R

Race Preservation

The prime factor in the preservation of a race is its power to attain a high degree of social efficiency. Love of order, ability to fight well and breed well, capacity to subordinate the interests of the individual to the interests of the community, these and similar rather humdrum qualities go to make up the sum of social efficiency. The race that has them is sure to overturn the race whose members have brilliant intellects, but who are cold and selfish and timid, who do not breed well or fight well, and who are not capable of disinterested love of the community. (North American Review, July 1895,) Mem. Ed. XIV, 127; Nat; Ed,XIII, 240.

____________. To increase greatly a race must be prolific, and there is no curse so great as the curse of barrenness, whether for a nation or an individual. When a people gets to a position even now occupied by the mass of the French and by sections of the New Englanders, where the death-rate surpasses the birth- rate, then, that race is not only fated to extinction but it deserves extinction. When the capacity and desire for fatherhood and motherhood is lost the race goes down, and should go down; and we need to have the plainest kind of plain speaking addressed to those individuals who fear to bring children into the world. But while this is all true, it remains equally true that immoderate increase in no way furthers the development of a race, and does not always help its increase even in numbers. The English-speaking peoples during the past two centuries and a half have increased faster than any others, yet there have been many other peoples whose birth-rate during the same period has stood higher. (North American Review, July 1895.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 111; Nat; Ed, XIII, 226.

Race Riots

See Brownsville Riot; Lynching.

Race Suicide

Even more important than ability to work, even more important than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that the chief of blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times; and it is the crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The first essential in any civilization is that the man and woman shall be father and mother of healthy children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease. (At the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XV, 357; Nat; Ed, XIII, 513.

____________. I have never preached the imposition of an excessive maternity on any woman. I have always said that every man worth calling such will feel a peculiar sense, of chivalric tenderness toward his wife, the mother of his children. He must be unselfish and considerate with her. But, exactly as he must do his duty, so she must do her duty. I have said that it is self- evident that unless the average woman, capable of having children, has four, the race will not go forward; for this is necessary in order to offset the women who for proper reasons do not marry, or who, from no fault of their own, have no children, or only one or two, or whose children die before they grow up. I do not want to see us Americans forced to import our babies from abroad. I do not want to see the stock of people like yourself and like my family die out—and you do not either; and it will inevitably die out if the average man and the average woman are so selfish and so cold that they wish either no children, or just one or two children. (Letter of February 9, 1916.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 192-153; Nat; Ed, XIX, 149.

Race Suicide

See Also Birth Control; Eugenics.

Racial And National Unity

Most of the great societies which have developed a high civilization and have played a dominant part in the world have been—and are—artificial; not merely in social structure, but in the sense of including totally different race types. A great nation rarely belongs to any one race, though its citizens generally have one essentially national speech. Yet the curious fact remains that these great artificial societies acquire such unity that in each one all the parts feel a subtle sympathy, and move or cease to move, go forward or go back, all together, in response to some stir or throbbing, very powerful, and yet not to be discerned by our senses.

National unity is far more apt than race unity to be a fact to reckon with; until indeed we come to race differences as fundamental as those which divide from one another the half-dozen great ethnic divisions of mankind, when they become so important that differences of nationality, speech, and creed sink into littleness. (At Oxford University, June 7, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 84; Nat; Ed, XII, 41.

Racial Antagonisms

Doubtless in the long run most is to be hoped from the slow growth of a better feeling, a more real feeling of brotherhood among the nations, among the peoples. The experience of the United States shows that there is no real foundation in race for the bitter antagonism felt among Slavs and Germans, French and English. . . . It is idle to tell us that the Frenchman and the German, the Slav and the Englishman are irreconcilably hostile one to the other because of difference of race. From our own daily experiences we know the contrary. We know that good men and bad men are to be found in each race. We know that the differences between the races above named and many others are infinitesimal compared with the vital points of likeness. (New York Times, October 18, 1914.) Mem. Ed. XX, 61-62; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 52-53.

Racial Decay

There is a certain softness of fibre in civilized nations which, if it were to prove progressive, might mean the development of a cultured and refined people quite unable to hold its own in those conflicts through which alone any great race can ultimately march to victory. . . . Most ominous of all, there has become evident, during the last two generations, a very pronounced tendency among the most highly civilized races, and among the most highly civilized portions of all races, to lose the power of multiplying, and even to decrease; so much so as to make the fears of the disciples of Malthus a century ago seem rather absurd to the dweller in France or New England to-day. (Forum, January 1897.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 135; Nat; Ed, XIII, 247.

Racial Decay

See also Civilization; Decadence; Fighting Virtues; National Decay.

Racial Differences

No hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying to all alien races, because they differ from one another far more widely than some of them differ from us. But there are one or two rules which must not be forgotten. In the long run there can be no justification for one race managing or controlling another unless the management and control are exercised in the interest and for the benefit of that other race. This is what our peoples have in the main done, and must continue in the future in even greater degree to do, in India, Egypt and the Philippines alike. In the next place, as regards every race, everywhere, at home or abroad, we cannot afford to deviate from the great rule of righteousness which bids us treat each man on his worth as a man. (At Oxford University, June 7, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 104; Nat; Ed, XII, 57-58.

Racial Theories

See Chamberlain, Houston Stewart.

Radicals

In peaceful times and places like the United States at the present day, they [radicals] merely join little extreme parties, and run small, separate tickets on election day, thereby giving aid, comfort, and amusement to the totally unregenerate. In times of great political convulsion, when the appeal to arms has been made, these harmless bodies may draft into their ranks—as the Fifth Monarchy men did—fierce and dangerous spirits, ever ready to smite down with any weapons the possible good, because it is not the impossible best. When this occurs they need to be narrowly watched. There are many good people who find it difficult to keep in mind the obvious fact that, while extremists are sometimes men who are in advance of their age, more often they are men who are not in advance at all, but simply to one side or the other of a great movement, or even lagging behind it, or trying to pilot it in the wrong direction. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 368; Nat; Ed, X, 256-257.

____________. Fundamentally it is the radical liberal with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity and moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can wholeheartedly support. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, October 1, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 272; Bishop II, 233.

Radicals

See also Anarchists; Bolshevists; Conservatives; Extremists; Industrial Workers of The World; Lincoln, Abraham; Lunatic Fringe; Order; Reactionaries; Reformers.

Railroad Casualties

The ever-in-creasing casualty list upon our railroads is a matter of grave public concern, and urgently calls for action by the Congress. In the matter of speed and comfort of railway travel our railroads give at least as good service as those of any other nation, and there is no reason why this service should not also be as safe as human ingenuity can make it. Many of our leading roads have been foremost in the adoption of the most approved safeguards for the protection of travellers and employees, yet the list of clearly avoidable accidents continues unduly large. The passage of a law requiring the adoption of a block- signal system has been proposed to the Congress. I earnestly concur in that recommendation, and would also point out to the Congress the urgent need of legislation in the interest of the public safety limiting the hours of labor for railroad employees in train service upon railroads engaged in interstate commerce, and providing that only trained and experienced persons be employed in positions of responsibility connected with the operation of trains. Of course nothing can ever prevent accidents caused by human weakness or misconduct; and there should be drastic punishment for any railroad employee, whether officer or man, who by issuance of wrong orders or by disobedience of orders causes disaster. (Fourth Annual Message, Washington, December 6, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 254-255; Nat; Ed, XV, 218-219.

Railroad Problem, The

Of course in the whole railway situation that confronts this country we have continually to keep in mind the three interests: the interest of the men whose money has permitted the building of the roads; the interests of the engineers, firemen, and other men, trainmen and so on, who actually run the roads; and, third, the interests of the general public. Outlook, June 8, 1912, p. 294.

____________. By actual experience it has been found that it is unsafe to leave the wage-worker, the shipper, and the general public, and furthermore that it is unsafe to leave the small investor himself, at the mercy of the big men who manage railways. But on certain points the interests of the big man and the small investor are identical. On certain other points the interests of both of them are identical with those of the wage-worker. On all points the only way of securing permanent justice to each class is by giving permanent justice to all classes. The public can be well served, and the wage-workers can be well paid, only if the railway is successful, that is, if there is such a certainty of reasonable dividends as to make investors content, and therefore willing and desirous to invest in further developments and enterprises. (Outlook, July 5, 1913.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 120.

Railroad Rate Law Two years ago the railroads were all clamoring against the passage of the rate law—an act of folly on their part and on the part of their friends and abettors which cannot be too harshly stigmatized. The one hope for the honest railroad man, for the honest investor, is in the extension and perfection of the system inaugurated by that law; in the absolute carrying out of the law at present and in its strengthening, if possible, at the next session of Congress so as to make it even more effective. (To Henry L. Higginson, March 28, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 46; Bishop II 39-40.

Railroad Rates—Adjustment of

If governmental action places too heavy burdens on railways, it will be impossible for them to operate without doing injustice to somebody. Railways cannot pay proper wages and render proper service unless they make money. The investors must get a reasonable profit or they will not invest, add the public cannot be well served unless the investors are making reasonable profits. There is every reason why rates should not be too high, but they must be sufficiently high to allow the railways to pay good wages. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 569; Nat; Ed, XX, 489-490.

____________. It is just as much the duty of the commission to permit rates to be raised when the raise is justifiable as to require them to be lowered if the lowering is justifiable. The commission is created precisely because this is the kind of work it can and ought to do, and the kind of work that no legislative body could with wisdom perform. The commission is no true servant of the public unless it unhesitatingly raises the rates when justice in the public interest requires such action, and unhesitatingly lowers the rates when this is the course which will ultimately best meet the public needs. (Outlook, July 5, 1913.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 121.

____________. There is much wise legislation necessary for the safety of the public, or—like workmen's compensation—necessary to the well-being of the employee, which nevertheless imposes such a burden on the road that the burden must be distributed between the general public and the corporation, or there will be no dividends. In such a case it may be the highest duty of the commission to raise rates; and the commission, when satisfied that the necessity exists, in order to do justice to the owners of the road, should no more hesitate to raise rates than under other circumstances to lower them. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 498; Nat; Ed, XX, 428.

Railroad Rates—Regulation of

While I am of the opinion that at present it would be undesirable, if it were not impracticable, finally to clothe the commission with general authority to fix railroad rates, I do believe that, as a fair security to shippers, the commission should be vested with the power, where a given rate has been challenged and after full hearing found to be unreasonable, to decide, subject to judicial review, what shall be a reasonable rate to take its place; the ruling of the commission to take effect immediately, and to obtain unless and until it is reversed by the court of review. The government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce; and such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other. (Fourth Annual Message, Washington, December 6, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 263 Nat; Ed, XV, 226.

____________. Those who complain of the management of the railways allege that established rates are not maintained; that rebates and similar devices are habitually resorted to; that these preferences are usually in favor of the large shipper; that they drive out of business the smaller competitor; that while many rates are too low, many others are excessive; and that gross preferences are made, affecting both localities and commodities. Upon the other hand, the railways assert that the law by its very terms tends to produce many of these illegal practices by depriving carriers of that right of concerted action which they claim is necessary to establish and maintain non-discriminating rates. The act should be amended. The railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all shippers alike. The government should see to it that within its jurisdiction this is so and should provide a speedy, inexpensive, and effective remedy to that end. (First Annual Message, Washington, December 3, 1901.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 117; Nat; Ed, XV, 101.

____________. The immediate and most pressing need, so far as legislation is concerned, is the enactment into law of some scheme to secure to the agents of the government such supervision and regulation of the rates charged by the railroads of the country engaged in interstate traffic as shall summarily and effectively prevent the imposition of unjust or unreasonable rates. It must include putting a complete stop to rebates in every shape and form.

This power to regulate rates, like all similar powers over the business world, should be exercised with moderation, caution, and self-restraint; but it should exist, so that it can be effectively exercised when the need arises. The first consideration to be kept in mind is that the power should be affirmative and should be given to some administrative body created by the Congress. If given to the present Interstate Commerce Commission, or to a reorganized Interstate Commerce Commission, such commission should be made unequivocally administrative. (Fifth Annual Message, Washington, December 5, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 321; Nat; Ed, XV, 275.

Railroad Rebates

Above all else, we must strive to keep the highways of commerce open to all on equal terms; and to do this it is necessary to put a complete stop to all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad is to blame makes no difference; the rebate must be stopped, the abuses of the private car and private terminal-track and side-track systems must be stopped. (Fourth Annual Message, Washington, December 6, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 262; Nat; Ed, XV, 225.

Railroad Wages

If the reduction in wages [by the Louisville and Nashville Railway] is due to natural causes, the loss of business being such that the burden should be, and is, equitably distributed between capitalist and wage-worker, the public should know it. If it is caused by legislation, the public, and Congress, should know it; and if it is caused by misconduct in the past financial or other operations of any railroad, then everybody should know it, especially if the excuse of unfriendly legislation is advanced as a method of covering up past business misconduct by the railroad managers, or as a justification for failure to treat fairly the wage-earning employees of the company. It is sincerely to be hoped, therefore, that any wage controversy that may arise between the railroads and their employees may find a peaceful solution through the methods of conciliation and arbitration already provided by Congress, which have proven so effective during the past year. To this end the Commission should Be in a position to have available for any Board of Conciliation or Arbitration relevant data pertaining to such carriers as may become involved in industrial disputes. Should conciliation fail to effect a settlement and arbitration be rejected, accurate information should be available in order to develop a properly formed public opinion. (To Interstate Commerce Commission, February 18, 1908.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 95; Bishop II, 81.

Railroads—Control of

It is because in my judgment, public ownership of railroads is highly undesirable and would probably in this country entail far-reaching disaster, that I wish to see such supervision and regulation of them in the interest of the public as will make it evident that there is no need for public ownership. The opponents of government regulation dwell upon the difficulties to be encountered and the intricate and involved nature of the problem. Their contention is true. It is a complicated and delicate problem, and all kinds of difficulties are sure to arise in connection with any plan of solution, while no plan will bring all the benefits hoped for by its more optimistic adherents. Moreover, under any healthy plan the benefits will develop gradually and not rapidly. Finally, we must clearly understand that the public servants who are to do this peculiarly responsible and delicate work must themselves be of the highest type both as regards integrity and efficiency. They must be well paid, for otherwise able men cannot in the long run be secured; and they must possess a lofty probity which will revolt as quickly at the thought of pandering to any gust of popular prejudice against rich men as at the thought of anything even remotely resembling subserviency to rich men. But while I fully admit the difficulties in the way, I do not for a moment admit that these difficulties warrant us in stopping in our effort to secure a wise and just system. They should have no other effect than to spur us on to the exercise of the resolution, the even- handed justice, and the fertility of resource, which we like to think of as typically American, and which will in the end achieve good results in this as in other fields of activity. The task is a great one and underlies the task of dealing with the whole industrial problem. But the fact that it is a great problem does not warrant us in shrinking from the attempt to solve it. (Fifth Annual Message, Washington, December 5, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 328-329; Nat; Ed, XV, 281-282.

____________. There can be no swerving from the course that has thus been marked out in the legislation actually enacted and in the messages in which I have asked for further legislation. We best serve the interests of the honest railway men when we announce that we will follow out precisely this course. It is the course of real, of ultimate conservatism. There will be no halt in the forward movement toward a full development of this policy; and those who wish us to take a step backward or to stand still, if their wishes were realized, would find that they had incited an outbreak of the very radicalism they fear. (At Indianapolis, May 30, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 70; Bishop II, 60.

____________. The present unsatisfactory condition in railroad affairs is due ninety-five per cent to the misconduct, the short-sightedness, and the folly of the railroad men themselves. Unquestionably there is loose demagogic attack upon them in some of the States, but not one particle of harm has come to them by Federal action; on the contrary, merely good. I wish very much that our laws could be strengthened, and I think that the worst thing that could be done for the railroads would be an announcement that for two or three years the Federal Government would keep its hands off of them. It would result in a tidal wave of violent State action against them throughout three-fourths of this country. I am astonished at the curious short-sightedness of the railroad people—a short-sightedness which, thanks to their own action, extends to would-be investors. Legislation such as I have proposed, or whatever legislation in the future I shall propose, will be in the interest of honest investors and to protect the public and the investors against dishonest action. (To Henry L. Higginson, February 11, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 45; Bishop II, 38.

____________. In some such body as the Interstate Commerce Commission there must be lodged in effective shape the power to see that every shipper who uses the railroads and every man who owns or manages a railroad shall on the one hand be given justice and on the other hand be required to do justice. Justice—so far as it is humanly possible to give and to get justice—is the foundation of our Government. (At Union League Club, Philadelphia, January 30, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 490; Bishop I, 427.

____________. The most vital need is in connection with the railroads. As to these, in my judgment there should now be either a national incorporation act or a law licensing railway companies to engage in interstate commerce upon certain conditions. The law should be so framed as to give to the Interstate Commerce Commission power to pass upon the future issue of securities, while ample means should be provided to enable the commission, whenever in its judgment it is necessary, to make a physical valuation of any railroad. As I stated in my message to the Congress a year ago, railroads should be given power to enter into agreements, subject to these agreements being made public in minute detail and to the consent of the Interstate Commerce Commission being first obtained. Until the National Government assumes proper control of interstate commerce, in the exercise of the authority it already possesses, it will be impossible either to give or to get from the railroads full justice. The railroads and all other great corporations will do well to recognize that this control must come; the only question is as to what governmental body can most wisely exercise it. The courts will determine the limits within which the Federal authority can exercise it, and there will still remain ample work within each State for the railway commission of that State. (Seventh Annual Message, Washington, December 3, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 487; Nat; Ed, XV, 415-416.

Railroads—Government Ownership of

The railroads have been making a most active campaign against my rate-making proposition. They think they have it beaten. Personally I do not believe they have, and I think they are very short-sighted not to understand that to beat it means to increase the danger of the movement for the government ownership of railroads. (To H. C. Lodge, May 24, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 492; Bishop I, 428.

____________. To exercise a constantly increasing and constantly more efficient supervision and control over the great common carriers of the country prevents all necessity for seriously considering such a project as the government ownership of railroads—a policy which would be evil in its results from every standpoint. . . . The government ought not to conduct the business of the country; but it ought to regulate it so that it shall be conducted in the interest of the public. (At Harrisburg, Pa., October 4, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 86-87; Nat; Ed, XVI, 73.

Railroads—Investigation of

It would in my judgment be most undesirable for the ultimate good of the railways to interfere in any way with a full and fair investigation. However, I am certain that we have got to make up our minds that the railroads must not in the future do things that cannot bear the light. If trouble comes from having the light turned on, remember it is not really due to the light but the misconduct which it exposed· I quite agree with you that there is danger in ill- directed agitation, and especially in agitation in the States; but the only way to meet it is by having the fullest and most thorough investigation by the national government, and in conferring upon the national government full power to act. The federal authorities, including the President, must state as clearly as possible that railroads which do well are to be encouraged and when they make a good showing it is to be emphasized; and that the people who invest will be given a chance of profit which alone will make them willing to invest, and which alone will make big men willing to undertake the job. (To Paul Morton, January 24, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 42; Bishop II, 36.

Railroads

See also Industrial Commission; Interstate Commerce.

Ranch Life

I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood, and the value of instant decision—in short, the virtues that ought to come from life in the open country. I enjoyed the life to the full. (1913·) Mem. Ed. XXII, 115; Nat; Ed, XX, 98.

____________. It is the life of men who live in the open, who tend their herds on horseback, who go armed and ready to guard their lives by their own prowess, whose wants are very simple, and who call no man master. Ranching is an occupation like those of vigorous, primitive pastoral peoples, having little in common with the humdrum, workaday business world of the nineteenth century; and the free ranchman in his manner of life shows more kinship to an Arab sheik than to a sleek city merchant or tradesman. (1888.) Mem. Ed. IV, 367; Nat; Ed, I, 274.

____________. Life on a cattle-ranch, on the great plains or among the foot-hills of the high mountains, has a peculiar attraction for those hardy, adventurous spirits who take most kindly to a vigorous out-of-door existence, and who are therefore most apt to care passionately for the chase of big game. The free ranchman lives in a wild, lonely country, and exactly as he breaks and tames his own horses and guards and tends his own branded herds, so he takes the keenest enjoyment in the chase, which is to him not merely the pleasantest of sports, but also a means of adding materially to his comforts, and often his only method of providing himself with fresh meat. (1893.) Mem. Ed. II, 19; Nat; Ed, II, 16-17.

____________. The charm of ranch life comes in its freedom and the vigorous open-air existence it forces a man to lead. Except when hunting in bad ground, the whole time away from the house is spent in the saddle, and there are so many ponies that a fresh one can always be had. (1885.) Mem. Ed. I, 15; Nat; Ed, I,13.

