On August 31, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the town of Osawatomi, Kansas, during his election trip to the United States. In this speech, the concept of "new nationalism" was used for the first time, which in subsequent years became the political slogan of many republican contenders for elected posts.
We have come here today to celebrate one of the most fateful events of the long struggle for human rights, the long struggle for the progress of humanity. Our country - this great republic - will be nothing if it does not symbolize the triumph of true democracy, the government of the whole people and, ultimately, an economic system in which every person will have the guarantee of the opportunity to manifest all the best that is in him. That is why American history is now at the core of world history, as the world turned hopefully towards our democracy; and, my fellow citizens, each of you bears on your shoulders not only the burden of duty to do everything possible for the good of your own country, but also the burden not only to do good, but also to provide conditions,for our country to do such good in the interests of humanity.
At many stages of human development, the main state of progress is the conflict between those people who have more wealth than they deserve, and those people who deserve more than they have. Today it looks like a struggle of free people to conquer and preserve the right to self-government against special interests that pervert the methods of free government, turning them into a mechanism for suppressing the will of the people. Always and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to establish equality of opportunity, eliminate privileges and give life and citizenship to each individual the highest value for himself and for the whole society.
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two fundamental results. Firstly, each person will get a real chance to fully use all the possibilities inherent in him; to achieve the highest degree of success to which he will be allowed to come by his personal abilities, not supported by his own privileges and not held back by the privileges of others, and to receive for himself and his family, in fact, what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that society will receive the maximum from each citizen that he is able to create. No one who bears the burden of another person's privileges can bring the benefit to society that it expects from him.
I stand for a fair deal. But when I say that I am for a fair deal, I do not mean that I stand for a fair deal within the existing rules of the game, but that I stand for such a change in these rules so that they provide a more substantial equality of opportunity and equality of remuneration for the same work performed. When I say I want a fair deal for a poor man, I do not mean that I want a fair deal for a person who remains poor because he is not energetic enough to work for himself. If the person who gets the chance does not succeed, he will have to quit the game.
So this means that our government, national and state, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests; just as the special interests of cotton planters and slave owners threatened our political integrity before the outbreak of the Civil War, today special business interests too often involve people and governments in corruption for their own benefit. We must banish special interests from politics.
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is the one who insists that property should be the servant and not the lady of society; who insists that the creation of human hands should serve man, and not be the master of his creator. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the powerful commercial forces they themselves have created. You cannot talk about effective control over corporations while their political activity continues. Putting an end to this will not be quick or easy, but the task is doable.
We must have full and effective publicity about corporate activities so that the people can no doubt know whether corporations abide by the law and whether their leadership deserves public trust. It is imperative that laws be passed prohibiting the direct or indirect use of corporate funds for political purposes; it is even more necessary to ensure the strict implementation of such laws. Corporate spending for political purposes, and especially such spending by corporations in the service of society, has become a major source of corruption in our politics.
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It became very clear that we needed to establish government control over the capitalization process not only on corporations operating in public services, including especially railways, but also on corporations that do business between states. I would not like the state to be forced to take over the railways if it can be avoided; and the only way out is to establish a thorough and effective regulation based on full possession of all facts, including material valuation of property. Such material valuation is unnecessary or only rarely needed to establish pricing, but it is needed as a basis for fair capitalization.
We have come to recognize that privileges should be granted only for a short time and only with due regard for the need to compensate society. I am personally convinced that a form and degree of control similar to those applied to corporations in the service of society should also be applied to corporations that control the production of essential commodities such as meat, oil and coal, or the same thoroughly engaged in their production. I am sure that the person exercising this control is like each of us. I have no doubt that he wants to succeed, but I would like to establish sufficient control over him in order to help him realize this desire to succeed.
I believe that executives, and especially corporate directors, should be held personally accountable if any corporation breaks the law.
Industrial corporations are the result of economic law that cannot be overridden by political law. The attempt to ban the creation of corporations essentially failed. The way out is not to prohibit such associations, but to establish full control over them in the interests of the public good.
No man can receive a dollar if that dollar has not been properly earned by him. Every dollar received must correspond to services rendered worth one dollar - not speculation in shares, but services rendered. A really large fortune, enormous wealth acquires qualities that distinguish it in essence and in size from what a person with relatively fewer means possesses. Therefore, I believe in a progressive income tax on large estates and in another tax that is much easier to collect and which is much more efficient - a progressive inheritance tax that applies to large estates, increases markedly depending on the size of the inheritance and is properly protected from the possibility his non-payment.
The people of the United States suffer from recurring financial crises, the magnitude of which is essentially unfamiliar to other nations approaching us in financial might. I see no reason why we should suffer from what they manage to avoid. It is imperative to study our financial system urgently and change it so thoroughly and effectively to ensure that the country's monetary system no longer fails us at critical times and meets our needs.
