Theodore Roosevelt: An AutobiographyRoosevelt, Theodore
History
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
Roosevelt, Theodore
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
interesting and important of the problems with which our public life
must deal.
In handling these problems I believe that much can be done by the
Government. Furthermore, I believe that, after all that the Government
can do has been done, there will remain as the most vital of all factors
the individual character of the average man and the average woman.
No governmental action can do more than supplement individual action.
Moreover, there must be collective action of kinds distinct from
governmental action. A body of public opinion must be formed, must
make itself felt, and in the end transform, and be transformed by, the
gradual raising of individual standards of conduct.
It is curious to see how difficult it is to make some men understand
that insistence upon one factor does not and must not mean failure fully
to recognize other factors. The selfish individual needs to be taught
that we must now shackle cunning by law exactly as a few centuries back
we shackled force by law. Unrestricted individualism spells ruin to
the individual himself. But so does the elimination of individualism,
whether by law or custom. It is a capital error to fail to recognize the
vital need of good laws. It is also a capital error to believe that good
laws will accomplish anything unless the average man has the right stuff
in him. The toiler, the manual laborer, has received less than justice,
and he must be protected, both by law, by custom, and by the exercise
of his right to increase his wage; and yet to decrease the quantity and
quality of his work will work only evil. There must be a far greater
meed of respect and reward for the hand worker than we now give him, if
our society is to be put on a sound basis; and this respect and reward
cannot be given him unless he is as ambitious to do the best possible
work as is the highest type of brain worker, whether doctor or writer or
artist. There must be a raising of standards, and not a leveling down to
the standard of the poorest and most inefficient. There is urgent need
of intelligent governmental action to assist in making the life of the
man who tills the soil all that it should be, and to see that the manual
worker gets his full share of the reward for what he helps produce; but
if either farmer, mechanic, or day laborer is shiftless or lazy, if he
shirks downright hard work, if he is stupid or self-indulgent, then no
law can save him, and he must give way to a better type.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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