The Bully Pulpit
Presidential Rhetoric from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald J. Trump
EDITED BY Theodore F. Sheckels
Randolph-Macon College
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3970 Sorrento Valley Blvd., Ste. 500, San Diego, CA 92121 DETAILED CONTENTS
Speeches by Genre vii Preface ix
Introduction Ways of Studying Presidential Rhetoric xii
Chapter 1 Theodore Roosevelt 2 “The Strenuous Life” 3 Speech at the Minnesota State Fair (“Carry a Big Stick”) 9 From “The Man with the Muck-Rake” 12 From “The Man in the Arena” 15 From “The New Nationalism” 23
Chapter 2 William Howard Taft 30 From Inaugural Address 31 From Message Regarding Environmental Preservation 36 Message Regarding Income Tax 40
Chapter 3 Woodrow Wilson 43 First Inaugural 44 From Address to Congress on War with Germany 46 Message Regarding Women’s Suffrage 50 From Final Address for the League of Nations 52
Chapter 4 Warren G. Harding 60 “The Republic Must Awaken” 60 “Return to Normalcy” 62 From Inaugural Address 63 From Address at the Celebration of the Semicentennial of Birmingham, Alabama 67
Chapter 5 Calvin Coolidge 74 From Inaugural Address 74 Speech to Meeting of the Business Organization of the Government 80 From “Toleration and Liberalism” (Speech before the American Legion Convention) 84 From Veto of the McNary-Haugen Act 89
Chapter 6 Herbert Hoover 92 From Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, 1931 93 From Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination 96 From “Consequences of the Proposed ‘New Deal’” 104
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Chapter 7 Franklin D. Roosevelt 109 Speech to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco 110 First Inaugural 117 “The Banking Crisis” (The First “Fireside Chat”) 120 From “The Four Freedoms” 123 War Message 127
Chapter 8 Harry S. Truman 129 Statement on Dropping the Atomic Bomb 130 From “Aid to Greece and Turkey: The Truman Doctrine” 132 Democratic Convention Acceptance Speech, 1948 135
Chapter 9 Dwight D. Eisenhower 139 From “Atoms for Peace” 140 Press Conference Comments on Southeast Asia 144 Address to the Nation on the Sending of Federal Troops to Little Rock 146 Farewell 149
Chapter 10 John F. Kennedy 154 Address to the Houston Ministerial Association 154 Inaugural Address 157 Address on the Nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis 160 From Commencement Address at American University 164 Address to the Nation on the Sending ofFederal Troops to the University of Alabama 168 Address in Berlin 172
Chapter 11 Lyndon B. Johnson 175 Address to Congress upon Assuming the Presidency 176 From State of the Union Address Declaring His “War on Poverty” 178 Address at the University of Michigan Commencement on the “Great Society” 183 Speech to the Nation Following the Gulf of Tonkin “Incident” 187 From Address to Joint Session of Congress on Voting Rights 188 From Speech to the Nation on Vietnam, Announcing He Will Not Seek Reelection 193
Chapter 12 Richard M. Nixon 198 First Inaugural 199 From Speech to the Nation on Vietnam War (“The Silent Majority”) 202 From Speech to the Nation on the Cambodian Invasion 208 From “The White House Horrors” (on “Watergate”) 212 Resignation Speech 217
Chapter 13 Gerald R. Ford 221 Speech upon Taking Office after Nixon’s Resignation 221 From “WIN” (Whip Inflation Now), Speech Delivered to Joint Session of Congress 223 The Pardoning of Richard Nixon 228 vi | The Bully Pulpit
Chapter 14 Jimmy Carter 231 Inaugural Address 232 A Framework for Peace in the Middle East, Address to Joint Session of Congress 234 From Energy and the Crisis in Confidence 238 Farewell 243
Chapter 15 Ronald Reagan 247 First Inaugural 247 From The “Evil Empire” 251 Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster 256 Address at Pointe-du-Hoc 258 Address at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin 260 Address to Nation on Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy 264 Speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention 267
Chapter 16 George H. W. Bush 273 From Speech Accepting Republican Presidential Nomination, 1988 273 Address on Decision to Use Military Force in Kuwait 279 From Commencement Address, Texas A&M University 282
Chapter 17 Bill Clinton 286 First Inaugural 287 Speech for Victims of the Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing 289 Apology for Relationship with White House Intern Monica Lewinsky 291 From State of the Union Address, 1999 292
Chapter 18 George W. Bush 299 9/11 Address to the Nation 300 From Address to Joint Session of Congress Following 9/11 Attacks 301 Address to the Nation—Ultimatum to Saddam Hussein 304 Announcing End of Major Combat Operations in Iraq 307
Chapter 19 Barack Obama 311 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote 311 “A More Perfect Union” 315 President-Elect Obama’s Victory Speech 322 First Inaugural 325 Second Inaugural 329 From “New Nationalism,” Address at Osawatomie High School, Kansas 332 Press Conference Remarks on Trayvon Martin 338
Chapter 20 Donald J. Trump 342 Inaugural Address 343 From Phoenix Rally, August 2017 346 From 2019 State of the Union Address 353 Sample Tweets 359 Letter from President Donald J. Trump to the Speaker of the House of Representatives 365 SPEECHES BY GENRE
Apologia Nixon, From “The White House Horrors” (on “Watergate”) 212 Reagan, Address to Nation on Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy 264 Clinton, Apology for Relationship with White House Intern Monica Lewinsky 291
Civil Rights Speeches Harding, From Address at the Celebration of the Semicentennial of Birmingham, Alabama 67 Eisenhower, Address to the Nation on the Sending of Federal Troops to Little Rock 146 Kennedy, Address to the Nation on the Sending of Federal Troops to the University of Alabama 168 Johnson, From Address to Joint Session of Congress on Voting Rights 188 Obama, “A More Perfect Union” 315 Obama, Press Conference Remarks on Trayvon Martin 338
Commencement Addresses Kennedy, From Commencement Address at American University 164 Johnson, Address at the University of Michigan Commencement on the “Great Society” 183 G. H. W. Bush, From Commencement Address, Texas A&M University 282
Eulogies Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster 256 Reagan, Address at Pointe-du-Hoc 258 Clinton, Speech for Victims of the Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing 289
Farewell Addresses Eisenhower, Farewell 149 Carter, Farewell 243
Foreign Policy Pronouncements Wilson, From Final Address for the League of Nations 52 F. Roosevelt, From “The Four Freedoms” 123 Truman, Statement on Dropping the Atomic Bomb 130 Eisenhower, Press Conference Comments on Southeast Asia 144 Kennedy, From Commencement Address at American University 164
Inaugural Addresses Taft, From Inaugural Address 31 Wilson, First Inaugural 44 Harding, From Inaugural Address 63 Coolidge, From Inaugural Address 74 F. Roosevelt, First Inaugural 117 Kennedy, Inaugural Address 157 Johnson, Address to Congress upon Assuming the Presidency 176 Nixon, First Inaugural 199
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Ford, Speech upon Taking Office after Nixon’s Resignation 221 Carter, Inaugural Address 232 Reagan, First Inaugural 247 Clinton, First Inaugural 287 Obama, First Inaugural 325 Obama, Second Inaugural 329 Trump, Inaugural Address 343
Political Campaign Speeches T. Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life” 3 Harding, “The Republic Must Awaken” 60 Harding, “Return to Normalcy” 62 Hoover, From “Consequences of the Proposed ‘New Deal’” 104 F. Roosevelt, Speech to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco 110 Kennedy, Address to the Houston Ministerial Association 154 Obama, “A More Perfect Union” 315 Obama, President-Elect Obama’s Victory Speech 322 Trump, From Phoenix Rally, August 2017 346
Political Convention Speeches Hoover, From Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination, 1932 96 Truman, Democratic Convention Acceptance Speech, 1948 135 Reagan, Speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention 267 G. H. W. Bush, From Speech Accepting Republican Presidential Nomination, 1988 273 Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote 311
State of the Union Addresses (or Other Policy Addresses to Congress) Taft, From Message Regarding Environmental Preservation 36 Taft, Message Regarding Income Tax 40 Coolidge, From Veto of the McNary-Haugen Act 89 Hoover, From Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, 1931 93 Johnson, From State of the Union Address Declaring His “War on Poverty” 178 Johnson, From Address to Joint Session of Congress on Voting Rights 188 Ford, From “WIN” (Whip Inflation Now), Speech Delivered to Joint Session of Congress 223 Clinton, From State of the Union Address, 1999 292 G. W. Bush, From Address to Joint Session of Congress Following 9/11 Attacks 301 Trump, From 2019 State of the Union Address 353
Press Conference Eisenhower, Press Conference Comments on Southeast Asia 144 Obama, Press Conference Remarks on Trayvon Martin 338
War Addresses Wilson, From Address to Congress on War with Germany 46 F. Roosevelt, War Message 127 Kennedy, Address on the Nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis 160 Johnson, Speech to the Nation Following the Gulf of Tonkin “Incident” 187 Nixon, From Speech to the Nation on the Cambodian Invasion 208 G. H. W. Bush, Address on Decision to Use Military Force in Kuwait 279 G. W. Bush, Address to the Nation—Ultimatum to Saddam Hussein 304 PREFACE
any anthologies of important public addresses exist. Although this textbook may look like Manother such anthology, it is quite different, for the purpose of this book is not to survey great speeches but to examine the rhetoric of U.S. presidents. Many of the speeches included in this anthology are indeed “great,” but others are important not because of oratorical brilliance but because they are important in either understanding the presidency as it has evolved as a political institution or understanding a particular presidency. The anthology begins with Theodore Roosevelt for a reason. Although presidents before him most certainly spoke, Roosevelt began explicitly using public address as what he termed a “bully pulpit.” Public address provided him with the opportunity to talk to the people—and thereby put pressure on reluctant public figures and thereby effect policy. In doing so, Roosevelt significantly enlarged the rhetorical impact of the presidency. After Roosevelt, presidents used this “bully pulpit” to different degrees, but the idea of speaking directly to the people on a regular basis joined the idea of speaking primarily to fellow elected officials. Arguably, the presidency and the nation’s politics were both changed. (I’ll let political scientists argue—as they have—over whether this change was good or bad.) The anthology, then, invites the rhetorical study of both the presidency and twenty presidents. The introductory sketches of each president and each speech or other text, as well as the ques- tions posed after each piece of public discourse, direct one to considerations that are primarily rhetorical. However, other matters are not only raised in those sketches and questions but could easily be raised by an instructor who wanted students to discuss the changing (expanding) foreign policy role of the president or the different ways in which presidents have addressed the important issue of civil rights for African Americans. The twenty presidents are not represented in the anthology equally quite simply because from any perspective—rhetorical or otherwise—they are not equally important or equally of interest. However, every attempt was made to provide enough of each man’s rhetoric for a student to be able to use the anthology to get a good “feel” for both what a given president stood for and how he proceeded rhetorically. The imbalance also very much reflects where each president stands in the eyes of both students of politics and students of rhetoric. This admitted imbalance should not obscure a key feature of this anthology: it does offer the words of every president from Theodore Roosevelt onward. It does not seem to suggest that Taft, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover said nothing of importance—that, like supposedly “Silent Cal,” they were all quiet. The book also does not give short shrift to someone like Truman, often treated as something of a transition between FDR’s “New Deal” and Ike’s attempt to blend a traditional Republican ideology with an internationalism he knew well from his military leadership role in World War II. The anthology does not evenly treat twenty presidents, but it does treat twenty presidents so that each man’s rhetoric is apparent. The truly famous speeches are, of course, included. But so are a few relatively unknown gems such as Wilson speaking on woman’s suffrage, Harding speaking on civil rights, and Truman rallying the 1948 Democratic National Convention (DNC). And attention is paid to the presidents students will know well—Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The anthology will not be perceived by students as “ancient history,” although it will take them back into decades before they were born.
