Ronald Reagan Proclamation 4992 - Theodore Roosevelt Day

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.

Yes, you can cherry pick a few. How about these:

Measure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a descent man, whether well off or not well off, stand by him; if he is not a decent man stand against him, whether he be rich or poor.

There is no place for the hyphen in our citizenship... We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities. We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house..

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.

We stand equally against government by a plutocracy and government by a mob.

Ours is a government of liberty by, through, and under the law.

“Well, it seems not all conservatives share Glenn Beck’s view of TR. “

It’s too bad Reagan didn’t take to heart more of TR’s admonishment on immigration before he granted another amnesty. McCain claims to love TR, but ignores this as well.

Teddy Roosevelt. I’ll post their links under the quote.

“In the first place we should insist that the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equity with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming an American and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to the American Defense Society in 1919.

“Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country,” he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. “English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools.
“We can have no “50-50” allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1608833/posts

Well, what I posted was the link to yesterday's NRO front-page. Today, of course, the page has changed. Nevertheless, I found some of yesterday's discussion. I've included below the comments of Jonah Goldberg and Mark Steyn.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Re: Beck and T.R. [Jonah Goldberg]

Ramesh — I guess I'm slightly more in Beck's camp than yours with regard to the T.R. quote. Here's the full quote from his New Nationalism speech (emphasis mine) :

The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading their army to victory. So it is with us. 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. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

There are a lot of problems with this, and I'd be surprised if you still think the quote is harmless. If the portion in the Milbank column were merely an expression of personal opinion, I could agree with your take. But T.R. saw the State (hopefully with himself at the helm) as the arbiter of what did and did not represent a "benefit" to the community. That this is a deeply statist mindset seems pretty obvious to me, not least because T.R. admits that he thinks this standard should usher in a new era of greater state power and "governmental interference with social and economic conditions."

You ask: "Isn't part of the argument for tolerating concentrations of wealth in a free-market society that in one people can amass fortunes only by bringing benefits to the community?"

And I would respond, yes it is. But another part of the argument is that the state (usually) isn't better at allocating wealth than the market is. And another part of the argument is that your wealth is your wealth, no matter how concentrated it is. The state may take its share based on the reasonable needs of the government to serve its functions and duties, it cannot and should not take more than that just because you have "too much wealth."

But you know all of this.

As for all the readers who have been weighing in on T.R., let me just give my short take. T.R. was a better, saner, man as president than he was after he left the oval office and went much further to the left. He abandoned trust-busting in favor of corporatism and became a thoroughgoing Crolyite. He was always a more admirable, decent, and heroic man than Woodrow Wilson, but T.R. worship is nonetheless fraught with peril for conservatives.

02/22 08:54 AMShare

Better Dead Than Ted [Mark Steyn]

Jonah, amen on that revolting TR quote. The statism is explicit, and the threat of government coercion hardly less so. Once the state thinks of itself as the sole legitimate arbiter of what "represents benefit to the community", there's almost no restraint upon its power, and you're a fool if you think it can be confined only to the top-hatted plutocrats. In Britain, restrictions on heart-disease treatment for smokers, hip replacements for the obese are justified on the grounds that, while there may be benefits to you, there are insufficient benefits for the broader "community" that has to pick up the tab. It was also a recurring sub-text to my battles with Canada's "human rights" regime. Its most zealous enforcer, and the Dominion's self-appointed Hatefinder-General, justified his pursuit of errant citizens in very TR terms:

What benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?

So even free speech has to demonstrate a "benefit" to "the community"?

Nuts to that. In the end, God and posterity will judge whether our lives have been of "benefit to the community." When the state does so, "benefit to the community" is code for statist compliance. It's bad enough that the modish obsessions of the day result in craven corporations getting shanghaied into signing on to every pathetic "green initiative" — such as BP's funding of the launch of IPCC honcho Rajendra Pachauri's warmographic novel. If a rich man wants to blow it on coke and hookers, I'm not sure — compared to George Soros or even Bill Gates — that that isn't on balance less harmful to "the community."

02/22 10:38 AMShare

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