SHOWN recently on Channel 4 was a film called: The Wind and the Lion. It starred Brian Keith as the US president Theodore Roosevelt better known as Teddy.
Roosevelt first entered office in 1897 as secretary of the Navy and ordered a large ship building programme. This made America a great naval power. He then resigned, formed his own army battalion known as 'Roughriders', landed in Cuba - then a Spanish colony - and led his men to overthrow the Spanish garrison.
In 1901 Roosevelt became president and took on American big business by pushing through legislation to end industrial monopolies and protect factory workers and consumers from adulterated food.
He also condemned the ill-treatment of Negroes in American southern states.
When America entered World War One in 1917, Roosevelt, then 59 years old with a bad heart and very poor eyesight volunteered for active service.
Now in election year how America needs a president like Teddy Roosevelt to take on the rich and the powerful on behalf of ordinary American people.
JOHN PROCTER, Thwaites Road, Oswaldtwistle.
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