Teddy Roosevelt's Contribution to Natural Resources After William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became our 25th President. America¹s natural resources were threatened. Species like the bison and beaver were endangered; others were extinct. Soil fertility was low and about four-fifths of prime forests had been cut down. Roosevelt expressed concern: ³...the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have been...washed into the streams, polluting our rivers.² Rooseve