Theodore Roosevelt

That's him, isn't it?

It's time, Colonel.

Is the car here?

Outside, sir.

Good.

- It is not the critic who counts.

Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles.

Or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man

who is actually in the arena.

How ya feeling, Teddy?

Fit as a bull moose.

- Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy.

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy.

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy.

Let's go!

To the hospital.

- Everything can change in a moment.

Theodore Roosevelt did everything he could

to be ready for that moment.

- Theodore Roosevelt is born into privilege

and of great wealth.

A very sickly child.

So he had to put up his dukes and fight.

- Roosevelt saw himself as the embodiment of America.

- He was an exemplar of the strenuous life.

He suffers loss.

He suffers grief.

- Here's a man who had everything.

Education, wealth, opportunities.

- But he felt all of that must be used

to help the lives of the unfortunate.

- Fairness, justice, equity is what drove him.

- He woke up every day of his life saying, bring it on.

- He was the first celebrity President.

- There were thousands of people

yelling and screaming.

Like, he's a rockstar.

- He grasped the power of the presidency with both hands.

He had so much energy.

He's always on his feet.

- He gave an 84 minute address bleeding from a chest wound.

He becomes a folk hero.

- On the side of the underdog.

He was multifaceted.

- He was America as a singular figure.

- He wanted to change the country.

- He makes the United States a global power.

- He's propelling America's best ideas.

- He dragged America, kicking and screaming,

into the 20th century.

- He was always moving forward to change things.

To make his mark on the world.

After Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865,

a train carried his body home to Springfield.

The cortege stopped in

major cities along the way.

In New York, 100,000

people lined the streets.

An enormous crowd at that time.

They were drawn together in disbelief

that the leader who had carried them

through the Civil War had been shot.

They sang, they held hands, they wept.

They carried signs.

One placard said, mankind has lost a friend.

- If you look closely at the second floor of this mansion,

you see two little faces peering above the window sill.

That was TR and his brother Elliott.

TR was six, almost seven, and his brother was five.

- Here we have our future 26th President

looking down at the casket

of our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.

The man that Theodore Roosevelt would revere

the rest of his life.

What an uncanny and symbolic moment.

Teddy Roosevelt comes of age

in one of the most tumultuous times

in American history.

There was no way to be part

of the United States in the early 1860s

without understanding the existential threat

posed by the Civil War itself.

- Theodore was a son of privilege.

The Roosevelt family stood at the very top

of New York society.

His grandfather was one of the five wealthiest people

in the city of New York.

- Theodore's father believes very firmly

that to be a real citizen, to be a man,

to be a Christian meant

that you could enjoy wealth and privilege,

but you had to use your wealth

and your talent to help the lives of the unfortunate.

And he's gonna instill that in young Theodore.

He'll take Theodore with him to visit

the orphan boys and the vulnerable

and to see the underside of the city

and really constantly instruct him that

as you grow up, this is something you must carry on.

- His father was a hero that he really admired.

He said his father was his best friend, his companion.

The greatest man he ever knew.

But his father worried about his beloved son.

- TD, as he was called, TD is sickly,

he is underweight, he's frail.

- He had terrible asthma and really seemed

to be one of those children that was destined

to not reach adulthood.

And so, as a consequence, he was kept at home.

He was in many ways babied by the family

in order to kind of protect him

from the infirmities he suffered from.

- Some of my earliest remembrances

are of nights when he would walk up

and down with me in his arms.

When I was a wretched mite.

Easy, easy.

- TR was very aware of how sick he was.

When he had those asthma attacks he would feel

like he was suffocating or drowning.

And then he heard his parents say

that they were worried that he might not live.

Just imagine what that's like for a little kid,

to hear that he might die.

- Because TR couldn't go to school

and couldn't do what other children do,

couldn't play outside much, he became bookish.

He began to read books about boys

that go off into the frontier and do great things

and kill a buffalo and save pioneer families.

- He actually put himself into the adventures

of the people that he was reading about,

the explorers and the deer slayers.

And then he got into collecting birds and insects.

His shelves in his room were so filled

with dead objects that poor Elliott begged

to have another room.

- Theodore Roosevelt didn't have a lot

of friends when he was a kid,

because he was mostly house bound.

And so his father was his confidant.

He was his model.

He was the one who urged Theodore Roosevelt

to make himself strong.

And so it really was this model

that Theodore Roosevelt tried to live up to.

- And his father goes to him and challenges him.

You've got a strong mind, TD.

But not the body to go with it.

Your mind can only take you so far.

You can do it, TD.

You can do anything.

Hey.

No, I can do it.

- This need to prove himself through sheer will power

is one of the principle motivating forces

in the entire life of Theodore Roosevelt.

- He took up that challenge

with every bone of his body.

He just said, I'll make my body.

And by god, did he.

He was in that gym that his father provided

for him day after day.

And it becomes the challenge for the rest of his life.

- Roosevelt entered Harvard

because his family was well connected.

Come on, get him!

- He wanted to be a big man on campus.

He could box, he could wrestle,

but he was not well coordinated.

He had terrible eyesight.

But he was determined.

- When TR entered Harvard he was not very cool.

He had these side whiskers,

these bright red cheeks, those metal rim glasses.

And he was pretty awkward.

He had been home schooled,

so he wasn't used to being with other kids.

And then in his room he had

the dead lizards and the dead snakes.

And the smell of formaldehyde

followed him everywhere he went.

- He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke,

he doesn't swear.

He finds out that many of his fellow classmates

are heading off to Boston's brothels

and gambling dens.

And he was really appalled at what he sees

as this immoral lot.

So he doesn't make many friends with that attitude.

He was loud.

He could be obnoxious.

He was opinionated.

But he was interested in excelling.

He worked hard at every class.

He got A's and embraced political science and history.

- No matter how strange he might have seemed

at the start, there was something about his warmth,

his curiosity, his irrepressible energy