Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States on September 14, 2001, at the age of 42, making him the youngest President of the United States on September 14th, 1901, at the age of 42, making him the

youngest person ever to take the presidential oath of office in American history.

In 1890, a classically trained composer named Scott Joplin published The Maple Leaf Rag, a lively

syncopated piano piece that would come to define rag time, a lively syncopated music that would

come to define an era and serve as the perfect accompaniment for Theater Roosevelt's lively

syncopated presidency. Welcome to Theodore Roosevelt's America.

Welcome to the age of ragtime.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music I'm going to be the Episode 17. Such a bully pulpit.

The establishment was appalled at the prospect of a Roosevelt presidency.

Roosevelt had impressed upon him the importance of continuing the policies

of the McKinley administration. He was told that a radical change in direction would provoke

a stock market crash. Roosevelt seems to have taken these concerns to heart. He kept McKinley's

cabinet and in the early days of his administration repeatedly promised to continue McKinley's cautious

conservative policies. And he may even have meant it at the time he said it, but hey, this is

Theater Roosevelt we're talking about. A joke went around elite Washington circles during this time

that while President McKinley listened to a great many people,

but only spoke to a few, President Roosevelt spoke to a great many people and listened to no one.

In 1902, the new French ambassador to Washington, Jules Jusserang, came to the White House in formal

attire to present his credentials.

He later reported that Roosevelt took him for a walk in the park that soon turned into something like a forced march. When they reached a creek, the Relie de Jusserrand assumed his ordeal was

over, only to be horrified when the president began to strip off his clothes and insist that

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