From a Howard Zinn Interview with Democracy Now!, May 2009

[...] Should we tell people that Theodore Roosevelt, who is held up as one
of our great presidents, was really a warmonger who loved military exploits
and who congratulated an American general who committed a massacre in the
Philippines ? Should we tell young people that?

And I think the answer is: we should be honest with young people; we should
not deceive them. We should be honest about the history of our country. And
we should be not only taking down the traditional heroes like Andrew Jackson
and Theodore Roosevelt, but we should be giving young people an alternate
set of heroes.

Instead of Theodore Roosevelt, tell them about Mark Twain. Mark Twain
well, Mark Twain, everybody learns about as the author of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn, but when we go to school, we don’t learn about
Mark Twain as the vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League. We aren't
told that Mark Twain denounced Theodore Roosevelt for approving this
massacre in the Philippines.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/28/howard_zinn_1922_2010_a_tribute