Theodore Roosevelt

“ Government in its application is often a complicated and delicate work, but the principles of government are, after all, fairly simple. In a broad general way we should apply in the affairs of the national administration, which deals with the interests of all our eighty-odd millions of people, just the same rules that are necessary [14] in getting on with our neighbors in our several neighborhoods; and the nation as a whole should show substantially the same qualities that we would expect an honorable man to show in dealing with his fellows. ”

“ Our average men and women are good men and women—and this is true in all sections of our country and among all classes of our countrymen. There is no other nation on earth with such vast natural resources, or with such a high standard of living and of industrial efficiency among its workers. We have as a nation an era of unexampled prosperity ahead of us ”

“ Here in this country we have founded a great federal democratic republic. It is a government [28] by and for the people and therefore a genuine democracy; and the theory of our Constitution is that each neighborhood shall be left to deal with the things that concern only itself and which it can most readily deal with; so that town, county, city, and State have their respective spheres of duty, while the nation deals with those matters which concern all of us, all of the people, no matter where we dwell. ”

“ Our effort must be for a just and effective plan of action which, while scrupulously safeguarding the rights of the men of wealth, shall yet, so far as is humanly possible, secure under the law to all men equality of opportunity to make a living. It is to the interest of all of us that the man of exceptional business capacity should be amply rewarded ”

“ By democracy we understand securing, as far as it is humanly possible to secure it, equality of opportunity, equality of the conditions under which each man is to show the stuff that is in him and to achieve the measure of success to which his own force of mind and character entitle him. ”

“ Our democracy is based upon the belief that each individual ought to have the largest [29] measure of liberty compatible with securing the rights of other individuals, that the average citizen, the plain man whom we meet in daily life, is normally capable of taking care of his own affairs, and has no desire to wrong any one else; and yet that in the interest of all there shall be sufficient power lodged somewhere to prevent wicked people from trampling the weak under foot for their own gain. ”

“ Of course the type of man whom we respect, whom we are proud of if he is a kinsman, whom we are glad to have as a friend and neighbor, is the man who is no milksop, who is not afraid, who will not tolerate nor hesitate to resent [16] insult or injury, but who himself never inflicts insult or injury, is kindly, good-natured, thoughtful of others’ rights—in short, a good man to do business with or have live in the next house or have as a friend. ”

“ Well, all this is just as true of a nation as of an individual, and in dealing [18] with other nations we should act as we expect a man who is both game and decent to act in private life. There are few things cheaper and more objectionable, whether on the part of the public man or of the private man, on the part of a writer or of a speaker, an individual or a group of individuals, than a course of conduct which is insulting or hurtful, whether in speech or act, to individuals of another nation or to the representatives of another nation or to another nation [19] itself. ”

“ The Navy must be built and all its training given in time of peace. When once war has broken out it [25] is too late to do anything. We now have a good Navy, not yet large enough for our needs, but of excellent material. Where a navy is as small as ours, the cardinal rule must be that the battle ships shall not be separated. This year I am happy to say that we shall begin a course which I hope will be steadily followed hereafter, that, namely, of keeping the battle-ship fleet alternately in the Pacific and in the Atlantic. ”

“ Among your own neighbors, among your friends, what is the attitude you like to see a man take toward his fellows, the attitude you wish each of your sons to take when [15] he goes out into the world? Is it not a combination of readiness and ability to hold his own if anyone tries to wrong him, while at the same time showing careful regard not only for the rights but for the feelings of others? ”

“ Friends, there is every reason why we should fight whatever is evil in the present. But there is also every reason why we should feel a sturdy and confident hope for the future. There are many wrongs to right; there are many and powerful wrong doers against whom to war ”

“ The instruments for the exercise of modern industrial power are the great corporations which, though created by the individual States, have grown far beyond the control of those States and transact their business throughout large sections of the Union. ”

“ But, on the whole, the most contemptible position that can possibly be assumed by any man is that of blustering, of bragging, of insulting or wronging other people, while yet expecting to go through life unchallenged, and being always willing to back down and accept humiliation if readiness to make good is demanded. ”

“ I think that the excellent people who have complained of our policy as hurting business have shown much the same spirit as the child who regards the dentist and not the ulcerated tooth as the real source of his woe. ”

“ The National Government alone has sufficiently extensive power and jurisdiction to exercise adequate control [36] over the great interstate corporations. While this thorough supervision and control by the National Government is desirable primarily in the interest of the people, it will also, I firmly believe, be to the benefit of those corporations themselves which desire to be honest and law-abiding. ”

