If a protective tariff is either “unconstitutional” or “robbery,” then it is just as unconstitutional, just as much robbery, to revise it down, still leaving it protective, as it would be to enact it.
Teddy Roosevelt
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.
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Yet, if protection is indeed “robbery,” and if our opponents really believe what they say, then it is precisely to the destruction and uprooting of the tariff, and therefore of our business and industry, that they are pledged.
To uproot and destroy that system would be to ensure the prostration of business, the closing of factories, the impoverishment of the farmer, the ruin of the capitalist, and the starvation of the wage-worker.
Our experience as a people in the past has certainly not shown us that we could afford in this matter to follow those professional counselors who have confined themselves to study in the closet; for the actual working of the tariff has…
The question of what tariff is best for our people is primarily one of expediency, to be determined not on abstract academic grounds, but in the light of experience.
Now to speak of the tariff in this sense as “robbery,” thereby giving it a moral relation, is not merely rhetorical; it is on its face false.
When they speak of protection as “robbery,” they of course must mean that it is immoral to enact a tariff designed (as is the present protective tariff) to secure to the American wage-worker the benefit of the high standard of living which…
Of course, if our opponents are not sincere in their proposal to abolish the system of a protective tariff, there is no use in arguing the matter at all, save by pointing out again that if on one great issue they do not mean what they say…
If a tariff law is passed aimed at preventing the prosperity of some of our people, it is as certain as anything can be that this aim will be achieved only by cutting down the prosperity of all of our people.
If a tariff law is passed under which the country prospers, as the country has prospered under the present tariff law, then all classes will share in the prosperity.
The evils connected with the trusts can be reached only by rational effort, step by step, along the lines taken by Congress and the Executive during the past three years.
Without one exception every appointment in the Philippines has been made in accordance with the strictest standard of fitness, and without heed to any other consideration.
It is a standing order to every American diplomatic and consular officer to protect every American citizen, of whatever faith, from unjust molestation; and our officers abroad have been stringently required to comply with this order.
This Government has consistently demanded equal protection abroad for all American citizens, whether native or naturalized.
This Government is based upon the fundamental idea that each man, no matter what his occupation, his race, or his religious belief, is entitled to be treated on his worth as a man, and neither favored nor discriminated against because of…
Being ourselves mindful of them, we have been scrupulously careful on the one hand to be moderate in our promises, and on the other hand to keep these promises in letter and in spirit.
It has shown in effective fashion that in endeavoring to make good this guarantee, it treats all men, rich or poor, whatever their creed, their color, or their birthplace, as standing alike before the law.
Within the limits defined by the National Constitution the National Administration has sought to secure to each man the full enjoyment of his right to live his life and dispose of his property and his labor as he deems best, so long as he…
To say that action against trusts and monopolies should be limited to the application of the common law is equivalent to saying that the National Government should take no action whatever to regulate them.
Until our opponents as a party explicitly adopt the views which we hold and upon which we have acted and are acting, in the matter of sound currency, the only real way to keep the question from becoming unsettled is to keep the Republican…
It is idle to say that the monetary standard of the Nation is irrevocably fixed so long as the party which at the last election cast approximately forty-six per cent of the total vote refuses to put in its platform any statement that the…
Laws can always be revoked; it is the spirit and the purpose of those responsible for their enactment and administration which must be fixed and unchangeable.
The fundamental fact is that in a popular government such as ours no policy is irrevocably settled by law unless the people keep in control of the Government men who believe in that policy as a matter of deep-rooted conviction.
The record of the last seven years proves that the party now in power can be trusted to take the additional action necessary to improve and strengthen our monetary system, and that our opponents can not be so trusted.
We, on the contrary, believe in the gold standard as fixed by the usage and verdict of the business world, and in a sound monetary system, as matters of principle; as matters not of momentary political expediency, but of permanent organic…
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