Teddy Roosevelt

America should take the lead in establishing international relations on the same basis of honest and upright dealing which we regard as essential as between man and man.

Moreover, the action I ask is demanded by considerations that are higher than mere interest, for I ask it in the name of what is just and right.

It is needed in our own interest, and especially in the interest of the Pacific Slope and of the South Atlantic and Gulf States; for it is short-sighted indeed for us to permit foreign competitors to drive us from the great markets of…

I can do a good deal, and will do a good deal, even without the action of the Congress; but I can not do all that should be done unless such action is taken, and that action I most earnestly hope will be taken.

Every Chinese traveler or student, business man or professional man, should be given the same right of entry to, and the same courteous treatment in, this country as are accorded to the student or traveler, the business man or professional…

But we should not only operate the law with as little harshness as possible, but we should show every courtesy and consideration and every encouragement to all Chinese who are not of the laboring class to come to this country.

The right is reciprocal, and in our last treaty with China it was explicitly recognized as inhering in both nations.

I am convinced that the well-being of our wage-workers demands the exclusion of the Chinese coolies, and it is therefore our duty to exclude them, just as it would be the duty of China to exclude American laboring men if they became in any…

The greatest of all duties is national self-preservation, and the most important step in national self-preservation is to preserve in every way the well-being of the wage-worker.

But the fact remains that in the past we have come short of our duty toward the people of China.

The chief cause in bringing about the boycott of our goods in China was undoubtedly our attitude toward the Chinese who come to this country.

We can not expect China to do us justice unless we do China justice.

But we in our turn must recognize our duties exactly as we insist upon our rights.

We must insist firmly on our rights; and China must beware of persisting in a course of conduct to which we can not honorably submit.

There are other men who use the noxious phrase “business is business” as an excuse and justification for every kind of mean and crooked work; and these men make honest Americans hang their heads because of some of the things they do.

There are men who use the phrase “practical politics” as merely a euphemism for dirty politics, and it is such men who have brought the word “politician” into discredit.

It is, of course, to the great advantage of dishonest men of wealth if they are denounced, not for being dishonest, but for being wealthy, and if they are denounced in terms so overstrained and hysterical as to invite a reaction in their…

But this indignation, if it is to be effective, must be intelligent.

It is hard to reach astute men of this type save by making them feel the weight of an honest public indignation.

There are men who do not divide actions merely into those that are honest and those that are not, but create a third subdivision—that of law honesty; of that kind of honesty which consists in keeping clear of the penitentiary.

But when all that can be has thus been done, there will yet remain much which the law can not touch, and which must be reached by the force of public opinion.

I believe that something, and I hope that a good deal, can be done by law to remedy the state of things complained of.

But he not merely does wrong to, he becomes a source of imminent danger to, other men of great means; for his ill-won success tends to arouse a feeling of resentment, which if it becomes inflamed fails to differentiate between the men of…

The man of great means who achieves fortune by crooked methods does wrong to the whole body politic.

It is our interest no less than our duty to treat them fairly.