____________. No ranchmen have time to make such extended trips as are made by some devotees of sport who are so fortunate as to have no every-day work to which to attend. Still, ranch life undoubtedly offers more chances to a man to get sport than is now the case with any other occupation in America, and those who follow it are apt to be men of game spirit, fond of excitement and adventure, who perforce lead an open- air life, who must needs ride well, for they are often in the saddle from sunrise to sunset, and who naturally take kindly to that noblest of weapons, the rifle. With such men hunting is one of the chief of pleasures; and they follow it eagerly when their work will allow them. (1885.) Mem. Ed. I, 29; Nat; Ed, I, 24.

____________. It was still the Wild West in those days, the far West, the West of Owen Wister's stories and Frederic Remington's drawings, the West of the Indian and the buffalo-hunter, the soldier and the cow- puncher. That land of the West has gone now, "gone, gone with lost Atlantis," gone to the isle of ghosts and of strange dead memories. It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death. In that land we led a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burned our faces. There were monotonous days, as we guided the trail cattle or the beef herds, hour after hour, at the slowest of walks; and minutes or hours teeming with excitement as we stopped stampedes or swam the herds across rivers treacherous with quicksands or brimmed with running ice. We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 112; Nat; Ed, XX, 96.

____________. I never became a good roper, nor more than an average rider, according to ranch standards. Of course a man on a ranch has to ride a good many bad horses, and is bound to encounter a certain number of accidents, and of these I had my share, at one time cracking a rib, and on another occasion the point of my shoulder. . . . When I had the opportunity I broke my own horses, doing it gently and gradually and spending much time over it, and choosing the horses that seemed gentle to begin with. With these horses I never had any difficulty. But frequently there was neither time nor opportunity to handle our mounts so elaborately. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 127; Nat; Ed, XX, 109.

____________. There is so great a charm in absolute solitude, in the wild, lonely freedom of the great plains, that often I would make some excuse and go off entirely by myself. Such rides had a fascination of their own. Hour after hour the wiry pony shuffled onward across the sea of short, matted grass. On every side the plains stretched seemingly limitless. Sometimes there would be no object to break the horizon; sometimes across a score of miles there would loom through the clear air the fantastic outlines of a chain of buttes, rising grim and barren. Occasionally there might be a slightly marked watercourse, every drop of moisture long dried; and usually there would not be as much as the smallest sage-brush anywhere in sight. As the sun rose higher and higher the shadows of horse and rider shortened, and the beams were reflected from the short, bleached blades until in the hot air all the landscape afar off seemed to dance and waver. (1905.) Mem. Ed. III, 146; Nat; Ed, II, 515.

Ranch Life

See also Bad Lands; Chimney Butte Ranch; Elkhorn Ranch.

Ranching

A large number of young men from the cities and from the country districts of the East have recently taken to ranching. Many apparently think that this is a business needing no especial skill or training on the part of those who take it up. A greater mistake could not well be made. All over the plains there are now plenty of skilled cowhands— men who have been all their lives in the saddle, and who know every trait of the cattle they have to guard, and every phase of the wild life of the wilderness. An outsider, to compete with these men, must not only be naturally well fitted for the life, but he must also spend at least two years in downright hard drudgery learning the business. A great many young fellows—including, by-the-way, quite a fair proportion of clergymen's sons—have an idea that the life of a ranchman, from its very hardships and risks, must have a certain romantic attraction to it. So it has; but it is wonderful how the romance evaporates for many of these same young fellows after a couple of months spent in a muddy dug- out, with no amusements whatever, and on a steady diet of rancid bacon, sodden biscuits, and alkali water. Hardships are romantic enough in the abstract, but in the concrete cold, hunger, wet, dirt, and fatigue are not only annoying, but are also very prosaic. The risks, too, are by no means imaginary. The tyro will be far from enjoying the vicious, half-broken horses that will certainly fall to his lot; and he will find it no joke in the bitter winter weather to make his daily rounds over a country whose main features may be entirely changed by the snow, and where getting lost may mean death, while the long, dreary winter nights will as often as not be passed in shivering discomfort, and at the best will be unutterably monotonous. To sit in the saddle all day is not such hard work as to wield axe, spade, or hammer for the same length of time; but it is real work, nevertheless, and for the months during which the different round-ups take place it is always very severe, as well as being often both tame and irksome.

To be able to follow the business at all, the man must be made of fairly stern stuff. He must be stout and hardy; he must be quick to learn, and have a fair share of dogged resolution; and he must rapidly accustom himself to habits of complete self-reliance. Harper's Weekly, January 2, I886, p. 7.

Ranching

See also Cattle Industry.

Reactionaries

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead. (At New York City, February 12, 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 486; Nat; Ed, XVII, 360.

____________. A period of change is upon us. Our opponents, the men of reaction, ask us to stand still. But we could not stand still if we would; we must either go forward or go backward. Never was the need more imperative than now for men of vision who are also men of action. Disaster is ahead of us if we trust to the leadership of men whose souls are seared and whose eyes are blinded, men of cold heart and narrow mind, who believe we can find safety in dull timidity and dull inaction. The unrest cannot be quieted by ingenious trickery of those who profess to advance by merely marking time, or who seek to drown the cry for justice by loud and insincere clamor about issues that are false and issues that are dead. (At Chicago, June 17, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 314; Nat; Ed, XVII, 228.

____________. These real masters of the reactionary forces have a tremendous personal interest in perpetuating the right of the boss in politics with as its necessary accompaniment, the safeguarding of privilege and the enlarging of the sphere of special interest. They are the men who stand back of the ordinary political leaders who are against us. They are the men who directly or indirectly control the majority of the great daily newspapers that are against us. Behind them comes the host of honest citizens who because the channels of their information are choked misunderstand our position and believe that in opposing us they are opposing disturbers of the peace. In addition these are the men who now, as in every age—are intellectually and temperamentally incapable of consenting to progress and who worship at the shrine of the sanctity of property even though that property be illicitly acquired and used to the detriment of the community. All of these honest men are sedulously taught by the big sinister men above them that revolution impends if we strike at even the most obvious injustice. They are taught to believe that change means destruction. They are wrong. The men who temperately and with self- restraint but with unflinching resolution and efficiency strike at injustice, right grievous wrong, and drive intrenched privilege from its sanctuary, are the men who prevent revolutions. (At Chicago, June 17, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 306; Nat; Ed, XVII, 222. 

Reactionaries—Folly of

I have always maintained that our worst revolutionaries to-day are those reactionaries who do not see and will not admit that there is any need for change. Such men seem to believe that the four and a half million Progressive voters, who in 1912 registered their solemn protest against our social and industrial injustices, are "anarchists,'' who are not willing to let ill enough alone. If these reactionaries had lived at an earlier time in our history, they would have advocated sedition laws, opposed free speech and free assembly, and voted against free schools, free access by settlers to the public lands, mechanics' lien laws, the prohibition of truck stores and the abolition of imprisonment for debt; and they are the men who today oppose minimum-wage laws, insurance of workmen against the ills of industrial life, and the reform of our legislators and our courts, which can alone render such measures possible. Some of these reactionaries are not bad men, but merely short-sighted and belated. It is these reactionaries, however, who, by "standing pat" on industrial injustice, incite inevitably to industrial revolt, and it is only we who advocate political and industrial democracy who render possible the progress of our American industry on large constructive lines with a minimum of friction because with a maximum of justice. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 553-554; Nat; Ed, XX, 475-476.

____________. The reactionaries, the men whose only idea is to restore their power to the bourbons of wealth and politics, and obstinately to oppose all rational forward movements for the general betterment, would, if they had their way, bring to this country the ruin wrought by the régime of the Romanoffs in Russia. To withstand the sane movement for social and industrial justice is enormously to increase the likelihood that the movement will be turned into insane and sinister channels. And to oscillate between the sheer brutal greed of the haves and the sheer brutal greed of the have-nots means to plumb the depths of degradation. (1918.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 381; Nat; Ed, XIX, 345.

Reactionaries

See also Conservatives; Extremists; History; Order; Progressive Movement; Radicals; Reformers.

Reading

I as emphatically object to nothing but heavy reading as I do to nothing but light reading—all that is indispensable being that the heavy and the light reading alike shall be both interesting and wholesome. (Outlook, April 30, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 467; Nat; Ed, XII, 340.

____________. I find reading a great comfort. People often say to me that they do not see how I find time for it, to which I answer them (much more truthfully than they believe) that to me it is a dissipation, which I have sometimes to try to avoid, instead of an irksome duty. Of course I have been so busy for the last ten years, so absorbed in political work, that I have simply given up reading any book that I do not find interesting. But there are a great many books which ordinarily pass for "dry" which to me possess much interest—notably history and anthropology; and these give me ease and relaxation that I can get in no other way, not even on horseback! (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, May 28, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 166; Bishop II, 142.

____________. I find it a great comfort to like all kinds of books, and to be able to get half an hour or an hour’s complete rest and complete detachment from the fighting of the mordent, by plunging into the genius and misdeeds of Marlborough, or the wicked perversity of James II, or the brilliant battle for human freedom fought by Fox—or in short, anything that Macaulay wrote or that you have written, or any one of the novels of Scott and of some of the novels of Thackeray and Dickens; or to turn to Hawthorne or Poe; or to Longfellow, who I think has been underestimated of late years, by the way. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, January 22, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 184; Bishop II, 158.

____________. I have never followed any plan in reading which would apply to all persons under all circumstances; and indeed it seems to me that no plan can be laid down that will be generally applicable. If a man is not fond of books, to him reading of any kind will be drudgery. I most sincerely commiserate such a person, but I do not know how to help him. If a man or a woman is fond of books he or she will naturally seek the books that the mind and soul demand. Suggestions of a possibly helpful character can be made by outsiders, but only suggestions; and they will probably be helpful about in proportion to the outsider's knowledge of the mind and soul of the person to be helped. (1916.) Mem. Ed. IV, 187; Nat; Ed, III, 343.

Reading—Tastes in

A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular time. But there are tens of thousands of interesting books, and some of them are sealed to some men and some are sealed to others; and some stir the soul at some given point of a man's life and yet convey no message at other times. The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be. He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like. Yet at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all the indications of puffed-up vanity which consists in treating mere individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyncrasy as a matter of pride. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 379; Nat; Ed, XX, 325.

____________. The equation of personal taste is as powerful in reading as in eating; and within certain broad limits the matter is merely one of individual preference, having nothing to do with the quality either of the book or of the reader's mind. (1916.) Mem. Ed.·IV, 188; Nat; Ed, III, 344.

Reading

See also Books; Drama; Literature; Poetry.

Reason

Reason can deal effectively only with certain categories. True wisdom must necessarily refuse to allow reason to assume a sway outside of its limitations; and where experience plainly proves that the intellect has reasoned wrongly, then it is the part of wisdom to accept the teachings of experience, and bid reason be humble—just as under like conditions it would bid theology be humble. (Outlook, December 2, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 427; Nat; Ed, XII, 121.

Reason

See also Intelligence; Religion; Science.

Rebates

See Railroad Rates; Trusts.

Rebellion

See Revolution.

Recall

I believe the people should be provided with the means of recalling or unelecting important elective administrative officers, to be used only when there is a widespread and genuine public feeling for such a recall among the majority of the voters. I believe that there is scant necessity for using it in connection with short- term elective officers. Outlook, March 30, 1912, p. 721.

____________. As regards the recall, it is sometimes very useful, but it contains undoubted possibilities of mischief, and of course it is least necessary in the case of short-term elective officers. There is, however, unquestionably a very real argument to be made for it as regards officers elected or appointed for life. In the United States Government practically the only body to whom this applies is the judiciary. (Outlook, January 21, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 89; Nat; Ed, XVII, 56.

____________. As to the recall, I do not believe that there is any great necessity for it as regards short-term elective officers. On abstract grounds I was originally inclined to be hostile to it. I know of one case where it was actually used with mischievous results. On the other hand, in three cases in municipalities on the Pacific coast which have come to my knowledge it was used with excellent results. I believe it should be generally provided, but with such restrictions as will make it available only when there is a wide-spread and genuine public feeling among a majority of the voters. (Before Ohio Constitutional Convention, Columbus, February 21, 1912.) Mem. Ed, XIX, 182; Nat; Ed, XVII, 135.

____________. I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent public servants should be made easy and sure in whatever way experience shall show to be most expedient in any given class of cases. (At Osawatomie, Kan., August 31, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 28; Nat; Ed, XVII, 21.

____________. There is the recall of public officers— the principle that an officer chosen by the people who is unfaithful may be recalled by vote of the majority before he finishes his term. I will speak of the recall of judges in a moment—leave that aside—but as to the other officers, I have heard no argument advanced against the proposition, save that it will make the public officer timid and always currying favor with the mob. That argument means that you can fool all the people all the time, and is an avowal of disbelief in democracy. If it be true—and I believe it is not—it is less important than to stop those public officers from currying favor with the interests. Certain States may need the recall, others may not; where the term of elective office is short it may be quite needless; but there are occasions when it meets a real evil, and provides a needed check and balance against the special interests. (At Carnegie Hall, New York, March 20, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 202; Nat; Ed, XVII, 153.

Recall

See also Progressive Principles; Representative Government.

Recall of Judges

I believe that the evils which have led to the very widespread proposal to apply the recall to judges are very real. I see no reason why the people, if they are competent to elect judges, are not also competent to unelect them. I think the judiciary should be made clearly to understand that they represent justice for the whole people. . . . In addition, I would have the appointive judges removable; and, in feeling our way to the proper solution I would try having this done by a majority vote of the two houses of the Legislature. . . . But this is merely my preference. . . . My prime concern is with the end, not the means. I wish to see good judges put on the bench and bad ones taken off it. Any system which in its actual workings accomplishes these two ends is a good system. I do not wish to use the recall if it is possible to avoid doing so; but I would far rather have recourse to the recall than continue the present system which provides an impeachment remedy that in practice never works, and provides no efficient way whatever for overruling judicial misconstruction of the Constitution. Outlook, March 30, 1912, p. 721.

____________. The recall of judges [is] a measure which I do not wish to see adopted in any community unless it proves impossible in any other way to get the judges to do justice—and I will add that nothing will so tend to strengthen the movement for the recall as action like this of Messrs. Choate and Milburn, and their associates, in seeking to buttress special privilege in the courts and to make them the bulwark of injustice instead of justice. (At Philadelphia, April 10, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 261; Nat; Ed, XVII, 195.

____________. The Progressive party in its attitude both toward the recall of judges and toward the right of the people to insist that they and not the judges are to have the ultimate say-so in making their own constitution, takes precisely the attitude of Abraham Lincoln when he said that “the people are the masters of both Congresses and the courts, not to destroy the Constitution, but to overthrow those who would destroy the Constitution." A case like that in Idaho shows the need of the power of popular recall of the judiciary, a need which I believe could probably be best met by having the judges appointed or elected for life, but subject on petition to recall by popular vote every two years—which system in its essentials would be like that which has actually, although not nominally, obtained in Vermont, except that it would substitute popular vote for legislative action. This action would not, however, meet all the difficulties of the case. In this State, for instance, there have been many well-meaning judges who, in certain cases, usually affecting labor, have rendered decisions which were wholly improper, wholly reactionary, and fraught with the gravest injustice to those classes of the community standing most in need of justice. What is needed here is not the right to recall the judge, who in some one instance gives a mistaken and reactionary interpretation of the Constitution, but the right of the people themselves to express after due deliberation their definite judgment as to what the Constitution shall permit in the way of legislation for social and industrial justice. Always remember, friends, that I am not speaking of the judicial functions which can properly be called such. I am not speaking of the functions exercised by the judges in other great industrial countries such as France, Germany, or England. I am speaking of the purely political function exercised by the judge in our country, and only in our country, in annulling legislation. (At New York City, February 12, 1913.) Mem· Ed. XIX, 502-503, Nat; Ed, XVII. 373-374.

____________. The administration of justice should be humanized. We believe that by some means quick and available to the people the incompetent or unjust judge should be removed from office. Outlook, November 15, 1913, p. 595.

____________. The people, having framed the Constitution and the statutes . . . should choose the best judge that they can to carry out the provisions of the Constitution and the statutes; but if they decide that they want a Workmen’s Compensation Act, they ought to expect the judge to administer such an act, and not to determine whether a Workmen's Compensation Act is good for them or not. It is none of the judge's business to say whether the people ought to wish to have such an Act; it is the people's business and only theirs. . . . If the judges endeavor to assert their view as opposed to the people's view, the people ought in legal fashion to tell them they are mistaken, and, if the judges persist, remove them and get judges who will administer the law based upon the theory of government which the people in the exercise of their sober and deliberate judgment have decided to be good. Outlook, March 30, 1912, p. 721.

____________. If in any state the adoption of the recall was found to mean the subjection of the judge to the whim of the mob, then it would become the imperative duty of every good citizen, without regard to previous prejudices, to work for the alteration of the system. If, on the other hand, in any state the judiciary yields to improper influence on the part of special interests, or if the judges even, although honest men, show themselves so narrow-minded and so utterly out of sympathy with the industrial and social needs brought about by changed conditions that they seek to fetter the movement for progress and betterment, then the people are not to be excused if, in a servile spirit, they submit to such domination, and fail to take any measures necessary to secure their right to go forward along the path of economic and social justice and fair dealing. Outlook, June 24, 1911, p. 378.

Recall of Judicial Decisions

Now as to the name which has been given by me to the doctrine. It was given by me in a number of arguments in which I was trying to show that what was needed was not to recall judges who gave wrong constitutional decisions, but to recall the decisions. I have myself regretted the continuous use of the term, but it is difficult to get a short term to explain just what we want to do. (To George V. Crocker, November 19, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 409-410; Bishop II, 348.

____________. There is one kind of recall in which I very earnestly believe, and the immediate adoption of which I urge. There are sound reasons for being cautious about the recall of a good judge who has rendered an unwise and improper decision. Every public servant, no matter how valuable—and not omitting Washington or Lincoln or Marshall—at times makes mistakes. Therefore we should be cautious about recalling the judge, and we should be cautious about interfering in any way with the judge in decisions which he makes in the ordinary course as between individuals. But 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. We should hold the judiciary in all respect; but it is both absurd and degrading to make a fetich of a judge or of any one else. (Before Ohio Constitutional Convention, Columbus, February 21, 1912.) Mem Ed. XIX, 186; Nat; Ed, XVII, 138.

____________. My proposal is merely to secure to the people the right which the Supreme Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Holmes, in the Oklahoma Bank Cases, say they undoubtedly should possess. My proposal is that the people shall have the power to decide for themselves, in the last resort, what legislation is necessary in exercising the police powers, the general welfare powers, so as to give expression to the general morality, the general opinion, of the people. In England, Canada, and the other countries I have mentioned, no one dreams that the court has a right to express an opinion in such matters as against the will of the people shown by the action of the legislature. I do not propose to go as far as this. I do not propose to do in these matters what England, Canada, Australia, and France have always done, that is, make the legislature supreme over the courts in these cases. I merely propose to make legislature and court alike responsible to the sober and deliberate judgment of the people, who are masters of both legislature and courts. (At Philadelphia, April 10, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 260; Nat, Ed. XVII, 194.

____________. During the last forty years the beneficiaries of reaction have found in the courts their main allies; and this condition, so unfortunate for the courts, no less than for the people, has been due to our governmental failure to furnish methods by which an appeal can be taken directly to the people when, in any such case as the cases I have above enumerated, there is an issue between the court and the legislature. It is idle to profess devotion to our Progressive proposals for social and industrial betterment it at the same time there is opposition to the one additional proposal by which they can be made effective. It is useless to advocate the passing of laws for social justice if we permit these laws to be annulled with impunity by the courts, or by any one else, after they have been passed. (Century, October 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 553; Nat; Ed, XVII, 408.

____________. We propose that, in any specific case where the courts declare unconstitutional a given law in the interest of social justice, the people themselves shall have the power to decide whether, notwithstanding such decision, the law in question shall become part of the law of the land. . . . We do intend that in these matters of lawmaking and Constitution-making the people shall be made supreme over the courts, not merely nominally and theoretically, but practically and as a matter of actual fact. Our proposal is that the court shall continue to have the right to declare a given law of the legislature unconstitutional; but that in such case the people shall have the right, by expeditious process, after taking time for deliberation, but without any improper or excessive delay, to say whether the legislature or the court shall be held best to have interpreted their wishes. We do not wish to take away the power of the courts to pass on the constitutionality of a law. But where they thus declare a law unconstitutional, we wish to give the people who made the Constitution, whose fathers died for it, who now live under it, and to whom it belongs, the right to say whether or not the law shall stand. We wish to make the people the supreme arbiters between their servants the court and the legislature when the court sad the legislature differ as to the proper interpretation of the Constitution which the people made. We wish to give to the people the power finally to make their own Constitution, and to make it by declaring specifically what it is to be held to mean in any given case where the two servants of the people, the court and the legislature, disagree on some definite act in the interest of social and industrial justice. Outlook, November 15, 1913, pp. 595-596.

