As regards the Army I call attention to the fact that while our junior officers and enlisted men stand very high, the present system of promotion by seniority results in bringing into the higher grades many men of mediocre capacity who…
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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The extraordinary leap to a foremost place among the nations of the world made by Japan during this half century is something unparalleled in all previous history.
We will gladly help them to this end; but I would solemnly warn them to remember the great truth that the only way a people can permanently avoid being governed from without is to show that they both can and will govern themselves from…
Our earnest hope and one desire is that the people of the island shall now govern themselves with justice, so that peace and order may be secure.
In Cuba our occupancy will cease in about two months' time, the Cubans have in orderly manner elected their own governmental authorities, and the island will be turned over to them.
I again recommend that American citizenship be conferred upon the people of Porto Rico.
It would be worse than folly to try to set down such a date in advance, for it must depend upon the way in which the Philippine people themselves develop the power of self-mastery.
I trust that within a generation the time will arrive when the Philippines can decide for themselves whether it is well for them to become independent, or to continue under the protection of a strong and disinterested power, able to…
Under the present system of just laws and sympathetic administration, we have every reason to believe that they are gradually acquiring the character which lies at the basis of self-government, and for which, if it be lacking, no system of…
But we can not give them self-government save in the sense of governing them so that gradually they may, if they are able, learn to govern themselves.
We must be wise and generous; we must help the Filipinos to master the difficult art of self-control, which is simply another name for self-government.
We have given the Filipinos constitutional government--a government based upon justice--and we have shown that we have governed them for their good and not for our aggrandizement.
If we had followed the advice of the foolish doctrinaires who wished us at any time during the last ten years to turn the Filipino people adrift, we should have shirked the plainest possible duty and have inflicted a lasting wrong upon the…
All we can do is to give them the opportunity to develop the capacity for self-government.
But it is well for them (and well also for those Americans who during the past decade have done so much damage to the Filipinos by agitation for an immediate independence for which they were totally unfit) to remember that self-government…
I hope and believe that these steps mark the beginning of a course which will continue till the Filipinos become fit to decide for themselves whether they desire to be an independent nation.
The Filipino people, through their officials, are therefore making real steps in the direction of self-government.
The coastwise shipping laws should be amended to meet the special needs of the islands, and the alien contract labor law should be so modified in its application to Hawaii as to enable American and European labor to be brought thither.
To aid these changes, the National Government must provide the necessary harbor improvements on each island, so that the agricultural products can be carried to the markets of the world.
The importance of those islands is apparent, and the need of improving their condition and developing their resources is urgent.
No task of such magnitude has ever before been undertaken by any nation; and no task of the kind has ever been better performed.
The work on the Panama Canal is being done with a speed, efficiency and entire devotion to duty which make it a model for all work of the kind.
We have behaved, and are behaving, towards other nations as in private life an honorable man would behave towards his fellows.
This Nation's foreign policy is based on the theory that right must be done between nations precisely as between individuals, and in our actions for the last ten years we have in this matter proven our faith by our deeds.
The federal statute regulating interstate traffic in game should be extended to include fish.
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