The Big Stick diplomacy or Big Stick policy. The slogan describing U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The term came from the phrase “Speak softly and carry a big stick." The idea of negotiating peacefully threatening with the “big stick”, or the military. Roosevelt first used the phrase in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 1901, twelve days before the assassination of President William McKinley. The killing of McKinley Put him into presidency right away. Roosevelt referred to the phrase “Speak softly and carry a big stick" earlier (January 26, 1900) in a letter to Henry L. Sprague. He mentioned that he liked the phrase in a way after forcing New York’s Republican committee to cut support away from a corrupt financial adviser. The term comes from a West African proverb. At the time it showed Roosevelt’s “prolific” reading habits. Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis.”
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