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
Side by side with this increase in the prosperity of the wage-worker
and the tiller of the soil has gone on a great increase in prosperity
among the business men and among certain classes of professional
men; and the prosperity of these men has been partly the cause and
partly the consequence of the prosperity of farmer and wage-worker.
It can not be too often repeated that in this country, in the long
run, we all of us tend to go up or go down together. If the average
of well-being is high, it means that the average wage-worker, the
average farmer, and the average business man are all alike well off.
If the average shrinks, there is not one of these classes which will
not feel the shrinkage. Of course there are always some men who are
not affected by good times, just as there are some men who are not
affected by bad times. But speaking broadly, it is true that if
prosperity comes all of us tend to share more or less therein, and
that if adversity comes each of us, to a greater or less extent, feels
the tension. Unfortunately, in this world the innocent frequently
find themselves obliged to pay some of the penalty for the misdeeds
of the guilty; and so if hard times come, whether they be due to our
own fault or to our misfortune, whether they be due to some burst of
speculative frenzy that has caused a portion of the business world
to lose its head—a loss which no legislation can possibly supply—or
whether they be due to any lack of wisdom in a portion of the world of
labor—in each case the trouble once started is felt more or less in
every walk of life.
It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life
that we should recognize this community of interest among our people.
The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare
of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best
representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing
good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is, not to represent
any special class and promote merely that class’s selfish interests,
but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all
classes and to work for their interests by working for our common
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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