____________. So that no man may misunderstand me, let me recapitulate: 
(1) I am not proposing anything in connection with the Supreme Court of the United States, or with the Federal Constitution. 
(2) I am not proposing anything having any connection with ordinary suits, civil or criminal, as between individuals. 
(3) I am not speaking of the recall of judges. 
(4) I am proposing merely that in a certain class of cases involving police power, when a State court bats set aside as unconstitutional a law passed by the legislature for the general welfare, the question of the validity of the law —which should depend, as Justice Holmes so well phrases it, upon the prevailing morality or preponderant opinion—be submitted for final determination to a vote of the people, taken after due time for consideration.

And I contend that the people, in the nature of things, must be better judges of what is the preponderant opinion than the courts, and that the courts should not be allowed to reverse the political philosophy of the people. My point is well illustrated by a recent decision of the Supreme Court, holding that the court would not take jurisdiction of a case involving the constitutionality of the initiative and referendum laws of Oregon. The ground of the decision was that such a question was not judicial in its nature, but should be left for determination to the other co-ordinate departments of the government. Is it not equally plain that the question whether a given social policy is for the public good is not of a judicial nature, but should be settled by the legislature, or in the final instance by the people themselves? (At Carnegie Hall, New York, March 20, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 205; Nat; Ed, XVII, 156.

____________. What the Supreme Court of the nation decides to be law binds both the national and the State courts and all the people within the boundaries of the nation. But the decision of a State court on a constitutional question should be subject to revision by the people of the State.

Again and again in the past justice has been scandalously obstructed by State courts declaring State laws in conflict with the Federal Constitution, although the Supreme Court of the nation had never so decided or had even decided in a contrary sense.

When the supreme court of the State declares a given statute unconstitutional, because in conflict with the State or the National Constitution, its opinion should be subject to revision by the people themselves. Such an opinion ought always to be treated with great respect by the people, and unquestionably in the majority of cases would be accepted and followed by them. But actual experience has shown the vital need of the people reserving to themselves the right to pass upon such opinion. If any considerable number of the people feel that the decision is in defiance of justice, they should be given the right by petition to bring before the voters at some subsequent election, special or otherwise, as might be decided, and after the fullest opportunity for deliberation and debate, the question whether or not the judges' interpretation of the Constitution is to be sustained. If it is sustained, well and good. If not, then the popular verdict is to be accepted as final, the decision is to be treated as reversed, and the construction of the Constitution definitely decided—subject only to action by the Supreme Court of the United States. (Before Ohio Constitutional Convention, Columbus, February 21, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 187; Nat; Ed, XVII, 139.

____________. If in any State the courts, in addition to doing justice in the ordinary cases between man and man, have striven to help and not hamper the people in their efforts to secure social and industrial justice in a far broader sense for the people as a whole, then in that community there may be no need for change, as regards them. But where, in any community, as in my own State of New York, for instance, the highest court of the State, because of its adherence to outworn, to dead and gone, systems of philosophy, and its lack of understanding of and sympathy with the living, the vital needs of those in the community whose needs are greatest, becomes a bulwark of privilege and the most effective of all means for preventing the people from working in efficient fashion for true justice; then I hold that the people must themselves be given the power, after due deliberation and in constitutional fashion, to have their judgment made efficient and their interpretation of the Constitution made binding upon their servants, the judges, no less than upon their servants the legislators and executives. (At Louisville, Ky., April 3, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 243; Nat; Ed, XVII, 179.

____________. If in any case the legislature has passed a law under the police power for the purpose of promoting social and industrial justice and the courts declare it in conflict with the fundamental law of the State, the constitution as laid down by the people, then I propose that after due deliberation—for a period which could not be for less than two years after the passage of the original law—the people shall themselves have the right to declare whether or not the proposed law is to be treated as constitutional. (At Philadelphia, April 10, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 261; Nat; Ed, XVII, 195.

Recall of Judicial Decisions

See also Constitution; Courts; Judges; Judiciary; Law.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection. Our first duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so far as it can safely be done without injury to our home industries. Just how far this is must be determined according to the individual case, remembering always that every application of our tariff policy to meet our shifting national needs must be conditioned upon the cardinal fact that the duties must never be reduced below the point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad. . . . Subject to this proviso of the proper protection necessary to our industrial well-being at home, the principle of reciprocity must command our hearty support. The phenomenal growth of our export trade emphasizes the urgency of the need for wider markets and for a liberal policy in dealing with foreign nations. Whatever is merely petty and vexatious in the way of trade restrictions should be avoided. The customers to whom we dispose of our surplus products in the long run, directly or indirectly, purchase those surplus products by giving us something in return. Their ability to purchase our products should as far as possible be secured by so arranging our tariff as to enable us to take from them those products which we can use without harm to our own industries and labor, or the use of which will be of marked benefit to us. (First Annual Message, Washington, December 3, 1901.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 112-113; Nat; Ed, XV, 97-98.

____________. There can be no reciprocity unless there is a substantial tariff; free trade and reciprocity are not compatible. We are on record as favoring arrangements for reciprocal trade relations with other countries, these arrangements to be on an equitable basis of benefit to both the contracting parties. The Republican party stands pledged to every wise and consistent method of increasing the foreign commerce of the country. (Letter accepting Republican nomination for President, September 12, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 520; Nat; Ed, XVI, 390.

Reciprocity Treaties

It is greatly to be desired that such treaties may be adopted. They can be used to widen our markets and to give a greater field for the activities of our producers on the one hand, and on the other hand to secure in practical shape the lowering of duties when they are no longer needed for protection among our own people, or when the minimum of damage done may be disregarded for the sake of the maximum of good accomplished. (Second Annual Message, Washington, December 2, 1902.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 168-169; Nat; Ed, XV, 145.

Reciprocity

See also Tariff.

Reclamation

See Conservation; In-Land Waterways; Irrigation; Public Lands.

Reclamation Act

On June 17, 1902, the Reclamation Act was passed. It set aside the proceeds of the disposal of public lands for the purpose of reclaiming the waste areas of the arid West by irrigating lands otherwise worthless, and thus creating new homes upon the land. The money so appropriated was to be repaid to the government by the settlers, and to be used again as a revolving fund continuously available for the work.

The impatience of the Western people to see immediate results from the Reclamation Act was so great that red tape was disregarded, and the work was pushed forward at a rate previously unknown in government affairs. . . .

What the Reclamation Act has done for the country is by no means limited to its material accomplishment. This Act and the results flowing from it have helped powerfully to prove to the nation that it can handle its own resources and exercise direct and business-like control over them. The population which the Reclamation Act has brought into the arid West, while comparatively small when compared with that in the more closely inhabited East, has been a most effective contribution to the national life, for it has gone far to transform the social aspect of the West, making for the stability of the institutions upon which the welfare of the whole country rests: it has substituted actual home-makers, who have settled on the land with their families, for huge, migratory bands of sheep herded by the hired shepherds of absentee owners. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 450-452; Nat; Ed, XX, 387-389.

Reconstruction

The trouble I am having with the Southern question . . . emphasizes the infinite damage done in reconstruction days by the unregenerate arrogance and shortsightedness of the Southerners and the doctrinaire folly of radicals like Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens. (To James Ford Rhodes, November 29, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 403; Bishop I, 350.

Reconstruction

See also Civil War.

Red Cross

The Red Cross, and kindred organizations, have done admirable work for our soldiers during the summer just past. The Red Cross Society should be the right hand of the Medical Department of the army, in peace and war; for even the best medical department will always need volunteer aid in the case either of battles or of camp epidemics. In America the Red Cross should have a Federal organization, with, in every State, chapters which should be in close touch with the National Guard, attending the encampments and forming schools of instruction in military methods. (Annual Message as Governor, Albany, January 2, 1899.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 19; Nat; Ed, XV, 17.

Redwoods

See Trees.

Reed, Thomas B.

Speaker Reed has won his place in history as one of the great leaders of the great Republican party, as a man whose name is entitled to rank high among the first in her long roll-call of honor, as a man who has rendered a service to the nation which will be more and more appreciated as time goes on and its worth is fully understood, and as a man who has laid under a great debt all those all over the world who believe in responsible popular government. (Before Federal Club, New York City, March 6, 1891.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 198; Nat; Ed, XIV, 132-133.

____________. Speaker Reed rendered a great service to his party by his action as speaker of the Fifty-first Congress; and, by the fact of having rendered this service, placed himself at one leap among the foremost of the party leaders; but he rendered an even greater service to the American Republic. In order that a republic may exist there must be some form of representative government, and this representative government must include a legislature. If the practices to which Mr. Reed put a stop were allowed to become chronic, representative government would itself be an impossibility. Not for many years has there been a man in our public life to whom the American people owe as great a debt as they do to Speaker Thomas B. Reed. (Forum, December 1895.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 255; Nat. Ed XIV, 180.

Reed Rules

See Debate; Filibustering.

Referendum

As regards both [the initiative and the referendum], I think that the anticipations of their adherents and the fears of their opponents are equally exaggerated. The value of each depends mainly upon the way it is applied and upon the extent and complexity of the governmental unit to which it is applied. Every one is agreed that there must be a popular referendum on such a fundamental matter as a constitutional change, and in New York State we already have what is really a referendum on various other propositions by which the State or one of its local subdivisions passes upon the propriety of action which implies the spending of money, permission to establish a trolley-line system, or something of the kind. . . . I believe that it would be a good thing to have the principle of the initiative and the referendum applied in most of our States, always provided that it be so safeguarded as to prevent its being used either wantonly or in a spirit of levity. . . . On any bill important enough to arouse genuine public interest there should be power for the people to insist upon the bill being referred to popular vote, so that the constituents may authoritatively determine whether or not their representatives have misrepresented them. (Outlook, January 21, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 89-90; Nat. Ed XVII, 56-57.

____________. My proposal is for the exercise of the referendum by the people themselves in a certain class of decisions of constitutional questions in which the courts decide against the power of the people to do elementary justice. When men of trained intelligence call this “putting the axe to the tree of well-ordered freedom," it is quite impossible to reconcile their statements both with good faith and with even reasonably full knowledge of the facts. (At Philadelphia, April 10, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 258; Nat; Ed, XVII, 193.

____________. One of the prime reasons for the reckless legislation which we so often see in Congress and in State legislatures is the lack of responsibility of members, who believe they can safely pass any law demanded by a section of the people because the courts will declare it unconstitutional. Such a practice is destructive to self-respect in the legislator, it encourages ignorance and tyranny in the judge, and it is ruinous to the interests of the people. Our proposal is that when two of the agencies established by the Constitution for its own enforcement, the legislature and the courts, differ between themselves as to what the Constitution which created them, means, or what it is to be held to mean, then that the people themselves, the people who created the Constitution, who established, whom Abraham Lincoln said are masters of both court and legislature, shall step in and after due deliberation decide what the Constitution is or is not to permit. (At New York City, February 12, 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 505; Nat; Ed, XVII, 376.

____________. The referendum is certain to be of great use in a particular class of cases which very much puzzle the average legislator —where a minority of his constituents, but a large and influential minority, may demand something concerning which there is grave doubt whether the majority does or does not sympathize with the demand. In such a case the minority is active and determined; the majority can be roused only if the question is directly before it. In other words, the majority does not count it for righteousness in a representative if he refuses to yield to a minority; while a minority, on the other hand, will not tolerate adverse action. In such cases the temptation to the ordinary legislator is very great to yield to the demand of the minority, as he fears its concrete and interested wrath much more than the tepid disapproval of the majority. In all such questions the referendum would offer much the wisest and most efficient and satisfactory solution. (Outlook, January 21, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 94; Nat; Ed, XVII, 60.

Referendum

See also Initiative; Progressive Principles; Recall; Representative Government

Reform

All reforms of first-class importance must look toward raising both men and women to a higher level, alike as regards the things of the body and as regards the things of the soul. (Outlook, February 3, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 289; Nat; Ed, XVI, 219.

____________. The really valuable—the in-valuable— reform is that which in actual practice works; and therefore the credit due is overwhelmingly greater as regards the men and women actually engaged in doing the job, than as regards the other men and women who merely agitate the subject or write about it—and a single study of a reform which is being applied is worth any number of uplift books which are evolved from the reformer’s inner consciousness. Of course there must be agitation in order to get the reform started, and there must be some preliminary theoretical studies, and where the object is really worth while, the agitation sensible as well as zealous, and the studies capable of application, the early agitators and writers deserve well of the community, But under no circumstances do they deserve as well as do the men and women who in very fact make the machinery function to advantage, and who by constant test and trial and experiment eliminate faults and develop new and useful activities. (Metropolitan, May 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 99; Nat; Ed, XIX, 86.

____________. No man ever permanently helped a reform by lying on behalf of the reform. Tell the truth about it; and then you can expect to be believed when you tell further truths. (At Pacific Theological Seminary, Spring 1911.) Mem. Ed. XV, 588; Nat; Ed, XIII, 626.

____________. It is almost equally dangerous either to blink evils and refuse to acknowledge their existence, or to strike at them in a spirit of ignorant revenge, thereby doing far more harm than is remedied. The need can be met only by careful study of conditions, and by action which while taken boldly and without hesitation is neither heedless nor reckless.

It is well to remember on the one hand that the adoption of what is reasonable in the demands of reformers is the surest way to prevent the adoption of what is unreasonable; and on the other hand that many of the worst and most dangerous laws which have been put upon statute- books have been put there by zealous reformers with excellent intentions. (Annual Message as Governor, Albany, January 3, 1900.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 47-48; Nat. .Ed. XV, 41-42.

Reform—Nature of

As we strive for reform we find that it is not at all merely the case of a long up- hill pull. On the contrary, there is almost as much of breeching work as of collar work; to depend only on traces means that there will soon be a runaway and an upset. The men of wealth who to-day are trying to prevent the regulation and control of their business in the interest of the public by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth. (At Washington, April 14, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 580; Nat; Ed, XVI, 422.

Reform—Need of

Heaven knows I appreciate the need of disinterestedness, of public spirit, of all that we associate with the name of reform; and it is because I do appreciate the need that I hate to see men in New York who ought to be forces on the right side, not only decline to go with decent men who are striving practicably for decency, but by their course alienate shrewd and sensible men from all reform movements. (To James C. Carter, March 19, 1900.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 154; Bishop I, 133.

____________. At this moment we are passing through a period of great unrest—social, political, and industrial unrest. It is of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove to be not the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere dissatisfaction with the inevitable inequality of conditions, but the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure the betterment of the individual and the nation. So far as this movement of agitation throughout the country takes the form of a fierce discontent with evil, of a determination to punish the authors of evil, whether in industry or politics, the feeling is to be heartily welcomed as a sign of healthy life. . . . It is a prime necessity, that if the present unrest is to result in permanent good the emotion shall be translated into action, and that the action shall be marked by honesty, sanity, and self-restraint. There is mighty little good in a mere spasm of reform. The reform that counts is that which comes through steady, continuous growth; violent emotionalism leads to exhaustion. (At Washington, April 14, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 576-577; Nat; Ed, XVI, 420-421.

Reform—Opponents of

The wild preachers of unrest and discontent, the wild agitators against the entire existing order, the men who act crookedly, whether because of sinister design or from mere puzzle- headed-ness, the men who preach destruction without proposing any substitute for what they intend to destroy, or who propose a substitute which would be far worse than the existing evils—all these men are the most dangerous opponents of real reform. If they get their way they will lead the people into a deeper pit than any into which they could fall under the present system. If they fail to get their way they will still do incalculable harm by provoking the kind of reaction which, in its revolt against the senseless evil of their teaching, would enthrone more securely than ever the very evils which their misguided followers believe they are attacking. (At Washington, April 14, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 580; Nat; Ed, XVI, 423.

Reform and Revolution

[Men often] forget that constructive change offers the best method of avoiding destructive change; that reform is the antidote to revolution; and that social reform is not the precursor but the preventive of Socialism. (At Cairo, Ill., October 3, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 19; Nat; Ed, XVI, 17.

____________. Distrust of radical innovation and preference for reform to revolution . . . gives to the English race its greatest strength. This last attitude, the dislike of revolution, [is] entirely wholesome and praiseworthy. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 301; Nat; Ed, X, 199.

Reform In Politics

There are not a few reforms so important that it would be hard to speak of any as pre-eminently necessary; but at least it can be said that there is greater room for reform in our political life than almost anywhere else. There are shortcomings enough and to spare on all sides; but compared to the proper standard we fall farther below in politics than in almost any other branch of our life or labor. Moreover, political life is something in which every man, indeed every woman, should take an active and intelligent interest. There is no other reform for which the entire population should work, or indeed could work; but every man, worth being an American citizen at all, is bound, if he does his duty, to try to do his part in politics. (Outlook, December 21, 1895.) Mem. Ed. XV, 143; Nat; Ed, XIII, 299.

Reform Movements

Every leader of a great reform has to contend, on the one hand, with the open, avowed enemies of the reform, and, on the other hand, with its extreme advocates, who wish the impossible, and who join hands with their extreme opponents to defeat the rational friends of the reform. (Churchman, March 17, 1900.) Mem. Ed. XV, 394-395; Nat; Ed, XIII, 392.

____________. Every democratic movement or movement for social or industrial reform, must have its leaders and its martyrs, and unfortunately every such movement also develops a few fools and a few knaves, who give an alloy of base metal to the pure gold of the leadership and the martyrdom. (Outlook, January 10, 1914.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 180; Nat; Ed, XII, 209.

Reform

See also Boss; Economic Reform ; Election Reform; Hypocrisy; Lunatic Fringe; Machine; Muck-Raking; Politics; Progressive Movement.

Reformers

Reformers . . . [lose] sight of the fact that a reform must be practicable in order to make it of value. . . .

It is just as necessary for the practical man to remember that his practical qualities are useless, or worse than useless, unless he joins with them that spirit of striving after better things which marks the reformer, as it is for this same reformer to remember that he cannot give effective expression to his desire for a higher life save by following rigidly practical ways. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 427; Nat; Ed, X, 307.

____________. The attitude of deifying mere efficiency, mere success, without regard to the moral qualities lying behind it, and the attitude of disregarding efficiency, disregarding practical results, are the Scylla and Charybdis between which every earnest reformer, every politician who desires to make the name of his profession a term of honor instead of shame, must steer. He must avoid both under penalty of wreckage, and it avails him nothing to have avoided one, if he founders on the other. People are apt to speak as if in political life, public life, it ought to be a mere case of striving upward—striving toward a high peak. The simile is inexact. Every man who is striving to do good public work is travelling along a ridge crest, with the gulf of failure on each side—the gulf of inefficiency on the one side, the gulf of unrighteousness on the other. All kinds of forces are continually playing on him, to shove him first into one gulf and then into the other; and even a wise and good man, unless he braces himself with uncommon firmness and foresight, as he is pushed this way and that, will find that his course becomes a pronounced zigzag instead of a straight line; and if it becomes too pronounced he is lost, no matter to which side the zigzag may take him. Nor is he lost only as regards his own career. What is far more serious, his power of doing useful service to the public is at an end. He may still, if a mere politician, have political place, or, if a make-believe reformer, retain that notoriety upon which his vanity feeds. But, in either case, his usefulness to the community has ceased. (Century, June 1900.) Mem. Ed. XV, 380-381; Nat; Ed, XIII, 343-344.

____________. There are certain qualities the reformer must have if he is to be a real reformer and not merely a faddist; for of course every reformer is in continual danger of slipping into the mass of well-meaning people who in their advocacy of the impracticable do more harm than good. He must possess high courage, disinterested desire to do good, and sane, wholesome common sense. These qualities he must have, and it is furthermore much to his benefit if he also possesses a sound sense of humor. (McClure's, March 1901.) Mem. Ed. XV, 210; Nat; Ed, XIII, 271.

____________. More and more I have grown to have a horror of the reformer who is half charlatan and half fanatic, and ruins his own cause by overstatement. (To Wister, July 20, 1901.) Owen Wister, Roosevelt, The Story of a Friendship. (Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1930), p. 83.

____________. The true reformer must ever work in the spirit, and with the purpose, of that greatest of all democratic reformers, Abraham Lincoln. Therefore he must make up his mind that like Abraham Lincoln he will be assailed on the one side by the reactionary, and on the other by that type of bubble reformer who is only anxious to go to extremes, and who always gets angry when he is asked what practical results he can show. . . . Reformers, if they are to do well, must look both backward and forward; must be bold and yet must exercise prudence and caution in all they do. They must never fear to advance, before they make the effort. They must carefully plan how and what they are to construct before they tear down what exists. Introduction to The Wisconsin Idea by Charles McCarthy. (Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1912), p. ix.

