Teddy Roosevelt's War Against Banana Peels

Filed by Max the Cryptid Reporter

Before he charged up San Juan Hill, Teddy Roosevelt waged a far more slippery campaign: against the banana peels that carpeted New York City's streets. As police commissioner from 1895 to 1897, the future president took on police corruption and quality-of-life crimes alike, declaring war on the city's most abundant street snack refuse. Bananas needed no wrapper and no icebox, which made them the perfect takeaway food and the perfect litter, and New Yorkers obliged by dropping the evidence everywhere. Roosevelt, who never did anything halfway, treated the humble peel as a public menace worthy of a reformer's fury, proving that the road to the White House is paved with good intentions and discarded fruit.