Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858 in New York City. This week will mark one hundred and fifty years since his birth.
As a boy, Teddie, as he was called by his family, had severe asthma. According to his biography on the National Park Service Web site, “Theodore, Sr. would take Teddie out for rides in the family carriage to try to force air into the boy's lungs” during the nights when the attacks were the worst.
When Teddie was about 13 years old, his father told him, "You have the mind but you have not the body. You must make your body." His father had a gymnasium built in their home for the children to use. While frail as a child, Roosevelt lifted weights and exercised to build strength and stamina. He was successful enough that he served in the cavalry as a “roughrider” and became a hero after charging up San Juan and Kettle Hills in Cuba.
While in his 20s, Roosevelt traveled to the Dakota Territory. There, he lived the rugged outdoor life, learning to rope, ride, and survive in the wilderness. Roosevelt came to believe that the strong individualism of Americans was due in part to the western frontier. He also believed that, without this western wilderness experience, he would never have become president.
Theodore Roosevelt, who came to believe that a full life was one of tests, challenges, and growth, gave a speech at the Hamilton Club in Chicago Illinois in the spring of 1898 titled “The Strenuous Life.”
“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”
This speech provided many arguments for working hard and overcoming adversities. He correlated a healthy individual to a healthy nation. “In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up can lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them.”
Roosevelt challenged individuals “