ix x | The Bully Pulpt: Presidential Rhetoric from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald J. Trump
In preparing this anthology, in order to keep its cost reasonable, I had to abridge some of the speeches (and other documents) in it. This abridging was, of course, done carefully. The key prin- ciple governing what I cut and what I did not was to include the material that makes the particular text noteworthy. I also was not strictly tied to speeches, as most anthologies are. Most of the selections are indeed public orations, but there are two press conferences, a few written texts, and some Trump tweets. And, although the focus of the anthology is certainly on the president qua president, some selec- tions are from presidential campaigns. They are included because they are important in arriving at an understanding of the president in question. I imagine that the most common way this anthology would be used is chronological—studying the presidents from Teddy Roosevelt onward. A chronological order, however, does not mean the same emphasis. In Chapter 1, I discuss a number of different emphases a course might have, all of which I imagine being pursued president by president. The alternative table of contents listing the texts by genre suggests a possible nonchronological approach that some might find attractive. I toyed with the idea of yet another table of contents, one tied to policy content, but preparing one became messy very quickly because many texts deal with numerous policy matters and, in some cases, a speech that is heavily about an issue may be noteworthy for reasons that have nothing to do with that issue. So, although an instructor might want to design a course around policy concerns such as war, civil rights, energy, or economic justice, I leave the mapping of texts onto policies to their creativity—with a few exceptions, for I interpret genre broadly and some of my genres might better be seen as policy categories. My assumption is that most instructors who teach a course for which this anthology would be appropriate are fairly knowledgeable about the presidency, about rhetoric, and about American political history. Therefore, pedagogical aids are minimal. Each president is introduced; each text is introduced. These sketches are intended to give students sufficient information to set the stage for the speech or other piece of communication. A set of questions follows each text. These draw students’ attention to some of ways in which that text is interesting. Many of these questions deal with rhetorical matters, but some deal with public policy issues or with the presidency as an evolving institution. The range reflects the very simple fact that pieces of presidential rhetoric are interesting—and important—for different reasons. I have taught American public address for decades, and the impetus for this anthology comes partially from that teaching. However, a stronger impetus is based in my political communication course, which is not just about election campaigns. It has always contained a unit on the presidency, one that I always wished could be larger because there is so much to explore from a number of dif- ferent directions. This anthology enables one who wants to study presidential communication—no matter the perspective—with the raw material for such a study. My students in both American public address and political communication have helped shape this anthology by the ways in which they have responded to different examples of presidential communication: not just what they liked or didn’t like but the nature of the discussions the examples evoked. So, I’d like to thank these decades of undergraduates for these guiding responses. I also must thank Todd Armstrong and Tony Paese at Cognella for steering this book along, and nameless folks at Cognella who helped prepare the texts of the speeches (and other primary materials) and worked through the various permissions issues. Their collective work has provided both the good Detailed Contents | xi
material and the reasonably accurate copy students need.1 I thank them. Finally, I would like to thank Randolph-Macon College and the Walter Williams Craigie Teaching Endowment for providing funding in the summer of 2018 to work on the initial phases of this anthology, especially the largely invisible but very important one of selecting material to give the fullest possible picture of what these twenty presidents were doing when they used their bully pulpits.
1 Scholars become heavily invested in determining differences that might exist between the written version of a speech—for example, the copy the White House provides to the press or even the copy included in presidential papers— and what was actually said. For scholarly purposes, these differences might occasionally be crucial. But students need not concern themselves about the word the president misspoke and the like. And, so, I have not concerned myself with determining the “definitive text” but focused instead on providing a clear text that would do the job in the classroom. INTRODUCTION
Ways of Studying Presidential Rhetoric
eading the words of our American presidents is interesting in itself. It offers a glance at the past Rfor some; it offers a reminder of times past for others. For example, for most using this anthology in the classroom, John F. Kennedy’s evening address to the nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis is a scary moment in history, but for me and others my age, it is a very scary look back at when I was twelve years old, living in the Washington, D.C. area, and convinced every night for almost two weeks that a nuclear missile would kill me before I awoke. But in this brief chapter, I want to introduce you to four more academic reasons for reading these many words.
STUDYING PUBLIC ADDRESS
In reading some of these speeches, one is encountering the artistry of public address. Some speeches are merely functional; others are weakened because too many people—policy wonks and speech- writers both—became involved in the writing and revising process. However, there are some gems, worth studying to discern the power of the appeals, the shrewdness of the organization, and the beauty of the phrasing. John F. Kennedy’s inaugural would be the example of such a speech that perhaps comes first to mind, but there are others. The study of public address goes back to the early days of the communication discipline. Back then, in the first half of the twentieth century, scholars studied Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and William Jennings Bryan. They highlighted the artistry of the speeches, they reminded their readers of how the speeches were powerfully delivered, and they talked about the different contexts into which these addresses fit. Perhaps, the traditional study of public address has faded a bit, as the communication discipline’s scope has broadened significantly. But, as the many scholars who still engage in this study will tell you, it is still well worth doing.
STUDYING THE PRESIDENCY
In reading these speeches, one is studying the presidency as an institution. Some act as if the Constitution created a government and froze it in place. No. All three branches— legislative, executive, and judicial—have evolved over time. In the beginning, the president was envisioned as the elected official who would put into action— that is, execute—the laws passed by the Congress. But, gradually, the president became involved in the crafting of the legislation. As wars, with armies lined-up on two sides, faded into small firestorms needing quick action, the power to commit the nation to combat became more of a presidential power than a Congressional power. Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare World War I; Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Congress to declare that World War II already exists; Lyndon B. Johnson asks for Congressional support for military actions he has already ordered. The president as legislator and the president as combat initiator are two roles those who drafted the Constitution did not have in mind, but changing times gave presidents these roles—and others that would surprise those who lived when our republic came into existence.
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The most important shift from the communication perspective involves how often the president speaks, who they speak to, and the purpose their speeches are supposed to be serving. As one proceeds through time (especially in the twentieth century), presidents speak more and more. Once, when they spoke, they spoke to Congress. Now, they speak to Congress and (thanks to media) the people and (thanks to the evolution of media) the world, including our global friends and our global enemies. Informing and persuading have long been the two goals presidents have had, but, in the early twentieth century, another goal was introduced—persuading the people so that the people would, in turn, lobby and persuade the Congress. Throughout history, presidents have often felt they were dealing with legislatures that were not acting. Sometimes it was caution; sometimes it was glacier-speed but time-honored procedures in the legislative bodies; sometimes it was isolationism or a strong desire to help a particular constituency such as “big business” by not acting. Whatever the factor was, presidents often complained. Then, President Theodore Roosevelt declared he would do more than complain: he would take important issues to the people and let them urge their elected legislators. He called this using his “bully pulpit.” (T.R. loved the word “bully.”) And many presidents afterwards have used this “bully pulpit.” Scholars often refer to the presidency after Theodore Roosevelt as the “rhetorical presidency,” suggesting that many of our chief executives may have been misdirecting their energy from public policy making to something akin to public relations campaigning. But not all saw the “rhetorical presidency” negatively; to some, it was a legitimate way to draw attention to matters that needed to be addressed and to legislation designed to do so. Roosevelt’s expansion of presidential speaking is, in fact, the reason this anthology begins with his presidency.
STUDYING AMERICAN HISTORY
Besides studying the history of the presidency, one reading these speeches can study American history through some of its important primary documents. Historians are storytellers: they offer narratives. And narratives, to be effective, must have a structure. Few simply proceed “and then, and then, and then.” There are several options for a structure. One could, for example, proceed decade by decade—the Roaring Twenties followed by the Depressing Thirties. But one could also proceed president by president, maybe merging a few such as Harding and Coolidge. Any structure that is chosen provides a frame, and this frame directs attention to certain aspects of history and away from others. A framework provided by presidential administrations would then stress political over social or cultural history, but political history is well worth studying. It’s not all that should be studied, but it is quite useful to talk about—for example, “FDR and the New Deal,” “the Kennedy-Johnson Years,” and “The Reagan Presidency.” These frames highlight important dimensions of the American story. And the speeches in this anthology, arranged, as they are, president by president, can lead one to precisely this kind of exploration of American history.
STUDYING POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
The study of the presidency very naturally leads to the study of political communication. Most polit- ical communication research focuses on election campaigns: the topic is an interesting one and has drawn a great deal of attention. But communication does not stop when people are elected. xiv | The Bully Pulpt: Presidential Rhetoric from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald J. Trump
Members of the Congress speak; members of the higher courts (although not elected) speak; and the president most certainly speaks. Much Congressional communication is rather long winded and boring—and I say that as some- one who has written a book on Congressional debating—so it is understandable that there is not much research on Congress. Most available judicial communication is written for an audience that has considerable legal background, while some really fascinating communication (among justices as they decide an important case) is not available for study. So, there is even less research on the judicial branch. But there is a fair amount focused on the presidency. Those quantitatively inclined can ask questions such as how often, to whom, and on what topics. Others can find ways to gauge effect—for example, by assembling an audience for a State of the Union address and tracking their reactions as the speech proceeds. Those rhetorically inclined can ask why these speeches have the effects they have. This anthology assumes a rhetorical perspective; thus, both the introductions and the discussion questions are focused on how a speech works to achieve certain effects. But how a speech works is a broad question, for effectiveness—or the lack thereof—might be tied to the arguments or the structure or the style or the delivery. These are four of the five traditional canons (or divisions) or rhetoric as outlined by classical theorist Aristotle: (1) the invention of the various appeals intended to persuade; (2) the disposition or organization of a speech with an eye to enhancing persuasion; (3) the choice of a style, be it high or low or in between, to also enhance persuasion; and (4) atten- tion to how both vocal resources and bodily ones such as gesture and movement add liveliness to the words. The fifth canon, memory, may seem irrelevant, for speeches are rarely memorized and delivered, but if one broadens the term to embrace how one handles a script or a teleprompter or opportunities to extemporize, then even this canon can help explain why an opportunity to persuade succeeds or fails. And there may be dimensions of the context that either facilitate or impede effectiveness. Lyndon Johnson was aided in advocating voting rights legislation by the public outrage over the violence experienced by peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. But Woodrow Wilson was frustrated by the strong isolationist sentiment that characterized many sections in the nation when he launched a speaking tour in support of the treaty he had negotiated to end World War I. Many thought that Article 10 of the treaty and the proposed League of Nations could quickly lead the nation into another European war, and these many felt that we should just sit tight between the two oceans that kept the problems of Europe in one direction and Asia in the other at bay. Aristotle, perhaps, was thinking of speeches delivered in the one context of the public square. Today, rhet- oricians need to explore many different contexts to properly situate a given speech and pinpoint what may aid persuasion and what may thwart it. Studying presidential speeches is, as already suggested, a very traditional part of the commu- nication discipline, but, as the reasons just offered should suggest, it is not old-fashioned or out of fashion. It is valuable to see the artistry of public address, just as it is important to see the artistry of poetry or drama or well-crafted fiction. It is important to grasp how our institutions of government have evolved so we understand how they now work—and ponder whether the changes make sense. It is, of course, important to understand our nation’s history, especially the political part of it. Every current events moment has a backstory—a historical backstory; and, often, the events cannot be fully understood without the backstory history provides. And, finally, it is crucial to understand how the president’s communication works—and does not work. We need to know how elections proceed from a communication perspective—Do ads persuade? Do debates change votes? Does Preface | 1
social media sway voters? But we also need to know how communication works once those elected stop just talking about issues and try to address them through public policy. The hope undergirding this book is that, as you proceed president by president and speech by speech, you ask these questions. They bring words on the page to life: they remind you that real human issues were often at stake. Also important in bringing these speeches to life is hearing them or seeing them. After all, they are speeches, not written documents. Hearing and seeing are not always possible, but as you move through the text, you will gradually find radio versions (oftentimes crackly), newsreel film versions, and—finally—television versions, first black and white and then “living color.” Seek out these versions: they alert you to how a speech was delivered and how a speech was received. These are dimensions a textbook cannot give you, but they especially help you answer questions about artistry and questions about political efficacy. Sometimes the artistry is in the delivery. Sometimes the effectiveness is accentuated or thwarted by the delivery—both how the resources of the voice are used and how the resources of the body are used. In the Preface, addressed mainly to instructors, I explain why there is imbalance from president to president in how many speeches are presented. The explanation is pretty simple: the commu- nication of some presidents is more important than that of others. I set for myself a high number, six, and a low number, three—to avoid overemphasis or overneglect. Both the decision of how many and which ones was, of course, mine to make. In doing so, I was guided by the decisions other scholars have made to highlight certain speeches by studying them carefully and publishing their assessments. Some instructors may ask “why this speech” or “why not this other one.” Those questions are inevitable when one compiles an anthology. However, I do think you will find that each chapter offers you a sense of how each president used his opportunities to speak to lead the nation in what he thought was a forward direction. ■ CHAPTER 1 Theodore Roosevelt
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION William McKinley was elected president because of the depressed state of the national economy. Democrat Grover Cleve- land’s policies had failed America, so the nation was ready to try out the Republican solution: tar- iffs. During McKinley’s first term, the tariff policy, although strikingly one-dimensional, had arguably proven successful. The economy was looking up. That, plus the inability of the Democrats to develop a compelling, unifying message, made reelection very likely. The death of McKinley’s vice president meant that he would have to choose a new “number two.” Young New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt was the favorite of many. Roosevelt was a Republican, but a very indepen- dent sort. In New York, he had long made it clear that he had no qualms taking on the establishment if he thought the establishment wrong. Roosevelt had also found many of the ideas of the progres- sive movement appealing. At the time, neither party “owned” these ideas, and both parties had members who found much of merit in progressivism, perhaps because the nation was changing in some dramatic ways—from rural to urban, from agricultural to industrial—and progressivism seemed alert to the problems these shifts were creating. In both parties, however, there will be many who resist the progressive message. McKinley was neither in favor of nor against progressive initiatives, but many of his political backers leaned against progressive measures involving the regulation of business. So, in their eyes, Roosevelt might be a dangerous choice. Despite their concerns, Roos- evelt gained the “number two” spot on the ticket. And, then, McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York, catapulting the young Roosevelt into the White House. Three threads characterize the Roosevelt presidency. First, he pushed for progressive legisla- tion, Congress (predominantly Republican) resisted, and he got a watered-down version of what he sought. Second, only somewhat satisfied with what Congress was enacting, he increasingly took his case to the American people, using what he would call his “bully pulpit.” The idea was to get the people to pressure their congressional representatives to do more. Third, Roosevelt became the first president to cultivate and acquire celebrity status. The people followed his life and that of his family. All was of interest, and the earlier life experiences as outdoorsman and cavalry leader in the Spanish-American War became legendary. It is easy to overstate Roosevelt’s progressivism. He was, after all, a well-born Republican. So, as often as he tried to get the people to nudge Congress, he also tried to present a compromise position that embraced what reformers were saying while expressing some caution. In doing so, he had many allies among Republican politicians. But as Roosevelt moved on from the White House, the reformer in him grew. He came to see a United States increasingly divided between rich and poor.
