Heir To The Empire City: An Analysis

When an American is asked about what is his image of President Theodore Roosevelt, he might come up with the image of a cowboy with his revolver working on a ranch in the West. However according to Edward P. Kohn’s book Heir to the Empire City, this is not the case. In his book Kohn stated that T.R’s western experience definitely helped him form an image of strong and tough in front of the public, yet his growing up and living in the East was the key element that shaped his character and his personality. Kohn made a valid thesis in his book: T.R’s experience of living in New York City not only helped him during his term as President but also throughout his lifetime. Just as the book had said “New York helped to make him one of America’s greatest …show more content…
This incident had a strong influence in him, and it was one of the reasons that caused T.R to move to the West on a Ranch in Dakota. Although he lived in Dakota for two years, T.R still regarded New York as his home and he frequently visited the city during election years. When he went back to New York from Dakota, T.R soon devoted himself to the city’s mayor election. New York had made T.R into the determined, pertinacious figure that he had displayed in front of the public through its elections and political campaigns. In 1895 T.R was appointed the Police Commissioner of New York. The job marked the end of T.R’s future career in New York city, yet it also “sow[ed] the seeds of future political victory”. For T.R sought to break the powerful and corrupt alliance between Tammany Hall and New York’s police(an idea that he had formed in his early twenties after visiting the dwellings of the poor), but as he was doing so he had made himself a lot of enemies and by the summer of 1895 he was regarded as one of the most unpopular man in the city for enforcing the Sunday alcohol act. With the best of intentions for the citizens and the hopes that corruption would reduce to a minimum level, he had enforced an unpopular law. As a result, he was attacked by both members of the Republican and Democratic party. In the end the act was a failure; however, his efforts for enforcing …show more content…
According to Kohn it was not T.R’s heroism in Cuba that won him the governorship, instead it was his previous political experience and his ability to unite and to reform the Republicans in New York that made him qualify for governor. “Roosevelt had became what he had promised: governor of the entire party, working with and drawing strength from both the machine and independents.” T.R had proven himself to be a uniter, a leader and most important of all a man for the common throughout his entire political career. Such reputation made him one of the most prominent figures in the Republican party and later the Vice President of the United States. President McKinley was assassinated in September, 1901, thus making T.R the 26th President of the United States and the youngest president to be elected as well. Upon hearing news that T.R had been elected President, the entire New York city broke into cheers, for the first time in United States history, a son of the city became President. T.R closely linked his life to New York, since without the city there would not be the T.R that was known nowadays. Both his life and political experience in the city helped him become one of the most popular politicians of United