We need Progress

Recently I was reading about Teddy Roosevelt again and I came upon the speech he made to the newly created Progressive Party after the Republican party powers that be disenfranchised their own primary voters by nominating William Taft in 1912. How different would the political landscape be today if they'd picked up the torch of progressive reform instead of maintaining their practice of protecting the wealthy at the expense of the middle and working classes? I've written a lot about how I think Obama needs to follow the patterns of Franklin Roosevelt since we're in such an economic mess, but maybe he'd do just as well to learn from FDR's Republican cousin (that is, until the Republican Party betrayed him). I wish I could convince all my Republican friends that Teddy's philosophies are far more beneficial for America than Reagan or Bushes. Whatchya gonna do?

"...our aim should be the same in both State and Nation; that is, to use the Government as an efficient agency for the practical betterment of social and economic conditions throughout this land. There are other important things to be done, but this is the most important thing...

I am well aware that every upholder of privilege, every hired agent or beneficiary of the special interests, including many well-meaning parlor reformers, will denounce all this as "Socialism" or "anarchy"--the same terms they used in the past in denouncing the movements to control the railways and to control public utilities. As a matter of fact, the propositions I make constitute neither anarchy nor Socialism, but, on the contrary, a corrective to Socialism and an antidote to anarchy...

the most pressing and immediate need is to deal with the cases of those who are on the level, and who are not only in need themselves, but, because of their need, tend to jeopardize the welfare of those who are better off. We hold that under no industrial order, in no commonwealth, in no trade, and in no establishment should industry be carried on under conditions inimical to the social welfare. The abnormal, ruthless, spendthrift industry of establishment tends to drag down all to the level of the least considerate...

The present conditions of business cannot be accepted as satisfactory. There are too many who do not prosper enough, and of the few who prosper greatly there are certainly some whose prosperity does not mean well for the country. Rational Progressives, no matter how radical, are well aware that nothing the Government can do will make some men prosper, and we heartily approve the prosperity, no matter how great, of any man, if it comes as an incident to rendering service to the community; but we wish to shape conditions so that a greater number of the small men who are decent, industrious and energetic shall be able to succeed, and so that the big man who is dishonest shall not be allowed to succeed at all.

Our aim is to control business, not to strangle it-- our aim is to promote prosperity, and then see to its proper division. We do not believe that any good comes to any one by a policy which means destruction of prosperity; for in such cases it is not possible to divide it because of the very obvious fact that there is nothing to divide. We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the business man is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals. But it is obvious that unless the business is prosperous the wage-workers employed therein will be badly paid and the consumers badly served. Therefore not merely as a matter of justice to the business man, but from the standpoint of the self-interest of the wage-worker and the consumer we desire that business shall prosper; but it should be so supervised as to make prosperity also take the shape of good wages to the wage-worker and reasonable prices to the consumer, while investors and business rivals are insured just treatment, and the farmer, the man who tills the toil, is protected as sediously as the wage worker himself...

One camp has fixed its eyes only on the need of prosperity, loudly announcing that our attention must be confined to securing it in bulk, and that the division must be left to take care of itself (Supply-side, free-market, Reaganomics). This is merely the plan, already tested and found wanting, of giving prosperity to the big men on top, and trusting to their mercy to let something leak through to the mass of their countrymen below--which, in effect, means that there shall be no attempt to regulate the ferocious scramble in which greed and cunning reap the largest rewards.

Read the entire speech at http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trarmageddon.html
From Teddy Roosevelt's speech at the Progressive Party Convention, August 6, 1912 in Chicago

D.C. needs more Bull (Moose, that is)

I’ve been thinking a lot of my favorite Republican lately. Mom? No, not Mom. Clarence Hoffman? No, as much as I like and respect him and appreciate his years of service to our communities and love his family, no, not him. Barry Goldwater? No, even though I’m an Arizona native and many of his positions are more aligned with today’s Democrats then contemporary Republicans. Ron Paul or Chuck Hagel? Even though I admire their political courage to oppose the Iraq war, putting them out of step with their party.

No, my favorite Republican is the President with the coolest first name, Teddy Roosevelt.
Some of my Republican friends may resent my admiration of this GOP icon. I have a Republican Aunt who will probably tease me that I’m becoming Republican. And I’m sure I have plenty of Democratic friends who will accuse me of selling out by singing the praises of such a bully cowboy.

I know that he was only human and certainly not pure as the driven snow. Long before there was a CIA, Teddy is suspected of sending Marines (in civilian clothes) down to encourage a revolution in Panama when Columbia wouldn’t let us dig a canal there. Sure, he led a volunteer regiment in the Spanish-American War and probably would’ve gotten us into WWI much sooner than Woodrow Wilson did, when it got down to it, he was a much more shrewd and wary leader when it came to foreign policy then some Republican Presidents we’re having to endure.

Teddy Roosevelt knew it was better to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” than to talk loud and throw stones. Of course, he’s not the only Republican to have such a wise, mature attitude.

In a recent Omaha World Herald I was proud to read, “Rather than acting like a nation riddled with the insecurities of a schoolyard bully, we ought to carry ourselves with the confidence that should come from the dignity of our heritage, from the experience of our history and from the strength of our humanity — not from the power of our military," Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said in a speech hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies last week. "Loose talk of World War III, intimidation, threats, bellicose speeches only heighten the dangers we face in the world," said Hagel, clearly being critical of President Bush’s recent comment and policies.

One of the saddest things about the current wars we are fighting is how we’ve been letting out veterans fall full the cracks when they come home. The state of affairs was seen clearly this year at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Roosevelt told veterans on July 4, 1903 "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled, and less than that no man shall have."

Those who keep denying both global warming and our need to become independent of foreign oil let alone from fossil fuels altogether need to consider Teddy. I don’t know what he would’ve thought of Al Gore, but I do know that no president did more to protect our natural recourses. Republicans could start whoopin’ Democrat butt if they’d adopt the motto that nothing’s so conservative as conservation.

In 1907 he told a group of school children that they would blame his generation “not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life."
A hundred years ago he knew that the environment was the main issue we had to grapple with, "The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others."

Teddy Roosevelt was a reformer. While he was on the U.S. Civil Service Commission and as police commissioner of New York he fought corruption. Whereas the Bush Administration politicized the Justice Department, Roosevelt was dedicated to cleaning up government.
He told Congress in 1903, "No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it...Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."

In 1905 he talked about the kind of people who we should really be worried about. "This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country."

Since 1980, Reagan-Republicans have been systematically dismantling the reforms made by Teddy’s younger cousin Franklin which promoted and protected the middle class with safety nets, regulations on big corporations and a tax structure which asked people who could afford to bare a greater portion of the burden to do so. Bush handed huge tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% and never asked anyone but military and National Guard families to sacrifice anything even after 9/11 and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

More than anything, Teddy Roosevelt wanted everyone to have a fair shake and on an even playing field. He demanded that both government and business be square with everyone.

"Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense...” he told people at the 1903 New York State Fair, “We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less… The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us."

I for one think that America is ready for a president like Teddy Roosevelt again. In fact, I think we need someone like him pretty badly.

Progressive

"Look up, not down-
Look out, not in-
Look forward, not backward-
and lend a hand."
~Teddy Roosevelt, 1912