2 Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 3
He also saw a Republican Party that was beginning to become so pro-business that the interests and the needs of those with less were being ignored. This is one of the reasons Roosevelt sought reelection as an independent in 1912. There were others: a series of personal disagreements with his Republican successor William H. Taft; a belief that the party establishment had used undemocratic tactics to deny him the Republican nomination (over Taft) in that year. Politics and principles almost always mix, so, when one reads such a highly principled speech as the “New Nationalism” address he delivered in a Kansas small town, one should keep in mind that a bruised ego was also inspiring Roosevelt’s crusade for social justice.
“THE STRENUOUS LIFE”
BACKGROUND Two threads merge in this early (April 1899) Roosevelt speech to a businessman’s club in Chicago: the growing urbanization of America, which was creating a life far removed from what an outdoorsman would like, and Roosevelt’s own story as a sickly child who acquired health and vigor through a strenuous program of exercising. These threads explain why Roosevelt chose to deliver this message in Chicago. However, it is also quite likely that Roosevelt was making a larger point than that those trapped in urban offices and factories should get outside. By analogy, he may have been suggesting what he thought the United States and its federal government should be if they were “strenuous.” The “strenuous” nation would do more internationally; the “strenuous” government would intervene more to address the problems besetting the people.
n speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the your sons to work. If you are rich and are worth your I West, men of the State which gave to the coun- salt, you will teach your sons that though they may try Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely distinctly embody all that is most American in the used leisure merely means that those who possess American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine it, being free from the necessity of working for their of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, that highest form of success which comes, not to the in art, in exploration, in historical research—work of man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who the type we most need in this country, the successful does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid nation. We do not admire the man of timid peace. We ultimate triumph. admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to self-respecting American demands from himself and succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. from his sons shall be demanded of the American Freedom from effort in the present merely means that nation as a whole. Who among you would teach your there has been stored up effort in the past. A man can boys that ease, that peace, is to be the first consid- be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact eration in their eyes—to be the ultimate goal after that he or his fathers before him have worked to good which they strive? You men of Chicago have made purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, this city great, you men of Illinois have done your and the man still does actual work, though of a differ- share, and more than your share, in making America ent kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in great, because you neither preach nor practise such the field of politics or in the field of exploration and a doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune. 4 | The Bully Pulpit
But if he treats this period of freedom from the need the heartbreak of many women, the dissolution of of actual labor as a period, not of preparation, but of many homes, and we would have spared the country mere enjoyment, even though perhaps not of vicious those months of gloom and shame when it seemed as enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer if our armies marched only to defeat. We could have of the earth’s surface, and he surely unfits himself avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from to hold his own with his fellows if the need to do so strife. And if we had thus avoided it, we would have should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the shown that we were weaklings, and that we were unfit end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life to stand among the great nations of the earth. Thank which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men work in the world. who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only or rifle in the armies of Grant! Let us, the children of when the men and women who make it up lead the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are days, let us, the children of the men who carried the so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk dif- great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the ficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk. were rejected; that the suffering and loss, the black- The man must be glad to do a man’s work, to dare ness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep and the years of strife endured; for in the end the those dependent upon him. The woman must be the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the mighty housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise American republic placed once more as a helmeted and fearless mother of many healthy children. In one queen among nations. of Daudet’s powerful and melancholy books he speaks We of this generation do not have to face a task of “the fear of maternity, the haunting terror of the such as that our fathers faced, but we have our tasks, young wife of the present day.” When such words and woe to us if we fail to perform them! We cannot, can be truthfully written of a nation, that nation is if we would, play the part of China, and be content rotten to the heart’s core. When men fear work or to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders, fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that in a scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher they should vanish from the earth, where they are life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who ourselves only with the wants of our bodies for the are themselves strong and brave and high-minded. day, until suddenly we should find, beyond a shadow As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. of question, what China has already found, that in It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that this world the nation that has trained itself to a career has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound, in the end, glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to go down before other nations which have not lost to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by the manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who a really great people, we must strive in good faith neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. meeting great issues. All that we can determine for If in 1861 the men who loved the Union had believed ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill. that peace was the end of all things, and war and In 1898 we could not help being brought face to face strife the worst of all things, and had acted up to their with the problem of war with Spain. All we could belief, we would have saved hundreds of thousands decide was whether we should shrink like cowards of lives, we would have saved hundreds of millions from the contest, or enter into it as beseemed a brave of dollars. Moreover, besides saving all the blood and and high-spirited people; and, once in, whether failure treasure we then lavished, we would have prevented or success should crown our banners. So it is now. We Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 5 cannot avoid the responsibilities that confront us in highest type is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines.1 All a soldier like Grant. They showed by their lives that we can decide is whether we shall meet them in a way they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they that will redound to the national credit, or whether we toiled to win a competence for themselves and those shall make of our dealings with these new problems dependent upon them; but they recognized that there a dark and shameful page in our history. To refuse were yet other and even loftier duties—duties to the to deal with them at all merely amounts to dealing nation and duties to the race. with them badly. We have a given problem to solve. If We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond. to undertake the solution simply renders it certain Such a policy would defeat even its own end; for as that we cannot possibly solve it aright. The timid the nations grow to have ever wider and wider inter- man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his coun- ests, and are brought into closer and closer contact, if try, the over-civilized man, who has lost the great we are to hold our own in the struggle for naval and fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the commercial supremacy, we must build up our power man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling without our own borders. We must build the isthmian the mighty lift that thrills “stern men with empires canal, and we must grasp the points of vantage which in their brains”—all these, of course, shrink from will enable us to have our say in deciding the destiny seeing the nation undertake its new duties; shrink of the oceans of the East and the West. from seeing us build a navy and an army adequate to So much for the commercial side. From the stand- our needs; shrink from seeing us do our share of the point of international honor the argument is even world’s work, by bringing order out of chaos in the stronger. The guns that thundered off Manila and great, fair tropic islands from which the valor of our Santiago left us echoes of glory, but they also left us soldiers and sailors has driven the Spanish flag. These a legacy of duty. If we drove out a mediæval tyranny are the men who fear the strenuous life, who fear the only to make room for savage anarchy, we had better only national life which is really worth leading. They not have begun the task at all. It is worse than idle to believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy say that we have no duty to perform, and can leave virtues in a nation, as it saps them in the individual; to their fates the islands we have conquered. Such a or else they are wedded to that base spirit of gain and course would be the course of infamy. It would be greed which recognizes in commercialism the be-all followed at once by utter chaos in the wretched islands and end-all of national life, instead of realizing that, themselves. Some stronger, manlier power would have though an indispensable element, it is, after all, but to step in and do the work, and we would have shown one of the many elements that go to make up true ourselves weaklings, unable to carry to successful national greatness. No country can long endure if its completion the labors that great and high-spirited foundations are not laid deep in the material prosper- nations are eager to undertake. ity which comes from thrift, from business energy and The work must be done; we cannot escape our enterprise, from hard, unsparing effort in the fields responsibility; and if we are worth our salt, we shall be of industrial activity; but neither was any nation ever glad of the chance to do the work—glad of the chance yet truly great if it relied upon material prosperity to show ourselves equal to one of the great tasks set alone. All honor must be paid to the architects of our modern civilization. But let us not deceive ourselves as material prosperity, to the great captains of industry to the importance of the task. Let us not be misled by who have built our factories and our railroads, to the vainglory into underestimating the strain it will put strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; on our powers. Above all, let us, as we value our own for great is the debt of the nation to these and their self-respect, face the responsibilities with proper seri- kind. But our debt is yet greater to the men whose ousness, courage, and high resolve. We must demand
1 Acquired as a consequence of the Spanish-American War 6 | The Bully Pulpit the highest order of integrity and ability in our public on the high seas, alone and in squadrons, develop- men who are to grapple with these new problems. ing the seamanship, the gunnery, and the power of We must hold to a rigid accountability those public acting together, which their successors utilized so servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of gloriously at Manila and off Santiago. And, gentlemen, the nation or inability to rise to the high level of the remember the converse, too. Remember that justice new demands upon our strength and our resources. has two sides. Be just to those who built up the navy, Of course we must remember not to judge any and, for the sake of the future of the country, keep in public servant by any one act, and especially should mind those who opposed its building up. Read the we beware of attacking the men who are merely the “Congressional Record.” Find out the senators and occasions and not the causes of disaster. Let me illus- congressmen who opposed the grants for building trate what I mean by the army and the navy. If twenty the new ships; who opposed the purchase of armor, years ago we had gone to war, we should have found without which the ships were worthless; who opposed the navy as absolutely unprepared as the army. At any adequate maintenance for the Navy Department, that time our ships could not have encountered with and strove to cut down the number of men necessary success the fleets of Spain any more than nowadays to man our fleets. The men who did these things were we can put untrained soldiers, no matter how brave, one and all working to bring disaster on the coun- who are armed with archaic black-powder weapons, try. They have no share in the glory of Manila, in the against well-drilled regulars armed with the highest honor of Santiago. They have no cause to feel proud type of modern repeating rifle. But in the early eighties of the valor of our sea-captains, of the renown of our the attention of the nation became directed to our flag. Their motives may or may not have been good, naval needs. Congress most wisely made a series of but their acts were heavily fraught with evil. They did appropriations to build up a new navy, and under a ill for the national honor, and we won in spite of their succession of able and patriotic secretaries, of both sinister opposition. political parties, the navy was gradually built up, Now, apply all this to our public men of today. until its material became equal to its splendid per- Our army has never been built up as it should be built sonnel, with the result that in the summer of 1898 it up. I shall not discuss with an audience like this the leaped to its proper place as one of the most brilliant puerile suggestion that a nation of seventy millions and formidable fighting navies in the entire world. of freemen is in danger of losing its liberties from the We rightly pay all honor to the men controlling the existence of an army of one hundred thousand men, navy at the time it won these great deeds, honor to three fourths of whom will be employed in certain Secretary Long and Admiral Dewey, to the captains foreign islands, in certain coast fortresses, and on who handled the ships in action, to the daring lieu- Indian reservations. No man of good sense and stout tenants who braved death in the smaller craft, and to heart can take such a proposition seriously. If we are the heads of bureaus at Washington who saw that the such weaklings as the proposition implies, then we ships were so commanded, so armed, so equipped, so are unworthy of freedom in any event. To no body well engined, as to insure the best results. But let us of men in the United States is the country so much also keep ever in mind that all of this would not have indebted as to the splendid officers and enlisted men availed if it had not been for the wisdom of the men of the regular army and navy. There is no body from who during the preceding fifteen years had built up which the country has less to fear, and none of which the navy. Keep in mind the secretaries of the navy it should be prouder, none which it should be more during those years; keep in mind the senators and anxious to upbuild. congressmen who by their votes gave the money nec- Our army needs complete reorganization,—not essary to build and to armor the ships, to construct merely enlarging,—and the reorganization can only the great guns, and to train the crews; remember also come as the result of legislation. A proper general staff those who actually did build the ships, the armor, and should be established, and the positions of ordnance, the guns; and remember the admirals and captains commissary, and quartermaster officers should be who handled battle-ship, cruiser, and torpedo-boat filled by detail from the line. Above all, the army must Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 7 be given the chance to exercise in large bodies. Never wrested from Spain is merely the form which our duty again should we see, as we saw in the Spanish war, has taken at the moment. Of course we are bound major-generals in command of divisions who had to handle the affairs of our own household well. We never before commanded three companies together in must see that there is civic honesty, civic cleanliness, the