Teddy Roosevelt

Under our form of government all authority is vested in the people and by them delegated to those who represent them in official capacity.

Other offences violate one law while corruption strikes at the foundation of all law.

While there may have been as much official corruption in former years, there has been more developed and brought to light in the immediate past than in the preceding century of our country’s history.

I speak in another part of this Message of the widespread crimes by which the sacred right of citizenship is falsely asserted and that “inestimable heritage” perverted to base ends.

The Congress has created the Department of Commerce and Labor, including the Bureau of Corporations, with for the first time authority to secure proper publicity of such proceedings of these great corporations as the public has the right…

We must help her onward and upward; and in helping her we shall help ourselves.

We are knit to her by the memories of the blood and the courage of our soldiers who fought for her in war; by the memory of the wisdom and integrity of our administrators who served her in peace and who started her so well on the difficult…

Finally, it is desirable as a guaranty of the good faith of our Nation toward her young sister republic to the south, whose welfare must ever be closely bound with ours.

It would be indeed shortsighted for us to refuse to take advantage of such an opportunity, and to force Cuba into making arrangements with other countries to our disadvantage.

It is a market which lies at our doors, which is already large, which is capable of great expansion, and which is especially important to the development of our export trade.

She is loyally observing her obligations to us; and she is entitled to like treatment by us.

I deem such legislation demanded not only by our interest but by our honor.

Through a wise provision of the Congress at its last session, the White House, which had become disfigured by incongruous additions and changes, has now been restored to what it was planned to be by Washington.

It is much to be desired that our consular system be established by law on a basis providing for appointment and promotion only in consequence of proved fitness.

The excessive cost of Government printing is a strong argument against the position of those who are inclined on abstract grounds to advocate the Government’s doing any work which can with propriety be left in private hands.

We should pass, for instance, a wise employer’s-liability act for the District of Columbia, and we need such an act in our navy yards.

Alaska should have a Delegate in the Congress.

Promotion must be fostered if the service is to be kept efficient.

At the same time that we thus add the officers where we need them, we should facilitate the retirement of those at the head of the list whose usefulness has become impaired.

We need a thousand additional officers in order to properly man the ships now provided for and under construction.

The veteran seamen of our warships are of as high a type as can be found in any navy which rides the waters of the world; they are unsurpassed in daring, in resolution, in readiness, in thorough knowledge of their profession.

The Isthmian Canal will greatly increase the efficiency of our navy if the navy is of sufficient size; but if we have an inadequate navy, then the building of the canal would be merely giving a hostage to any power of superior strength.

We have deliberately made our own certain foreign policies which demand the possession of a first-class navy.

We are a very rich country, vast in extent of territory and great in population; a country, moreover, which has an army diminutive indeed when compared with that of any other first-class power.

It is necessary to provide ample funds for practice with the great guns in time of peace.