Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States when an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt was a larger-than-life figure who came to represent the spirit of the era. He brought the federal government to bear on the causes championed by Progressive Era reformers, supporting the Pure Food and Drug Act and gaining a reputation as an opponent of corrupt big business. He was a great outdoorsman and an early conservationist; his administration sponsored the first national parks. Roosevelt’s signing of a treaty with Panama to complete the Panama Canal was one example of his vigorous foreign policy and unabashed imperialism, which expanded United States interests abroad.