field. Yet, incredible to relate, Congress has shown civic good sense in our home administration of city, a queer inability to learn some of the lessons of the State, and nation. We must strive for honesty in office, war. There were large bodies of men in both branches for honesty toward the creditors of the nation and of who opposed the declaration of war, who opposed the the individual; for the widest freedom of individual ratification of peace, who opposed the upbuilding initiative where possible, and for the wisest control of of the army, and who even opposed the purchase of individual initiative where it is hostile to the welfare armor at a reasonable price for the battle-ships and of the many. But because we set our own household cruisers, thereby putting an absolute stop to the build- in order we are not thereby excused from playing our ing of any new fighting-ships for the navy. If, during part in the great affairs of the world. A man’s first the years to come, any disaster should befall our arms, duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused afloat or ashore, and thereby any shame come to the from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this United States, remember that the blame will lie upon second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a the men whose names appear upon the roll-calls of free-man. In the same way, while a nation’s first duty Congress on the wrong side of these great questions. is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved On them will lie the burden of any loss of our soldiers from facing its duties in the world as a whole; and if it and sailors, of any dishonor to the flag; and upon you refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle and the people of this country will lie the blame if for a place among the peoples that shape the destiny you do not repudiate, in no unmistakable way, what of mankind. these men have done. The blame will not rest upon In the West Indies and the Philippines alike we are the untrained commander of untried troops, upon confronted by most difficult problems. It is cowardly the civil officers of a department the organization to shrink from solving them in the proper way; for of which has been left utterly inadequate, or upon solved they must be, if not by us, then by some stron- the admiral with an insufficient number of ships; but ger and more manful race. If we are too weak, too upon the public men who have so lamentably failed selfish, or too foolish to solve them, some bolder and in forethought as to refuse to remedy these evils long abler people must undertake the solution. Personally, in advance, and upon the nation that stands behind I am far too firm a believer in the greatness of my those public men. country and the power of my countrymen to admit So, at the present hour, no small share of the for one moment that we shall ever be driven to the responsibility for the blood shed in the Philippines, ignoble alternative. the blood of our brothers, and the blood of their wild The problems are different for the different islands. and ignorant foes, lies at the thresholds of those who Porto Rico is not large enough to stand alone. We must so long delayed the adoption of the treaty of peace, govern it wisely and well, primarily in the interest and of those who by their worse than foolish words of its own people. Cuba is, in my judgment, entitled deliberately invited a savage people to plunge into a ultimately to settle for itself whether it shall be an war fraught with sure disaster for them—a war, too, independent state or an integral portion of the might- in which our own brave men who follow the flag must iest of republics. But until order and stable liberty are pay with their blood for the silly, mock humanitarian- secured, we must remain in the island to insure them, ism of the prattlers who sit at home in peace. and infinite tact, judgment, moderation, and courage The army and the navy are the sword and the shield must be shown by our military and civil representa- which this nation must carry if she is to do her duty tives in keeping the island pacified, in relentlessly among the nations of the earth—if she is not to stand stamping out brigandage, in protecting all alike, and merely as the China of the western hemisphere. Our yet in showing proper recognition to the men who proper conduct toward the tropic islands we have have fought for Cuban liberty. The Philippines offer 8 | The Bully Pulpit a yet graver problem. Their population includes half- dealing with our foe. As for those in our own country caste and native Christians, warlike Moslems, and who encourage the foe, we can afford contemptuously wild pagans. Many of their people are utterly unfit for to disregard them; but it must be remembered that self-government, and show no signs of becoming fit. their utterances are not saved from being treasonable Others may in time become fit but at present can only merely by the fact that they are despicable. take part in self-government under a wise supervision, When once we have put down armed resistance, at once firm and beneficent. We have driven Spanish when once our rule is acknowledged, then an even tyranny from the islands. If we now let it be replaced more difficult task will begin, for then we must see by savage anarchy, our work has been for harm and to it that the islands are administered with absolute not for good. I have scant patience with those who fear honesty and with good judgment. If we let the public to undertake the task of governing the Philippines, service of the islands be turned into the prey of the and who openly avow that they do fear to undertake it, spoils politician, we shall have begun to tread the or that they shrink from it because of the expense and path which Spain trod to her own destruction. We trouble; but I have even scanter patience with those must send out there only good and able men, chosen who make a pretense of humanitarianism to hide and for their fitness, and not because of their partisan cover their timidity, and who cant about “liberty” service, and these men must not only administer and the “consent of the governed,” in order to excuse impartial justice to the natives and serve their own themselves for their unwillingness to play the part of government with honesty and fidelity, but must show men. Their doctrines, if carried out, would make it the utmost tact and firmness, remembering that, incumbent upon us to leave the Apaches of Arizona with such people as those with whom we are to deal, to work out their own salvation, and to decline to weakness is the greatest of crimes, and that next to interfere in a single Indian reservation. Their doc- weakness comes lack of consideration for their prin- trines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever ciples and prejudices. having settled in these United States. I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our England’s rule in India and Egypt has been of great country calls not for the life of ease but for the life benefit to England, for it has trained up generations of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms of men accustomed to look at the larger and loftier before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand side of public life. It has been of even greater benefit idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and to India and Egypt. And finally, and most of all, it ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests has advanced the cause of civilization. So, if we do where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the our duty aright in the Philippines, we will add to that risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger national renown which is the highest and finest part peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves of national life, will greatly benefit the people of the the domination of the world. Let us therefore boldly Philippine Islands, and, above all, we will play our part face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and well in the great work of uplifting mankind. But to do manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed this work, keep ever in mind that we must show in a and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to very high degree the qualities of courage, of honesty, serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above and of good judgment. Resistance must be stamped all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, out. The first and all-important work to be done is to within or without the nation, provided we are certain establish the supremacy of our flag. We must put down that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, armed resistance before we can accomplish anything through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall else, and there should be no parleying, no faltering, in ultimately win the goal of true national greatness. Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 9
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Could Roosevelt have given this speech in any location, or does its being delivered to a businessman’s club in Chicago, Illinois, give it a meaningful specificity?
2. Is the “strenuous life” Roosevelt advocates necessarily one of outdoor exercise?
3. It is still the nineteenth century, so one might expect what we would term sexism to be evident in the speech. Where do you find it?
4. The lesson Roosevelt offers is relevant for the sons of his auditors, but how is it also relevant for United States foreign policy and foreign trade?
5. If Roosevelt’s advice were to be followed, what kind of federal government would we have as far as domestic matters are concerned?
6. The Democrats were criticizing what they saw as a colonial, imperialistic policy by the McKinley administration. What defense does Roosevelt offer of this policy?
SPEECH AT THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR (“CARRY A BIG STICK”)
BACKGROUND Roosevelt is now vice president and is, therefore, speaking for the McKinley administration in Minnesota. McKinley had in his first term led the nation successfully through the Spanish-American War. As a consequence of this war, the nation acquired authority over the Phil- lipines in the Pacific, Cuba in the Carribbean, and other islands in that sea. But what form would this authority take? Some were concerned that we would become a colonial power like the Great Britain we had rebelled against. McKinley recognized this problem but also saw difficultues in simply letting these places “go free.” Roosevelt will often address this issue on behalf of the administration.
n his admirable series of studies of Twentieth cen- You whom I am now addressing stand, for the I tury problems Dr. Lyman Abbott has pointed out most part, but one generation removed from these that we are a nation of pioneers; that the first colonists pioneers. You are typical Americans, for you have to our shores were pioneers, and that pioneers selected done the great, the characteristic, the typical work of out from among the descendants of these early pio- our American life. In making homes and carving out neers, mingled with others selected afresh from the careers for yourselves, and your children, you have old world, pushed westward into the wilderness, and built up this state; throughout our history the success laid the foundations for new commonwealths. They of the homemaker has been but another name for were men of hope and energy; for the men of dull the upbuilding of the nation. The men who with ax content or more dull despair had no part in the great in the forest and pick in the mountains and plow on movement into and across the new world. Our coun- the prairies, pushed to completion the dominion of try has been populated by pioneers, and therefore it our people over the American wilderness have given has in it more energy, more enterprise, more expansive the definite shape to our nation. They have shown the power than any other in the wide world. qualities of daring, endurance and far-sightedness, of eager desire for victory and stubborn refusal to accept defeat, which go to make up the essential manliness 10 | The Bully Pulpit of the American character. Above all they have rec- old proverb, “Speak softly and carry a big stick—you ognized the practical form the fundamental law of will go far.” If a man continually blusters, if he lacks success in American life—the law of worthy work, civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, the law of high, resolute endeavor. We have but little and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the room among our people for the timid, the irresolute softness there does not lie strength, power. In private and the idle, and it is no less true that there is scant life there are few beings more obnoxious than the room in the world at large for the nation with mighty man who is always loudly boasting, and if the boaster thews that dares not to be great. […] is not prepared to back up his words, his position Every father and mother here, if they are wise, will becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the bring up their children not to shirk difficulties, but nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge to meet them and overcome them; not to strive after in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose- a life of ignoble ease, but to strive to do their duty, tongued denunciation of other peoples. Whenever on first to themselves and their families and then to the any point we come in contact with a foreign power, I whole state; and this duty must inevitably take the hope that we shall always strive to speak courteously shape of work in some form or other. You, the sons of and respectfully of that foreign power. pioneers, if you are true to your ancestry, must make Let us make it evident that we intend to do justice. your lives as worthy as they made theirs. They sought Then let us make it equally evident that we will not for true success, and therefore they did not seek ease. tolerate injustice being done us in return. Let us fur- They knew that success comes only to those who lead ther make it evident that we use no words which we the life of endeavor. […] are not which prepared to back up with deeds, and No hard and fast rule can be laid down as to where that while our speech is always moderate, we are ready our legislation shall stop in interfering between man and willing to make it good. Such an attitude will be and man, between interest and interest. All that can be the surest possible guarantee of that self-respecting said is that it is highly undesirable on the one hand, to peace, the attainment of which is and must ever be weaken individual initiative, and on the other hand, the prime aim of a self-governing people. […] that in a constantly increasing number of cases we This is the attitude we should take as regards the shall find it necessary in the future to shackle cunning Monroe doctrine. There is not the least need of blus- as in the past we have shackled force. tering about it. Still less should it be used as a pretext It is not only highly desirable, but necessary, that for our own aggrandizement at the expense of any there should be legislation which shall carefully shield other American state. But most emphatically, we must the interest of wage workers, and which shall discrim- make it evident that we intend on this point ever to inate in favor of the hones and human employer by maintain the old American position. Indeed, it is removing the disadvantages under which he stands hard to understand how any man can take any other when compared with unscrupulous competitors who position now that we are all looking forward to the have no conscience, and will do right only under fear building of the Isthmian canal. The Monroe doctrine of punishment. is not international law, but there is no necessity that Nor can legislation stop only with what are termed it should be. labor questions. The vast individual and corporate Our dealings with Cuba illustrate this, and should fortunes, the vast combinations of capital which have be forever a subject of just national pride. We speak marked the development of our industrial system, in no spirit of arrogance when we state as a simple create new conditions, and necessitate a change from historic fact that never in recent times has any great the old attitude of state and the nation toward prop- nation acted with such disinterestedness as we have erty. […] shown in Cuba. We freed the island from the Span- Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know ish yoke. We then earnestly did our best to help the how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, Cubans in the establishment of free education, of law and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. and order, of material prosperity, of the cleanliness A good many of you are probably acquainted with the necessary to salutary well-being in their great cities. Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 11
