It is a good thing that the guard around the tomb of Lincoln should be composed of colored soldiers.
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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I could not resist the chance that was offered me to stop and dedicate this monument, for great though we now regard Abraham Lincoln, my countrymen, the future will put him on an even higher pinnacle than we have put him.
He has learned from bitter experience what damage can come from well meant changes hastily made.
They realize, and all men who have actually done irrigating here will realize, that no man is more timid than the practical irrigator regarding any change in the water distribution.
We all know that when you once get irrigation applied rain is a very poor substitute for it.
Not of recent years has any more important law been put upon the statute books of the Federal Government than the law a year ago providing for the first time that the National Government should interest itself in aiding and building up a…
One word as to the greatest question with which our people as a whole have to deal in the matter of internal development to-day—the question of irrigation.
Therefore it lies primarily not with the people at Washington, but with you, yourselves, to see that such policies are supported as will redound to the benefit of the home makers and therefore the sure and steady building up of the State…
We can enforce the provisions of the forest reserve law or of any other law only so far as the best sentiment of the community or the State will permit that enforcement.
Remember you must realize, what I thoroughly realize, that however wise a policy may be it can be enforced only if the people of the States believe in it.
That is the object of the forest reserves, and that is why I bespeak your cordial co-operation in their preservation.
That is why we wish to provide for the home-makers of the present and the future the steady and continuous supply of timber, grass, and above all, of water.
The first great object of the forest reserves is, of course, the first great object of the whole land policy of the United States,—the creation of homes, the favoring of the home-maker.
In some way there will have to be formed such regulation as shall without undue restriction prevent the needless over-grazing, while keeping the public lands open to settlement through homestead entry.
More and more hereafter the stock owners will have the necessity forced upon them of providing green summer pasturage within the limits of their own ranges; and so the question of irrigation is wellnigh as important to the stockmen as to…
Our aim must be steadily to help develop the settler, the man who lives in the land and in growing up with it and raising his children to own it after him.
The wise man, the wise industry, the wise nation, maintains such capital unimpaired and tries to increase it; and more and more the range lands will be used in conjunction with the small irrigable areas which they include; so that the…
The ranges must be treated as a great invested capital; and that old system tended to dissipate and partially to destroy that capital.
The old system of grazing the ranges so closely as to injure the whole crop of grass was a serious detriment to the development of the West, a serious detriment to the development of our people.
So far from agriculture properly exhausting the land, it is always the sign of a vicious system of agriculture if the land is rendered poorer by it.
The effort to make a big showing in dividends is not always healthy for the future.
You came in, as the Governor has said, as home-makers, to make homes for yourselves and those who should come after you; and that is the only way in which a State can be built up, in which the Nation can be built up.
The man who seeks to persuade any of us that our advantage comes in wronging or oppressing others can be depended upon, if the opportunity comes, to do wrong to us in his own interest, just as he has endeavored to make us in our supposed…
That man is never a safe man to follow; he is always the most dangerous of guides.
Above all, remember this: that the most unsafe adviser to follow is the man who would advise us to do wrong in order that we may benefit by it.
Politicians like Teddy Roosevelt
