These men thus do inestimable damage; for the reform spirit, the spirit of striving after high ideals, is the breath of life in our political institutions; and whatever weakens it by just so much lessens the chance of ultimate success under democratic government.
In "The Strenuous Life," Roosevelt emphasizes that weakening the spirit of reform undermines the success of democratic governance.
Share
More from Teddy Roosevelt
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles.
I wish to say that the Progressive Party is making its appeal to all our fellow citizens without any regard to their creed or to their birthplace.
Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world.
Therefore I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to who shall be the nominee of the Republican Presidential Convention.
Other voices in this conversation
