Word: rooseveltism
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...short while after the Great White Fleet's return, Roosevelt relinquished the presidency. To his successor, William Howard Taft, he had one message: Do not divide the fleet. The Mahanian principle of concentrating the main battle fleet in one theater remained in place. It would still be there in 1914 when the Panama Canal, instigated by T.R., finally opened. Only during the Second World War, when the U.S. Navy became the largest in the world, would the U.S. possess a two-ocean fleet...
Panama was a province of Colombia when Theodore Roosevelt took up the idea of building a canal after a failed attempt by France. When the Colombian government rejected a new treaty allowing the U.S. to build a canal, Roosevelt became enraged. Soon after, a group of Panamanian separatist leaders declared a revolution. That same day, U.S. gunboats appeared off the coast to keep Colombia from reclaiming its territory. Roosevelt vigorously denied that the U.S. had fomented the revolution but defended his actions in characteristic terms: "To have acted otherwise ... would have been betrayal of the interests of the United States...
Initially, Congress created a seven-person commission to oversee construction. After the first chief engineer broke down under the stress of the job, Roosevelt sidestepped the panel and gave total power to one man, Army Colonel George Goethals. As absolute ruler of the Canal Zone, Goethals oversaw every detail, from digging and building to resolving personal disputes among workers...
...Roosevelt wanted to see the colossal project for himself. His trip marked the first time a U.S. President left the country while in office. To see conditions at their worst, he went at the height of the rainy season. While touring, he delighted workers by leaping aboard a 95-ton Bucyrus steam shovel and grilling the operator about how it worked. The operator seized the moment to ask for overtime...
Sources: The Path Between the Seas, by David McCullough; The Panama Canal, by Lesley A. Dutemple; An Autobiography, by Theodore Roosevelt; Letters and Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt; Destiny by Design, by Jeremy Sherman Snapp...