Theodore Roosevelt 1858-1919

Totally unlike today's Republicans who are trying to consolidate power to corrupt politicians, top tier elites, and special interest big money bribers; President Roosevelt fought for the common man and the public good, advocating socialism twenty years before the fascists.
Roosevelt's socialist platform follows the thinking of Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin because these wise old-timers appreciated civilization!
(In contrast, Putin doesn't appreciate civilization. Putin started a war and is using terrorism (bombing civilians) trying to conquer his neighbor to show who's a big powerful dictator. And Trump has never learned any respect for anybody or anything. Definitely not our laws.)
Tom Paine:
“Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich...All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”
     ~ Tom Paine
Benjamin Franklin:
“All Property indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of publick Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. ...[A]ll Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire & live among Savages. — He can have no right to the Benefits of Society who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”
     ~ Benjamin Franklin

Todays Republicans follow the thought of Ayn Rand who claims the exact opposit of Tom Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Theodor Roosevelt:

“You have no right to tell the man who produced the wealth in what way you want him to spend it.”
     ~ Ayn Rand

“Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.”

“Artificial bodies, such as corporations…should be subject to proper governmental supervision...”

“It is better for the government to help a poor man to make a living for his family than it is to help a rich man make a profit for his company.”

“To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.”

“In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property.”

“One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now. ...At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth.”

“I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective — a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”

“Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests...Now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.”

“It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced.”

“Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”
     ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

“‘Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud’ is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”
     ~ John Adams

“If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs.”

“The greatest evils in our industrial system to-day are those which rise from the abuses of aggregated wealth; and our great problem is to overcome these evils and cut out these abuses.”

“A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune.”

“I cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope--the door of opportunity--is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my convictions, be fundamentally wrong.”

“No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community...”

“The representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.”

“One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests.”

“There is nothing that a man of loose principles and of evil practices in public life so desires as the chance to distract attention from his own shortcomings and misdeeds by exciting and inflaming theological and sectarian prejudice.”

“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.”

“The death-knell of the Republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.”

“The government is us; we are the government, you and I.”

“The fundamental rule in our national life — the rule which underlies all others — is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.”

“We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.”

“The cornerstone of this republic, as of all free governments, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization and increasing the chances of its overthrow, and of the substitution therefore of a system in which there shall be violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.”

“For weal or for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together far closer than ever before.”

“[T]he general law is that life which is advanced and complex, whatever its nature, changes more quickly than simpler and less advanced forms.”

“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

“Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed.”

“If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base, and sordid creature, no matter how successful.”

“The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.”

“The joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.”

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”

“The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.”

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

“There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first,...but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”

“No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.”

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”

“With self-discipline most anything is possible.”

“When a judge decides a constitutional question, when he decides what the people as a whole can or cannot do, the people should have the right to recall that decision if they think it wrong.”

“The people themselves must be the ultimate makers of their own Constitution.”

“We propose to make the process of constitutional amendment far easier, speedier, and simpler than at present.”

“When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century.”

“If the courts have the final say-so on all legislative acts, and if no appeal can lie from them to the people, then they are the irresponsible masters of the people. In other words, those who take this position hold that the people have enough intelligence to frame and adopt a constitution but not intelligence to apply and interpret the constitution which they have themselves made.”

“We should hold the judiciary in all respect; but it is both absurd and degrading to make a fetish of a judge or of anyone else.”

“If the American people are not fit for popular government, and if they should of right be the servants and not the masters of those whom they themselves put in office, then Lincoln's work was wasted and the whole system of government upon which this great democratic republic rests is a failure.”

Wikipedia:
[Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, and other associations.
President Barack Obama stated that the decision “gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington—while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates”.]

In honor of President Roosevelt, here is a proposal for Campaign Finance Reform.



Rough Rider photograph


Theodore Roosevelt: Roughrider To Rushmore | Biography 43:34


Theodore Roosevelt for the People 12:34