Reformers—Advice to

An ardent young reformer is very apt to try to begin by reforming too much. He needs always to keep in mind that he has got to serve as a sergeant before he assumes the duties of commander-in-chief. It is right for him from the beginning to take a great interest in national, State, and municipal affairs, and to try to make himself felt in them if the occasion arises; but the best work must be done by the citizen working in his own ward or district. Let him associate himself with the men who think as he does, and who, like him, are sincerely devoted to the public good. Then let them try to make themselves felt in the choice of alderman, of councilman, of assemblyman. The politicians will be prompt to recognize (their power, and the people will recognize) it too, after a while. Let them organize and work, undaunted by any temporary defeat. If they fail at first, and if they fail again, let them merely make up their minds to redouble their efforts, and perhaps alter their methods; but let them keep on working. (Forum, July 1894.) Mem. Ed. XV, 47; Nat; Ed, XIII, 33.

____________. One seemingly very necessary caution to utter is, that a man who goes into politics should not expect to reform everything right off, with a jump. I know many excellent young men who, when awakened to the fact that they have neglected their political duties, feel an immediate impulse to form themselves into an organization which shall forthwith purify politics everywhere, national, State, and city alike; and I know of a man who having gone round once to a primary, and having, of course, been unable to accomplish anything in a place where he knew no one and could not combine with any one, returned saying it was quite useless for a good citizen to try to accomplish anything in such a manner. (Before the Liberal Club, Buffalo, N. Y., January 26, 1893.) Mem. Ed. XV, 68; Nat; Ed, XIII, 285.

Reformers — Shortcomings of

Very early I learned through my reading of history, and I found through my association with reformers, that one of the prime difficulties was to get the man who wished reform within a nation also to pay heed to the needs of the nation from the international standpoint. Every little city or republic of antiquity was continually torn between factions which wished to do justice at home but were weak abroad, and other factions which secured justice abroad by the loss of personal liberty at home. So here at home I too often found that men who were ardent for social and industrial reform would be ignorant of the needs of this nation as a nation, would be ignorant of what the navy meant to the nation, of what it meant to the nation to have and to fortify and protect the Panama Canal, of what it meant to the nation to get from the other nations of mankind the respect which comes only to the just, and which is denied to the weaker nation far more quickly than it is denied to the stronger. (Outlook, October 12, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 438; Nat; Ed, XVII, 318.

____________. Reformers [often] . . . lack sanity, and it is very difficult to do decent reform work, or any other kind of work, if for sanity we substitute a condition of mere morbid hysteria. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, September 12, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 482; Bishop I, 419.

Reformers and Reactionaries

It is always a difficult thing to state a position which has two sides with such clearness as to bring it home to the hearers. In the world of politics it is easy to appeal to the unreasoning reactionary, and no less easy to appeal to the unreasoning advocate of change, but difficult to get the people to show for the cause of sanity and progress combined the zeal so easily aroused against sanity by one set of extremists and against progress by another set of extremists. Outlook, December 2, 1911, p. 823.

____________. I am always having to fight the silly reactionaries and the inert, fatuous creatures who will not think seriously; and on the other hand to try to exercise some control over the lunatic fringe among the reformers. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, March 19, 1913.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 207; Bishop II, 177.

Reformers In Progressive Party

There is just one element of relief to me in the smash that came to the Progressive party. We did not have many practical men with us. Under such circumstances the reformers tended to go into sheer lunacy. I now can preach the doctrines of labor and capital just as I did when I was President, without being hampered by the well-meant extravagances of so many among my Progressive friends. (To Kermit Roosevelt, January 27, 1915.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 421; Bishop II, 358.

Reformers

See also Beveridge, Albert J.; Conservatives; History; Independent; Lafollette, Robert M.; Machine; Muck-Rakers; Mugwumps; Radicals; Reactionaries; Rus, Jacob A.

Refugees

See Belgian Refugees.

Relief

See Philanthropy.

Religion

No democracy can afford to overlook the vital importance of the ethical and spiritual, the truly religious, element in life; and in practice the average good man grows clearly to understand this, and to express the need in concrete form by saying that no community can make much headway if it does not contain both a church and a school. (1914.) Mem. Ed. VI, 56; Nat; Ed, V, 48.

____________. The religious man who is most useful is not he whose sole care is to save his own soul, but the man whose religion bids him strive to advance decency and clean living and to make the world a better place for his fellows to live in. (At the Harvard Union, Cambridge, February 23, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XV, 490; Nat; Ed, XIII, 565.

____________. I wonder if you recall one verse of Micah that I am very fond of—'to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God'—that to me is the essence of religion. To be just with all men, to be merciful to those to whom mercy should be shown, to realize that there are some things that must always remain a mystery to us, and when the time comes for us to enter the great blackness, to go smiling and unafraid.

That is my religion, my faith. To me it sums up all religion, it is all the creed I need. It seems simple and easy, but there is more in that verse than in the involved rituals and confessions of faith of many creeds we know.

To love justice, to be merciful, to appreciate that the great mysteries shall not be known to us, and so living, face the beyond confident and without fear—that is life. 
That's too simple a creed for many of us, though. Perhaps it is as well and that through more involved paths and mazes of theology the majority should seek the same result. (Summer or fall 1916; reported by Leary.) Talks with T. R. From the diaries of John J. Leary, Jr. (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1920), pp. 65-66.

Religion and Morality

While there is in modern times a decrease in emotional religion, there is an immense increase in practical morality. (Forum, January 1897.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 149; Nat; Ed, XIII, 259.

____________. In this country we are long past the stage of regarding it as any part of the state's duty to enforce a particular religious dogma; and more and more the professors of the different creeds themselves are beginning tacitly to acknowledge that the prime worth of a creed is to be gauged by the standard of conduct it exacts among its followers toward their fellows.

The creed which each man in his heart believes to be essential to his own salvation is for him alone to determine; but we have a right to pass judgment upon his actions toward those about him. (Century, October 1900.) Mem. Ed. XV, 421; Nat; Ed, XIII, 369.

____________. There is one test which we have a right to apply to the professors of all creeds—the test of conduct. More and more, people who possess either religious belief or aspiration after religious belief are growing to demand conduct as the ultimate test of the worth of the belief. (At Pacific Theological Seminary, Spring 1911.) Mem. Ed. XV, 613; Nat; Ed, XIII, 648.

Religion

See also Bible Study; Christianity; Fervor; Materialism; Morality; Reason; Science; Spiritual Growth.

Religious Discrimination

The one thing upon which we must insist is ruling out questions of creed in our politics so long as the men for whom we vote are honest and in good faith Americans. (Before Liberal Club of Buffalo, N. Y., September 10, 1895.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 284; Nat; Ed, XIV, 203.

____________. We maintain that it is an outrage, in voting for a man for any position, whether State or national, to take into account his religious faith, provided only he is a good American. When a secret society does what in some places the American Protective Association seems to have done, and tries to proscribe Catholics both politically and socially, the members of such society show that they themselves are as utterly un-American, as alien to our school of political thought, as the worst immigrants who land on our shores. Their conduct is equally base and contemptible. (Forum, April 1894.) Mem. Ed. XV, 25; Nat; Ed, XIII, 21-22.

____________. The surest way in which you can make a movement to better our politics fail is to have that movement troubled with proscription for religious reasons. The two evils, I am almost inclined to say the two worst evils, of which I know in municipal politics, and in some other politics as well, are, on the one hand, to discriminate against a faithful and efficient public servant because of his creed, and on the other, to pardon and support an unfaithful and inefficient public servant because of his creed.·(Before Liberal Club of Buffalo, N. Y., September 10, 1895.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 271; Nat; Ed, XIV, 192.

____________. If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom and for the right of every man to worship his Creator as his conscience dictates. It is an emphatic negation of this right to cross-examine a man on his religious views before being willing to support him for office. Is he a good man, and is he fit for the office? These are the only questions which there is a right to ask. . . . In my own Cabinet there are at present Catholic, Protestant and Jew—the Protestants being of various denominations. I am incapable of discriminating between them, or of judging any one of them save as to the way in which he performs his public duty. The rule of conduct applicable to Catholic, Protestant and Jew as regards lesser offices is just as applicable as regards the Presidency. (Letter of October 16, 1908.) Lodge Letters II, 325.

____________. The demand for a statement of a candidate's religious belief can have no meaning except that there may be discrimination for or against him because of that belief. Discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. The inevitable result of entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization. To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great office for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker. (To J. C. Martin, November 6, 1908.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 53-54; Nat; Ed, XVI, 46.

Religious Discrimination

See also Anti - Semitism; Jews; Know - Nothing Movement.

Religious Freedom

We must all strive to keep as our most precious heritage the liberty each to worship his God as to him seems best, and, as part of this liberty, freely either to exercise it or to surrender it, in a greater or less degree, each according to his own beliefs and convictions, without infringing on the beliefs and convictions of others. (Outlook, December 2, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 437; Nat; Ed, XII, 129.

____________. There must be absolute religious liberty, for tyranny and intolerance are as abhorrent in matters intellectual and spiritual as in matters political and material; and more and more we must all realize that conduct is of infinitely greater importance than dogma. (1914.) Mem. Ed. VI, 56; Nat; Ed, V, 48.

____________. There are in our own country individuals who sincerely believe that the Masons, or the Knights of Columbus, or the members of the Junior Order of American Mechanics, or the Catholic Church, or the Methodist Church or the Ethical Culture Society, represent what is all wrong. There are sincere men in the United States who by argument desire to convince their fellows belonging to any one of the bodies above mentioned (and to any one of many others) that they are mistaken, either when they go to church or when they do not go to church, when they "preach sermons of a fanatical type" or inveigh against "sermons of a fanatical type," when they put money in the plate to help support a church or when they refuse to support a church, when they join secret societies or sit on the mourners' bench or practise confession.·According to our ideas, all men have an absolute right to favor or oppose any of these practices. But, according to our ideas, no men have any right to endeavor to make the government either favor or oppose them. According to our ideas, we should emphatically disapprove of any action in any Spanish-American country which is designed to oppress either Catholics or Protestants, either Masons or anti-Masons, either Liberals or clericals, or to interfere with religious liberty, whether by intolerance exercised for or against any religious creed, or by people who do or do not believe in any religious creed. (New York Times, December 6, 1914.) Mem. Ed. XX, 402; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 344-345.

____________. One of the most important things to secure for [each man] . . . is the right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes.·This applies to Jew and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to the man who would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed against certain men because of their religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accomplished anything but harm. This was true in the days of the "Know-Nothing" and Native-American parties in the middle of the last century; and it is just as true today. Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. (Before Knights of Columbus, New York City, October 12, 1915.) Mem. Ed. XX, 453; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 389.

Religious Organizations

See Church; Episcopal Church; Jews; Lutheran Church; Methodist Church; Mormons; Sunday School.

Religious Teachers

The religious teachers of the community stand most honorably high. It is probable that no other class of our citizens do anything like the amount of disinterested labor for their fellow- men. To those who are associated with them at close quarters this statement will seem so obviously a truism as to rank among the platitudes. But there is a far from inconsiderable body of public opinion which, to judge by the speeches, writings, and jests in which it delights, has no conception of this state of things. If such people would but take the trouble to follow out the actual life of a hard-worked clergyman or priest, I think they would become a little ashamed of the tone of flippancy they are so prone to adopt when speaking about them. (Century, October 1900.) Mem. Ed. XV, 421; Nat; Ed, XIII, 369.

____________. That man is unfortunate who has not owed much, in teaching and in companionship, to hard- working priest or hard-working parson. In my own experience I recall priest after priest whose disinterested parish work has represented one continuous battle for civilization and humanity. . . . Surely the average man ought to sympathize with such work and help such workers; and he cannot do this if his attitude is merely that of an unsympathetic outsider. (1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 135-136; Nat; Ed, XIX, 135.

Religious Teachers

See also Jesuits; Missionaries; Pioneer Preachers.

Religious Tests

The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution. (Before Knights of Columbus, New York City, October 12, 1915.) Mem. Ed. XX, 454; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 389.

Religious Toleration

Even yet there are advocates of religious intolerance, but they are mostly of the academic kind, and there is no chance for any political party of the least importance to try to put their doctrines into effect. More and more, at least here in the United States, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles, are learning the grandest of all lessons—that they can best serve their God by serving their fellow men, and best serve their fellow men, not by wrangling among themselves, but by a generous rivalry in working for righteousness and against evil. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 322; Nat; Ed, X, 217.

____________. The more an American sees of other countries the more profound must be his feelings of gratitude that in his own land there is not merely complete toleration but the heartiest good-will and sympathy between sincere and honest men of different faith—goodwill and sympathy so complete that in the inevitable daily relations of our American life Catholics and Protestants meet together and work together without the thought of difference of creed being even present in their minds. This is a condition so vital to our National well-being that nothing should be permitted to jeopard it. (To Lyman Abbott, April 3, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 233; Bishop II, 199.

____________. An American Catholic and an American Protestant of to-day, whatever the difference between their theologies, yet in their ways of looking at real life, at its relation to religions, and the relations of religion and the state, are infinitely more akin to one another than either is to the men of his religious faith who lived three centuries ago. We now admit, as a matter of course, that any man may, in religious matters, profess to be guided by authority or by reason, as suits him best; but that he must not interfere with similar freedom of belief in others; and that all men, whatever their religious beliefs, have exactly the same political rights and are to be held to the same responsibility for the way they exercise these rights. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 294; Nat; Ed, X, 193.

____________. When faith is very strong and belief very sincere, men must possess great wisdom, broad charity, and the ability to learn by experience, or else they will certainly try to make others live up to their own standards. This would be bad enough, even were the standards absolutely right; and it is necessarily worse in practice than in theory, inasmuch as mixed with the right there is invariably an element of what is wrong or foolish. The extreme exponents and apologists of any fervent creed can always justify themselves, in the realm of pure logic, for insisting that all the world shall be made to accept and act up to their standards, and that they must necessarily strive to bring this about, if they really believe what they profess to believe. Of course, in practice, the answer is that there are hundreds of different creeds, or shades of creeds, all of which are believed in with equal devoutness by their followers, and therefore in a workaday government it is necessary to insist that none shall interfere with any other. Where people are as far advanced in practical good sense and in true religious toleration as in the United States to- day, the great majority of each creed gradually grows to accept this position as axiomatic, and the smaller minority is kept in check without effort both by law and by public opinion. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 445; Nat; Ed, X, 323.

Religious Toleration

See also Tolerance.

Remington, Frederic

I regard Frederic Remington as one of the Americans who has done real work for this country, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude. He has been granted the very unusual gift of excelling in two entirely distinct types of artistic work; for his bronzes are as noteworthy as his pictures. He is, of course, one of the most typical American artists we have ever had, and he has portrayed a most characteristic and yet vanishing type of American life. The soldier, the cowboy and rancher, the Indian, the horses and the cattle of the plains, will live in his pictures and bronzes, I verily believe, for all time. Nor must we forget the excellent literary work he has done in such pieces as "Masi's Crooked Trail, with its peculiar insight into the character of the wildest Indians.
It is no small thing for the nation that such an artist and man of letters should arise to make permanent record of certain of the most interesting features of our national life. (To Arthur W. Little, July 17, 1907.) Pearson's Magazine, October 1907, pp. 392-393.

Reno, Nev

See Divorce.

Renunciation

See Election of 1908.

Representative Government

We rule ourselves, and we choose our representatives, not to rule us, but to manage the public business for us along the lines we have laid down and approved. (At St. Louis, Mo., March 28, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 238; Nat; Ed, XVII, 175.

____________. Unquestionably an ideal representative body is the best imaginable legislative body. Such a body, if composed of men of unusual courage, intelligence, sympathy, and high-mindedness, anxious to represent the people, and at the same time conscientious in their determination to do nothing that is wrong, would so act that there would never come the slightest demand for any change in the methods of enacting laws. Unfortunately, however, in actual practice, too many of our legislative bodies have not really been representative; and not a few of the ablest and most prominent men in public life have prided themselves on their ability to use parliamentary forms to defeat measures for which there was a great popular demand. Special interests which would be powerless in a general election may be all-powerful in a legislature if they enlist the services of a few skilful tacticians; and the result is the
same whether these tacticians are unscrupulous and are hired by the special interests, or whether they are sincere men who honestly believe that the people desire what is wrong and should not be allowed to have it. (Outlook, January 21, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 92; Nat; Ed, XVII, 58.

____________. We are a representative government— executives, legislators, judges; all public servants are representatives of the people. We are bound to represent the will of the people, but we are bound still more to obey our own consciences; and if ever there is any gust of popular feeling that demands what is wrong, what is unrighteous, then the true servant of the people, the man who truly serves the interest of the people, is that man who disregards the wish of the people to do evil. Let the representative represent the people so long as he conscientiously can; when he can no longer do so, let him do what his conscience dictates, and cheerfully accept the penalty of retirement to private life. (At Nashville, Tenn., October 22, 1907.) Presidential Addresses and State Papers VI, 1467.

Representative Government — Improvement of

Beyond question the historian who in the future shall write a history of representative government through a legislative assembly will have to credit Speaker Reed and the Republican majority of the Fifty-first Congress with having achieved one of the greatest victories for the cause which has ever been achieved, which, moreover, was achieved at precisely the right time. (Before Federal Club, New York, March 6, 1891.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 193; Nat; Ed, XIV, 128.

____________. I do not mean that we shall abandon representative government; on the contrary, I mean that we shall devise methods by which our government shall become really representative. To use such measures as the initiative, referendum, and recall indiscriminately and promiscuously on all kinds of occasions would undoubtedly cause disaster; but events have shown that at present our institutions are not representative—at any rate in many States, and sometimes in the nation—and that we cannot wisely afford to let this condition of things remain longer uncorrected. We have permitted the growing up of a breed of politicians who, sometimes for improper political purposes, sometimes as a means of serving the great special interests of privilege which stand behind them, twist so-called representative institutions into a means of thwarting instead of expressing the deliberate and well-thought- out judgment of the people as a whole. This cannot be permitted. (Before Progressive National Convention, Chicago, August 6, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 364; Nat; Ed, XVII, 259.

Representative Government

See also Democracy; Government; Initiative; Legislature; Popular Rule; Recall; Referendum; Self-Government.

Representatives — Character of

Each community has the kind of politicians that it deserves. Each community is represented with absolute fidelity by the men whom it chooses to have in public life. Those men represent its virtue or they represent its vice, or, what is more common, they represent its gross and culpable indifference; and gross and culpable indifference may, on some occasions, be worse than any wickedness. (Before Independent Club, Buffalo, N. Y., May 15, 1899.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 489; Nat; Ed, XIV, 328.

Representatives—Duty of

A public man is bound to represent his constituents, but he is no less bound to cease to represent them when, on a great moral question of right or wrong, he feels that they are taking the wrong side. Let him go out of politics rather than stay in at the cost of doing what his own conscience forbids him to do; and, while upholding that principle in theory, do not forget to uphold it in practice. (Before Independent Club, Buffalo, N. Y., May 15, 1899.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 486; Nat; Ed, XIV, 325.

____________. It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is, not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country. (At State Fair, Syracuse, N. Y., September 7, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 58; Nat; Ed, XVI, 50.

____________. Normally a representative should represent his constituents. If on any point of real importance he finds that he concientiously differs with them, he must, as a matter of course, follow his conscience, and may not only perform his highest duty, but also render the highest possible service to his constituents themselves. But in such case he should not try to achieve his purpose by tricking his constituents or by adroitly seeking at the same time to thwart their wishes in secret and yet apparently to act so as to retain their good-will. He should never put holding his office above keeping straight with his conscience, and if the measure as to which he differs with his constituents is of sufficient importance, he should be prepared to go out of office rather than surrender on a matter of vital principle. Normally, however, he must remember that the very meaning of the word representative is that the constituents shall be represented. It is his duty to try to lead them to accept his views, and it is their duty to give him as large a latitude as possible in matters of conscience, realizing that the more conscientious the representative is the better he will in general represent them; but if a real and vital split on a matter of principle occurs, as in the case of a man who believes in the gold standard but finds that his constituents believe in free silver, the representative's duty is neither to abandon his own belief nor to try to beat his constituents by a trick, but to fight fairly for his convictions and cheerfully accept defeat if he cannot convert his constituents. (Outlook, January 21, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 93; Nat. Ed, XVII, 59.

Representatives — The People and Their

We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary. The direct primary is a step in this direction, if it is associated with a corrupt-practices act effective to prevent the advantage of the man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more honest competitor. (At Osawatomie, Kan., August 31, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 28; Nat; Ed, XVII, 20.

____________. We choose our representatives for two purposes. In the first place, we choose them with the desire that, as experts, they shall study certain matters with which we, the people as a whole, cannot be intimately acquainted, and that as regards these matters they shall formulate a policy for our betterment. Even as regards such a policy, and the actions taken thereunder, we ourselves should have the right ultimately to vote our disapproval of it, if we feel such disapproval. But, in the next place, our representatives are chosen to carry out certain policies as to which we have definitely made up our minds, and here we expect them to represent us by doing what we have decided ought to be done. All I desire to do by securing more direct control of the Governmental agents and agencies of the people is to give the people the chance to make their representatives really represent them whenever the government becomes misrepresentative in- stead of representative. (Before Progressive National Convention, Chicago, August 6, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 364-365, Nat; Ed, XVII, 260.

