Teddy Roosevelt

I feel, and I am sure all good Americans must feel, that it is far from enough for us to develop merely a great material prosperity.

Let each stand on his merits, receive what is due him, and be judged according to his deserts.

The Interstate Commerce Commissioner or other Government official who failed to protect a railroad that was in the right against any clamor, no matter how violent, on the part of the public, would be guilty of as gross a wrong as if he…

I hope to see all the power that I think it ought to have granted to the Government; but I would far rather see only some of it granted, but really granted, than see a pretence of granting all in some shape that really amounts to nothing.

Nothing is more injurious from every standpoint than a law which is merely sound and fury, merely pretence, and not capable of working out tangible results.

The American people abhor a sham, and with this abhorrence I cordially sympathize.

The delays of the law are proverbial, and what we need in this matter is reasonable quickness of action.

The Department of Justice is to stand behind and co-operate with the administrative body, but the administrative body itself must be given the power to do the work and then held to a strict accountability for the exercise of that power.

In other words, we want an administrative body with the power to secure fair and just treatment as among all shippers who use the railroads—and all shippers have a right to use them.

What we need is to have some administrative body with ample power to forbid combination that is hurtful to the public, and to prevent favoritism to one individual at the expense of another.

The effort to prohibit all restraint of competition, whether reasonable or unreasonable, is unwise.

Actual experience has shown that it is not possible to leave the railroads uncontrolled.

But I believe with equal firmness that it is out of the question for the Government not to exercise a supervisory and regulatory right over the railroads; for it is vital to the well-being of the public that they should be managed in a…

The old laws and old customs which were adequate and proper to meet the old conditions need radical readjustment in order to meet these new conditions.

They by their deeds reflect credit upon their descendants and upon all Americans, both because they did their duty in war and because they did their duty in peace.

The perpetuation of your forests, which have done so much for the South, should be one of the first objects of your public men.

The maintenance of your Southern water powers is not less important than the prevention of floods, because if they are injured your manufacturing interests will suffer with them.

These forests are the best defence against the floods which in the recent past have, during a single twelvemonth, destroyed property officially valued at nearly twice what it would cost to buy the Southern Appalachian Reserve.

Such reserves would be a paying investment, not only in protection to many interests, but in dollars and cents to the Government.

All the higher Appalachians should be reserved, either by the States or by the Nation.

Neither State nor Nation can afford to turn these mountains over to the unrestrained greed of those who would exploit them at the expense of the future.

It is the upper altitudes of the forested mountains that are most valuable to the Nation as a whole, especially because of their effects upon the water supply.

One of the most obvious duties which our generation owes to the generations that are to come after us is to preserve the existing forests.

Only those communities are fit for it in which the average individual practices the virtue of self-command, of self-restraint, of wise disinterestedness combined with wise self-interest; where the individual possesses common-sense…

You are showing in practical fashion your realization of the truth that there must be a foundation of material well-being in order that any community may make real and rapid progress.