But remember that Teddy lost in 1912 to a Governor from New Jersey!
THE NEW NATIONALISM
Teddy Roosevelt
Osawatomie, Kansas
August 31, 1910.
We come here to-day to commemorate one of the
epoch making events of the long struggle for the rights of man - the long
struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country - this great Republic - means
nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular
government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man
shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him. That
is why the history of America is now the central feature of the history of the
world; for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my
fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders not only the burden
of doing well for the sake of your own country, but the burden of doing well
and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.…
Of that
generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe most is, of
course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present
struggle and saw the way out. He said:
"I hold that while man exists it is his
duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating
mankind."
And again:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of,
capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if
labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves
much the higher consideration."…
"Capital has its rights, which are as
worthy of protection as any other rights.... Nor should this lead to a war upon
the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property is
desirable; is a positive good in the world."…
"Let not him who is houseless pull down
the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself,
thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when
built."…
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this
conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who
have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our
day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of
self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free
government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and
under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize
opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every
individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth.
That is nothing new. …
Practical equality of opportunity for all
citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man
will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the
highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his
own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to
get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second,
equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen
the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of
the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which
it is fairly entitled.
I stand for the square deal. But when I say
that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play
under the present rules of the games, but that I stand for having those rules
changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of
reward for equally good service. … When I say I want a square deal for the poor
man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor
because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a
chance will not make good, then he has got to quit. … For every special
interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress,
to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The
Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise
good But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true
friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property
shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that
the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man
who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the
mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.
There can be no effective control of
corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will
be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.…
I believe that the officers, and, especially,
the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any
corporation breaks the law.
Combinations in industry are the result of an
imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The
effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out
lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely
controlling them in the interest of the public welfare. For that purpose the
Federal Bureau of Corporations is an agency of first importance. Its powers,
and, therefore, its efficiency, as well as that of the Interstate Commerce
Commission, should be largely increased. We have a right to expect from the
Bureau of Corporations and from the Interstate Commerce Commission a very high
grade of public service. We should be as sure of the proper conduct of the
interstate railways and the proper management of interstate business as we are
now sure of the conduct and management of the national banks, and we should
have as effective supervision in one case as in the other. The Hepburn Act, and
the amendment to the act in the shape in which it finally passed Congress at
the last session, represent a long step in advance, and we must go yet further.…
The absence of effective State, and,
especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create
a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief
object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the
conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the
general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune
which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard
to the welfare of his fellows. …
No man should receive a dollar unless that
dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a
dollar's worth of service rendered - not gambling in stocks, but service
rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its
size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree
from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe
in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more
easily collected and far more effective - a graduated inheritance tax on big
fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount
with the size of the estate.
The people of the United States suffer from
periodical financial panics to a degree substantially unknown among the other
nations which approach us in financial strength. There is no reason why we
should suffer what they escape. It is of profound importance that our financial
system should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and effectively
revised as to make it certain that hereafter our currency will no longer fail
at critical times to meet our needs.…
But I think we may go still further. The right
to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted.
Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor,
which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common
good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to
reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the
public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up
if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a
poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see
that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be a good
citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of
living, and hours of labor short enough so that after his day's work is done he
will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community,
to help in carrying the general load.
… The national government belongs to the whole
American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that
interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government. The
betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the
national government.
The American people are right in demanding that
New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems.
The New Nationalism puts the national need
before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion
that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as
local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from
over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for
local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to
bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the
executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the
judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in
property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all
the people rather than any one class or section of the people...One of the fundamental necessities in a
representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom
the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are
elected, and not the special interests. …
The object of government is the welfare of the
people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly
so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.
Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound
judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs - but, first of all, sound
in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they
bring up well - just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a
success. We must have - I believe we have already - a genuine and permanent
moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration
really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure the social
and economic legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral
agitation is necessarily evanescent. …You must have that, and, then, in
addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the
law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible
chance for development. The prime problem of our nation is to get the right
type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, and our public
men must be genuinely progressive.
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