I will talk about nature conservation in detail under different circumstances. Nature conservation encompasses both development and protection. I recognize the right and duty of the present generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them thoughtlessly or plunder the next generations as a result of the wasteful use of these resources. I do not ask the state for anything more than the same behavior that is characteristic of every farmer in relation to his own children. The farmer who bleeds the land and leaves it completely worthless to his children is a pitiful creature. A good farmer is one who has turned his land into a source of his well-being and the education of his children, who leaves the land to them in a better condition than he received it himself. Same,in my opinion, it should also apply to the state.
Nothing could be more true than the statement that any extreme is followed by a reaction; and this fact is subject to comprehension alike by the reformer and the reactionary. We have come across new concepts of the relationship between property and human well-being mainly because some advocates of property rights over human rights have become too overdone. A citizen who erroneously claims that any human right is secondary to his income must now give way to a supporter of improving the well-being of a person who quite rightly claims that every citizen owns property, which, according to the general rules of society, is subject to regulation to the extent that to what extent it may require public welfare.
There are many factors in the capacity of the state. This is a natural result of the widespread application of the principle of nature protection. Ultimately, this is what will determine our success or failure as a nation. The capacity of the state should depend not only on its natural resources and people, but equally from its institutions. The state must become capable to carry out activities that concern only the population of that state, and the state must have legal capacity that affects the entire people. There should be no loopholes that could provide a safe haven for lawbreakers, and especially wealthy lawbreakers who can hire cunning and dexterous lawyers to educate lawmakers on how to evade state and county laws. A misfortune is a situationwhen state legislation is unable to fulfill its obligations to ensure the cure of the nation, when the only form of state activity is a purely negative action by a judicial body that prohibits the state from exercising power within its jurisdiction.
I am not advocating over-centralization. But I really ask that we work in the spirit of broad nationalism, in the interests of the entire people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as our continent … The national government belongs to the entire American people, and when the entire American people have an interest in something, that interest can only be effectively defended by a national government. The improvements that we are seeking to achieve can, in my opinion, be achieved mainly with the help of the national government.
The American people are right in demanding that we adhere to the ideas of the new nationalism, without which we cannot hope that we will be able to cope with new problems. The new nationalism is placing national needs over group or personal gain. He does not tolerate the sheer mess that local legislatures try to treat national issues as local. With even greater rejection, he refers to the powerlessness of power that arises as a result of the excessive division of state power and allows local selfishness or cunning lawyers hired by the rich to impede the activities of the state. This new nationalism views the executive branch as the manager of public welfare. He demands from the judiciary,so that they show an interest primarily in the well-being of the person, and not in property, just as he requires that the representative body represent the entire people, and not a separate class or group of people.
I believe that it is government's job to protect both property and human well-being. In principle, ultimately both goals are important, but if you choose the main one, then I stand for a person, not for property. I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends, but I put dividends below humanity. Also, I don't like the reformer who claims he is not interested in dividends. There is no doubt that economic well-being is necessary because a person must have sufficient strength and be able to support his family. I am well aware that reformers should not contribute to the economic ruin of the people, otherwise the reformers themselves will be ruined. But we must be prepared to face a temporary calamity, whether it has arisen from the actions of those who are ready to fight us for a lifetime.and to death. Those who oppose any reforms should remember that devastation in its most severe form is inevitable if in the life of our state there is nothing more preferable than the exorbitantly huge fortunes of a small number of people and the triumph in politics and business of selfish and selfish materialism.
If our political institutions were perfect, they would surely prevent the political dominance of money in any area of our activity. We need to make our political representatives capable of accepting more quickly and sincerely the desires of the people whose servants they are. It is vital that people can participate more directly in their own affairs with the necessary guarantees. Direct visual elections are a step forward in this direction if they are conducted under a corruption law that effectively negates the benefits of a person who recklessly and shamelessly spends large sums of money to defeat a more honest competitor. It is especially important that for all funds received or spent on campaigning,there was public accountability not only after the elections, but also before they were held. Political activity should be simpler and more understandable for every citizen. I am convinced that the procedure for quickly eliminating dishonest and incompetent statesmen should be simplified and ensured in the way that is suggested by experience and seems to be the most appropriate in each case.
One of the basic necessities of a representative government like ours is to ensure that those to whom the people delegate their powers of power serve the people that elect them, and not the special interests of a few. I am convinced that all government officials, whether elected or appointed, should be prohibited from providing services or receiving any kind of remuneration, direct or indirect, from corporations in other states, and a similar prohibition may be useful within the states themselves.
The purpose of government work is the welfare of the people. Material progress and prosperity of the state are desirable insofar as they lead to the moral and material well-being of all citizens. The country should have as many honest men and women as possible, capable of sound judgments and lofty ideals, active in public affairs, but above all decent in the home circle, fathers and mothers of healthy children, properly brought up by them - only on this condition we can count on our civilization to succeed. There must be, and I believe it has already, a true moral awakening, without which neither the wisdom of the legislature nor the wisdom of the executive actually matters. At the same time, we must try to create social and economic legislation, without which any improvement,based on purely moral agitation, are reduced to zero …