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Reply to "Refugees don't kill Americans"

Executive Orders

Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to issue over 1,000 Executive Orders. According to Dr. Graham G. Dodds, a professor of political science at Concordia University, Roosevelt issued almost as many executive orders as all of his predecessors combined.[16Prior to Roosevelt, only one President issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (Cleveland issued a total of 253). Of the first 25 Presidents in total, 1,262 executive orders were issued. Roosevelt issued 1,081.[165]

Members of Congress eventually got tired of Roosevelt's excesses in using executive orders to create policy. On February 25, 1907, Senator Charles W. Fulton, a Republican from Oregon, added an amendment to the 1907 Agricultural Appropriations Bill declaring these activities as falling under the authority of congressional power, not executive power.[167]

Foreign policy

 
Roosevelt Corollary of Monroe Doctrine depicted

 

In the late 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist, and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 election campaign. After the rebellion ended in 1901, he largely lost interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion in general, despite the contradictory opinion of his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal.[168] Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain.[169]

Following the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt believed that the United States had emerged as a world power, and he sought ways to assert America's newly-eminent position abroad.[170] In 1905, Roosevelt offered to mediate a treaty to end the Russo-Japanese War. The parties agreed to meet in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and they resolved the final conflict over the division of SakhalinRussia took the northern half, and Japan the south; Japan also dropped its demand for an indemnity.[171] Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful efforts. George E. Mowry concludes that Roosevelt handled the arbitration well, doing an "excellent job of balancing Russian and Japanese power in the Orient, where the supremacy of either constituted a threat to growing America".[172][173] Roosevelt also played a major role in mediating the First Moroccan Crisis by calling the Algeciras Conference, which averted war between France and Germany.[174]

Roosevelt's presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. The Great Rapprochement had begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish-American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat.[175] In 1901, Britain and the United States signed the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, abrogating the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which had prevented the United States from constructing a canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean.

The long-standing Alaska boundary dispute was settled on terms favorable to the United States, as Great Britain was unwilling to alienate the United States over what it considered to be a secondary issue. As Roosevelt later put it, the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute "settled the last serious trouble between the British Empire and ourselves."[177]

The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 resolved unpleasant racial tensions with Japan. Tokyo was angered over the segregation of Japanese children in San Francisco schools. The tensions were ended, but Japan also agreed not to allow unskilled workers to emigrate to the U.S.

Bibi Haniffa
Last edited by Bibi Haniffa
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