rn president"(Knoll CD). After
             Roosevelt, the United States would remain a superpower, chiefly interested
             in all the world's affairs for at least a century (Barck 1).
             It would be foolish to assume that Roosevelt was a fantastically
             powerful individual who was able to change the course of the United States
             as easily as Superman might change the course of a river. It would be more
             accurate to say Roosevelt was the right person in the right place at the
             right time. It is necessary, though, to show how the United States was
             progressing, and how Roosevelt's presence merely helped to catalyze the
             progression. It has been said that when John Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham
             Lincoln, he "extinguished the light of the republic" (Cashman 1). While
             this is a small hyperbole, it serves as an example of the general mood that
             pervaded the period from 1865 to 1901.
             The early dominating factor was, of course, Reconstruction.
             Reconstruction was a dirty game, and nobody liked it. Johnson fought with
             congress and the end result proved very little had changed. The South was
             still largely agrarian, and the North was commercial. Most importantly, the
             Southerners and the Northerners still felt they had as little to do with
             each other as a fish does with a bicycle. To the young "Teedie" Roosevelt,
             this must have made itself apparent. He was born in a mixed household,
             where "Theodore Roosevelt (Sr.) was as profoundly...for the North as Martha
             Roosevelt was for the south" (Hagedorn 10). The fact that the family was
             able to live, from all accounts, very harmoniously, is quite astonishing
             and gives credit to the fine parents who raised young Theodore.
             Reconstruction's greatest (and perhaps only) accomplishment was the
             establishment of a basis for industrialization. The basic destruction of
             the southern agrarian process combined with the greater need for items in
             the North caused the economy of...