A member of the Roosevelt family, he was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Lieutenant Nicholas Latrobe Roosevelt, United States Navy, who had a naval career of distinction, and was a grandson of Nicholas Roosevelt, an inventor and land-owner.
Roosevelt entered the United States Naval Academy in 1896 but did not graduate. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps on December 8, 1899 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. During his career with the Marine Corps he was stationed in, among other places, Philadelphia, Panama, Cuba and Haiti.
After retiring from the Marine Corps in 1920, he served as the European manager for the Radio Corporation of America from 1923 to 1928 and oversaw the building of large radio stations at Ankara, Turkey, and Warsaw, Poland.
He served in the position from March 17, 1933 to February 22, 1936. Due to Swanson"s poor health, Roosevelt was at times Acting Secretary.
He made many tours of inspection and speeches, calling for the strengthening of the navy as a deterrent to war. He had three children, William Morrow, Henry Latrobe, and Eleanor Katherine, who married Reverdy Wadsworth, son of United States. Representative James West. Wadsworth, Junior.
He died at Bethesda Naval Hospital of a heart attack following intestinal influenza.
He became the fourth Roosevelt and fifth member of the Roosevelt family to occupy that office, after Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Doctorate. Roosevelt (the current president at the time), Theodore Roosevelt, Junior. and Theodore Douglas Robinson.