We did all this at great expense of treasure, at some Let me insist again, for fear of possible miscon- expense of life, and now we are establishing them struction, upon the fact that our duty is two-fold, in a free and independent commonwealth, and have and that we must raise others while we are benefit- asked in return nothing whatever save that at no time ing ourselves. In bringing order to the Philippines, shall their independence be prostituted to the advan- our soldiers added a new page to the honor-roll of tage of some foreign rival of ours, or so as to menace American history and they incalculably benefited the our well-being. To have failed to ask this would have islanders themselves. Under the wise administration amounted to national stultification on our part. of Gov. Taft the islands now enjoy a peace and liberty In the Philippines we have brought peace, and we of which they have hitherto never even dreamed. But are at this moment giving them such freedom and this peace and liberty under the law must be supple- self-government as they could never under any con- mented by material, by industrial development, to ceivable conditions have obtained had we turned them the introduction of American industries and prod- loose to sink into a welter of blood, and confusion, or ucts; no merely because this will be a good thing for to become the prey of some strong tyranny without our people, but infinitely more because it will be of or within. The bare recital of the facts is sufficient to incalculable benefit to the people of the Philippines. show that we did our duty, and what prouder title to We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mis- honor can a nation have than to have done its duty? takes frighten us from work, we shall show ourselves We have done our duty to ourselves, and we have weaklings. Half a century ago Minnesota and the two done the higher duty of promoting the civilization Dakotas were Indian hunting grounds. We commit- of mankind. […] ted plenty of blunders, and now and then worse than Barbarism has and can have no place in a civilized blunders, in our dealings with the Indians. But who world. It is our duty toward the people living in bar- does not admit at the present day that we were right barism to see that they are freed from their chains, in wresting from barbarism and adding to civilization and we can only free them by destroying barbarism the territory out of which we have made these beauti- itself. The missionary, the merchant and the soldier ful states? And now we are civilizing the Indian and may each have to play a part in this destruction, and putting him on a level to which he could never have in the consequent uplifting of the people. Exactly as it attained under the old conditions. is the duty of a civilized power scrupulously to respect In the Philippines let us remember that the spirit the rights of all weaker civilized powers and gladly to and not the mere form of government is the essential help those who are struggling towards civilization, so matter. The Tagalogs have a hundred-fold the freedom it is its duty to put down savagery and barbarism. As in under us that they would have if we had abandoned such a work human instruments must be used, and as the islands. We are not trying to subjugate a people; human instruments are imperfect, this means that at we are trying to develop them, and make them a times there will be injustices, that at times, merchant, law-abiding, industrious and educated people, and or soldier, or even missionary may do wrong. we hope, ultimately, a self-governing people. In short, Let us instantly condemn and rectify such in the work we have done, we are but carrying out the wrong when it occurs, and if possible punish the true principles of our democracy. We work in a spirit wrong-doer. But, shame, thrice shame to us, if we of self-respect for ourselves and of good-will toward are so foolish as to make such occasional wrong-doing others, in a spirit of love for and of infinite faith in an excuse for failing to perform a great and righteous mankind. We do not blindly refuse to face the evils task. Not only in our own land, but throughout that exist; or the shortcomings inherent in humanity; history, the advance of civilization has been of incal- but across blunderings and shirking, across selfishness culable benefit to mankind, and those through whom and meanness of motive, across short-sightedness and it has advanced deserve the higher honor. All honor cowardice, we gaze steadfastly toward the far horizon to the missionary, all honor to the soldier, all honor of golden triumph. to the merchant who now in our own day have done so much to bring light into the world’s dark places. 12 | The Bully Pulpit
If you study our past history as a nation you will with the stern purpose to play our part manfully in see we have made many blunders and have been guilty winning the ultimate triumph, and therefore we turn of many shortcomings, and yet that we have always in scornfully aside from the paths of mere ease and idle- the end come out victorious because we have refused ness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road to be daunted by blunders and defeats—have recog- of endeavor, smiting down the wrong and battling for nized them, but have preserved in spite of them. So it the right as Greatheart smote and battled in Bunyan’s must be in the future. We gird up our loins as a nation immortal story.2
FOR DISCUSSION
1. A good speaker adapts their speech to the place they are delivering it. Much of this speech could have been delivered anywhere, but Roosevelt is in Minnesota. How does he adapt to the place? Does he do so effectively?
2. The role of the federal government in an age of increasing business and industry will be often debated throughout the twentieth century. How, in this 1901 address, does Roosevelt envision that role?
3. The Democrats were attacking Republicans as colonizers. How does Roosevelt defend U.S. actions in Cuba and the Philippines?
4. The “big stick” line will after Roosevelt be applied frequently to U.S. foreign policy. Is that how Roosevelt uses it?
5. What is the Monroe Doctrine? What does Roosevelt say about it?
6. What does Roosevelt say about the nation’s treatment of its native American population. Does his raising this matter help or hurt his argument?
FROM “THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE”
BACKGROUND There was much in 1906 that an investigative journalist might expose. And jour- nalists were doing just that, being far more aggressive than their predecessors. Roosevelt advises them not to overdo their criticism and then turns to what might be the root of the problems they were investigating. These reporters were looking at matters such as factory working conditions, but Roosevelt saw how business interests were getting ever richer, arguably at the expense of poor workers. Roosevelt explores what the government might do to address this rich-poor gap, including the shocking idea of a tax on income.
ver a century ago Washington laid the cor- the Potomac. We now find it necessary to provide O ner-stone of the Capitol in what was then little by great additional buildings for the business of the more than a tract of wooded wilderness here beside government. This growth in the need for the housing
2 In The Pilgrim’s Progress, a mid-seventeenth-century Puritan fictitious biography, which was still immensely popular in Roosevelt’s time. Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 13 of the government is but a proof and example of the the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. way in which the nation has grown and the sphere of The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his action of the National Government has grown. We mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse now administer the affairs of a nation in which the than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery extraordinary growth of population has been out- untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with stripped by the growth of wealth and the growth in hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with complex interests. The material problems that face us untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon to-day are not such as they were in Washington’s time, character does not good, but very great harm. The but the underlying facts of human nature are the same soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an now as they were then. Under altered external form honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is we war with the same tendencies toward evil that were untruthfully assailed. evident in Washington’s time, and are helped by the Now, it is easy to twist out of shape what I have just same tendencies for good. It is about some of these said, easy to affect to misunderstand it, and, if it is that I wish to say a word to-day. slurred over in repetition, not difficult really to mis- In Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” you may recall understand it. Some persons are sincerely incapable the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the of understanding that to denounce mud-slinging does man who could look no way but downward, with the not mean the indorsement of whitewashing; and both muck-rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial the interested individuals who need whitewashing, crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look and those others who practise mud-slinging, like to up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued encourage such confusion of ideas. One of the chief to rake to himself the filth of the floor. counts against those who make indiscriminate assault In “Pilgrim’s Progress” the Man with the Muck- upon men in business or men in public life, is that they rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision invite a reaction which is sure to tell powerfully in is fixed on carnal instead of on spiritual things. Yet favor of the unscrupulous scoundrel who really ought he also typifies the man who in this life consistently to be attacked, who ought to be exposed, who ought, refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes if possible, to be put in the penitentiary. If Aristides is with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and praised overmuch as just, people get tired of hearing debasing. Now, it is very necessary that we should not it; and over-censure of the unjust finally and from flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is similar reasons results in their favor. filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the Any excess is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, muck-rake; and there are times and places where this unfortunately, the reaction, instead of taking the form service is the most needed of all the services that can of punishment of those guilty of the excess, is very be performed. But the man who never does anything apt to take the form either of punishment of the unof- else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his fending or of giving immunity, and even strength, feats with the muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a help to offenders. The effort to make financial or political to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the profit out of the destruction of character can only most potent forces for evil. result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults There are, in the body politic, economic and social, on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public for the sternest war upon them. There should be sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend man whether politician or business man, every evil to prevent them from entering the public service at practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social any price. As an instance in point, I may mention that life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every one serious difficulty encountered in getting the right man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or type of men to dig the Panama Canal is the certainty newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, that they will be exposed, both without, and, I am provided always that he in his turn remembers that 14 | The Bully Pulpit sorry to say, sometimes within, Congress, to utterly as the man who does discriminate and yet chooses reckless assaults on their character and capacity. the bad. There is nothing more distressing to every At the risk of repetition let me say again that my good patriot, to every good American, than the hard, plea is, not for immunity to but for the most unsparing scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty exposure of the politician who betrays his trust, of the in a public man as a cause for laughter. Such laughter big business man who makes or spends his fortune in is worse than the crackling of thorns under a pot, for illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart effort to hunt every such man out of the position he in which high emotions have been choked before they has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the could grow to fruition. criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, There is any amount of good in the world, and there if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful never was a time when loftier and more disinterested fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public work for the betterment of mankind was being done mind than the crime itself. It is because I feel that than now. The forces that tend for evil are great and there should be no rest in the endless war against the terrible, but the forces of truth and love and courage forces of evil that I ask that the war be conducted with and honesty and generosity and sympathy are also sanity as well as with resolution. The men with the stronger than ever before. It is a foolish and timid, muck-rakes are often indispensable to the wellbeing no less than a wicked, thing to blink the fact that the of society; but only if they know when to stop raking forces of evil are strong, but it is even worse to fail to the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown take into account the strength of the forces that tell above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor. There for good. Hysterical sensationalism is the very poorest are beautiful things above and roundabout them; and weapon wherewith to fight for lasting righteousness. if they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is The men who with stern sobriety and truth assail the nothing but muck, their power of usefulness is gone. many evils of our time, whether in the public press, or If the whole picture is painted black there remains no in magazines, or in books, are the leaders and allies of hue whereby to single out the rascals for distinction all engaged in the work for social and political better- from their fellows. Such painting finally induces a ment. But if they give good reason for distrust of what kind of moral color-blindness; and people affected by they say, if they chill the ardor of those who demand it come to the conclusion that no man is really black, truth as a primary virtue, they thereby betray the and no man really white, but they are all gray. In other good cause, and play into the hands of the very men words, they neither believe in the truth of the attack, against whom they are nominally at war.[…] nor in the honesty of the man who is attacked; they On the other hand, the wild preachers of unrest grow as suspicious of the accusation as of the offense; and discontent, the wild agitators against the entire it becomes well-nigh hopeless to stir them either to existing order, the men who act crookedly, whether wrath against wrong-doing or to enthusiasm for what because of sinister design or from mere puzzle-head- is right; and such a mental attitude in the public gives edness, the men who preach destruction without hope to every knave, and is the despair of honest men. proposing any substitute for what they intend to To assail the great and admitted evils of our polit- destroy, or who propose a substitute which would be ical and industrial life with such crude and sweeping far worse than the existing evils—all these men are generalizations as to include decent men in the gen- the most dangerous opponents of real reform. If they eral condemnation means the searing of the public get their way they will lead the people into a deeper pit conscience. There results a general attitude either of than any into which they could fall under the present cynical belief in and indifference to public corrup- system. If they fail to get their way they will still do tion or else of a distrustful inability to discriminate incalculable harm by provoking the kind of reaction between the good and the bad. Either attitude is which, in its revolt against the senseless evil of their fraught with untold damage to the country as a whole. teaching, would enthrone more securely than ever The fool who has not sense to discriminate between the very evils which their misguided followers believe what is good and what is bad is well-nigh as dangerous they are attacking. Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 15
More important than aught else is the develop- Spiritually and ethically we must strive to bring about ment of the broadest sympathy of man for man. The clean living and right thinking. We appreciate that the welfare of the wageworker, the welfare of the tiller of things of the body are important; but we appreciate the soil, upon these depend the welfare of the entire also that the things of the soul are immeasurably more country; their good is not to be sought in pulling down important. The foundation-stone of national life is, others; but their good must be the prime object of all and ever must be, the high individual character of our statesmanship. the average citizen. Materially we must strive to secure a broader eco- nomic opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance to show the stuff of which he is made.
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Roosevelt’s title is derived from a seventeenth-century spiritual autobiography, and there are other religious references throughout the speech. What tone do these give the address? Is this tone effective in persuading Roosevelt’s audience?
2. The president speaks at the dedication of a new Congressional office building. How does this occasion set the stage for his remarks?
