Teddy Roosevelt

26th American President whose Square Deal domestic program, Panama Canal construction, conservation of 230M acres, and antitrust prosecutions (including Standard Oil) made him the defining active-state president of the Progressive Era.

Used the presidency as a bully pulpit to fundamentally shift the balance between private industrial power and the public interest — prosecuting Standard Oil, building the FDA and FTC, preserving the national parks — while his personal biography of physical overcoming made him the American archetype of vigorous striving.