Speaking in 1919, the last year of his life, Teddy Roosevelt actually has a very timely message:
I prefer to work with moderate, with rational conservatives, provided only that they do in good faith strive forward toward the light. But when they halt and turn their backs to the light, sit with the [?] and the seats of reaction, then I must part company with them. We the people cannot turn back. Our aim must be steady, wise progress. It would be well if our people would study the history of a sister republic.
All the woes of France for a century and a quarter have been due to the folly of her people in splitting into the two camps of unreasonable conservatism and unreasonable radicalism. Had free revolutionary France listened to men like Turgot and backed them up, all would have gone well. But the beneficiaries of privilege, the Bourbon reactionaries, the short-sighted ultra-conservatives turned down Turgot, and then found that instead of him they had obtained Robespierre. They gained twenty years freedom from all restraint and reform at the cost of the whirlwind of the Red Terror, and in their turn the unbridled extremists of the Terror induced a blind reaction. And so with convulsion and oscillation from one extreme to another, with alternations of violent radicalism and violent Bourbonism, the French people went through misery...
May we profit from the experiences of our brother republicans across the water, and go forward steadily avoiding all wild extremes, and may our ultra-conservatives remember that the rule of the Bourbons brought on the Revolution, and may our would-be revolutionaries remember that no Bourbon was ever such a dangerous enemy of the people and their freedom as the professed friend of both, Robespierre.
There is no danger of a revolution in this country, but there is grave discontent and unrest, and in order to remove them there is need of all the wisdom and probity...we have at our command.
Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social and industrial justice achieved through the genuine rule of the people. This is our end, our purpose. The methods for achieving the end are merely expedients, to be finally accepted or rejected according as actual experience shows that they worked well or ill.
But in our heart, we must have this lofty purpose and we must strive for it in all earnestness and sincerity, or our work will come to nothing. In order to succeed, we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true, who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls.
The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument to be used until broken and then to be cast aside. And if he is worth his salt, he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness, the watchword for all of us is "Spend and be spent."
Many thanks to the Department of Special Collections at the Donald C. Davidson Library, UC Santa Barbara, who have made available more than 5,000 early recordings through their Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project, and thanks to Jody Rosen who pointed me in this direction in Slate's 2005 year-end cultural roundup.
tags: teddy roosevelt
