{"id":1720,"date":"2019-08-01T09:36:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1720"},"modified":"2019-08-05T19:13:37","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T19:13:37","slug":"theodore-roosevelt-on-the-new-nationalism-1910","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/20-the-progressive-era\/theodore-roosevelt-on-the-new-nationalism-1910\/","title":{"rendered":"Theodore Roosevelt on \u201cThe New Nationalism\u201d (1910)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1910, a newly invigorated Theodore Roosevelt delivered his outline for a bold new progressive agenda, which he would advance in 1912 during a failed presidential run under the new Progressive, or \u201cBull Moose,\u201d Party. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

… In every wise struggle for human betterment one\nof the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large\nmeasure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations\nrise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from\none stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is\nthe destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy\nliberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class\nof men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has\nnot been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for\nin the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At many stages in the advance of humanity, this\nconflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who\nhave earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our\nday it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of\nself-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free\ngovernment into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and\nunder all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity,\ndestroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the\nhighest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. … <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I\nam for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the\npresent rules of the games, but that I stand for having those rules changed so\nas to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for\nequally good service. … <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, this means that our government, national and\nState, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special\ninterests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened\nour political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business\ninterests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for\ntheir own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. … The\nConstitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise\ngood But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true\nfriend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property\nshall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that\nthe creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man\nwho made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the\nmighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There can be no effective control of corporations\nwhile their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a\nshort nor an easy task, but it can be done. … It is necessary that laws\nshould be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly\nfor political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be\nthoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and\nespecially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one\nof the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs. …  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar\nhas been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth\nof service rendered – not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really\nbig fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities\nwhich differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by\nmen of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax\non big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far\nmore effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly\nsafeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of\nthe estate. … <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American people are right in demanding that New\nNationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New\nNationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. …\nThis New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public\nwelfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in\nhuman welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the\nrepresentative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or\nsection of the people. … <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs – but, first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well – just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a success. We must have – I believe we have already – a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure the social and economic legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation is necessarily evanescent. … <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism,” in The New Nationalism<\/em> (New York: The Outlook Company, 1910), 3-34. Available online via Google Books:
https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=GlVHAQAAMAAJ<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1910, a newly invigorated Theodore Roosevelt delivered his outline for a bold new progressive agenda, which he would advance in 1912 during a failed presidential run under the new Progressive, or \u201cBull Moose,\u201d Party. … In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":372,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1720","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1795,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1720\/revisions\/1795"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}