Teddy Roosevelt

Our endeavor is to see that those big railroad men and big shippers who are not responsive to the demands of justice are required to do what their fellows who are responsive to the demands of justice would be glad to do of their own accord.

All I want in any rate legislation is to give the Government an efficient supervisory power which shall be exercised as scrupulously to prevent injustice to the railroads as to prevent their doing injustice to the public.

My aim is to secure the just and equal treatment of the public by those (I trust and believe a limited number) who do not want to give it, just as much as by the larger number who do want to give it.

Most certainly I will join with you in resisting to the uttermost any movement to hurt or damage any railroads which act decently, for I would hold that such damage was not merely to the capitalist, not merely to the wage-worker engaged on…

But I shall act against the abuses of wealth just as against all other abuses.

I would be false to your interest if I failed to do justice to the capitalist as much as to the wage-worker.

I am convinced that the “wages fund” would be larger if there was no fictitious capital upon which dividends had to be paid.

But I am convinced that there must be an increased regulatory and supervisory power exercised by the Government over the railways.

I have said again and again that I would not tolerate for one moment any injustice to a railroad any more than I would tolerate any injustice by a railroad.

The Union Army could have accomplished nothing if the feeling of the enlisted men had been the wish to down Grant and Sherman instead of supporting them heartily in achieving the common work for which all in common were striving.

You must have at the head the type of ability which can do well; just as you, comrade of the Civil War (turning to an engineer who wore the button of the Grand Army) needed a general who knew his business, or your valor did not avail.

Remember always that every man of us must in some shape or other have his passions and appetites governed; and the less of that government there is from within the more there will have to be from without.

The interests of the wage-worker and the interests of the tiller of the soil must be peculiarly close to all American public men; among other reasons for the reason that if they prosper all other classes will prosper likewise as a matter…

Men, I am glad to have seen you, and I don’t think that anywhere under our flag there could be found a better set of clean-cut, vigorous, self-respecting American citizens of the very type that makes one proudest to be an American.

I need not tell you to remember that battles are decided by gunfire, and that the only shots that count are the shots that hit.

Therefore he died in the service of his country exactly as much as if he had died in battle, and deserves as much honor.

This means that you are willing at all times to face death in the performance of your duty.

But you men are fitted for fighting because you have the fighting edge.

I hope that no such crisis will ever occur, but I have entire faith that if it ever does occur, you will rise level to any demand that may be made upon you, and that by the way you train yourselves and are trained in time of peace, you…

Remember that if ever, which may Heaven forbid, war comes, it will depend upon you and those like you whether the people of this country are to hold their heads even higher or to hang them in shame.

All through the ship I have seen the same purpose, the purpose to learn exactly what the duty to be done was and then to do it; and the power to do presupposes the possession by each of you of intelligence, courage, and physical address.

Going through the ship yesterday, in the engine rooms, storerooms, turrets, everywhere the thing that impressed me most was the all-importance of each man in his place: the all-importance of that man both knowing his work and feeling it a…

Any man in the whole ship’s company who does his full duty can claim as his own the honor and repute of the ship and has the right to feel a personal pride in all she does.

The time when one is praised very much is the time one should walk guardedly and carefully and work with all one’s soul and strength.

We have excellent Scriptural authority for the statement that it is well to beware when all men speak well of you; because it is an unfortunate feature of human nature that when they have appreciated a man up to the very last limit, they…