Republican Government

Under no form of government is it so necessary thus to combine efficiency and morality, high principle and rough common sense, justice and the sturdiest physical and moral courage, as in a republic. It is absolutely impossible for a republic long to endure if it becomes either corrupt or towardly; if its public men, no less than its private men, lose the indispensable virtue of honesty, if its leaders of thought become visionary doctrinaires, or if it shows a lack of courage in dealing with the many grave problems which it must surely face, both at home and abroad, as it strives to work out the destiny meet for a mighty nation. (Inaugural Address as Governor, Albany, January 2, 1899.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 4; Nat; Ed, XV. 4.

____________. We do not intend that this Republic shall ever fail as those republics of olden times failed, in which there finally came to be a government by classes, which resulted either in the poor plundering the rich or in the rich exploiting and in one form or another enslaving the poor; for either event means the destruction of free institutions and of individual liberty. (At Union League Club, Philadelphia, January 30, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 491; Bishop I, 427.

Republican Government

See also Democracy.

Republican Leaders

The trouble, as it looks to me, is that much of what has been called leadership in the Republican Party consists of leadership which has no following. Now I may be utterly mistaken, and I write with a full knowledge that I may thus be mistaken, but my impression is that even as strong and able a man as Aldrich, a man whom I have been obliged to oppose on many fundamental points, but whose good qualities I cordially recognize, has no real following whatever among the people at large, not even in his own state. Cannon has had a much greater personal following, but he also excites even more hostility. The trouble is that the Cannon. Aldrich type of leadership down at bottom represents not more than, say, ten per cent. of the rank and file of the party's voting strength. This ten per cent. or whatever it may be, includes the bulk of the big business men, the big professional politicians, the big lawyers who carry on their work in connection with the leaders of high finance, and of the political machine, their representatives among the great papers, and so forth and so forth. All this makes a body of exceedingly influential people, but if the great mass—the ninety per cent. of the party—the men who stand for it as their fathers stood for it in the days of Lincoln, get convinced that the ten per cent. are not leading them right, a revolt is sure to ensue. If politicians of sufficient ability lead that revolt, as in the Western States, they get control of the organization. (To H. C. Lodge, April 11, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 370.

Republican National Convention of 1912

The platform of the Republican party is bad anyhow. Taken in connection with the action of the convention, it amounts to a declaration against actual rule by the people and a determination that the politicians or the beneficiaries of special privilege shall complétely dominate the people in the future just as they are doing at this moment. The actions of Mr. Taft and his Administration and the actions of the Republican National Convention itself make any protestations of virtue on the part of the Barnes- Penrose-Guggenheim combination, which at the moment represents all that is efficient and real in the existing Republican party, of no consequence whatsoever. Any declaration of good intentions in the Republican platform on any subject is rendered worthless, first, by the fact that the present Administration has broken the most important pledges on which it was elected; and, second, by the fact that the national convention at Chicago, which nominated Mr. Taft, acted with such deliberate bad faith, such flagrant violation of every obligation of decency and honesty, as to make any and all of its promises not worth the paper on which they are written. A homily upon honesty by a pickpocket who still keeps the stolen goods does not tend toward edification. Not a promise made by any man who took part in, apologizes for, or benefited by the stealing of the Chicago Convention should receive a moment's consideration. (Outlook, July 27, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 349-350; Nat; Ed, XVII, 247.

____________.Some day the honest men and women who make up the rank and file of the Republican party will realize the full iniquity of which the men were guilty who in the Republican convention of June last by deliberate political theft wrenched the control of the party from the people, made it the party of reaction, and gave it into the absolute control of the bosses. These men preferred to see the party destroyed rather than see it made once more what it was in the days of Lincoln. Their purpose was at all costs to perpetuate the rule of privilege, political privilege and financial privilege, within the party. The men who took part in, profited by, or condoned and indorsed the theft of the Chicago Convention should never again be trusted by men who believe in honesty. Their action differed from the crime of the ordinary ballot-box stuffer or crooked election official, only as the action of the great corrupt financier who swindles on a gigantic scale just within the law differs from the crime of the poor wretch who steals because he is in want. The theft of the Chicago Convention can be defended only by the type of corporation lawyer whose business it is to advise big financiers how to violate the law in wholesale fashion with impunity. These big politicians, financiers, and corporation lawyers, and their hangers-on, such as the college presidents of the "little-brother-to-the-rich" type, asserted and perhaps believed that they were acting in the interests of conservatism. They most urgently need to learn that sitting on the safety-valve is not the right way to prevent revolutions. (At Chicago, December 10, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 473; Nat; Ed, XVII, 349.

Republican Party — Bosses in

While they [the Republican bosses] do not like me, they dread you. You are the people that they dread. They dread the people themselves, and those bosses and the big special interests behind them made up their mind that they would rather see the Republican party wrecked than see it come under the control of the people themselves. So I am not dealing with the Republican party. There are only two ways you can vote this year. You can be progressive or reactionary. Whether you vote Republican or Democratic it does not make any difference, you are voting reactionary. (At Milwaukee, Wis., October 14, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 451; Nat; Ed, XVII, 328.

Republican Party — Challenge to

I believe in the party to which we belong because I believe in the principles for which the Republican party stood in the days of Abraham Lincoln; and furthermore, and especially because I believe in treating those principles not as dead but as living, We best show our loyalty to the memory of Lincoln, and the principles for which Lincoln stood, not by treating it and them from the standpoint of historic interest in what is dead, but by treating them as vital, as alive to-day, and by endeavoring to meet the problems of the present, the new problems of our day, in exactly the same spirit in which he and those associated with him met the new problems of their day. . . . We can deserve the confidence of the people, not by stating that our forefathers preserved the Union and freed the slaves, but by proving in deed, as well as in word, that we face the problem of dealing with political and business corruption, and of working for social and economic justice and for the betterment of the conditions of life and the uplifting of our people, with the same fervor and sincerity that Lincoln and his followers brought to the great tasks allotted to them in their day. I hold that we show ourselves the best servants of our party when with all our might we strive to make that party the best servant of the people as a whole. (Before New York Republican State Convention, Saratoga, September 27, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 33-34; Nat; Ed, XVII, 25.

Republican Party—Control of

It was very bitter for me to see the Republican Party, when I had put it back on the Abraham Lincoln basis, in three years turn over to a combination of big financiers and unscrupulous political bosses. (To Sir Henry Lucy, December 18, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 409; Bishop II, 348.

____________. On a square issue of power between the Republican national committee and the Republican voters the committee has won, and has demonstrated that it can win again. The organization has frankly abandoned the pretense of making effective the will of the voters. Its leaders, from the President down, take especial pride in the fact that they have outwitted the majority and have controlled the convention against the will of the rank and file of the voters—the "rabble," as Mr. Taft's chairman, Mr. McKinley, termed them. If the American people are really fit for self-government, they will instantly take up the challenge which a knot of political conspirators have so insolently thrown down. Non-resistance to such treason against popular government would be almost, as reprehensible as active participation therein. Both a great moral issue and a fundamental principle of self-government are involved in the action of the so-called Republican convention at Chicago; and we cannot submit to that action without being false both to the basic principles of American democracy and to that spirit of righteousness and honesty which must underlie every form of successful government, (Outlook, July 13, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 330; Nat; Ed, XVII, 242.

____________. The control of the Republican National Convention in June, 1912, in the interest of Mr. Taft was achieved by methods full of as corrupt menace to popular government as ballot-box stuffing or any species of fraud or violence at the polls. Yet it was condoned by multitudes of respectable men of wealth and respectable men of cultivation because in their hearts they regarded genuine control by what they called "the mob”—that is, the people—as an evil so great that compared with it corruption and fraud became meritorious. The Republican party of to-day has given absolute control of its destinies into the hands of a national committee composed of fifty-three irresponsible and on the-whole obscure politicians. It has specifically provided that these men, who have no responsibility whatever to the public, can override the lawfully expressed will of the majority in any State primary. It has perpetuated a system of representation at national conventions which gives a third of the delegates to communities where there is no real Republican vote, where no delegation for or against any man really represents anything, and where, in consequence, the national committee can plausibly seat any delegates it chooses without exciting popular indignation. In sum, these fifty-three politicians have the absolute and unchallenged control of the national convention. They do not have to allow the rank and file of the party any representation in that convention whatever, and, as has been shown in actual practice, they surrender to them any control whatever, on the occasion when they deem it imperatively necessary, merely as a matter of expediency and favor, and not as a matter of right or principle. (Century, October 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 538, Nat; Ed,, XVII, 395.

Republican Party—Failure of

The Republican party has proved false to its principles; and those principles have lived; and they have produced another party, the party of progress, which has grasped the banner of righteous liberty from the traitor hands that were trailing it in the dust. (At New York City, February 12, 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 488; Nat; Ed, XVII, 362.

Republican Party—Future of

We are only interested in the organization in so far as that organization gives us a free play to make the Republican party a constructive forward-moving party and we are only interested in the Republican party in so far as it is just that.

There is no use in trying to rally around the past. This war has buried the past. New issues are going to force themselves into American politics and those issues are going to require a party which believes in a strong centralized government that shall be strong for the purpose of construction and not for the purpose of checking the progress of things. The new issues which will require a strongly centralized government are going to revolve about:

Transportation; price-fixing; rigid public control if not ownership of mines, forests and waterways.

And if the Republican party takes the ground that the world must be the same old world, the Republican party is lost. (To Will H. Hays, May 15, 1918.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 522; Bishop II, 446.

Republican Party—Position of

I do not believe that it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that our attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby showing that, whereas the Populists, Socialists and others really do not correct the evils at all, or else only do so at the expense of producing others in aggravated form, on the contrary we Republicans hold the just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. (To Senator T. C. Platt, Spring 1899.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 146; Bishop I, 126.

____________. We are sundered from the men who now control and manage the Republican party by the gulf of their actual practices and of the openly avowed or secretly held principles which rendered it necessary for them to resort to these practises. The rank and file of the Republicans, as was shown in the spring primaries of 1912, are with us; but they have no real power against the bosses, and the channels of information are so choked that they are kept in ignorance of what is really happening. The doctrines laid down by Mr. Taft as law professor at Yale give the theoretical justification for the practical action of Mr. Penrose and Mr. Smoot. . . . This acquiescence in wrong-doing as the necessary means of preventing popular action is not a new position. It was the position of many upright and well-meaning Tories who antagonized the Declaration of Independence and the movement which made us a nation. It was the position of a portion of the very useful Federalist party, which at the close of the eighteenth century insisted upon the vital need of national union and governmental efficiency, but which was exceedingly anxious to devise methods for making believe to give the people full power while really putting them under the control of a propertied political oligarchy. (Century, October 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 537; Nat; Ed, XVII, 394.

____________. In 1896, 1898, and 1900 the campaigns were waged on two great moral issues: (1) the imperative need of a sound and honest currency; (2) the need, after 1898, of meeting in manful and straightforward fashion the extraterritorial problems arising from the Spanish War. On these great moral issues the Republican party was right, and the men who were opposed to it, and who claimed to be the radicals, and their allies among the sentimentalists, were utterly and hopelessly wrong. This had, regrettably but perhaps inevitably, tended to throw the party into the hands not merely of the conservatives but of the reactionaries; of men who, sometimes for personal and improper reasons, but more often with entire sympathy and uprightness of purpose, distrusted anything that was progressive and dreaded radicalism. These men still from force of habit applauded what Lincoln had done in the way of radical dealing with the abuses of his day; but they did not apply the spirit in which Lincoln worked to the abuses of their own day. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 397-398; Nat; Ed, XX, 341.

Republican Party—Roosevelt and the

I am by inheritance and by education a Republican; whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public life has been accomplished through the Republican party; I have acted with it in the past, and wish to act with it in the future. (Interview, Boston Herald, July 20, 1884.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 72; Nat; Ed, XIV, 40.

____________. I am well aware that a man with strong convictions is always apt to feel overintensely the difference between himself and others with slighter convictions, and throughout most of my political career I have been in the position of adhering to one side because, after a general balancing, in spite of my discontent with my own people, I was infinitely more discontented with the other side. But I do think we had the Republican Party in a shape that warranted the practical continuance of just what we were doing. To announce allegiance to what had been done, and to abandon the only methods by which it was possible to get it done, was not satisfactory from my standpoint. (To H. C. Lodge, April 11, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 372.

____________. Our own party leaders did not realize that I was able to hold the Republican party in power only because I insisted on a steady advance, and dragged them along with me. Now the advance has been stopped, and whether we blame the people on the one side, or the leaders on the other, the fact remains that we are in a very uncomfortable position. (To H. C. Lodge, May 5, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 380.

____________. I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican party the party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln. If it is not that, then of course I have no place in it. And while I might very probably vote for its candidate as the least unattractive course open, I would not attempt any serious championship of it, or expect to have any share in guiding it. If the Romanoffs of our social and industrial world are kept at the head of our Government the result will be Bolshevism, and Bolshevism means disaster to liberty, writ large across the face of this continent. (To William Allen White, April 4, 1918.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 518; Bishop II, 442.

Republican Party and the Democratic Party

We can say this much of the Republican party: it is the party that had in it Alexander Hamilton, of the older day; that had Webster and Clay; the great party which has produced a Lincoln, the party of Seward and of Chase; the party within whose ranks we now hold Schurz and Choate, and every other name almost that tends to make this city illustrious. I think we can say this much, Republicans have not always done well, but it will be an evil day when they do as badly as the Democrats. (At Republican mass-meeting, 21st Assembly Dist., N. Y., October 28, 1882.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 15; Nat; Ed, XIV, 13.

____________. This difference in the attitude of the two parties is fundamental; it comes from their composition. Throughout the North the bulk of the honesty and intelligence of the community is to be found in the Republican ranks. If the Republicans take a false step it is usually because the politicians have tricked them into it; while if the Democrats make a good move it is almost always merely because the astute party leaders have been able for a short time to dragoon their dense-witted followers into the appearance of deference to decent public sentiment. (Before Young Republican Club, Brooklyn, N. Y., October 17, 1885.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 103; Nat; Ed, XIV, 63.

____________. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic platform contains the slightest promise of approaching the great problems of to-day either with understanding or good faith; and yet never was there greater need in this nation than now of understanding and of action taken in good faith, on the part of the men and the organizations shaping our governmental policy. Moreover, our needs are such that there should be coherent action among those responsible for the conduct of national affairs and those responsible for the conduct of State affairs; because our aim should be the same in both State and nation; that is, to use the government as an efficient agency for the practical betterment of social and economic conditions throughout this land. There are other important things to be done, but this is the most important thing. It is preposterous to leave such a movement in the hands of men who have broken their promises as have the present heads of the Republican organization (not of the Republican voters, for they in no shape represent the rank and file of the Republican voters). These men by their deeds give the lie to their words. There is no health in them, and they cannot be trusted. But the Democratic party is just as little to be trusted. The Underwood-Fitzgerald combination in the House of Representatives has shown that it cannot safely be trusted to maintain the interests of this country abroad or to represent the interests of the plain people at home. . . . The Democratic platform not only shows an utter failure to understand either present conditions or the means of making these conditions better but also a reckless willingness to try to attract various sections of the electorate by making mutually incompatible promises which there is not the slightest intention of redeeming, and which, if redeemed, would result in sheer ruin. . . . At present both the old parties are controlled by professional politicians in the interests of the privileged classes, and apparently each has set up as its ideal of business and political development a government by financial despotism tempered by make-believe political assassination. Democrat and Republican alike, they represent government of the needy many by professional politicians in the interests of the rich few. This is class government, and class government of a peculiarly unwholesome kind. (Before Progressive National Convention, Chicago, August 6, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 361-362; Nat; Ed, XVII, 256-257.

Republican Party

See Also Democratic Party; Elections; Mugwumps; Political Parties; Progressive Party.

Reputation

See Fame; National Reputation.

Research

See Historians; Primitive Society; Scholarship ; University.

Reservations

See Indian Policy.

Reservoirs

See Water Conservation.

Respect

See Fellow-Feeling.

Responsible Government

See Parliamentary Government.

Responsibility

See Authority; Duty; Foreign Relations; Freedom; National Responsibility; Power; Sovereignty; Wealth.

Revolutionaries

The general continental European revolutionary attitude . . . in governmental matters is a revolt against order as well as against tyranny, and in domestic matters is a revolt against the ordinary decencies and moralities even more than against conventional hypocrisies and cruelties. (Letter of April 23, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 16; Bishop II, 12.

Revolutionaries

See also Anarchists; Bolshevists; Gorky, Maxim; Industrial Workers Of The World; Order; Socialists.

Revolutionary and Civil Wars

The Revolutionary leaders can never be too highly praised; but taken in bulk the Americans of the last quarter of the eighteenth century do not compare to advantage with the Americans of the third quarter of the nineteenth. In our Civil War it was the people who pressed on the leaders, and won almost as much in spite of as because of them; but the leaders of the Revolution had to goad the rank and file into line. They were forced to contend not only with the active hostility of the Tories, but with the passive neutrality of the indifferent, and the selfishness, jealousy, and short- sightedness of the patriotic. Had the Americans of 1776 been united, and had they possessed the stubborn, unyielding tenacity and high devotion to an ideal shown by the North, or the heroic constancy and matchless valor shown by the South, in the Civil War, the British would have been driven off the continent before three years were over. (1888.) Mem. Ed. VIII, 313; Nat; Ed, VII, 270.

____________. It has been so habitual among American writers to praise all the deeds, good, bad, and indifferent, of our Revolutionary ancestors, and to belittle and make light of what we have recently done, that most men seem not to know that the Union and Confederate troops in the Civil War fought far more stubbornly and skilfully than did their forefathers at the time of the Revolution. It is impossible to estimate too highly the devoted patriotism and statesmanship of the founders of our national life; and however high we rank Washington, I am confident that we err, if anything, in not ranking him high enough, for on the whole the world has never seen a man deserving to be placed above him; but we certainly have over-estimated the actual fighting qualities of the Revolutionary troops, and have never laid enough stress on the folly and jealousy with which the States behaved during the contest. In 1776, the Americans were still in the gristle; and the feats of arms they then performed do not bear comparison with what they did in the prime of their lusty youth, eighty or ninety years later. The continentals who had been long drilled by Washington and Greene were most excellent troops; but they never had a chance to show at their best, because they were always mixed in with a mass of poor soldiers, either militia or just-enlisted regulars. (1889.) Mem. Ed. XI, 169; Nat; Ed, VIII, 532-533.

Revolutionary War

In the Revolutionary War the Americans stood toward the British as the Protestant peoples stood toward the Catholic powers in the sixteenth century, as the Parliamentarians stood toward the Stuarts in the seventeenth, or as the upholders of the American Union stood toward the Confederate slaveholders in the nineteenth; that is, they warred victoriously for the right in a struggle whose outcome vitally affected the welfare of the whole human race. They settled, once for all, that thereafter the people of English stock should spread at will over the world's waste spaces, keeping all their old liberties and winning new ones; and they took the first and longest step in establishing the great principle that thenceforth those Europeans, who by their strength and daring founded new states abroad, should be deemed to have done so for their own profit as freemen, and not for the benefit of their more timid, lazy, or contented brethren who stayed behind. (1888.) Mem. Ed. VIII, 282; Nat; Ed, VII, 243-244.

Revolutionary War—Factions During

It must be remembered that all through the Revolutionary War not only was there a minority actively favorable to the royal cause, but there was also a minority . . . that was but lukewarm in its devotion to the American side, and was kept even moderately patriotic almost as much by the excesses of the British troops and blunders of the British generals and ministers as by the valor of our own soldiers, or the skill of our own statesmen. We can now see clearly that the right of the matter was with the patriotic party; and it was a great thing for the whole English-speaking race that that section of it which was destined to be the most numerous and powerful should not be cramped and fettered by the peculiarly galling shackles of provincial dependency; but all this was not by any means so clear then as now, and some of our best citizens thought themselves in honor bound to take the opposite side— though of necessity those among our most high-minded men, who were also far-sighted enough to see the true nature of the struggle, went with the patriots. (1888.) Mem. Ed. VIII, 298; Nat; Ed, VII, 257.

____________. Throughout the Revolutionary War our people hardly once pulled with a will together; although almost every locality in turn, on some one occasion, varied its lethargy by a spasm of terrible energy. Yet, again, it must be remembered that we were never more to be dreaded than when our last hope seemed gone; and if the people were unwilling to show the wisdom and self-sacrifice that would have insured success, they were equally determined under no circumstances whatever to acknowledge final defeat. (1888.) Mem. Ed. VIII, 333-334; Nat; Ed, VII, 288-289.

