Read Roosevelt’s Words Before Voting (part 3 of 3)

The people behind the Progressive Movement, which had its beginnings around a century ago, aspired to lofty goals. U. S. President Teddy Roosevelt was instrumental in its creation. As we go into national elections this fall, it would be helpful to us voters to compare his thinking to the practices of our government leadership in Washington today.
In 1910 he delivered a speech to the Sorbonne in Paris entitled “Citizenship in a Republic.” Below, I have quoted and paraphrased from his address, extracting the jewels which relate to us today. Before laying my work before you, I asked my wife to read it; when she saw the length she said, “It’s too long; nobody will finish it.” I responded that I found his thoughts so interesting and encouraging, that I did not want to cut it any further. After she read it, she said, “I agree. Break it into parts.” Here we go:
• The overbearing brutality of the man of wealth or power, and the envious and hateful malice directed against wealth or power, are different manifestations of the same thing.
• The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted by that man who seeks to make his countrymen divide primarily in the line that separates class from class, occupation from occupation, men of more wealth from men of less wealth, instead of remembering that the only safe standard is that which judges each man on his worth, whether he be rich or poor, without regard to his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only true democratic test. There have been many republics in the past, which fell, and the prime factor in their fall was that the parties tended to divide along the wealth that separates wealth from poverty. It made no difference which side was successful; it made no difference whether the republic fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob. In either case, when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand.
• Wide differences of opinion must exist if there is to be room for healthy growth.
• Citizens of a republic should beware of the man who ask for support on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest. Let me illustrate this by one anecdote from my own experience. A number of years ago I was engaged in cattle-ranching on the great plains of the western United States. There were no fences. The cattle wandered free, the ownership of each one was determined by the brand; the calves were branded with the brand of the cows they followed. If on a round-up and animal was passed by, the following year it would appear as an unbranded yearling, and was then called a maverick. By the custom of the country these mavericks were branded with the brand of the man on whose range they were found. One day I was riding the range with a newly hired cowboy, and we came upon a maverick. We roped and threw it; then we built a fire, took out a cinch-ring, heated it in the fire; and then the cowboy started to put on the brand. I said to him, “It So-and-so’s brand,” naming the man on whose range we happened to be. He answered: “That’s all right, boss; I know my business.” In another moment I said to him: “Hold on, you are putting on my brand!” To which he answered: “That’s all right; I always put on the boss’s brand.” I answered: “Oh, very well. Now you go straight back to the ranch and get whatever is owing to you; I don’t need you any longer.” He jumped up and said: “Why, what’s the matter? I was putting on your brand.” And I answered: “Yes, my friend, and if you will steal for me then you will steal from me.” Now, the same principle which applies in private life applies also in public life. If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that he will do something wrong in your interest, you can be absolutely certain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something wrong against your interest.
• A man must be a good patriot before he can be a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is the citizen of the world, is in fact usually and exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens to be in. If a man can view his own country and all others countries with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and mother.
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From the Bible: (Here exists) faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13