Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
One thing I wish definitely understood. If the power is granted me to
create such a board, such a commission, or to continue in power, if I
so desire, a commission or board with increased powers, I shall strive
to appoint and retain men who will do exactly the same justice to the
railroads as they will exact from the railroads. False hopes are always
raised by any measure of reform, because there are always people who
expect the impossible. If the measure which I advocate is enacted into
law, a good many people will expect that it will bring the millennium
considerably nearer than will prove to be the case. The men whom I
appoint to execute that law will be, so far as my ability to choose
them exists, men who will no more be frightened by an even sincere
popular clamor into doing an act of injustice to any great corporation
than they will be frightened, on the other hand, into refraining from
doing an act of justice because it is against the interests of some
great corporation. In other words, I shall strive to see that that
branch of the Government with its increased power is administered as
every branch of the Government ought to be administered—that is, in a
spirit of striving to do exact justice to the men of great means just
as much as, and no more than, to the man of small means.
Now for the other side of the question. There have been a great many
republics before our time, and again and again these republics have
split upon the rock of disaster. The greatest and most dangerous rock
in the course of any republic is the rock of class hatred. Sometimes
in the past the republic became a republic in which one class grew to
dominate over another class, so that for loyalty to the republic was
substituted loyalty to a class. The result was in such case inevitable.
It meant disaster and ultimately the downfall of the republic, and it
mattered not one whit which class became dominant; it mattered not
one whit whether the poor plundered the rich or the rich exploited
the poor. In either case, just as soon as the republic became one in
which one class substituted loyalty to that class for loyalty to the
republic, the end of the republic was at hand. No true patriot will
fail to do everything in his power to prevent the growth of any such
spirit in this country.
This Government is not and never shall be a government of a plutocracy.
This Government is not, and never shall be, a Government of a mob. I
believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our
modern industrialism; but I believe that they should be so supervised
and regulated that they shall act for the interest of the community as
a whole. So I believe in unions. I am proud of the fact that I am an
honorary member of one union. But I believe that the union, like the
individual, must be held to a strict accountability to the power of the
law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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