Revolutionary War

See also André, John; Arnold, Benedict ; Colonies; Declaration Of Independence; French Revolution; Lafayette, Marquis De; Valley Forge; Washington, George; Wayne, Anthony.

Revolutions

Healthy growth cannot normally come through revolution. A revolution is sometimes necessary, but if revolutions become habitual the country in which they take place is going down-hill. (Churchman, March 17, 1900.) Mem. Ed. XV, 395-396; Nat; Ed, XIII, 393.

____________. Rebellion, revolution — the appeal to arms to redress grievances; these are measures that can only be justified in extreme cases. It is far better to suffer any moderate evil, or even a very serious evil, so long as there is a chance of its peaceable redress, than to plunge the country into civil war; and the men who head or instigate armed rebellions for which there is not the most ample justification must be held as one degree worse than any but the most evil tyrants. Between the Scylla of despotism and the Charybdis of anarchy there is but little to choose; and the pilot who throws the ship upon one is as blameworthy as he who throws it on the other. But a point may be reached where the people have to assert their rights, be the peril what it may. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 313; Nat; Ed, X, 209-210.

____________. I do not believe in violent revolutions, but I do believe in steady and healthy growth in the right direction. (To Howells, August 28, 1906.) Life in Letters of William Dean Howells, ed. by Mildred Howells. (Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1928), II, p. 229.

Revolutions—Course of

In every . . . Revolution some of the original adherents of the movement drop off at each stage, feeling that it has gone too far; and at every halt the extremists insist on further progress. As stage succeeds stage, these extremists become a constantly diminishing body, and the irritation and alarm of the growing remainder increase. If the movement is not checked at the right moment by the good sense and moderation of the people themselves, or if some master-spirit does not appear, the extremists carry it ever farther forward until it provokes the most violent reaction; and when the master-spirit does stop it, he has to guard against both the men who think it has gone too far and the men who think it has not gone far enough. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 389; Nat; Ed, X, 274.

Revolutions—Dangers of

In great crises it may be necessary to overturn constitutions and disregard statutes, just as it may be necessary to establish a vigilance committee, or take refuge in lynch- law; but such a remedy is always dangerous, even when absolutely necessary; and the moment it becomes the habitual remedy, it is a proof that society is going backward. Of this retrogression the deeds of the strong man who sets himself above the law may be partly the cause and partly the consequence; but they are always the signs of decay. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 325; Nat; Ed, X, 220.

Revolutions—Success of

Any revolutionary movement must be carried through by parties whose aims are so different, or whose feelings and interests are so divergent, that there is great difficulty in the victors coming to a working agreement to conserve the fruits of their victory. Not only the leaders, but more especially their followers—that is, the mass of the people—must possess great moderation and good sense for this to be possible. Otherwise, after much warfare of factions, some strong man, a Cromwell or a Napoleon, is forced or forces himself to the front and saves the factions from destroying one another by laying his iron hand on all. (1900.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 358; Nat; Ed, X, 248.

Revolutions

See also French Revolution; Haiti; Panama Revolution; Progress; Reform; Revolutionary War; Social Revolution; South America.

Rewards

It has been wisely said that the most valuable work done by any individual in a nation, from the standpoint of the nation itself, is apt to be, from that individual's own standpoint, non-remunerative work. The statesmen and soldiers who have really rendered most service to the country were not paid, and indeed, according to our theories, ought not to have been paid, in a way that represented any adequate material reward as compared, for instance, to the sums earned by the most successful business and professional men. Great scientists, great philosophers, great writers, must also get most of their reward from the actual doing of the deed itself; for any pay they receive, measured in money, is of necessity wholly inadequate compared to the worth of the service. (Outlook, December 9, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 554; Nat; Ed, XII, 413.

____________. One of the principal needs in any civilization is to keep always open to certain men an opportunity for doing non-remunerative work, work which, from the very nature of things, will be totally unpaid, or paid in a manner altogether out of proportion to its value when accomplished. I think it would hardly be too much to say that the lives of those men whose work has been of the greatest value to this and every country have been in a material sense absurdly, ridiculously, underpaid. Since Milton received five pounds for one of the greatest epics ever written, the story has always been the same. The reward of the men who have left great names, whether as soldiers, statesmen, or in other walks, was almost always the work they did. The work which is on the whole best worth doing for any great people is work which from its very nature cannot pay for itself. The great mass of the body politic has got to understand this, or there will be a failure to provide opportunities for this non- remunerative work, the work which does not and cannot bring quick and profitable pecuniary returns to the doer of it. (Remarks at dedication, December 29, 1900.) Opening of the Medical School. (Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., 1901), p. 20.

Rewards—Adjustment of

While I think we live in a pretty good world, I do not think it is all the best possible world, and I hope we shall have an adjustment of rewards, even those of a pecuniary or material kind. Altogether there is much in the way of reward that comes to a certain type of financiers and too little comes to the student, to the scholar, to the teacher, to the man who represents the scholarly side, the side of thought. (At Clark University, Worcester, Mass., June 21, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XV, 579; Nat; Ed, XIII, 618.

Rewards to the Exceptional

In this country we rightly go upon the theory that it is more important to care for the welfare of the average man than to put a premium upon the exertions of the exceptional. But we must not forget that the establishment of such a premium for the exceptional, though of less importance, is nevertheless of very great importance. It is important even to the development of the average man, for the average of all of us is raised by the work of the great masters. (At Harvard University, Cambridge, June 28, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 433; Nat; Ed, XVI, 322.

____________. We do not want to produce a dead level of achievement and reward; we want to give the exceptional rewards, in the way of approbation or in whatever other fashion may be necessary, to the exceptional men, the Lincolns, Grants, Marshalls, Emersons, Longfellows, Edisons, Pearys, who each in his own line does some special service; but we wish so far as possible to prevent a reward being given that is altogether disproportionate to the services, and especially to prevent huge rewards coming where there is no service or indeed where the action rewarded is detrimental instead of beneficial to the public interest. (Outlook, January 21, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 97; Nat; Ed, XVII, 63.

Rewards

See also Opportunity; Service; Success. Rhetoric. See Action; Deeds; Oratory. Riches. See Fortunes; Millionaires; Money; Property; Wealth. Riding. See Horseback Riding. Rifle Vs. Shot-Gun.

To my mind, there is no comparison between sport with the rifle and sport with the shot-gun. The rifle is the freeman’s weapon. The man who uses it well in the chase shows that he can at need use it also in war with human foes. I would no more compare the feat of one who bags his score of ducks or quail with that of him who fairly hunts down and slays a buck or bear than I would compare the skill necessary to drive a buggy with that required to ride a horse across country; or the dexterity acquired in handling a billiard cue with that shown by a skilful boxer or oarsman. The difference is not one of degree; it is one of kind. I am far from decrying the shot-gun. It is always pleasant as a change from the rifle, and in the Eastern States it is almost the only firearm which we now have a chance to use. But out in the cattle country it is the rifle that is always carried by the ranchman who cares for sport. Large game is still that which is sought after, and most of the birds killed are either simply slaughtered for the pot, or else shot for the sake of variety while really after deer or antelope; though every now and then I have taken a day with the shot-gun after nothing else but prairie fowl. (1885.) Mem. Ed. I, 63; Nat; Ed, I, 52.

Right and Might

There is just one way in which to meet the upholders of the doctrine that might makes right. To do so we must prove that right will make might, by backing right with might. (New York Times, Nov. 1, 1914.) Mem. Ed. XX, 80; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 69.

Right and Might

See also Force.

Right and Wrong

Right is right and wrong is wrong, and it is a sign of weakness and not of generosity to confuse them. (To H. C. Lodge, October 8, 1913.) Lodge Letters II, 441.

____________. My duty was to stand with every one while he was right, and to stand against him when he went wrong; and this I have tried to do as regards individuals and as regards groups of individuals. When a business man or labor leader, politician or reformer, is right, I support him; when he goes wrong, I leave him. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 182; Nat; Ed, XX, 156.

Right and Wrong

See also Neutrality.

Righteousness

We, the American people, believe, and ought to believe, in righteousness first, and in peace as the handmaid of righteousness. We abhor brutality and wrongdoing, whether exhibited by nations or by individuals. We hold that the same law of righteousness should obtain between nation and nation as between man and man. I, for one, would rather cut off my hand than see the United States adopt the attitude either of cringing before great and powerful nations who wish to wrong us, or of bullying small and weak nations who have done us no wrong. The American people desire to do justice and to act with frank generosity toward all the other nations of mankind; but I err greatly in my judgment of my countrymen if they are willing to submit to wrong and injustice. Again and again in the past they have shown, and rightly shown, that when the choice lay between righteousness and peace they chose righteousness, just exactly as they also chose righteousness when the choice lay between righteousness and war. (Outlook, September 9, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 417; Nat; Ed, XVI 311.

____________. As yet the great civilized peoples, if they are to be true to themselves and to the cause of humanity and civilization, must keep ever in mind that in the last resort they must possess both the will and the power to resent wrong-doing from others. The men who sanely believe in a lofty morality preach righteousness; but they do not preach weakness, whether among private citizens or among nations. We believe that our ideals should be high, but not so high as to make it impossible measurably to realize them. We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but if peace and justice conflict, we scorn the man who would not stand for justice though the whole world came in arms against him. (At the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XV, 375; Nat; Ed, XIII, 528.

____________. It is noxious to work for a peace not based on righteousness, and useless to work for a peace based on righteousness unless we put force back of righteousness. At present this means that adequate preparedness against war offers to our nation its sole guaranty against wrong and aggression. (Everybody's, January 1915.) Mem. Ed. XX, 150; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 129.

____________.The United States owes not only its greatness but its very existence to the fact that in the Civil War the men who controlled its destinies were the fighting men. The counsels of the ultrapacifists, the peace-at-any-price men of that day, if adopted, would have meant not only the death of the nation but an incalculable disaster to humanity. A righteous war may at any moment be essential to national welfare; and it is a lamentable fact that nations have sometimes profited greatly by war that was not righteous. Such evil profit will never be done away with until armed force is put behind righteousness. (Everybody's, January 1915.) Mem. Ed. XX, 155; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 133.

Righteousness—Primacy of

Peace is not the end. Righteousness is the end. . . . Righteousness is the end, and peace a means to the end, and sometimes it is not peace, but war which is the proper means to achieve the end. Righteousness should breed valor and strength. When it does breed them, it is triumphant; and when triumphant, it necessarily brings peace. But peace does not necessarily bring righteousness. (1916.) Mem. Ed. XX, 239; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 206.

____________. We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly good-will one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life; but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality. (Before Nobel Prize Committee, Christiania, Norway, May 5, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 411; Nat; Ed, XVI, 306.

____________. We must insist on righteousness first and foremost. We must strive for peace always; but we must never hesitate to put righteousness above peace. In order to do this, we must put force back of righteousness, for, as the world now is, national righteousness without force back of it speedily becomes a matter of derision. To the doctrine that might makes right, it is utterly useless to oppose the doctrine of right unbacked by might. (New York Times, November 1, 1914.) Mem. Ed. XX, 77; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 66.

Righteousness

See also Civic Righteousness; National Greatness; Pacifism; Peace; Preparedness; Unpreparedness; War.

Rights—Defense of

We Have In This Country An Equality of rights. It is the plain duty of every man to see that his rights are respected. That weak good nature which acquiesces in wrong-doing, whether from laziness, timidity, or indifference, is a very unwholesome quality. It should be second nature with every man to insist that he be given full justice. (Atlantic Monthly, August 1894.) Mem. Ed. XV, 50; Nat; Ed, XIII, 36.

____________. For a man to stand up for his own rights, or especially for the rights of somebody else, means that he must have virile qualities: courage, foresight, willingness to face risk and undergo effort. It is much easier to be timid and lazy. The average man does not like to face death and endure hardship and labor. He can be roused to do so if a leader of the right type, a Washington or Lincoln, appeals to the higher qualities, including the stern qualities, of his soul. (1916.) Mem. Ed. XX, 238; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 205.

Rights—Protection of

There must be equal rights for all, and special privileges for none; but we must remember that to achieve this ideal it is necessary to construe rights and privileges very differently from the way they were necessarily construed, by statesmen and people alike, a century ago. We must strive to achieve our ideal by an exercise of governmental power which the conditions did not render necessary a century ago, and of which our forefathers would have felt suspicious. This is no reflection on the wisdom of our forefathers; it is simply an acknowledgment that conditions have now changed. Outlook, September 3, 1910, p. 22.

____________. We are for the people's rights. Where these rights can best be obtained by exercise of the powers of the State, there we are for States' rights. Where they can best be obtained by the exercise of the powers of the National Government, there we are for national rights. We are not interested in this as an abstract doctrine; we are interested in it concretely. Wisconsin possesses advanced laws in the interest of labor. There are other States in this respect more backward, where wage-workers, and especially women and child wage-workers, are left at the mercy of greedy and unscrupulous capitalists. (Century, October 1913.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 543; Nat; Ed, XVII, 399.

Rights, Human

I believe in property rights, but I believe in them as adjuncts to, and not as substitutes for, human rights. I believe that normally the rights of property coincide with the rights of man: but where they do not, then the rights of man must be put above the rights of property. I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property; but wherever the alternative must be faced, I am for man and not for property. Outlook, September 3, 1910, p. 28.

Rights Add Duties

I have not the slightest sympathy with any movement which looks to excusing men and women for the nonperformance of duty and fixes attention only on rights and not on duties. Outlook, August 27, 1910, p. 922.

____________. If there is any lesson, more essential than any other, for this country to learn, it is the lesson that the enjoyment of rights should be made conditional upon the performance of duty. For one failure in the history of our country which is due to the people not asserting their rights, there are hundreds due to their not performing their duties. (Preface to E. J. Scott and L. B. Stowe, Booker T. Washington, dated August 28, 1916.) Mem. Ed. XII, 549; Nat; Ed, XI, 274.

____________. No human being is entitled to any "right," any privilege, that is not correlated with the obligation to perform duty. (1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 9; Nat; Ed, XIX, 8.

____________. Both capitalists and wage-workers must understand that the performance of duties and the enjoyment of rights go hand in hand. Any shirking of obligation toward the nation, and toward the people that make up the nation, deprives the offenders of all moral right to the enjoyment of privileges of any kind. This applies alike to corporations and to labor-unions, to rich men and poor men, to big men and little men. (At Cooper Union, New York City, November 3, 1916.) Mem. Ed. XX, 518; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 444.

____________. The people should be greater than any one man, and the people cannot be greater unless the people think of duty more than of right, just as the individual man who rises has to think first of duty and then of his rights. They must think of rights as developed in duty rather than of only their individual rights. Unless the people, unless the sovereign, develop the capacity to think, each one, of what is due from him to his fellows and not of what is due from his fellow to him, unless they develop that capacity, this country, based as it is on popular government, cannot achieve the place that it must and will achieve. (At University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 15, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XV, 546; Nat; Ed, XIII, 593.

Rights

See also Duty; Equality; Freedom;
International Duties; Neutral Rights; Privilege; Property Rights; Women.

Riis, Jacob A.

Recently a man well qualified to pass judgment alluded to Mr. Jacob Riis as "the most useful citizen of New York." Those fellow-citizens of Mr. Riis who best know his work will be most apt to agree with this statement. The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City. Many earnest men and earnest women have been stirred to the depths by the want and misery and foul crime which are bred in the crowded blocks of tenement rookeries. These men and women have planned and worked, intelligently and resolutely, to overcome the evils. But to Mr. Riis was given, in addition to earnestness and zeal, the great gift of expression, the great gift of making others see what he saw and feel what he felt. His book, How the Other Half Lives, did really go a long way toward removing the ignorance in which one half of the world of New York dwelt concerning the life of the other half. Moreover, Mr. Riis possessed the further great advantage of having himself passed through not a few of the experiences of which he had to tell. . . . No rebuff, no seeming failure, has ever caused him to lose faith. The memory of his own trials never soured him. His keen sense of the sufferings of others never clouded his judgment, never led him into hysterical or sentimental excess, the pit into which not a few men are drawn by the very keenness of their sympathies; and which some other men avoid, not because they are wise, but because they are cold- hearted. He ever advocates mercy, but he ever recognizes the need of justice. The mob leader, the bomb-thrower, have no sympathy from him. No man has ever insisted more on the danger which comes to the community from the lawbreaker. He set himself to kill the living evil, and small is his kinship with the dreamers who seek the impossible, the men who talk of reconstituting the entire social order, but who do not work to lighten the burden of mankind by so much as a feather’s weight. Every man who strives, be it ever so feebly, to do good according to the light that is in him, can count on the aid of Jacob Riis if the chance comes. (McClure's, March 1901.) Mem. Ed. XV, 209-211; Nat; Ed, XIII, 270-272.

____________. Jacob Riis was one of those men who by his writings contributed most to raising the standard of unselfishness, of disinterestedness, of sane and kindly good citizenship, in this country. But in addition to this he was one of the few great writers for clean and decent living and for upright conduct who was also a great doer. He never wrote sentences which he did not in good faith try to act whenever he could find the opportunity for action. He was emphatically a “doer of the word," and not either a mere hearer or a mere preacher. Moreover, he was one of those good men whose goodness was free from the least taint of priggishness or self-righteousness. He had a white soul; but he had the keenest sympathy for his brethren who stumbled and fell. He had the most flaming intensity of passion for righteousness, but he also had kindliness and a most humorously human way of looking at life and a sense of companionship with his fellows. He did not come to this country until he was almost a young man; but if I were asked to name a fellowman who came nearest to being the ideal American citizen, I should name Jacob Riis. (Outlook, June 6, 1914; used as Introduction.) Jacob A. Riis, The Making of an American. (Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1916), pp. xv-xvi.

Riis, Jacob A.

See also City Life.

Riots—Suppression of

If it comes to putting down a riot, make up your mind that the person with whom to feel sympathy is the law-abiding citizen, not the lawless. When people put themselves in opposition to law, start to put them down with a healthy desire to see that they get put down quick, and if any damage comes, let it come on them and not on the men who have refrained from violating the law. (Before Liberal Club, Buffalo, N. Y., September 10, 1895.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 275; Nat; Ed, XIV, 195.

Riots

See also Brownsville Riot; Labor Disputes; Violence.

River Improvement

See Inland Waterways; Mississippi River.

Roads—Importance of

No one thing can do more to offset the tendency toward an unhealthy growth from the country into the city than the making and keeping of good roads. They are needed for the sake of their effect upon the industrial conditions of the country districts; and I am almost tempted to say they are needed for the sake of social conditions in the country districts. (Before Nat. and Internat. Good Roads Convention, St. Louis, April 29, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 616; Nat; Ed, XVI, 446.

Roads

See also Farm Life.

Robinson, Edwin Arlington

It is rather curious that Mr. Robinson's volume [The Children of the Night] should not have attracted more attention. There is an undoubted touch of genius in the poems collected in this volume, and a curious simplicity and good faith, all of which qualities differentiate them sharply from ordinary collections of the kind. There is in them just a little of the light that never was on land or sea, and in such light the objects described often have nebulous outlines; buts it is not always necessary in order to enjoy a poem that one should be able to translate it into terms of mathematical accuracy. Indeed, those who admire the coloring of Turner, those who like to read how—and to wonder why—Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, do not wish always to have the ideas presented to them with cold, hard, definite outlines; and to a man with the poetic temperament it is inevitable that life should often appear clothed with a certain sad mysticism. In the present volume I am not sure that I understand "Luke Havergal"; but I am entirely sure that I like it. (Outlook, August 12, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 360-361; Nat; Ed, XII, 296-297.

Roman Empire—Fall of

Much of the fall of the Roman Republic we can account for. For one thing, I do not think historians have ever laid sufficient emphasis on the fact that the widening of the franchise in Italy and the provinces meant so little from the governmental standpoint because citizens could only vote in one city, Rome; I should hate at this day to see the United States governed by votes cast in the city of New York, even though Texas, Oregon, and Maine could in theory send their people thither to vote if they chose. But the reasons for the change in military and governmental ability under the empire between, say, the days of Hadrian and of Valens are hardly even to be guessed at. (To A. J. Balfour, March 5, 1908.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 124; Bishop II, 107.

____________. There is nothing mysterious about Rome's dissolution at the time of the barbarian invasions; apart from the impoverishment and depopulation of the empire, its fall would be quite sufficiently explained by the mere fact that the average citizen had lost the fighting edge—an essential even under a despotism, and therefore far more essential in free, self-governing communities, such as those of the English-speaking peoples of to-day. (At Oxford University, June 7, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 87; Nat; Ed, XII, 43.

Roman Empire

See also Latin Literature.

Romanoffs

See Russia.

