Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Vol. 15, No. 1 (January 2016), pp. 80-101 (22 pages)
Published By: Society for Historians of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era
As Woodrow Wilson traveled across the Atlantic to negotiate the peace after World War I, Theodore Roosevelt died in Long Island. His passing launched a wave of commemoration in the United States that did not go unrivaled in Europe. Favorable tributes inundated the European press and coursed through the rhetoric of political speeches. This article examines the sentiment of Allied nations toward Roosevelt and argues that his posthumous image came to symbolize American intervention in the war and, subsequently, the reservations with the Treaty of Versailles, both endearing positions to the Allies that fueled tributes. Historians have long depicted Woodrow Wilson's arrival in Europe as the most celebrated reception of an American visitor, but Roosevelt's death and memory shared equal pomp in 1919 and endured long after Wilson departed. Observing this epochal moment in world history from the unique perspective of Roosevelt's passing extends the already intricate view of transnational relations.
Taylor & Francis Online
Published online: Jan 6, 2014, pp. 139-161
The 1907 Gentlemen's Agreement – promoted by President Theodore Roosevelt – was a US immigration policy that established restrictions on Japanese labour. The policy came at a time of growing tension over Asian immigration to the west coast of the USA as well as to Canada and Mexico. The Agreement is often interpreted as an act of racial discrimination and exclusion. Undoubtedly, racial discrimination played a role in stoking and instigating American opinions over immigration in the early twentieth century. However, this article seeks to explain how the Gentlemen's Agreement was not an act of exclusion from the perspective of Theodore Roosevelt. The article contends that Roosevelt's initiative in the immigration policy was, instead, to exclude the Japanese based on class. In fact, this analysis of the Gentlemen's Agreement contends that the 26th president was particularly mindful of Japanese rights and the effect immigration would have on international diplomacy.