by James Henry

Created on: February 23, 2009

If you ask most people who the youngest American President was, the first name that would spring to mind would be John F. Kennedy. That is, in fact, not the case. There was another President who took office at the age of 42, while Kennedy was elected at the age of 43.

Elected is the key distinction here. Kennedy still holds the record for being the youngest President elected to office. The youngest man to serve in the office of the presidency, however, was none other than Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt became President upon the death of President William McKinley. Ironically, if the McKinley assassination happened today (and perhaps even 10 or 20 years later) Roosevelt would not have held this distinction. For McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901 in Buffalo, NY. He did not die until eight days later, and so it came to pass that Roosevelt became President on September 14. Had the quality of medical care been better, it is likely McKinley would have survived the assassination, and it is possible Roosevelt never would have become the President.

The reason for that speculation is because Roosevelt was somewhat of a controversial figure in those days. He had fans, to be sure, but there were a great many entrenched political figures who thought of him as far too unstable and dangerous. When he was selected by McKinley to be his Vice President, many of Roosevelt's detractors were secretly pleased. The office of Vice President was nothing like it has become in more recent years. Basically, as John McCain asserted during the just completed campaign cycle, the Vice President's chief responsibility was to wait for the President to die. Most people did not consider the likelihood of McKinley passing on during his presidency to be very high.

By the time Roosevelt was elected President in his own right, he was 46 years old. That would put him in the same age range as President Bill Clinton, when he took office, and Ulysses S. Grant, both of whom were 46 and change.

At any rate, Roosevelt held the distinction of being the youngest president ever until Kennedy's election 59 years later, but Kennedy could not supplant Roosevelt as the youngest in office. Kennedy was 43 and 236 days when he took office, while Roosevelt was 42 and 322 days, according to the website Infoplease.

It is somewhat ironic that Roosevelt became President in the fashion he did, for a couple reasons. The first obvious one is that the man who claimed the title youngest president elected would ultimately leave office by means of assassination, as we know all too well. It is also ironic because in 1912, disillusioned by the Presidency of William Howard Taft, Roosevelt ran for the office again, first as a Republican, and then, after losing the Republican nomination to Taft, as a member of the National Progressive "Bull Moose" Party that he founded. During the waning days of that campaign, on October 14, 1912, Roosevelt was shot at close range by a "crazed anarchist" who objected to Roosevelt seeking essentially a third term. For while the law establishing a two-term limit for presidents was not passed until after the death of Roosevelt's cousin FDR, the tradition had dated back all the way to Washington.

On that night in Milwaukee, Roosevelt continued to a speaking engagement, which is why he was in Milwaukee in the first place. Many books have quoted this speech, including my own master's thesis, titled "A Content Analysis of the Presidential Election of 1912: Early Agenda Building." Roosevelt is reported to have taken the stage and to have said, "Please excuse me from making a long speech. I'll do the best I can. You see, there is a bullet in my body."

http://www.youngestamericanpresident.com

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