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.
When it comes to rendering service, that which counts chiefly with a college graduate, as with any other American citizen, is not intellect so much as what stands above mere power of body, or mere power of mind, but must in a sense include…
One piece of first-rate work is worth a thousand pieces of second-rate work.
Not one in a hundred of us is fit to be in the highest sense a productive scholar, but all of us are entirely fit to do decent service if we care to take the pains.
The only first-rate work is the work done by the man who does it for the sake of doing it well, who counts the deed itself as his reward.
The man who counts is the man who is decent and who makes himself felt as a force for decency, for cleanliness, for civic righteousness.
If we think we can render it without taking the pains, if we think we can render it by feeling how nice it would be to render it—why, the value of that service will be but little.
In the unending strife for civic betterment, small is the use of these people who mean well, but who mean well feebly.
If he does not have it, no matter what other qualities he may have, he will find himself at the mercy of those who, without possessing his desire to do right, know only too well how to make the wrong effective.
If a man is strong in mind and body and misuses his strength then he becomes simply a foe to the body politic, to be hunted down by all decent men.
The only first-rate work is the work done by the man who does it for the sake of doing it well.
The timid good man counts but little in the rough business of trying to do well the world's work.
It appears that the public good would be promoted by setting apart and reserving said lands as a public reservation.
The reservation hereby established shall be known as The Dismal River Forest Reserve.
The public good would be promoted by setting apart and reserving said lands as a public reservation.
Gentleness and sweetness unbacked by strength and high resolve are almost impotent for good.
Craft unaccompanied by conscience makes the crafty man a social wild beast who preys on the community and must be hunted out of it.
Christianity teaches not only that each of us must so live as to save his own soul, but that each must also strive to do his whole duty by his neighbor.
The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life.
Each man or woman must remember his or her duty to all around, and especially to those closest and nearest, and such remembrance is the best possible preparation for doing duty for the State as a whole.
But in addition to condemning the grosser forms of evil we must not forget to condemn also the evils of bad temper, lack of gentleness, nagging and whining fretfulness, lack of consideration for others—the evils of selfishness in all its…
The drunkard, the lewd liver, the coward, the liar, the dishonest man, the man who is brutal to or neglectful of parents, wife, or children—of all of these the shrift should be short when we speak of decent citizenship.
We must beware, moreover, not merely of the great sins, but of the lesser ones which when taken together cause such an appalling aggregate of misery and wrong.
Sins against pure and healthy family life are those which of all others are sure in the end to be visited most heavily upon the nation in which they take place.
Politicians like Teddy Roosevelt