Rome

To you who know your Rome so well, . . . I need hardly say that the Eternal City offers the very sharpest contrasts between the extremes of radical modern progress, social, political, and religious, and the extremes of opposition to all such progress. At the time of my visit the Vatican represented the last; the free- thinking Jew mayor, a good fellow, and his Socialist backers in the Town Council, represented the first; and between them came the king and statesmen like his Jewish Prime Minister, and writers like that high and fine character Foggazaro, and ecclesiastics like some of the cardinals, as for instance Janssens, the head of the Benedictines. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, October 1, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 227; Bishop II, 194.

Rome—Roosevelt's Visit to

At Rome I had an elegant row, the details of which you have doubtless seen in the papers. The Pope imposed conditions upon my reception, requiring a pledge—secret or open—that I would not visit and speak to the Methodist Mission. Of course I declined absolutely to assent to any conditions whatever, and the reception did not take place. Then with a folly as incredible as that of the Vatican itself, the Methodist missionaries, whose game was perfectly simple because the Pope had played it for them, and who had nothing to do but sit quiet, promptly issued an address of exultation which can only be called scurrilous, and with equal promptness I cancelled the arrangements I had made for seeing them. Our clerical brother is capable of showing extraordinarily little sense when he gets into public affairs. The only satisfaction I had out of the affair, and it was a very great satisfaction, was that on the one hand I administered a needed lesson to the Vatican, and on the other hand I made it understood that I feared the most powerful Protestant Church just as little as I feared the Roman Catholics. If I were in politics, or intended to run for any public office, I should regard the incident as gravely compromising my usefulness as a candidate, but inasmuch as I have no idea that I shall ever again be a candidate for anything, I can take unalloyed satisfaction in having rendered what I regard as a small service to the cause of right-thinking in America. (To H. C. Lodge, April 6, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 364.

Roosevelt — Pronunciation of

As for my name, it is pronounced as if it was spelled "Rosavelt." That is in three syllables. The first syllable as if it was "Rose." (To Rev. William W. Moir, October 10, 1898.) Roosevelt Memorial Association Library. ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. I am, if I am anything, an American. I am an American from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. If I take office I will take it as a free-man, as an equal to my fellow freemen, to serve loyally, honestly, and conscientiously every citizen of this great Commonwealth. (At Cooper Union Hall, New York City, October 15, 1886.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 117; Nat; Ed, XIV, 74.

____________. I am just an ordinary man without any special ability in any direction. In most things I am just above the average; in some of them a little under, rather than over. I am only an ordinary walker. I can't run. I am not a good swimmer, although I am a strong one. I probably ride better than I do anything else, but I am certainly not a remarkably good rider. I am not a good shot. My eyesight is not strong, and I have to get close to my game in order to make any shot at all. I never could be a good boxer, although I like to box and do keep at it, whenever I can. My eyesight prevents me from ever being a good tennis player, even if otherwise I could qualify. So you see that from the physical point of view I am just an ordinary, or perhaps a little less than ordinary man. Now, take the things that I have done in public life or in private life either, for that matter. I am not a brilliant writer. I have written a great deal, but I always have to work and slave over everything I write. The things that I have done, in one office, or another, are all, with the possible exception of the Panama Canal, just such things as any ordinary man could have done. There is nothing brilliant or outstanding in my record, except, perhaps, this one thing. Whatever I think it is right for me to do, I do. I do the things that I believe ought to be done. And when I make up my mind to do a thing, I act. (January 1909; reported by Davis.) Oscar King Davis, Released for Publication. (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1925), pp. 131-132.

____________. I am not in the least a hero, my dear fellow. I am a perfectly commonplace man and I know it; I am just a decent American citizen who tries to stand for what is decent in his own country and in other countries and who owes very much to you and to certain men like you who are not fellow countrymen of his. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, May 29, 1915.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 211; Bishop II, 181.

Roosevelt, Theodore

See also Boyhood; Rough Riders; Spanish-American War; Sunday School; White House.

Roosevelt as a Leader

I'm no orator, and in writing I'm afraid I'm not gifted at all, except perhaps that I have a good instinct and a liking for simplicity and directness. If I have anything at all resembling genius it is the gift for leadership. (To Julian Street.) Mem. Ed. IX, 213; Nat; Ed, X, 357.

____________. I am already an old man, and the chances are very small that I will ever again grow into touch with the people of this country to the degree that will make me useful as a leader; and a man who has been a leader is very rarely useful as an adviser when the period of his leadership has passed. (To E. A. Van Valkenberg, September 5, 1916.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 487; Bishop II, 414.

Roosevelt Division, The

If a war should occur while I am still physically fit, I should certainly try to raise a brigade, and if possible a division, of cavalry, mounted riflemen, such as those in my regiment ten years ago. (To John St. Loe Strachey, November 28, 1908.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 146; Bishop II, 126.

____________. If war came, I would certainly wish you in my division; but it would not be possible to say in advance in just what position I could use you; and moreover the Administration would be apt to try either not to employ me at the front or not to give me a free hand. (To Bacon, July 7, 1916.) James Brown Scott, Robert Bacon. Life and Letters. (Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1923), p. 254.

____________. My hope is, if we are drawn into this European war, to get Congress to authorize me to raise a Cavalry Division, which would consist of four cavalry brigades each of two regiments, and a brigade of Horse Artillery of two regiments, with a pioneer battalion or, better still, two pioneer battalions, and a field battalion of signal troops in addition to a supply train and a sanitary train. I would wish the ammunition train and the supply train to be both motor trains; and I would also like a regiment or battalion of machine guns; al- though I should want to consult you as to just the way in which this organization should be maintained, for of course the machine guns would be distributed among the troops. (To Captain Frank McCoy, July 10, 1916.) Major- General James G. Harbord, “Theodore Roose velt and the Army." Review of Reviews, January 1924, p. 76.

____________. In view of the fact that Germany is now actually engaged in war with us, I again earnestly ask permission to be allowed to raise a division for immediate service at the front. My purpose would be after some six weeks preliminary training here to take it direct to France for intensive training so that it could be sent to the front in the shortest possible time to whatever point was desired. I should of course ask no favors of any kind except that the division be put in the fighting line at the earliest possible moment. If the Department will allow me to assemble the division at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and will give me what aid it can, and will furnish arms and supplies as it did for the early Plattsburg camps, I will raise the money to prepare the division until Congress can act, and we shall thereby gain a start of over a month in making ready. (To Secretary Newton D. Baker, March 19, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 200; Nat; Ed, XIX, 190.

____________. If I were a younger man I would be entirely content to go in any position, as a second lieutenant, or as a private in the force. With my age I cannot do good service, however, unless as a general officer. I remember when I went to the Spanish War there was talk about rejecting me on account of my eyes; but, of course, even in the position I then went in, it was nonsense to reject me for any such reason. To the position which I now seek, of course, the physical examination does not apply, so long as I am fit to do the work, which I certainly can do—that is enlisting the best type of fighting men, and putting into them the spirit which will enable me to get the best possible results out of them in the actual fight. Hindenburg, was of course, a retired officer, who had been for years on the retired list, and who could not physically have passed an examination. I am not a Hindenburg; but I can raise and handle this division in a way that will do credit to the American people, and to you, and to the President. (To Secretary Newton D. Baker, April 12, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 203; Nat; Ed, XIX, 193.

____________. I now ask permission to raise a division to consist of regiments like the regiment which I commanded in the Santiago campaign (and I can raise you an army corps on this basis). If I were young enough I should be willing to raise that division, and myself merely go as a second lieutenant in it. As it is, I believe I am best fitted to be the division commander in an expeditionary corps, under the chief of that corps; but if you desire to put me in a less position, and make me a brigade commander, I will at once raise the division, and can raise it without difficulty, if it is to be put under any man of the type of General Wood, General Pershing, or General Kuhn. (To Secretary Newton D. Baker, April 22, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 216; Nat; Ed, XIX, 204.

____________. All I am asking is the chance to help make good the President's message of April 2d. If you don’t know whether the governments of the Allies would like me to raise such a division, and take it abroad at the earliest possible moment, I wish you would ask those governments yourself their feeling in the matter. I know that they earnestly desire us to send our men to the fighting line; and I have been informed from the highest sources that they would like to have me in the fighting line. Of course, they will not desire to have me go, or the division go, unless the Administration expresses its willingness. Let me repeat that if you permit me to raise a division, it will be composed of men who would not be reached in the bill you proposed to Congress, and who would otherwise not be utilized at all. I should, of course, like your authority to have about two Regular officers for every thousand men, and perhaps four of the Reserve Officers for every thousand men, and perhaps certain additional ones if you saw fit to grant them. But the subtraction of these men from the number of men available to train the force called out under your proposed bill would be inconsiderable, compared to the immense gain which would come from having such a division put into the fighting line at the earliest possible moment. (To Secretary Newton D. Baker, April 22, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 218; Nat; Ed, XIX, 206.

____________. I wish respectfully to point out certain errors into which the President has been led in his announcement. He states that the purpose was to give me an "independent" command. In my last letter to the Secretary of War I respectfully stated that if I were given permission to raise an army corps of two divisions, to be put under the command of some General like Wood or Bell or Pershing or Barry or Kuhn, I desired for myself only the position of junior among the eight brigade commanders. My position would have been exactly the same as theirs, except that I would. have ranked after and have been subordinate to the rest of them. The President alludes to our proffered action as one that would have an effect "politically,” but as not contributing to the "success of the war," and as representing a "policy of personal gratification or advantage." I wish respectfully but emphatically to deny that any political consideration whatever or any desire for personal gratification or advantage entered into our calculations. Our undivided purpose was to contribute effectively to the success of the war. . . . The President condemns our proposal on the ground that "undramatic” action is needed, action that is "practical and of scientific definiteness and precision." There was nothing dramatic in our proposal save as all proposals indicating eagerness or willingness to sacrifice life for an ideal are dramatic. It is true that our division would have contained the sons or grandsons of men who in the Civil War wore the blue or the gray; for instance, the sons or grandsons of Phil Sheridan, Fitzhugh Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James A. Garfield, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Adna R. Chaffee, Nathan Bedford Forest; but these men would have served either with commissions or in the ranks, Precisely like the rest of us; and all alike would have been judged solely by the efficiency—including the "scientific definiteness”—with which they did their work and served the flag of their loyal devotion. (Statement to men who had volunteered for service in the division, May 21, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 235-237; Nat Ed. XIX, 221,222.

____________. I bitterly regret to say that my Government has refused to allow me to raise troops and take them to France. The reasons were not connected with patriotism, or with military efficiency, and so there is no use of my trying to get the decision altered. My four sons and one of my sons-in-law are now in the army that is being trained, and I hope that all five of them will not too long hence go to your country. (To Captain de Rochambeau, June 1, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 503, Bishop II, 429.

Roosevelt's Candidacy for Mayor

I don't care what may be his politics, I don't care what may be his religion, I don't care what may be his color. I don't care who he is, so long as he is honest he shall be served by me. All I ask of him is that he discharge faithfully the duties of an American citizen, and I am his representative. If I am chosen I will have one ambition—which is lawful and honorable—to so comport myself as to earn the right to the respect and esteem of every citizen of the city of New York. I am the candidate for mayor nominated and indorsed by the citizens and the Republican patty. If I am made mayor, I will be mayor of the city of New York. (At Cooper Union Hall, New York City, October I5, 1886.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 117; Nat; Ed, XIV, 74.

Roosevelt's Drinking

It happens that in the matter of drinking I am an extremely abstemious man; I suppose that no man not a total abstainer could well drink less than I do; and whiskey and brandy I practically never touch. The accusation that I ever have been addicted in the slightest degree to drinking to excess, or to drinking even wine—and liquor, as I say, I practically never touch—in any but the most moderate way, is not only the blackest falsehood but an utterly ridiculous falsehood; it does not represent any distortion or exaggeration; it has no slightest base in fact; it is simply malignant invention—just as sheer an invention as if they had said that at the age of five I had poisoned my grandmother or had been mixed up in the assassination of Lincoln by Wilkes Booth. One accusation would be exactly as infamous and exactly as ludicrous as the other. (Letter of February 25, 1909.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 138; Bishop II, 118.

____________. I have never claimed to be a total abstainer, but I drink as little as most total abstainers, for I really doubt whether on an average, year in and year out, I drink more than is given for medicinal purposes to many people. I never touch whisky, and I have never drunk a cocktail or a highball in my life. I doubt whether I have drunk a dozen teaspoonfuls of brandy since I came back from Africa, and as far as I now recollect, in each case it was for medicinal purposes. In Africa during the eleven months I drank exactly seven ounces of brandy; this was under our doctor’s direction in my first fever attack, and once when I was completely exhausted. My experience on these two occasions convinced me that tea was better than brandy, and during the last six months in Africa I took no brandy, even when sick, taking tea instead. (To F. C. Iglehart, May 12, 1912.) F. C. Iglehart, King Alcohol Dethroned. (The Christian Herald, N. Y., 1917), p. 209.

Roosevelt's Life

As far as I am personally concerned, I am well ahead of the game, whatever happens. I have had an exceedingly good time; I have been exceedingly well treated by the American people; and I have enjoyed the respect of those for whose respect I care most. (To William Allen White, November 26, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 60; Bishop II, 51. ____________. I am still looking forward, and not back. I do not know any man who has had as happy a fifty years as I have had. I have had about as good a run for my money as any human being possibly could have; and whatever happens now I am ahead of the game. Besides, I hope still to be able to do some good work now and then; and I am looking forward to my African trip with just as much eagerness as if I were a boy; and when I come back there are lots of things in our social, industrial and political life in which I shall take an absorbed interest. I have never sympathized in the least with the kind of man who feels that because he has been fortunate enough to hold a big position he cannot be expected to enjoy himself afterward in a less prominent position. (To Frederic Remington, October 28, 1908.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 142; Bishop II, 122.

Roosevelt's Opponents

It is to be expected as a matter of course that the corporation judge, the corporation senator and exsenator, the big corporation attorney, the newspaper owned in or controlled from Wall Street will attack me. I should be very foolish if I expected anything else; I should be still more foolish if I were greatly disturbed over the attacks. If there is much depression, if we meet hard times, then a great number of honest and well-meaning people will gradually come to believe in the troth of these attacks, and I shall probably end my term of service as President under a more or less dark cloud of obloquy. If so, I shall be sorry, of course; but I shall neither regret what I have done nor alter my line of conduct in the least degree, nor yet be unduly cast down. (To William Allen White, November 26, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 60; Bishop II, 51.

Roosevelt's Policies

If I stand for anything it is for this kind of substantive achievement, and above all, for treating public affairs with courage, honesty and sanity; for keeping our Army and Navy up; for making it evident that as a nation we do not intend to inflict wrong or submit to wrong, and that we do intend to try to do justice within our own borders, and so far as it can be done by legislation, to favor the growth of intelligence and the diffusion of wealth in such a manner as will measurably avoid the extremes of swollen fortunes and grinding poverty. This represents the ideal toward which I am striving. I hope we can fairly realize it. (To Jacob Riis, June 26, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 24; Bishop II, 19-20.

____________. I am as sure as man can be of anything that I have been following the course which the best interests of this country demand; and under such circumstances, if I had known that the obloquy were to be permanent I should still not have altered this course. But I do not believe that it will be permanent, because I do not believe that there can be a permanent deviation from the lines of policy along which I have worked— that is, if the Republic is to endure at all. If there is such permanent deviation I shall esteem the calamity so great that any thought of my own reputation in the matter will be entirely swallowed up. (To William Allen White, November 26, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 60; Bishop II, 51.

Roosevelt's Political Career

Really, though elected as an independent Republican, I hardly know what to call myself. As regards civil service, reform, tariff reform, local self-government, etc., I am quite in sympathy with Democratic principles; it is Democratic practice that I object to. Besides as I am neither of Celtic descent nor yet a liquor seller, I would be ostracized among our New York Democrats. I cannot join myself with the party that, at least in my city and State, contains the vast majority of the vicious and illiterate population. (To Joseph Henry Adams, November 20, 1882.) Walter F. McCaleb, Theodore Roosevelt. (Albert & Charles Boni, N. Y., 1931), p. 31.

____________. I have very little expectation of being able to keep on in politics; my success so far has only been won by absolute indifference to my future career; for I doubt if any one can realise the bitter and venomous hatred with which I am regarded by the very politicians who at Utica supported me, under dictation from masters who were influenced by political considerations that were national and not local in their scope. I realise very thoroughly the absolutely ephemeral nature of the hold I have upon the people, and the very real and positive hostility I have excited among the politicians. I will not stay in public life unless I can do so on my own terms; and my ideal, whether lived up to or not, is rather a high one. (To S. N. D. North, April 30, 1884.) G. W. Douglas, The Many-Sided. Roosevelt. (Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y., 1907.), p.42.

____________. Of course it may be that we have had our day; it is far more likely that this is true in my case than in yours, for I have no hold on the party managers in New York Blaine’s nomination meant to me pretty sure political death if I supported him; this I realized entirely, and went in with my eyes open. I have won again and again; finally chance placed me where I was sure to lose whatever I did; and I will balance the last against the first. I have stood a great deal; and now that the throw has been against me, I shall certainly not complain. I have not believed and do not believe that I shall ever be likely to come back into political life; we fought a good winning fight when our friends the Independents were backing us; and we have both of us, when circumstances turned them against us, fought the losing fight grimly out to the end. What we have been cannot be taken from us; what we are is due to the folly of others and to no fault of ours. (To H. C. Lodge, November 11, 1884.) Lodge Letters I, 26.

____________. As you know, I am a man of moderate means . . . and I should have to live very simply in Washington and could not entertain in any way as Mr. Hobart and Mr. Morton entertained. My children are all growing up and I find the burden of their education constantly heavier, so that I am by no means sure that I ought to go into public life at all, provided some remunerative work offered itself. The only reason I would like to go on is that as I have not been a money maker I feel rather in honor bound to leave my children the equivalent in a way of a substantial sum of actual achievement in politics or letters. Now, as Governor, I can achieve something, but as Vice-President I should achieve nothing. The more I look at it, the less I feel as if the Vice-Presidency offered anything to me that would warrant my taking it. (To T. C. Platt, February 1, 1900.) William R. Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt. (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1919), p. 144.

____________. To consider the Presidency in any way as a possibility would be foolish. American politics are kaleidoscopic, and long before the next five years are out, the kaleidoscope is certain to have been many times shaken and some new men to have turned up. The only thing for me to do is to do exactly as I have always done; and that is, when there is a chance of attempting a bit of work worth the trial, to attempt it. You got me the chance to be Civil Service Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and it was by your advice that I went into the police department. All three jobs were worth doing and I did them reasonably to my own satisfaction. Now the thing to decide at the moment is whether I shall try for the Governorship again, or accept the Vice Presidency, if offered. (To H. C. Lodge, February 2, 1900.) Lodge Letters I, 447.

____________. I do not expect to go any further in politics. Heaven knows there is no reason to expect that a man of so many and so loudly and not always wisely expressed convictions on so many different subjects should go so far! But I have had a first-class run for my money, and I honestly think I have accomplished a certain amount. (To Edward S. Martin, November 22, 1900.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 162; Bishop I, 140.

____________. Every office I have held I have quite sincerely believed would be the last I should hold, the only exception being that during my first term as President I gradually grew to think it probable that I should be reelected. (To John St. Loe Strachey, February 12, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 7; Bishop II, 5.

____________. I have been in active politics almost from the moment I left Harvard twentyfive years ago. I possessed a very moderate income. I could not have gone into politics at all if the expenses of election had at any time come anywhere near the salaries I have received in the different positions I have held; and except from these salaries, I of course never made a cent out of Politics—I could no more do it than I could cheat at cards. I have always occupied working positions. I have seen New York State politics from the inside as a member of the legislature, and New York City politics from the inside as Police Commissioner. I have carried my ward and lost it; have been delegate to county and state and national conventions; have stumped year in and year out, and served on committees, before and after elections, which determined much of what the inside policy was to be. I have had on occasions to fight bosses and rings and machines; and have had to get along as best I could with bosses and rings and machines when the conditions were different. I have seen reform movements that failed and reform movements that succeeded and have taken part in both, and have also taken part in opposing fool reform movements which it would be a misfortune to have succeed. In particular, I have been so placed as to see very much of the inside of the administration of three Presidents in addition to my own—that is, of Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley. (To George H. Lorimer, May 12, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 16; Bishop II, 13.

____________. As soon as I left college I wanted to take an interest in political life; I wanted to find out how the work of governing was really done. Quite a number of nice people in New York, along Fifth Avenue, solemnly advised me not to join any of the regular political organizations, because I would find that they were composed only of "muckers," not of "gentlemen." The answer was easy: "Then they are the ones that govern; if it is the muckers that govern, I want to see if I cannot hold my own with them. I will join with them in governing you if you are too weak to govern yourselves." I intended to be one of the class that governs, not one of the class that is governed. So I joined the political club in my district. I joined it just as I joined the National Guard. If there came a time of civic disturbance in the community, or if we were invaded or were at war with any country, I did not intend to have to hire somebody else to do my shooting for me. I intended to do it myself; and in the same way I intended to do the governing myself, to do my part of it. I want to see you feel the same way. (At the Harvard Union, Cambridge, Mass., February 23, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XV, 488; Nat; Ed, XIII, 564.

