Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 2 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 2 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
I am in a city at the eastern gateway of this State with the great
railroad systems of the State running through it. On the western
edge of this State in Puget Sound I have seen the homing places of
the great steamship lines, which, in connection with these great
railroads, are doing so much to develop the Oriental trade of this
country and this State. Washington will owe no small part of its
future greatness, and that greatness will be great indeed, to the
fact that it is thus doing its share in acquiring for the United
States the dominance of the Pacific. Those railroads, the men and
the corporations that have built them, have rendered a very great
service to the community. The men who are building, the corporations
which are building the great steamship lines have likewise rendered
a very great service to the community. Every man who has made wealth
or used it in developing great legitimate business enterprises has
been of benefit and not harm to the country at large. This city has
grown by leaps and bounds only when the railroads came to it, when
the railroads came to the State; and if the State were now cut off
from its connection by rail and by steamship with the rest of the
world its position would of course diminish incalculably. Great good
has come from the development of our railroad system; great good has
been done by the individuals and corporations that have made that
development possible; and in return good is done to them, and not
harm, when they are required to obey the law. Ours is a government of
liberty by, through and under the law. No man is above it and no man
is below it. The crime of cunning, the crime of greed, the crime of
violence, are all equally crimes, and against them all alike the law
must set its face. This is not and never shall be a government either
of a plutocracy or of a mob. It is, it has been, and it will be, a
government of the people; including alike the people of great wealth
and of moderate wealth, the people who employ others, the people who
are employed, the wage-worker, the lawyer, the mechanic, the banker,
the farmer; including them all, protecting each and every one if he
acts decently and squarely, and discriminating against any one of
them, no matter from what class he comes, if he does not act squarely
and fairly, if he does not obey the law. While all people are foolish
if they violate or rail against the law—wicked as well as foolish, but
all foolish—yet the most foolish man in this Republic is the man of
wealth who complains because the law is administered with impartial
justice against or for him. His folly is greater than the folly of any
other man who so complains; for he lives and moves and has his being
because the law does in fact protect him and his property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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