The Public Record
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. A member of the Republican Party, he was born on October 27, 1858, in New York. Roosevelt was a prominent leader of the Progressive Movement, advocating for domestic policies that included trust-busting, regulation of corporations, and conservation of natural resources. His administration is noted for significant reforms and the establishment of national parks and forests.
There is no other people of which history tells which, having passed through such a war as we have passed through, now, after forty years, finds not only that the flag which had been rent asunder is once again whole, without a seam, but…
You can't be as much inspired by anything I may say, as I have been inspired by what I have seen here.
To the white population as well as to the black, it is of the utmost importance that the negro be encouraged to make himself a citizen of the highest type of usefulness.
I will take advice about appointing men, but if I find them crooked I do not take any advice at all about removing them.
Children of to-day are going to decide what our country shall be in the immediate future, and accordingly as they are brought up well or ill our country will go forward or backward in the years that are now open.
What we need is not genius, not brilliancy, but the ordinary commonplace virtues that every man or woman can have, if only he or she will.
The same spirit that made them valiant in battle made them, when they came home from battle, take up the strings of their lives where they had dropped them when the appeal to arms came, and do their best in walks of peace.
Now, I hold that as a matter of public policy, whatever helps a part of our country helps the whole.
Uncle Sam has started to dig that canal, and it will be dug, and soon.
Think how fortunate we are as a people that, whereas, most great wars leave memories of rancor and bitterness, we now have the right of Americans all over this country to claim as part of the glory of all Americans all that was done alike…
In that regiment I had more men whose fathers had worn the gray than I had whose fathers had worn the blue; but they united in the generous rivalry to know no difference and in the emulation of seeing whether or not each could do all that…
The last time I came through your great and beautiful State I was with my regiment on the way to the Spanish War.
I cannot sufficiently express my appreciation of the magnificent greeting that you have given me to-day.
The man who is decent in his home relations, who is kind to those dependent upon him, who is a good husband, father, and son; is a good citizen.
What we need in the average man in his relation to the State is that he shall have the three qualities—courage, honesty, and common sense.
We cannot, any of us, afford to differ about the question of honesty in public life, decency and cleanliness in private life.
I thank the gentlemen who have spoken tonight for their kind personal allusions.
If you go to a man and he says that if the people want it he will do something that is wrong in their interests, you can make up your minds you have got a man who, if he takes up his own interests, will do something wrong to the people in…
It is a matter of special pride to us that our nation, the American nation, should have undertaken the performance of this world duty.
The minute that these republics develop rich men who will look down on the poor, and poor and envious men who hate and wish for the disposal of the rich; the minute that those classes develop in any republic, the day of that republic's…
If you get any man who is willing to do wrong for you, if it is to his interests, he will do wrong to you.
I do indeed appreciate the reception you have given me in this, the oldest historic city in the United States.
And I do want to say one thing in conclusion; if I have ever been able to accomplish anything at all in regard to peace or whatever else it may be, it has been done only to this end, to give fit expression to the thoughts and aspirations…
Politicians like Teddy Roosevelt
