Born in 1858 into an aristocratic New York family, Roosevelt was physically weak as a child. But he was determined to overcome this weakness and from then on de- voted himself to physical activity and training. He kept it up as he went on to gra- duate from Harvard, commited himself to historical writing and got elected to the New York State parliament. After his first wife had died in childbirth, he went to South Dakota where he spent two years as a cowboy.[90]

   There another trait of Roosevelt became evident. He loved killing. He was exalted when he had killed buffaloes and justified slaughtering Indians for they were not much more valuable than animals.[91]  Journalist Edgar-Lee Masters catches Roose- velt’s spirit, who „can wrestle, box, fence, ride and shoot as well as write histories and biographies; make speeches and win battles. (...) [And he has shown] that he is not averse to the effusion of blood when it is drawn in a patriotic cause.“[92]  Roosevelt proved this by his enthusiastic service with the Rough Riders in the battles of Cuba, after having served as New York City police commissioner and assistant
secretary of the navy. His heroic deeds in Cuba helped him to be elected Governor of New York.
In 1900 he won the vice-presidency as running-mate of William McKinley and suc- ceeded him as chief-executive after his assassination. Drawing on his own life, he preached activity - ‘strenuous life’ as he called it - all over the country.[93]

„I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of strenuous
 life.(...) As it is with the individual so it is with the nation. (...) Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. (...) We have our tasks, and woe to us if we fail to perform them! (...) In this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound in the end to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities. (...) We must strife in good faith to play a great part in the world.“[94]

   For Roosevelt there was no alternative to imperialism; in foreign affairs he gave the „advice to speak softly, but carry a big stick“.[95]  And he certainly was deter-mined to wield it.