3. What position does Roosevelt take when it comes to the press?
4. Roosevelt’s position might in general be described as a moderate one. How might he extend this moderation into matters such as the expanding U.S. economy, which was making the rich richer while not significantly improving the lot of the poor? (Note: in sections of the speech excised, Roosevelt does move his discussion more into the economic realm.)
FROM “THE MAN IN THE ARENA”
BACKGROUND This long address was delivered during the period between Roosevelt’s presidency and his attempt to regain the office in 1912. It was a period during which Roosevelt’s thinking on a number of matters including citizenship, government, and the American character continued to evolve. As a former president, he was asked to address a prestigious French university. Although he praises his hosts, Roosevelt also departs from what one might label “old world” thinking.
trange and impressive associations rise in the whom clerkship meant emancipation, to whom it was S mind of a man from the New World who speaks well-nigh the only outlet from the dark thralldom of before this august body in this ancient institution of the Middle Ages. learning. Before his eyes pass the shadows of mighty This was the most famous university of mediaeval kings and war-like nobles, of great masters of law Europe at a time when no one dreamed that there was and theology; through the shining dust of the dead a New World to discover. Its services to the cause of centuries he sees crowded figures that tell of the power human knowledge already stretched far back into and learning and splendor of times gone by; and he the remote past at a time when my forefathers, three sees also the innumerable host of humble students to centuries ago, were among the sparse bands of traders, 16 | The Bully Pulpit ploughmen, wood-choppers, and fisherfolk who, in As the country grows, its people, who have won hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of the Indi- success in so many lines, turn back to try to recover an-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what the possessions of the mind and the spirit, which per- has now become the giant republic of the West. To force their fathers threw aside in order better to wage conquer a continent, to tame the shaggy roughness of the first rough battles for the continent their children wild nature, means grim warfare; and the generations inherit. The leaders of thought and of action grope engaged in it cannot keep, still less add to, the stores of their way forward to a new life, realizing, sometimes garnered wisdom which where once theirs, and which dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly, that the life of mate- are still in the hands of their brethren who dwell in the rial gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of old land. To conquer the wilderness means to wrest value only as a foundation, only as there is added to victory from the same hostile forces with which man- it the uplift that comes from devotion to loftier ideals. kind struggled on the immemorial infancy of our The new life thus sought can in part be developed race. The primaeval conditions must be met by the afresh from what is roundabout in the New World; primaeval qualities which are incompatible with the but it can developed in full only by freely drawing retention of much that has been painfully acquired by upon the treasure-houses of the Old World, upon the humanity as through the ages it has striven upward treasures stored in the ancient abodes of wisdom and toward civilization. In conditions so primitive there learning, such as this is where I speak to-day. It is a can be but a primitive culture. At first only the rudest mistake for any nation to merely copy another; but school can be established, for no others would meet it is even a greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness the needs of the hard-driven, sinewy folk who thrust in any nation, not to be anxious to learn from one forward the frontier in the teeth of savage men and another and willing and able to adapt that learning to savage nature; and many years elapse before any of the new national conditions and make it fruitful and these schools can develop into seats of higher learning productive therein. It is for us of the New World to and broader culture. sit at the feet of Gamaliel of the Old; then, if we have The pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings the right stuff in us, we can show that Paul in his turn expand into vast stretches of fertile farm land; the can become a teacher as well as a scholar. stockaded clusters of log cabins change into towns; the Today I shall speak to you on the subject of indi- hunters of game, the fellers of trees, the rude frontier vidual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance traders and tillers of the soil, the men who wander all to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, their lives long through the wilderness as the heralds because you and we a great citizens of great dem- and harbingers of an oncoming civilization, them- ocratic republics. A democratic republic such as selves vanish before the civilization for which they ours—an effort to realize its full sense government have prepared the way. The children of their succes- by, of, and for the people—represents the most gigan- sors and supplanters, and then their children and tic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught their children and children’s children, change and with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions success or republics like yours and like ours means accentuate vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, the glory, and our failure of despair, of mankind; and all the good qualities and all the defects of an intense for you and for us the question of the quality of the individualism, self-reliant, self-centered, far more individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of conscious of its rights than of its duties, and blind government, under the rule of one man or very few to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, the frontier days succeeds the hard materialism of an under such governments, the quality of the rulers is industrialism even more intense and absorbing than high enough, then the nations for generations lead a that of the older nations; although these themselves brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of have likewise already entered on the age of a complex world achievement, no matter how low the quality and predominantly industrial civilization. of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 17 results of that type of national greatness. But with noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second you and us the case is different. With you here, and achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, with us in my own home, in the long run, success or a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which average man, the average women, does his or her duty, will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, in those great occasional cries which call for heroic of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for permanently rise higher than the main source; and the achievements of others, to hide from others and the main source of national power and national great- from themselves in their own weakness. The role is ness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the who sneers alike at both criticism and performance. standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the It is not the critic who counts; not the man who average cannot be kept high unless the standard of points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the leaders is very much higher. the doer of deeds could have done them better. The It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, any republic, in any democracy, are, as a matter of whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; course, drawn from the classes represented in this who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again audience to-day; but only provided that those classes and again, because there is no effort without error possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do devotion to great ideals. You and those like you have the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great received special advantages; you have all of you had devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; the opportunity for mental training; many of you have who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high had leisure; most of you have had a chance for enjoy- achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least ment of life far greater than comes to the majority of fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never your fellows. To you and your kind much has been be with those cold and timid souls who neither know given, and from you much should be expected. Yet victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated there are certain failings against which it is especially taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidi- incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated ousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern should especially guard themselves, because to these themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open failings they are especially liable; and if yielded to, for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact their—your—chances of useful service are at an end. with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, deride of slight what is done by those who actually beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who always profess that they would like to take action, if has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom only the conditions of life were not exactly what they good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the who confine themselves to criticism of the way others being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they suc- hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that ceed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth 18 | The Bully Pulpit all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur,3 outside. I speak to brilliant assemblage; I speak in a spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and great university which represents the flower of the valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not highest intellectual development; I pay all homage to over the memory of the young lord who “but for the intellect and to elaborate and specialized training of vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.” the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the assent of France has taught many lessons to other nations: all of you present when I add that more important still surely one of the most important lesson is the lesson are the commonplace, every-day qualities and virtues. her whole history teaches, that a high artistic and liter- Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will ary development is compatible with notable leadership and the power to work, to fight at need, and to have in arms and statecraft. The brilliant gallantry of the plenty of healthy children. The need that the average French soldier has for many centuries been proverbial; man shall work is so obvious as hardly to warrant and during these same centuries at every court in insistence. There are a few people in every country Europe the “freemasons of fashion: have treated the so born that they can lead lives of leisure. These fill French tongue as their common speech; while every a useful function if they make it evident that leisure artist and man of letters, and every man of science does not mean idleness; for some of the most valuable able to appreciate that marvelous instrument of pre- work needed by civilization is essentially non-remu- cision, French prose, had turned toward France for nerative in its character, and of course the people who aid and inspiration. How long the leadership in arms do this work should in large part be drawn from those and letters has lasted is curiously illustrated by the fact to whom remuneration is an object of indifference. that the earliest masterpiece in a modern tongue is But the average man must earn his own livelihood. He the splendid French epic which tells of Roland’s doom should be trained to do so, and he should be trained and the vengeance of Charlemagne when the lords of to feel that he occupies a contemptible position if he the Frankish hosts where stricken at Roncesvalles. Let does not do so; that he is not an object of envy if he those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive is idle, at whichever end of the social scale he stands, to attain, a high standard of cultivation and scholar- but an object of contempt, an object of derision. In ship. Yet let us remember that these stand second to the next place, the good man should be both a strong certain other things. There is need of a sound body, and a brave man; that is, he should be able to fight, and even more of a sound mind. But above mind and he should be able to serve his country as a soldier, if above body stands character—the sum of those qual- the need arises. There are well-meaning philosophers ities which we mean when we speak of a man’s force who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They and courage, of his good faith and sense of honor. are right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the I believe in exercise for the body, always provided unrighteousness. War is a dreadful thing, and unjust that we keep in mind that physical development is a war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime means and not an end. I believe, of course, in giving because it is unjust, not because it is a war. The choice to all the people a good education. But the education must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this is must contain much besides book-learning in order whether the alternative be peace or whether the alter- to be really good. We must ever remember that no native be war. The question must not be merely, Is keenness and subtleness of intellect, no polish, no there to be peace or war? The question must be, Is it cleverness, in any way make up for the lack of the great right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness solid qualities. Self restraint, self mastery, common once more to be fulfilled? And the answer from a sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility strong and virile people must be “Yes,” whatever the and yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage cost. Every honorable effort should always be made and resolution—these are the qualities which mark a to avoid war, just as every honourable effort should masterful people. Without them no people can control always be made by the individual in private life to itself, or save itself from being controlled from the keep out of a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no
3 Historical figure chronicled in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, parts one and two. Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 19 self-respecting individual, no self-respecting nation, him; who wishes to do great things for humanity in can or ought to submit to wrong. the abstract, but who cannot keep his wife in comfort Finally, even more important than ability to work, or educate his children. even more important than ability to fight at need, is Nevertheless, while laying all stress on this point, it to remember that chief of blessings for any nations while not merely acknowledging but insisting upon is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the fact that there must be a basis of material well-be- the crown of blessings in Biblical times and it is the ing for the individual as for the nation, let us with crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses in is equal emphasis insist that this material well-being the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemna- represents nothing but the foundation, and that the tions should be that visited upon willful sterility. The foundation, though indispensable, is worthless unless first essential in any civilization is that the man and upon it is raised the superstructure of a higher life. women shall be father and mother of healthy children, That is why I decline to recognize the mere multimil- so that the race shall increase and not decrease. If lionaire, the man of mere wealth, as an asset of value that is not so, if through no fault of the society there to any country; and especially as not an asset to my is failure to increase, it is a great misfortune. If the own country. If he has earned or uses his wealth in a failure is due to the deliberate and willful fault, then way that makes him a real benefit, of real use—and it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes such is often the case—why, then he does become an of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain asset of real worth. But it is the way in which it has and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature been earned or used, and not the mere fact of wealth, punishes more heavily than any other. If we of the that entitles him to the credit. There is need in busi- great republics, if we, the free people who claim to ness, as in most other forms of human activity, of the have emancipated ourselves from the thralldom of great guiding intelligences. Their places cannot be wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a that comes upon the willfully barren, then it will be good thing that they should have ample recognition, an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admira- to boast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, tion to the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; no delicacy of taste, no material progress, no sordid and if what should be the reward exists without the heaping up riches, no sensuous development of art service having been rendered, then admiration will and literature, can in any way compensate for the only come from those who are mean of soul. The truth loss of the great fundamental virtues; and of these is that, after a certain measure of tangible material great fundamental virtues the greatest is the race’s success or reward has been achieved, the question of power to perpetuate the race. Character must show increasing it becomes of constantly less importance itself in the man’s performance both of the duty he compared to the other things that can be done in life. owes himself and of the duty he owes the state. The It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a man’s foremast duty is owed to himself and his family; false standard of success; and there can be no falser and he can do this duty only by earning money, by standard than that set by the deification of material providing what is essential to material well-being; well-being in and for itself. But the man who, having it is only after this has been done that he can hope far surpassed the limits of providing for the wants; to build a higher superstructure on the solid mate- both of the body and mind, of himself and of those rial foundation; it is only after this has been done depending upon him, then piles up a great fortune, that he can help in his movements for the general for the acquisition or retention of which he returns well-being. He must pull his own weight first, and no corresponding benefit to the nation as a whole, only after this can his surplus strength be of use to should himself be made to feel that, so far from being the general public. It is not good to excite that bitter desirable, he is an unworthy, citizen of the commu- laughter which expresses contempt; and contempt is nity: that he is to be neither admired nor envied; that what we feel for the being whose enthusiasm to benefit his right-thinking fellow countrymen put him low in mankind is such that he is a burden to those nearest the scale of citizenship, and leave him to be consoled 20 | The Bully Pulpit by the admiration of those whose level of purpose is insincere man who to achieve power promises what even lower than his own…. by no possibility can be performed, are not merely But if a man’s efficiency is not guided and regulated useless but noxious…. by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. be able to achieve them in practical fashion. No per- Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve manent good comes from aspirations so lofty that they but to make a man more evil if they are merely used have grown fantastic and have become impossible for that man’s own advancement, with brutal indif- and indeed undesirable to realize. The impractical ference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the visionary is far less often the guide and precursor community if the community worships these qualities than he is the embittered foe of the real reformer, of and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of the man who, with stumblings and shortcomings, yet whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It does in some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to makes no difference