein might be a subject for an essay 

 in itself. He was a member of the New York legislature from 

 1882 to 1884. He then became a rancher, a cowboy, civil service 

 commissioner, New York police commissioner, assistant secre- 

 tary of the navy, soldier, governor, vice-president, and president. 

 He entered upon his presidential duties October 14, 1901, on the 



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