Biological analogies in historyRoosevelt, Theodore
Philosophy
Biological analogies in history
Roosevelt, Theodore
History -- Philosophy
No hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying to all alien races,
because they differ from one another far more widely than some of
them differ from us. But there are one or two rules which must not
be forgotten. In the long run there can be no justification for
one race managing or controlling another unless the management and
control are exercised in the interest and for the benefit of that
other race. This is what our peoples have in the main done, and must
continue in the future in even greater degree to do, in India, Egypt,
and the Philippines alike. In the next place, as regards every race,
everywhere, at home or abroad, we cannot afford to deviate from the
great rule of righteousness which bids us treat each man on his worth
as a man. He must not be sentimentally favoured because he belongs to a
given race; he must not be given immunity in wrongdoing or permitted to
cumber the ground, or given other privileges which would be denied to
the vicious and unfit among ourselves. On the other hand, where he acts
in a way which would entitle him to respect and reward if he was one
of our own stock, he is justly as entitled to that respect and reward
if he comes of another stock, even though that other stock produces a
much smaller proportion of men of his type than does our own. This has
nothing to do with social intermingling, with what is called social
equality. It has to do merely with the question of doing to each man
and each woman that elementary justice which will permit him or her
to gain from life the reward which should always accompany thrift,
sobriety, self-control, respect for the rights of others, and hard and
intelligent work to a given end. To more than such just treatment
no man is entitled, and less than such just treatment no man should
receive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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