Roosevelt believed in projecting American power. He sent the Great White Fleet on a worldwide tour to show off the modernized American navy and to state American interests in the Pacific. Roosevelt supported Panamanian independence in order to create the Panama canal. He signed the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine which gave the United States the right to intervene in Latin America. Roosevelt also arbitrated in the Russo-Japanese War, an act which won a Nobel Peace Prize. At the onset of WWI, Roosevelt argued for immediate American intervention on the side of the Allies and even offered to lead a division of American soldiers in the conflict. Roosevelt believed that the United States had a duty to project power and its way of life abroad in order to cultivate both manly virtue at home and American values abroad.
The south used these laws to prevent African Americans from voting although it backfired since many of the white southerners didn't have money or much education either.
