Theodore Roosevelt

“ If the administration moves in the direction of an improper peace, of the peace of defeat and of cowardice, or if it wages war feebly and timidly, I shall oppose it and shall endeavor to wake the American people to their danger. ”

“ The right to say wise things necessarily implies the right to say foolish things. The answer to foolish speech is wise speech and not force. The Republic is founded upon the faith that if the American people are permitted freely to hear foolish and wise speech, a majority will choose the wise. If that faith is not justified the Republic is based on sand. John Milton said it all in his defense of freedom of the press: 'Let truth and error grapple. Who ever knew truth to be beaten in a fair fight?'
Abraham Lincoln was in Congress while Polk was President, during the Mexican War. ”

“ The people of the State of Wisconsin always have stood and always will stand squarely behind the National Government in all things which are essential to bring the present war to a successful end, and we condemn Senator Robert LaFollette and all others who have failed to see the righteousness of our Nation's cause, who have failed to support our Government in matters vital to the winning of the war, and we denounce any attitude or utterance of theirs which has tended to incite sedition among the people of our country. ”

“ We will stand behind the country at every point, and we will at every point either support or oppose the administration precisely in proportion as it does or does not with efficiency and single-minded devotion serve the country
From this position we will not be driven by any abuse of power or by any effort to make us not the loyal servants of the American people, but the cringing tools of a man who at the moment has power. ”

“ In practice they adopt the fetishism of all believers in absolutism, for every man who parrots the cry of “stand by the President” without adding the proviso “so far as he serves the Republic" takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the king could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent freeman can take such an attitude. ”

“ Since Marshall tried Burr for treason it has been clear that that crime cannot be committed by words, unless one acts as a spy, or gives advice to the enemy of military or naval operations. It cannot be committed by statements reflecting upon officers or measures of government. ”

“ In view of the recent attitude of the administration as expressed through the Attorney-General and Postmaster General I commend to its attention the utterances of Abraham Lincoln in 1848 and of the Wisconsin Legislature in 1918. The administration's warfare against German spies and American traitors has been feeble. The government has achieved far less in this direction than has been achieved by a few of our newspapers and by various private individuals. ”

“ One form of servility consists in a slavish attitude of the kind incompatible with self-respecting manliness toward any person who is powerful by reason of his office or position. Servility may be shown by a public servant toward the profiteering head of a large corporation, or toward the anti-American head of a big labor organization. ”

“ In other words, Lincoln says that he does not wish rhetoric or fine phrases or glittering statements that contradict one another and each of which has to be explained with a separate key or adroit and subtle special pleading and constant reversal of positions previously held, but straightforward and consistent adherence to the truth. He continues that he "more than suspects" that the President “is deeply conscious of being in the wrong ”

“ He stated that to give the President the power demanded for him by certain people would "place the President where kings have always stood.” In touching on what we should now speak of as rhetoric, he says, “The honest laborer digs coal at about seventy cents a day, while the President digs abstractions at about seventy dollars a day. ”