Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate BiographyThayer, William Roscoe
History
Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography
Thayer, William Roscoe
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
This being the condition of life as our country had to lead it,
we were criminally remiss in not taking precautions. But
Roosevelt went farther than this; he believed that, war or no
war, a nation must be able to defend itself; so must every
individual be. Every youth should have sufficient military
training to fit him to take his place at a moment's notice in the
national armament. This did not mean the maintenance of a large
standing army, or the adoption of a soul and character-killing
system of militarism like the German. It meant giving training to
every youth who was physically sound which would develop and
strengthen his body, teach him obedience, and impress upon him
his patriotic duty to his country.
I was among those who, twenty years ago, feared that Roosevelt's
projects were inspired by innate pugnacity which he could not
outgrow. Now, in this year of his death, I recognize that he was
right, and I believe that there is no one, on whom the lesson of
the Atrocious War has not been lost, who does not believe in his
gospel of military training, both for its value in promoting
physical fitness and health and in providing the country with
competent defenders. Roosevelt detested as much as anyone the
horrors of war, but, as he had too much reason to remind the
American people shortly before his death, there are things worse
than war. And when in 1919 President Charles W. Eliot becomes the
chief advocate of universal military training, we need not fear
that it is synonymous with militarism.
On one subject--a protective tariff--I think that Roosevelt was
less satisfactory than on any other. At Harvard, in our college
days, John Stuart Mill's ideas on economics prevailed, and they
were ably expounded by Charles F. Dunbar, who then stood first
among American economists. Being a consistent Individualist, and
believing that liberty is a principle which applies to commerce,
not less than to intellectual and moral freedom, Mill, of course,
insisted on Free Trade. But after Roosevelt joined the Republican
Party--in the straw vote for President, in 1880, he had voted
like a large majority of undergraduates for Bayard, a Democrat--he
adopted Protection as the right principle in theory and in
practice. The teachings of Alexander Hamilton, the wonderful
spokesman of Federalism, the champion of a strong Government
which should be beneficent because it was unselfish and
enlightened, captivated and filled him. In 1886, in his Life of
Benton, he wrote: "Free traders are apt to look at the tariff
from a sentimental standpoint; but it is in reality a purely
business matter and should be decided solely on grounds of
expediency. Political economists have pretty generally agreed
that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in practice; but
if the majority of the people in interest wish it, and it affects
only themselves, there is no earthly reason why they should not
be allowed to try the experiment to their heart's content." *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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