“ This was the region that brought forth mighty Abraham Lincoln, the incarnation of all that is best in democratic life; and from the loins of the same people, living only a little farther south, sprang another of our greatest Presidents, Andrew Jackson, “Old Hickory”—a man who made mistakes, like most strong men, but a man of iron will and incorruptible integrity, fearless, upright, devoted to the welfare of his [6] countrymen, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, a typical American if ever there was one. ”

“ On the contrary, the chances for the average man to do better will be increased. Undoubtedly there will be much less opportunity than at present for a very few individuals not of the most scrupulous type to amass great fortunes by speculating in and manipulating securities which are issued without any kind of control or supervision. ”

“ Often it is necessary to devise new methods of meeting these new conditions. We must regard the past, but we must not regard only the past. We must also [43] think of the future; and while we must learn by experience, we can not afford to pay heed merely to the teachings of experience. ”

“ But there will be plenty of room left for ample legitimate reward for business genius, [40] while the chance for the man who is not a business genius, but who is a good, thrifty, hard-working citizen, will be better. I do not believe that our efforts will have anything but a beneficial effect upon the permanent prosperity of the country ”

“ Keep a lively watch against the present-day Pograms and Bricks; but above all, distrust the man who would persuade you to feel downhearted about the country because of these same Pograms and Bricks, past or present. It would be foolish to ignore their existence, or the existence of anything else that is bad in our national life ”

“ The oldest men present can still remember the pioneer days, the days of the white-tilted ox wagon, of the emigrant, and of the log cabin in which that emigrant first lived when he settled to his task as a pioneer farmer. ”

“ These are periods when the principles of experience need to be modified, when hope and trust and instinct claim a share with prudence in the guidance of affairs, [45] when in truth to dare is the highest wisdom. ”

“ On the other hand, the man who lacks any of those qualities is sure to be objectionable. If a man is afraid to hold his own, if he will submit tamely to wrongdoing, he is contemptible. If he is a bully, an oppressor, a man who wrongs or insults others, he is even worse [17] and should be hunted out of the community. ”

“ The country he so bitterly assailed is now one of the most fertile and productive portions of one of the most fertile and [4] productive agricultural territories in all the world, and the dwellers in this territory represent a higher average of comfort, intelligence, and sturdy capacity for self-government than the people in any tract of like extent in any other continent. ”

“ Let us make it a prime object of our policy to preserve these conditions. To do so it is necessary on the one hand to mete out a generous justice to all other peoples and show them courtesy and respect ”

“ These sentences should be carefully pondered by those men, often very good men, who forget that constructive change offers the best method of avoiding destructive change; that reform is the antidote to revolution ”

“ As for the first requisite, this means that not only the Government but the people as a whole shall act in the needed spirit; for otherwise the folly of a few individuals may work lasting discredit to the whole nation. The second requisite is more [22] easily secured—let us build up and maintain at the highest point of efficiency the United States Navy. In any great war on land we should have to rely in the future as we have relied in the past chiefly upon volunteer soldiers ”

“ But the policy becomes infamous from the standpoint of the interests of the United States when it is combined with the refusal to take those measures of preparation which can alone secure us from aggression on the part of others. ”

“ This is the heart of what may be called the Old West, which we now call the Middle West, using the term to denote that great group of rich and powerful States which literally forms the [2] heart of the country. It is a region whose people are distinctively American in all their thoughts, in all their ways of looking at life ”

“ Politically we can be said substantially to have worked out our democratic ideals, and the same is true, thanks to the common schools, in educational matters. But in industry there has not as yet been the governmental growth necessary in order to meet the tremendous changes brought about in industrial conditions by steam and electricity. ”

“ It is a national fleet in every sense of the term, and its welfare should be, and I firmly believe is, as much a matter of pride and concern for every man in the farthest interior of our country as for every man on the seacoast. ”

“ Religiously this means that each man is to have the right, unhindered by the state, to worship his Creator as his conscience dictates, granting freely to [32] others the same freedom which he asks for himself. ”

“ The proposal need be dreaded only by those corporations which do not wish to obey the law or to be controlled in just fashion, but prefer to take their chances under the present lack of all system and to court the chance of getting improper favors as offsetting the chance of being blackmailed—an attitude rendered familiar in the past by those corporations which had thriven under certain corrupt and lawless city governments. ”

“ The American people abhor a vacuum, and is determined that this control shall be exercised somewhere; ”

“ The land teems with beauty and fertility, and but a score of years after Dickens wrote it was shown to be a nursery and breeding ground of heroes, of soldiers and statesmen of the highest rank, while the rugged worth of the rank and file of the [5] citizenship rendered possible the deeds of the mighty men who led in council and in battle. ”