Soldier, Patriot, Statesman

"We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. ... There can be no divided allegiance here. ... Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people."
---Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt, 1858 to 1919, was a man of many occupations. His primary interest was in politics as he felt politicians were the governing class, and he "intended to be one of the governing class." Right out of college he entered politics. He served three terms as a New York City councilman. Although his family were historically Democrats, Teddy ran as a Republican, but he NEVER claimed to be a Republican. In fact, he was above party politics and always did what he felt was right for America. In 1884 his wife and his mother both died on the same day. Teddy had a small daughter who he left with his sister and he went west to mourn. He bought a ranch and became a "cowboy." It was during this period he developed his interest in saving the land for future generations, that years later generated the National Park System. Returning east he became the Police Commissioner of New York City. From there he became the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

"My fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit ofboastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent.

We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race, and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed, and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us, a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours, and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body and the things of the soul.

Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves, and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other powers of the world are important, but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils, the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modem life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a Democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers. Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

Teddy spoke out against the lynching laws during his administration, and was even the first President to ever enterain a black man (and a black woman) at the White House.

For his troubles he was labeled a “nigger lover” by Democrats, who’s views on the issue were summed up by the governor of Arkansas (Jefferson "Jeff" Davis, 1903-1905, D-AR) who told President Roosevelt, to his face, that the only good nigger was a “dead one.”

Where is Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? Where did he hide his Big Stick? How do you think he would feel about globalism? How would he handle the Mexican border and the illegal immigation problem? Not through reform, you can bet. How would he handle the Islamoterrorists? How do you suppose he would feel about NAFTA, or the corrupt and impotent United Nations? How do you think he would feel about Jimmy Carter giving up the Panama Canal? What do think he might have to say about Bill Clinton selling classified technology to the Red Chinese? What do you think he might do about the traitorous, anti-American media and Democratic members of Congress? Would he even recognise today's political parties? What do you think he would do about the left-wing judiciary who think they have the right to make law? What do you think he would do about the inner-city crime problem? What would he do about the state of our crumbling education system? How do you think he would feel about the moral decay in the film and television industry? What do you think he would do about the drug problem? Do you think he would agree that the Posse Comitatus Law of 1878 applys to foreign nationals crossing our borders illegally? Strangely enough, Teddy would have smiled upon a union with Canada, but not Mexico. And finally, do we have another Teddy Roosevelt on the horizon and if so, who might it be?