as to the precise way in which the hopes and desires of those who strive for better this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no differ- things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker, to the empty ence whether such a man’s force and ability betray idealist, who, instead of making ready the ground for themselves in a career of money-maker or politician, the man of action, turns against him when he appears soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the and hampers him when he does work! Moreover, the man works for evil, then the more successful he is the preacher of ideals must remember how sorry and con- more he should be despised and condemned by all temptible is the figure which he will cut, how great the upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people own life, strive measurably to realize the ideals that at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to con- he preaches for others. Let him remember also that done wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, the worth of the ideal must be largely determined by they show their inability to understand that in the the success with which it can in practice be realized. last analysis free institutions rest upon the character We should abhor the so-called “practical” men whose of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar base- they prove themselves unfit for liberty. The homely ness which finds its expression in disbelief in morality virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday vir- and decency, in disregard of high standards of living tues which make the woman a good housewife and and conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the housemother, which make the man a hard worker, a body of politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his good husband and father, a good soldier at need, stand nominal opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic at the bottom of character. But of course many other vision who makes the impossible better forever the must be added thereto if a state is to be not only free enemy of the possible good. but great. Good citizenship is not good citizenship if We can just as little afford to follow the doctri- only exhibited in the home. There remains the duties naires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of the individual in relation to the State, and these of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far duties are none too easy under the conditions which from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and exist where the effort is made to carry on the free yet we should remember that, as society develops and government in a complex industrial civilization. Per- grows more complex, we continually find that things haps the most important thing the ordinary citizen, which once it was desirable to leave to individual ini- and, above all, the leader of ordinary citizens, has to tiative can, under changed conditions, be performed remember in political life is that he must not be a sheer with better results by common effort. It is quite impos- doctrinaire. The closest philosopher, the refined and sible, and equally undesirable, to draw in theory a cultured individual who from his library tells how hard-and-fast line which shall always divide the two men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, is sets of cases…. Much of the discussion about social- of no use in actual governmental work; and the one- ism and individualism is entirely pointless, because sided fanatic, and still more the mob-leader, and the of the failure to agree on terminology. It is not good Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 21 to be a slave of names. I am a strong individualist by overbearing brutality of the man of wealth or power, personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is and the envious and hateful malice directed against a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the wealth or power, are really at root merely different State, the community, the citizens acting together, can manifestations of the same quality, merely two sides do a number of things better than if they were left to of the same shield. The man who, if born to wealth and individual action. The individualism which finds its power, exploits and ruins his less fortunate brethren expression in the abuse of physical force is checked is at heart the same as the greedy and violent dem- very early in the growth of civilization, and we of agogue who excites those who have not property to to-day should in our turn strive to shackle or destroy plunder those who have. The gravest wrong upon his that individualism which triumphs by greed and country is inflicted by that man, whatever his station, cunning, which exploits the weak by craft instead of who seeks to make his countrymen divide primarily ruling them by brutality. We ought to go with any man in the line that separates class from class, occupation in the effort to bring about justice and the equality from occupation, men of more wealth from men of of opportunity, to turn the tool-user more and more less wealth, instead of remembering that the only safe into the tool-owner, to shift burdens so that they can standard is that which judges each man on his worth be more equitably borne. The deadening effect on any as a man, whether he be rich or whether he be poor, race of the adoption of a logical and extreme social- without regard to his profession or to his station in istic system could not be overstated; it would spell life. Such is the only true democratic test, the only sheer destruction; it would produce grosser wrong test that can with propriety be applied in a republic. and outrage, fouler immortality, than any existing There have been many republics in the past, both in system. But this does not mean that we may not with what we call antiquity and in what we call the Middle great advantage adopt certain of the principles pro- Ages. They fell, and the prime factor in their fall was fessed by some given set of men who happen to call the fact that the parties tended to divide along the themselves Socialists; to be afraid to do so would be wealth that separates wealth from poverty. It made to make a mark of weakness on our part…. no difference which side was successful; it made no The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, difference whether the republic fell under the rule and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others of and oligarchy or the rule of a mob. In either case, receive liberty which he thus claims as his own. Prob- when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for ably the best test of true love of liberty in any country loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at in the way in which minorities are treated in that hand. There is no greater need to-day than the need to country. Not only should there be complete liberty in keep ever in mind the fact that the cleavage between matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty right and wrong, between good citizenship and bad for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided citizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel only that in so he does not wrong his neighbor. Per- with, the lines of cleavage between class and class, secution is bad because it is persecution, and without between occupation and occupation. Ruin looks us reference to which side happens at the most to be the in the face if we judge a man by his position instead persecutor and which the persecuted. Class hatred is of judging him by his conduct in that position. bad in just the same way, and without regard to the In a republic, to be successful we must learn to individual who, at a given time, substitutes loyalty to combine intensity of conviction with a broad toler- a class for loyalty to a nation, of substitutes hatred of ance of difference of conviction. Wide differences of men because they happen to come in a certain social opinion in matters of religious, political, and social category, for judgement awarded them according belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike to their conduct. Remember always that the same are not be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy measure of condemnation should be extended to the growth. Bitter internecine hatreds, based on such arrogance which would look down upon or crush differences, are signs, not of earnestness of belief, any man because he is poor and to envy and hatred but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or which would destroy a man because he is wealthy. The antireligious, democratic or antidemocratic, it itself 22 | The Bully Pulpit but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which France and the United States has been, on the whole, has been the chief factor in the downfall of so many, a sincere and disinterested friendship. A calamity to many nations. you would be a sorrow to us. But it would be more Of one man in especial, beyond anyone else, the than that. In the seething turmoil of the history of citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a the man who appeals to them to support him on the peculiar power or charm, some special gift of beauty ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the repub- or wisdom of strength, which puts them among the lic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one immortals, which makes them rank forever with the shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens leaders of mankind. France is one of these nations. of the republic. It makes no difference whether he For her to sink would be a loss to all the world. There appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious are certain lessons of brilliance and of generous gal- or antireligious prejudice. The man who makes such lantry that she can teach better than any of her sister an appeal should always be presumed to make it for nations. When the French peasantry sang of Mal- the sake of furthering his own interest. The very last brook, it was to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe thing an intelligent and self-respecting member of a took flight upward through the laurels he had won. democratic community should do is to reward any Nearly seven centuries ago, Froisart, writing of the public man because that public man says that he will time of dire disaster, said that the realm of France get the private citizen something to which this private was never so stricken that there were not left men citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some emotion who would valiantly fight for it. You have had a great or animosity which this private citizen ought not past. I believe you will have a great future. Long may to possess…. you carry yourselves proudly as citizens of a nation And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and which bears a leading part in the teaching and uplift- I belong to the only two republics among the great ing of mankind. powers of the world. The ancient friendship between
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Roosevelt offers a long account of the American pioneering experience to his French audience. In part, he may be explaining why the United States may seem less learned than France, but Roosevelt may also be defining the American character, distinguishing it from the European. If so, what is this character?
2. What the European university has to offer is valued by Roosevelt, but what qualities of mind and character does he give higher value to?
3. What are the explicit and implicit negative qualities Roosevelt finds in the European university education?
4. How does Roosevelt define a good citizen in a republic?
5. Roosevelt seems to ramble in this address, touching on many loosely related topics. Can you discern an organizational pattern governing the address?
6. If you were French and you had invited Roosevelt to speak, would you be pleased with his remarks? If so, why? If not, why not? Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 23
FROM “THE NEW NATIONALISM”
BACKGROUND The growing rich-poor gap clearly bothered Roosevelt. American business interests needed, on a number of fronts, to be reined in. He was nervous about a great deal of government interference, but he and his fellow progressives felt some was necessary. However, he hoped that, perhaps, all concerned might put aside self-interest as well as partisanship and address the problem without the government’s taking on an unprecedented regulatory role. He hoped that all would embrace what he termed “the new nationalism.”
e come here to-day to commemorate one of determined that our country should be in deed as well W the epoch-making events of the long strug- as in name devoted to both union and freedom; that gle for the rights of man—the long struggle for the the great experiment of democratic government on uplift of humanity. Our country—this great Repub- a national scale should succeed and not fail. In name lic—means nothing unless it means the triumph of a we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but real democracy, the triumph of popular government, we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declara- and, in the long run, of an economic system under tion of Independence until 1865; and words count for which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is to show the best that there is in him. That is why true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest the history of America is now the central feature of of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough the history of the world; for the world has set its face in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my fellow man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders not stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; only the burden of doing well for the sake of your own and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, country, but the burden of doing well and of seeing hunt him out of public life. I care for the great deeds that this nation does well for the sake of mankind. of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the There have been two great crises in our country’s present. I speak of the men of the past partly that they history: first, when it was formed, and then, again, may be honored by our praise of them, but more that when it was perpetuated; and, in the second of these they may serve as examples for the future. great crises—in the time of stress and strain which It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with culminated in the Civil War, on the outcome of all such struggles, it had also a dark and terrible side. which depended the justification of what had been Very much was done of good, and much also of evil; done earlier, you men of the Grand Army, you men and, as was inevitable in such a period of revolution, who fought through the Civil War, not only did you often the same man did both good and evil. For our justify your generation, not only did you render life great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the worth living for our generation, but you justified the United States as a whole, can now afford to forget the wisdom of Washington and Washington’s colleagues. evil, or, at least, to remember it without bitterness, If this Republic had been founded by them only to be and to fix our eyes with pride only on the good that split asunder into fragments when the strain came, was accomplished. Even in ordinary times there are then the judgment of the world would have been that very few of us who do not see the problems of life as Washington’s work was not worth doing. It was you through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is clouded who crowned Washington’s work, as you carried to by the murk of furious popular passion, the vision of achievement the high purpose of Abraham Lincoln. the best and the bravest is dimmed. Looking back, we Now, with this second period of our history the are all of us now able to do justice to the valor and the name of John Brown will be forever associated; and disinterestedness and the love of the right, as to each Kansas was the theatre upon which the first act of the it was given to see the right, shown both by the men second of our great national life dramas was played. of the North and the men of the South in that contest It was the result of the struggle in Kansas which which was finally decided by the attitude of the West. 24 | The Bully Pulpit
We can admire the heroic valor, the sincerity, the “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. self-devotion shown alike by the men who wore the Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never blue and the men who wore the gray; and our sadness have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor that such men should have had to fight one another is is the superior of capital, and deserves much the tempered by the glad knowledge that ever hereafter higher consideration.” their descendants shall be found fighting side by side, If that remark was original with me, I should struggling in peace as well as in war for the uplift of be even more strongly denounced as a Communist their common country, all alike resolute to raise to agitator than I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln’s. I am the highest pitch of honor and usefulness the nation only quoting it; and that is one side; that is the side to which they all belong. As for the veterans of the the capitalist should hear. Now, let the working man Grand Army of the Republic, they deserve honor and hear his side. recognition such as is paid to no other citizens of the “Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of pro- Republic; for to them the republic owes its all; for to tection as any other rights. . . . Nor should this lead them it owes its very existence. It is because of what to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the you and your comrades did in the dark years that fruit of labor; . . . property is desirable; is a positive we of to-day walk, each of us, head erect, and proud good in the world.” that we belong, not to one of a dozen little squabbling And then comes a thoroughly Lincolnlike sentence: contemptible commonwealths, but to the mightiest “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house nation upon which the sun shines. of another, but let him work diligently and build one I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely for himself, thus by example assuring that his own from the historic standpoint. Our interest is primarily shall be safe from violence when built.” in the application to-day of the lessons taught by the It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took contest of half a century ago. It is of little use for us to substantially the attitude that we ought to take; he pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless showed the proper sense of proportion in his rela- we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the tive estimates of capital and labor, of human rights present precisely the qualities which in other crises and property rights. Above all, in this speech, as in enabled the men of that day to meet those crises. It many others, he taught a lesson in wise kindliness and is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way charity; an indispensable lesson to us of to-day. But in which well-meaning people gather to do honor this wise kindliness and charity never weakened his to the men who, in company with John Brown, and arm or numbed his heart. We cannot afford weakly under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us the great problems of the nineteenth century, while, to-day. The issue is joined, and we must fight or fail. at the same time, these same good people nervously In every wise struggle for human betterment one of shrink from, or frantically denounce, those who are the main objects, and often the only object, has been trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. in the spirit which was accountable for the successful In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from solution of the problems of Lincoln’s time. barbarism to civilization, and through it people press Of that generation of men to whom we owe so forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. much, the man to whom we owe most is, of course, One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for our present struggle and saw the way out. He said: healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, “I hold that while man exists it is his duty to to take from some one man or class of men the right improve not only his own condition, but to assist in to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, ameliorating mankind.” which has not been earned by service to his or their And again: fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now. Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 25
