Teddy Roosevelt

If there is any one quality to be deprecated in a public man and in a public writer alike, it is the using of language which without any corresponding gain to ourselves tends to produce irritation among nations with whom we ought to be on…

Therefore, gentlemen, in greeting you here to-night I wish not merely to welcome you, but to say that I trust every man of you feels the weight of the responsibility that rests upon him.

So far from liberty, from freedom, from responsible self-government, being things that come easily and to any peoples, they are peculiarly things that can come only to the highly developed peoples.

The man whose morality is expressed simply in the non-infringement of the law is a pretty poor creature.

There must be much more than good laws to make a good people.

The writer, one of our greatest scholars, was speaking of the fact that freedom could not exist unless there went with it a thorough appreciation of responsibility, and he used a phrase somewhat like this—that among all peoples there must…

There may be other remedies, but what these others are we can only find out by publicity, as the result of investigation.

It is therefore evident that publicity is the one sure and adequate remedy which we can now invoke.

Where a trust becomes a monopoly the State has an immediate right to interfere.

But very great hardship may result to innocent purchasers; and publicity by lessening the possibility of this would also serve the purpose of the State.

The extravagant man who builds a needlessly large house nevertheless pays taxes on the house; and the corporation which has to pay great sums of interest owing to juggling transactions in the issue of stocks and bonds has just as little…

There is no reason whatever for refusing to tax a corporation because by its own acts it has created a burden of charges under which it staggers.

In the next place, this would enable us to see just what the public have a right to expect in the way of service and taxation.

In the first place, this would be invaluable in preventing harm being done as among the stockholders, for many of the grossest wrongs that are perpetrated are those of promoters and organizers at the expense of the general public who are…

Much can be done at once by amendment of the corporation laws so as to provide for such publicity as will not work injustice as between business rivals.

The first essential is knowledge of the facts, publicity.

The corporation that manages its affairs honestly has a right to demand protection against the dishonest corporation.

They are needed quite as much for the sake of honest corporations as for the sake of the public.

Of course, such laws are even more needed in dealing with great corporations or trusts than with individuals.

Any law, and any method of construing the law which will enable the community to punish him, either by taking away his wealth or by imprisonment, should be welcomed.

The man who by swindling or wrongdoing acquires great wealth for himself at the expense of his fellow, stands as low morally as any predatory mediæval nobleman and is a more dangerous member of society.

The chicanery and the dishonest, even though not technically illegal, methods through which some great fortunes have been made, are scandals to our civilization.

The men who endeavor to prevent the remedying of real abuses, not only show callous disregard for the suffering of others, but also weaken those who are anxious to prevent the adoption of indiscriminate would-be remedies which would…

To say that the present system of haphazard license and lack of supervision and regulation, is the best possible, is absurd.

Yet there can and must be courageous and effective remedial legislation.