Posted on 02/22/2010 9:03:02 PM PST by pissant
Today marks the beginning of a year-long celebration commemorating the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt, one of America's heroes and larger-than-life personalities.
Born with considerable physical handicaps, Theodore Roosevelt overcame his afflictions and drew strength from his triumph over personal adversity, a strength he would later devote to the public good. Through sheer willpower, he became a rugged outdoorsman and active conservationist, the organizer of the Rough Riders, a fearless crusader against corruption and for law and order, an explorer, a social reformer and author, our youngest President, and the first of our citizens to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was truly an American Renaissance man. His life was a voyage of discovery guided by deep principle and private morality.
He was also our first modern chief executive, rejecting isolationism and leading America into active participation in world decisions for which we shared responsibility. Never again would the leaders of the Old World act without regard to this new world power called the United States. He understood our people and our spirit. He identified the national character with the words, "Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood—the virtues that made America." And I might add, the virtues that made Theodore Roosevelt.
Now, Therefore, L Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 27, 1982, as a Day of National Celebration of the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt. I ask all Americans to join me in commemorating the birth of this fearless American hero. Let us redouble our efforts to confront adversity and promote the virtues and ideals of Americanism.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and seventh.
RONALD REAGAN
Kind of like Sarah Palin calling Juan McAmnesty a statesman?
The party was funded by publisher Frank A. Munsey and its executive secretary George W. Perkins, a leading financier. The platform called for women’s suffrage, recall of judicial decisions, easier amendment of the U.S. Constitution, social welfare legislation for women and children, workers’ compensation, limited injunctions in strikes, farm relief, revision of banking to assure an elastic currency, required health insurance in industry, new inheritance taxes and income taxes, improvement of inland waterways, and limitation of naval armaments.
Roosevelt’s philosophy for the Progressive Party was based around New Nationalism, which was the belief in a strong government to regulate industry and protect the middle and working classes. New Nationalism was paternalistic in direct contrast to Woodrow Wilson’s individualistic philosophy of “New Freedom”.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1912)
LOL. No doubt.
Beck was talking about McCain and McCain’s adoration of TR.
And given McCain was thinking about going to the Dems, and when TR lost he went to the Progressive Party, should we expect the same of McCain if he loses against Hayworth since TR is his hero?
He was only a third partier for about 2 years of his life. That has to be put into perspective. Wilson had no louder critic than TR once he came back to the GOP.
Nope. Roosevelt was a highly moral man.
Same wikipedia entry:
“Roosevelt’s schism allowed the conservatives to gain control of the Republican party and left Roosevelt and his followers drifting in the wilderness throughout the 1920s before most joined the New Deal Democratic Party coalition of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
He did not say the same types of things about FDR as he did about TR. TR wasn’t a socialist.
The issue wasn’t about a third party; the issue is what kind of a party did TR form? What was their name and their platform?
Can’t be “moral” without spirituality, specifically a Christian spirituality. This is as adamant about (private) charity to the disabled as it is about the earnest effort of the able.
Well, just goes to show you you can’t trust Wikipedia. TR rejoined the GOP, became a huge national force in it again, and helped them temendously with his smash mouth politics against Wilson. So much so that he was considered in many GOP circles to be a good 1920 nominee. But he was in poor health and died in 1919, a GOP icon.
I know as well as you do. It was the Progressive Party. Not to be confused with Wilsonian progressivism. That is why Glenn Beck needs to bone up a bit.
“Theodore Roosevelt with incoming President William Howard Taft on Taft’s inauguration day in 1909. Roosevelt picked Taft to be his successor in the Republican party and endorsed his election as president. Roosevelt left the White House believing that Taft would continue activist progressive policies as the new President. Such was not to be the case.”
“News of trouble at home was beginning to reach the former President. Conservation and tariff policies were dividing the Republican party and the “Old Guard” of conservatives were taking control.”
Source: http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/life/biopictures.htm
Taft had more trust busting than TR did.
Actually, Roosevelt may have been the first neocon, in favor of bigger government at home and a hawk on foreign policy. It’s no wonder McCain admires him.
“We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. … The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.” - TR
“Because of things I have done on behalf of justice to the workingman, I have often been called a Socialist. Usually I have not taken the trouble even to notice the epithet. … Moreover, I know that many American Socialists are high-minded and honorable citizens, who in reality are merely radical social reformers. They are opposed to the brutalities and industrial injustices which we see everywhere about us.” - TR
“Many of the men who call themselves socialists today are in reality merely radical social reformers, with whom on many points good citizens can and ought to work in hearty general agreement, and whom in many practical matters of government good citizens can well afford to follow.” - TR
“I have always maintained that our worst revolutionaries today are those reactionaries who do not see and will not admit there is any need for change.” - TR
Source: McCain’s Hero: More Socialist Than Obama! http://www.slate.com/id/2202950/
Is this about Ronnie, Teddy, or Glenn?
Democrats hounded Ronald Reagan and have tried to discredit everything he had ever done while he was alive. After he died they finally gave him credit for his effort to bring an end to the cold war and paid tribute. That does not mean that they ever had their ‘come to Jesus’ moment. On the contrary, they used him as a scapegoat for the mortgage meltdown. Never mind that they overindulged in getting and incentivising loans for the underserved. Paying tribute does not constitute an endorsement.
This article also does not account for the recent change in public attitude, a hypersensitivity to socialism. We simply have not lived with government as big as it was when Reagan took office and started dismantling it, and many don’t really remember it.
Teddy was right that government is the answer to everything? I don’t think so, and Reagan didn’t think so either.
Teddy did not think that either. Only a novice of Roosevelt history would think so. As Beck is.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, and even stranger pillow fights.
It seems like he certainly provided lots of answers if he didn’t think so.
I might be wrong, but it’s really hard to square what he did with another President who may have a better take on the meaning of the Constitution:
“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “ all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition....
“To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.” For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.
It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.
It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. It is known that the very power now proposed as a means was rejected as an end by the Convention which formed the Constitution. A proposition was made to them to authorize Congress to open canals, and an amendatory one to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected, adverse to the reception of the Constitution.” - Thomas Jefferson
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