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the brave conflict between the men who possess more than they man who fought, and punishment for the coward who have earned and the men who have earned more than shirked his work. Is not that so? they possess is the central condition of progress. In Now, this means that our government, National our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and State, must be freed from the sinister influence and hold the right of self-government as against the or control of special interests. Exactly as the special special interests, who twist the methods of free gov- interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political ernment into machinery for defeating the popular integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the business interests too often control and corrupt the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, men and methods of government for their own profit. destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship We must drive the special interests out of politics. of every individual the highest possible value both to That is one of our tasks to-day. Every special interest himself and to the commonwealth. That is nothing is entitled to justice—full, fair, and complete—and, new. All I ask in civil life is what you fought for in the now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-vi- Civil War. I ask that civil life be carried on according olence to plunder and work harm to the special to the spirit in which the army was carried on. You interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and never get perfect justice, but the effort in handling the the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I army was to bring to the front the men who could do have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and the job. Nobody grudged promotion to Grant, or Sher- you would if you were worth your salt. He should have man, or Thomas, or Sheridan, because they earned it. justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, The only complaint was when a man got promotion but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice which he did not earn. on the bench, or to representation in any public office. Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, The Constitution guarantees protection to property, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, and we must make that promise good. But it does not every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all give the right of suffrage to any corporation. that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his The true friend of property, the true conservative, capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own is he who insists that property shall be the servant and and unhampered by the special privilege of others, not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that can carry him, and to get for himself and his family the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get the United States must effectively control the mighty from every citizen the highest service of which he is commercial forces which they have themselves called capable. No man who carries the burden of the special into being. privileges of another can give to the commonwealth There can be no effective control of corporations that service to which it is fairly entitled. while their political activity remains. To put an end I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for can be done. fair play under the present rules of the game, but that We must have complete and effective publicity I stand for having those rules changed so as to work of corporate affairs, so that the people may know for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of beyond peradventure whether the corporations reward for equally good service. One word of warn- obey the law and whether their management entities ing, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man corporate funds directly or indirectly for political who remains poor because he has not got the energy purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expen- will not make good, then he has got to quit. And you ditures for political purposes, and especially such 26 | The Bully Pulpit expenditures by public-service corporations, have conduct and management of the national banks, and supplied one of the principal sources of corruption we should have as effective supervision in one case as in our political affairs. in the other. The Hepburn Act, and the amendment to It has become entirely clear that we must have gov- the act in the shape in which it finally passed Congress ernment supervision of the capitalization, not only of at the last session, represent a long step in advance, public-service corporations, including, particularly, and we must go yet further.[…] railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate The absence of effective State, and, especially, business. I do not wish to see the nation forced into the national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has ownership of the railways if it can possibly be avoided, tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective and economically powerful men, whose chief object regulation, which shall be based on a full knowledge is to hold and increase their power. The prime need of all the facts, including a physical valuation of prop- is to change the conditions which enable these men erty. This physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, to accumulate power which it is not for the general is very rarely needed, for fixing rates; but it is needed welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge as the basis of honest capitalization. no man a fortune which represents his own power We have come to recognize that franchises should and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to never be granted except for a limited time, and never the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, without proper provision for compensation to the take the lesson from your own experience. Not only public. It is my personal belief that the same kind did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promo- and degree of control and supervision which should tion of the great generals who gained their promotion be exercised over public-service corporations should by leading the army to victory. So it is with us. We be extended also to combinations which control nec- grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably essaries of life, such as meat, oil, and coal, or which obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it deal in them on an important scale. I have no doubt should have been gained without doing damage to that the ordinary man who has control of them is the community. We should permit it to be gained much like ourselves. I have no doubt he would like only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the to do well, but I want to have enough supervision to community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far help him realize that desire to do well. more active governmental interference with social and I believe that the officers, and, especially, the economic conditions in this country than we have yet directors, of corporations should be held personally had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such responsible when any corporation breaks the law. an increase in governmental control is now necessary. Combinations in industry are the result of an No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar imperative economic law which cannot be repealed has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered—not combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of in completely controlling them in the interest of the its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind public welfare. For that purpose the Federal Bureau as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of Corporations is an agency of first importance. Its of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a powers, and, therefore, its efficiency, as well as that graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another of the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be tax which is far more easily collected and far more largely increased. We have a right to expect from effective—a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, the Bureau of Corporations and from the Interstate properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing Commerce Commission a very high grade of public rapidly in amount with the size of the estate. service. We should be as sure of the proper conduct The people of the United States suffer from periodi- of the interstate railways and the proper manage- cal financial panics to a degree substantially unknown ment of interstate business as we are now sure of the among the other nations which approach us in Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 27 financial strength. There is no reason why we should Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be suffer what they escape. It is of profound importance pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, that our financial system should be promptly inves- it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy tigated, and so thoroughly and effectively revised as man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show to make it certain that hereafter our currency will the worth that is in him. No man can be a good citizen no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs. […] unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the Moreover, I believe that the natural resources bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not so that after his day’s work is done he will have time monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again and energy to bear his share in the management of the is another case in which I am accused of taking a revo- community, to help in carrying the general load. We lutionary attitude. People forget now that one hundred keep countless men from being good citizens by the years ago there were public men of good character conditions of life with which we surround them. We who advocated the nation selling its public lands in need comprehensive workmen’s compensation acts, great quantities, so that the nation could get the most both State and national laws to regulate child labor money out of it, and giving it to the men who could and work for women, and, especially, we need in our cultivate it for their own uses. We took the proper common schools not merely education in book-learn- democratic ground that the land should be granted ing, but also practical training for daily life and work. in small sections to the men who were actually to till We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our it and live on it. Now, with the waterpower, with the workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face our workers in industry and commerce, both within with the fact that there are many people who will go and between the States. Also, friends, in the inter- with us in conserving the resources only if they are to est of the working man himself we need to set our be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one faces like flint against mob-violence just as against of the fundamental reasons why the special interests corporate greed; against violence and injustice and should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions lawlessness by wage-workers just as much as against which can come before this nation, short of the actual lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of preservation of its existence in a great war, there is employers. If I could ask but one thing of my fellow none which compares in importance with the great countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they central task of leaving this land even a better land for go in for reform, they remember the two sides, and our descendants than it is for us, and training them that they always exact justice from one side as much into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. as from the other. I have small use for the public ser- Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the vant who can always see and denounce the corruption patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the capitalist, but who cannot persuade himself, of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality especially before election, to say a word about lawless of our people are at least as well worth conserving as mob-violence. And I have equally small use for the their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this man, be he a judge on the bench, or editor of a great great work the national government must bear a most paper, or wealthy and influential private citizen, who important part. […] can see clearly enough and denounce the lawlessness But I think we may go still further. The right to of mob-violence, but whose eyes are closed so that regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is he is blind when the question is one of corruption in universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to business on a gigantic scale. Also remember what I regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is said about excess in reformer and reactionary alike. the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of If the reactionary man, who thinks of nothing but the common good. The fundamental thing to do for the rights of property, could have his way, he would every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in bring about a revolution; and one of my chief fears which he will make the greatest possible contribution in connection with progress comes because I do not to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. want to see our people, for lack of proper leadership, 28 | The Bully Pulpit compelled to follow men whose intentions are excel- wealthy special interests, to bring national activities lent, but whose eyes are a little too wild to make it to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the really safe to trust them. Here in Kansas there is one executive power as the steward of the public welfare. paper which habitually denounces me as the tool of It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested Wall Street, and at the same time frantically repudi- primarily in human welfare rather than in property, ates the statement that I am a Socialist on the ground just as it demands that the representative body shall that that is an unwarranted slander of the Socialists. represent all the people rather than any one class or National efficiency has many factors. It is a nec- section of the people. essary result of the principle of conservation widely I believe in shaping the ends of government to pro- applied. In the end it will determine our failure or tect property as well as human welfare. Normally, and success as a nation. National efficiency has to do, not in the long run, the ends are the same; but whenever only with natural resources and with men, but it is the alternative must be faced, I am for men and not for equally concerned with institutions. The State must property, as you were in the Civil War. I am far from be made efficient for the work which concerns only underestimating the importance of dividends; but I the people of the State; and the nation for that which rank dividends below human character. Again, I do concerns all the people. There must remain no neutral not have any sympathy with the reformer who says be ground to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and espe- does not care for dividends. Of course, economic wel- cially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can hire the fare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to and be able to support his family. I know well that the avoid both jurisdictions. It is a misfortune when the reformers must not bring upon the people economic national legislature fails to do its duty in providing ruin, or the reforms themselves will go down in the a national remedy, so that the only national activity ruin. But we must be ready to face temporary disaster, is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in for- whether or not brought on by those who will war bidding the State to exercise power in the premises. against us to the knife. Those who oppose all reform I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nation- inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better alism when we work for what concerns our people as than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here materialism. […] in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or The object of government is the welfare of the Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which people. The material progress and prosperity of a affect us all alike. The National Government belongs nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the to the whole American people, and where the whole moral and material welfare of all good citizens. Just in American people are interested, that interest can be proportion as the average man and woman are honest, guarded effectively only by the National Government. capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, public affairs—but, first of all, sound in their home I believe, mainly through the National Government. life, and the father and mother of healthy children The American people are right in demanding that whom they bring up well—just so far, and no farther, New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to we may count our civilization a success. We must deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts have—I believe we have already—a genuine and per- the national need before sectional or personal advan- manent moral awakening, without which no wisdom tage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results of legislation or administration really means any- from local legislatures attempting to treat national thing; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the the social and economic legislation without which impotence which springs from overdivision of govern- any improvement due to purely moral agitation is mental powers, the impotence which makes it possible necessarily evanescent. Let me again illustrate by a for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by reference to the Grand Army. You could not have won Chapter 1: Theodore Roosevelt | 29 simply as a disorderly and disorganized mob. You law and the right kind of administration of the law, needed generals; you needed careful administration of we cannot go forward as a nation. That is imperative; the most advanced type; and a good commissary—the but it must be an addition to, and not a substitution cracker line. You well remember that success was nec- for, the qualities that make us good citizens. In the last essary in many different lines in order to bring about analysis, the most important elements in any man’s general success. You had to have the administration at career must be the sum of those qualities which, in Washington good, just as you had to have the admin- the aggregate, we speak of as character. If he has not istration in the field; and you had to have the work got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no of the generals good. You could not have triumphed administration of the law by the boldest and strongest without that administration and leadership; but it executive, will avail to help him. We must have the would all have been worthless if the average soldier right kind of character—character that makes a man, had not had the right stuff in him. He had to have first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a the right stuff in him, or you could not get it out of good husband—that makes a man a good neighbor. him. In the last analysis, therefore, vitally necessary You must have that, and, then, in addition, you must though it was to have the right kind of organization have the kind of law and the kind of administration of and the right kind of generalship, it was even more the law which will give to those qualities in the private vitally necessary that the average soldier should have citizen the best possible chance for development. The the fighting edge, the right character. So it is in our prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of civil life. No matter how honest and decent we are in good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, our private lives, if we do not have the right kind of and our public men must be genuinely progressive.
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Roosevelt is speaking in Kansas and begins with a long story about Kansas and the American Civil War. Why?
2. Roosevelt quotes Lincoln several times. Explain how Roosevelt in reappropriating or repurposing Lincoln’s words about slavery to apply to a different situation in 1910.
3. FDR is famous for his “New Deal,” but TR offered a “Square Deal.” What was it?
4. Many commentators on politics today lament the power of special interest groups. Nothing new. Who were the “special interest groups” Roosevelt criticized?
5. The key issue emerging in the nation involves what is the proper role for the federal government to take with regards to business and industry. What is Roosevelt’s view?
6. What exactly is the “New Nationalism” that Roosevelt advocates?
Figure Credit Figure 1.1: Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Theodore_Roosevelt,_1904.jpg.