Teddy Roosevelt

But whether it is absolutely impossible is another question; and if possible it is most certainly desirable.

The question is in its essence a question of the proper adjustment of burdens to benefits.

There can be no question of the ethical propriety of the Government thus determining the conditions upon which any gift or inheritance should be received.

This object can be attained by making the tax very small on moderate amounts of property left; because the prime object should be to put a constantly increasing burden on the inheritance of those swollen fortunes which it is certainly of…

It is most desirable to encourage thrift and ambition, and a potent source of thrift and ambition is the desire on the part of the breadwinner to leave his children well off.

In any event, in my judgment the pro rata of the tax should increase very heavily with the increase of the amount left to any one individual after a certain point has been reached.

But I feel that in the near future our national legislators should enact a law providing for a graduated inheritance tax by which a steadily increasing rate of duty should be put upon all moneys or other valuables coming by gift, bequest…

Not only should he recognize this obligation in the way he leads his daily life and in the way he earns and spends his money, but it should also be recognized by the way in which he pays for the protection the State gives him.

The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.

In addition to these there is every reason why, when next our system of taxation is revised, the National Government should impose a graduated inheritance tax, and, if possible, a graduated income tax.

This means that the law as construed by the Supreme Court is such that the business of the country can not be conducted without breaking it.

Such a result in turn tends to throw the decent man and the wilful wrongdoer into close association, and in the end to drag down the former to the latter's level; for the man who becomes a lawbreaker in one way unhappily tends to lose all…

It is unfortunate that our present laws should forbid all combinations, instead of sharply discriminating between those combinations which do good and those combinations which do evil.

Combination of capital like combination of labor is a necessary element of our present industrial system.

The actual working of our laws has shown that the effort to prohibit all combination, good or bad, is noxious where it is not ineffective.

Our aim is, so far as may be, to secure, for all decent, hard working men, equality of opportunity and equality of burden.

We hold that the Government should not conduct the business of the nation, but that it should exercise such supervision as will insure its being conducted in the interest of the nation.

The reactionaries and the violent extremists show symptoms of joining hands against us.

It would be a veritable calamity to fail to put a premium upon individual initiative, individual capacity and effort; upon the energy, character, and foresight which it is so important to encourage in the individual.

The best way to avert the very undesirable move for the government ownership of railways is to secure by the Government on behalf of the people as a whole such adequate control and regulation of the great interstate common carriers as will…

One of the most efficient methods of averting the consequences of a dangerous agitation, which is 80 per cent wrong, is to remedy the 20 per cent of evil as to which the agitation is well rounded.

As a matter of fact it is these reactionaries and ultraconservatives who are themselves most potent in increasing socialistic feeling.

The reactionary or ultraconservative apologists for the misuse of wealth assail the effort to secure such control as a step toward socialism.

Our effort should be not so much to prevent consolidation as such, but so to supervise and control it as to see that it results in no harm to the people.

This will tend to put a stop to the securing of inordinate profits by favored individuals at the expense whether of the general public, the stockholders, or the wageworkers.