____________. Neither the praise nor the blame makes one partical of difference in my career. I have worked hard; and now I have revelled in staying quietly here in my own home, with those for whom I care most in the world, and with my own books, and the things with which I have associations. Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, this would not have been so; I would have felt that it spelled failure to have me forced out of the contest while it was still my business to fight. But now I have fought. I am entirely ready to take up any task I ought to; but if no task comes, why I feel I have done enough to warrant my enjoying the rest without the haunting sense of having failed to strive my best while it was still the day of action. (To Lady Delamere, March 7, 1911.) Lord Charnwood, Theodore Roosevelt. (Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston, 1923), p. 220.

____________. Like most young men in politics, I went through various oscillations of feeling before I "found myself." At one period I became so impressed with the virtue of complete independence that I proceeded to act on each case purely as I personally viewed it, without paying any heed to the principles and prejudices of others. The result was that I speedily and deservedly lost all power of accomplishing anything at all; and I thereby learned the invaluable lesson that in the practical activities of life no man can render the highest service unless he can act in combination with his fellows, which means a certain amount of give-and-take between him and them. Again, I at one period began to believe that I had a future before me, and that it behooved me to be very far-sighted and scan each action carefully with a view to its possible effect on that future. This speedily made me useless to the public and an object of aversion to myself; and I then made up my mind that I would try not to think of the future at all, but would proceed on the assumption that each office I field would be the last I ever should hold, and that I would confine myself to trying to do my work as well as possible while I held that office. I found that for me personally this was the only way in which I could either enjoy myself or render good service to the country, and I never afterward deviated from this plan. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 103; Nat; Ed, XX, 88.

____________. It may be that after I left the Presidency I ought not to have tried to take any part in politics at all. But all the men of the highest type made the strongest kind of appeal to me not to desert them. There was no use of my talking about virtue in the abstract, unless I applied it to concrete cases; and I either had to do just as I did or else completely abandon all effort to say anything on any public question whatsoever. Perhaps I ought to have done this; but, if I had done so, it is quite possible that I should now be feeling that I had a little shirked my duty. (To Kermit Roosevelt, January 27, 1915.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 421; Bishop II, 358.

Roosevelt's Political Career

See also Civil Service Commissioner; Governor Of New York; Navy, Assistant Secretary Of The; New York Assembly; Police Commissioner; President; Progressive Party; Republican Party; Roosevelt's Candidacy For Mayor; Vice- Presidency.

Roosevelt's Popularity

Just at the moment people are speaking altogether too well of me, which is enough to make any man feel uncomfortable; for if he has any sense he knows that the reaction is perfectly certain to come under such circumstances, and that then people will revenge themselves for feeling humiliated for having said too much on one side by saying too much on the other. (To Henry Cabot Lodge, September 15, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 393; Bishop I, 342.

____________. I have felt a slightly contemptuous amusement over the discussion that has been going on for several months about my popularity or waning popularity or absence of popularity. I am not a college freshman nor that would-be popular fox-hunting hero in "Soapy Sponge," and therefore I am not concerned about my popularity save in exactly so far as it is an instrument which will help me to achieve my purposes. That is, in so far as my good repute among the people helps me to secure the passage of the rate bill, I value it. In so far as it fails to help me secure the adoption of the Santo Domingo treaty, I do not value it. A couple of years ago or thereabouts, a good many timid souls told me that by my action in Panama I had ruined my popularity and was no longer available as a candidate; to which I answered that while I much wished to be a candidate and hoped that I had not ruined my popularity, yet if it was necessary to ruin it in order to secure to the United States the chance to build the Panama Canal, I should not hesitate a half-second, and did not understand how any man could hesitate. (To Sereno S. Pratt, March 1, 1906.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 10; Bishop II, 7.

____________. One more word about my "popularity." It certainly seems as if for the moment I were popular, but I know too much about popularity and above all, of the utter evanescence of a great and unwarranted popularity, to attach more than very slight weight to such manifestations as I see. . . . Now, a tremendous hip-hip-hurrah is very apt to leave people exhausted, and rather to invite reaction; and I attach more importance to the cold calculated malignance of the foes I have made than to the wild plaudits of men who at the moment speak well of me chiefly because they are discontented in a rather vague way with existing conditions, and are groping about for somebody whom they can strive to follow. (To H. C. Lodge, May 14, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 382.

____________. As regards myself, I think that the American people feel a little tired of me, a feeling with which I cordially sympathize; for they cannot be expected as a whole to understand that my speeches and writings during the last six months have been due not in the least to a desire to speak and write, but to the fact that I could not avoid doing so without shirking what I regarded as my duty. Moreover I am certain that the American people would greatly resent any thought that I would want them to give me another job of any kind for my own sake. I shall never wittingly put myself in a position where they can believe this. I feel most strongly that I never again should take any public position unless it could be made perfectly clear that I was taking it not for my own sake, but because the people thought it would be to their advantage to have me do so. (To William Allen White, December 12, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 363; Bishop II, 309.

Roosevelt's Power

They talk of my power: my power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens who are straight and honest cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest; that is all the strength I have. (At Binghamton, N. Y., October 24, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 59; Nat; Ed, XVII, 39.

____________. I am not under the slightest delusion as to any power that during my political career I have at any time possessed. Whatever of power I at any time had, I obtained from the people. I could exercise it only so long as, and to the extent that, the people not merely believed in me, but heartily backed me up. Whatever I did as President I was able to do only because I had the backing of the people. When on any point I did not have that backing, when on any point I differed from the people, it mattered not whether I was right or whether I was wrong, my power vanished. (Before Progressive National Convention, Chicago, August 6, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 409; Nat; Ed, XVII, 297.

Roosevelt's Reception In Europe

I have no time to tell you of the really extraordinary reception that has been given me here. I have been somewhat puzzled by it. The various sovereigns have vied with one another in entertaining us. When we reached Denmark we stayed at the Palace; we are staying at the Palace here in Christiania; and shall do the same in Stockholm and Berlin. The popular reception, however, has been even more remarkable. I drive through dense throngs of people cheering and calling, exactly as if I were President and visiting cities at home where there was great enthusiasm for me. As I say, I have been much puzzled by it. It is largely because, and perhaps almost exclusively because I am a former President of the American Republic, which stands to the average European as a queer attractive dream, being sometimes regarded as a golden Utopia partially realized, and sometimes as a field for wild adventure of a by no means necessarily moral type—in fact a kind of mixture of Bacon's Utopia and Raleigh's Spanish Main. In addition, there is, I think, a certain amount to be credited to me personally, as a man who has appealed to their imaginations, who is accepted by them as a leader, but as a leader whom they suppose to represent democracy, liberty, honesty and justice. The diplomats are perfectly paralyzed, both at the enormous popular demonstrations, and at our being asked to stay in the royal palaces, something hitherto unheard of in the case of any but actual sovereigns. It is all interesting, and at times amusing, but it is very fatiguing and irksome, and much though I dread having to get into the confusion of American politics again, I long inexpressibly to be back at Sagamore Hill, in my own house, with my own books, and among my own friends. (To H. C. Lodge, May 5, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 381.

Roosevelt's Supporters

It has been peculiarly pleasant to me to find that my supporters are to be found in the overwhelming majority among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people. . . . I am a college-bred man, belonging to a well-to- do family, so that, as I was more than contented to live simply, and was fortunate to marry a wife with the same tastes, I have not had to make my own livelihood; though I have always had to add to my private income by work of some kind. But the farmers, lumbermen, mechanics, ranchmen, miners, of the North, East, and West have felt that I was just as much in sympathy with them, just as devoted to their interests, and as proud of them and as representative of them, as if I had sprung from among their own ranks; and I certainly feel that I do understand them and believe in them and feel for them and try to represent them just as much as if I had from earliest childhood made each day's toil pay for that day's existence or achievement. How long this feeling toward me will last I cannot say. It was overwhelming at the time of the election last November, and I judge by the extraordinary turnout for the Inauguration it is overwhelming now. Inasmuch as the crest of the wave is invariably succeeded by the hollow, this means that there will be a reaction. But meanwhile I shall have accomplished some thing worth accomplishing, I hope. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, March 9, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 420; Bishop I, 364-365.

____________. It is a peculiar gratification to me to have owed my election not to the politicians primarily, although of course I have done my best to get on with them; not to the financiers, although I have staunchly upheld the rights of property; but above all to Abraham Lincoln's "plain people"; to the folk who worked hard on farm, in shop, or on the railroads, or who owned little stores, little businesses which they managed themselves. I would literally, not figuratively, rather cut off my right hand than forfeit by any improper act of mine the trust and regard of these people. I may have to do something of which they will disapprove, because I deem it absolutely right and necessary; but most assuredly I shall endeavor not to merit their disapproval by any act inconsistent with the ideal they have formed with me. (To Owen Wister, November 19, 1904.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 397; Bishop I, 345.

Root, Elihu

[Root] was the man of my cabinet, the man on whom I most relied, to whom I owed most, the greatest Secretary of State we have ever had, as great a cabinet officer as we have ever had, save Alexander Hamilton alone. He is as sane and cool-headed as he is high-minded; he neither lets facts blind him to ideals, nor ideals to fact; he is the wisest and safest of advisers, and staunchly loyal alike to friends and causes—and all I say I mean, and it is said with full remembrance that on certain points he and I would hardly agree. (To Carnegie, February 18, 1910.) Burton J. Hendrick, The Life of Andrew Carnegie. (Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, N.Y., 1932), II, 327.

____________. I have once had to accept your resignation as Secretary of War. Now I have to accept it as Secretary of State. On the former occasion you retired from a great office where you had done work which no other man could have done as well, and after a few months you came back to fill a still higher office. In this higher office you have again done work which no other man could have done as well. I do not suppose that this letter can be made public, for some foolish people would think I was speaking hyperbolically, whereas I am speaking what I believe to be the literal truth, when I say that in my judgment you will be regarded as the greatest and ablest man who has ever filled the position of Secretary of State. You leave the office to go into the Senate. I do not see how you can possibly do better work in the Senate than you have done in the Cabinet, but I am sure you will do as good work. (To Root, January 26, 1909.) Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root. (Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y., 1938), II, 137.

____________. I would rather see Elihu Root in the White House than any other man now possible. I have told several men recently that I would walk on my hands and knees from the White House to the Capitol to see Root made President. But I know it cannot be done. He couldn't be elected. There is too much opposition to him on account of his corporation connections. But the people don't know Root. I do. I knew him when I was Governor of New York, and I have known him here, very intimately, during the years he has been in my Cabinet. The very thing on account of which there is so much objection to him would make him an ideal President. He is a great lawyer. He has always given all that he had to his clients. He has great intelligence, wonderful industry, and complete fidelity to his clients. What the people do not understand about him is that if he were President they would be his clients. He would be serving the Nation with absolute singleness of purpose, and with all that intelligence, industry, and fidelity. Nothing would be, or could be, paramount with him to the interests of his clients. I know that, for I have seen him repeatedly take that attitude as a Cabinet officer. (Late 1907-early 1908; reported by Davis.) Oscar King Davis, Released for Publication. (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1925), pp. 54-55.

Root, Elihu, As Secretary of State

I wished Root as Secretary of State partly because I am extremely fond of him and prize his companionship as well as his advice, but primarily because I think that in all the country he is the best man for the position, and that no minister of foreign affairs in any other country at this moment in any way compares with him. Nobody can praise him too highly to suit me. (To Albert J. Beveridge, July 11, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, p. 427; Bishop I, 371.

Root, Elihu, As Secretary of War

Just at the moment Mr. Root has been savagely attacked. Now Mr. Root, by himself and through Governor Taft and General Wood and other military and civilian assistants, has done work which I regard as making the United States always his debtor. He gave up the position of leader of the New York bar, with a practice which brought him over $100,000 a year, to come down here. . . . He has worked so as almost to wear himself out. . . . He has not one thought save how to benefit the public service, how to see that the Army is kept up to the highest standard, how to secure the faithful fulfillment of our obligations to Cuba, how to help bring peace and enlightenment and self-government in the Philippines. During these three years he has performed a mass of work such as has been performed by no other minister of any civilized nation during the same time, nor has any other minister in any government of any civilized nation had a task so important which at the same time he has fulfilled so well. Yet, in spite of this, he has been most cruelly attacked, usually without any basis at all, sometimes because an occasional subordinate has done wrong—or even, as with every other public man from Washington and Lincoln down, because an occasional mistake has been made under him in the Department itself. (Letter of June 17, 1902.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, p. 222; Bishop I, 193.

Rough Riders

The men who made up the bulk of the regiment, and gave it its peculiar character . . . came from the four Territories which yet remained within the boundaries of the United States; that is, from the lands that have been most recently won over to white civilization, and in which the conditions of life are nearest those that obtained on the frontier when there still was a frontier. They were a splendid set of men, these southwesterners—tall and sinewy, with resolute, weather-beaten faces, and eyes that looked a man straight in the face without flinching. They included in their ranks men of every occupation; but the three types were those of the cowboy, the hunter, and the mining prospector—the man who wandered hither and thither, killing game for a living, and spending his life in the quest for metal wealth.

In all the world there could be no better material for soldiers than that afforded by these grim hunters of the mountains, these wild rough riders of the plains. They were accustomed to handling wild and savage horses; they were accustomed to following the chase with the rifle, both for sport and as a means of livelihood. Varied though their occupations had been, almost all had, at one time or an other, herded cattle and hunted big game. They were hardened to life in the open, and to shifting for themselves under adverse circumstances. They were used, for all their lawless freedom, to the rough discipline of the round-up and the mining company. Some of them came from the small frontier towns; but most were from the wilderness, having left their lonely hunters' cabins and shifting cow camps to seek new and more stirring adventures beyond the sea. They had their natural leaders—the men who had shown they could master other men, and could more than hold their own in the eager driving life of the new settlements. (1899.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 13-14; Nat; Ed, XI, 11-12.

____________. After the battle of San Juan my men had really become veterans; they and I understood each other perfectly, and trusted each other implicitly; they knew I would share every hardship and danger with them, would do everything in my power to see that they were fed, and so far as might be, sheltered and spared; and in return I knew that they would endure every kind of hardship and fatigue without a murmur and face every danger with entire fearlessness. I felt utter confidence in them, and would have been more than willing to put them to any task which any crack regiment of the world, at home or abroad, could perform. They were natural fighters, men of great intelligence, great courage, great hardihood, and physical prowess; and I could draw on these qualities and upon their spirit of ready, soldierly obedience to make up for any deficiencies in the technic of the trade which they had temporarily adopted. It must be remembered that they were already good individual fighters, skilled in the use of the horse and the rifle, so that there was no need of putting them through the kind of training in which the ordinary raw recruit must spend his first year or two. (1899.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 137-138; Nat; Ed, XI, 116-117.

____________. The regiment was a wholly exceptional volunteer organization, and its career cannot be taken as in any way a justification for the belief that the average volunteer regiment approaches the average regular regiment in point of efficiency until it has had many months of active service. In the first place, though the regular regiments may differ markedly among themselves, yet the range of variation among them is nothing like so wide as that among volunteer regiments, where at first there is no common standard at all; the very best being, perhaps, up to the level of the regulars . . . while the very worst are no better than mobs, and the great bulk come in between. The average regular regiment is superior to the average volunteer regiment in the physique of the enlisted men, who have been very carefully selected, who have been trained to life in the open, and who know how to cook and take care of themselves generally. Now, in all these respects, and in others like them, the Rough Riders were the equals of the regulars. They were hardy, self-reliant, accustomed to shift for themselves in the open under very adverse circumstances. The two all-important qualifications for a cavalryman are riding and shooting—the modern cavalryman being so often used dismounted, as an infantryman. The average recruit requires a couple of years before he becomes proficient in horsemanship and marksmanship; but my men were already good shots and first-class riders when they came into the regiment. The difference as regards officers and non- commissioned officers, between regulars and volunteers, is usually very great; but in my regiment (keeping in view the material we had to handle), it was easy to develop non-commissioned officers out of men who had been roundup foremen, ranch foremen, mining bosses, and the like. These men were intelligent and resolute; they knew they had a great deal to learn, and they set to work to learn it; while they were already accustomed to managing considerable interests, to obeying orders, and to taking care of others as well as themselves. As for the officers, the great point in our favor was the anxiety they showed to learn from those among their number who, like Capron, had already served in the regular army; and the fact that we had chosen a regular army man as colonel. (1899.) Mem. Ed. XIII, 183-186; Nat; Ed, XI, 157-159.

____________. They have been worn down by the terrific strain of fighting, marching, digging in the trenches, during the tropical midsummer; they have been in the fore-front, all through, they never complained though half-fed and with clothes and shoes in tatters; but it is bitter to think of the wealth at home, which would be so gladly used in their behalf if only it could be so used. They are devoted to me, and I cannot get their condition out of my thoughts. If only you could see them in battle, or feeding these wretched refugee women and children, whose misery beggars description. (To Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, July 19, 1898.) C. R. Robinson, My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 175.

____________. In a sense my regiment in its composition was a typical American regiment. Its people came from the West chiefly, but some from the East, from the South chiefly, but some from the North, so that every section was represented in it. They varied in birthplace as in creed. . . . There were men in that regiment who themselves were born, or whose parents were born in England, Ireland, Germany, or Scandinavia, but there was not a man, no matter what his creed, what his birthplace, what his ancestry, who was not an American and nothing else. We had representatives of the real, original, native Americans, because we had no inconsiderable number who were in whole or in part of Indian blood. There was in the regiment but one kind of rivalry among those men, and but one would have been tolerated. That was the rivalry of each man to see if he could not do his duty a little better than any one else. Short would have been the shrift of any man who tried to introduce division along lines of section, or creed, or class. We had serving in the ranks men of inherited wealth and men who all their lives had earned each day's bread by that day's labor, and they stood on a footing of exact equality. It would not have been any more possible for a feeling of arrogance to exist on one side than for a feeling of rancor and envy to exist on the other. (At Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 5, 1903.) Presidential Addresses and State Papers I, 365-366.

____________. Now, for a bit of brag. My Rough Riders, hunters of the mountains and horsemen of the plains, could not, taken as a whole, have walked quite as well as Morgan's men, nor yet have starved as well, though they were good enough at both. But they rode without thought horses that Morgan's men would not have ventured so much as to try to get on, and I firmly believe that they were fully as formidable in battle. Mine was a volunteer regiment, and at least half of the officers at the outset were very bad, so that in a long campaign I should have had to make a complete change among them—a change that was already well begun when the regiment was disbanded. But as compared with any volunteer regiment of the Revolution, of the Civil War during a like short period of service—four months—I think its record stood well. It was raised, drilled—so far as it was drilled—armed and equipped, kept two weeks on transports, and put through two victorious aggressive (not defensive) fights, in which it lost over a third of its officers and nearly a fourth of its men, and this within sixty days. The men already knew how to ride, shoot, and live in the open; and they had the fighting edge. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, January 1, 1908.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 197; Bishop II, 169.

Rough Riders—Roosevelt and the

In my regiment nine-tenths of the men were better horsemen than I was, and probably two-thirds of them better shots than I was, while on the average they were certainly hardier and more enduring. Yet after I had had them a very short while they all knew, and I knew too, that nobody else could command them as I could. (To Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., October 4, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 503; Nat; Ed, XIX, 446.

Rough Riders

See also Capron, Allyn; O'neill, Bucky; Spanish-American War.

Round-Up

Though there is much work and hardship, rough fare, monotony, and exposure connected with the round-up, yet there are few men who do not look forward to it and back to it with pleasure. The only fault to be found is that the hours of work are so long that one does not usually have enough time to sleep. The food, if rough, is good: beef, bread, pork, beans, coffee or tea, always canned tomatoes, and often rice, canned corn, or sauce made from dried apples. The men are good-humored, bold, and thoroughly interested in their business, continually vying with one another in the effort to see which can do the work best. It is superbly health-giving, and is full of excitement and adventure, calling for the exhibition of pluck, self-reliance, hardihood, and dashing horsemanship; and of all forms of physical labor the easiest and pleasantest is to sit in the saddle. (1888.) Mem. Ed. IV, 445; Nat Ed. I, 340.

Royalty

Before I had seen them I had realized in a vague way that a king's life nowadays must be a very limited life; but the realization was brought home to me very closely on this trip. I can understand a woman's liking to be queen fairly well (that is, if she is not an exceptional woman), for if, as is sometimes the case, as was the case for instance with both the Queen of Norway and the Crown Princess of Sweden, she has made a love-match, she has the ordinary happiness that comes to the happy woman with husband and children, and in addition the ceremonial and social part would be apt to appeal to her and to be taken seriously by her. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, October 1, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 250; Bishop II, 213.

____________. I shall always bear testimony to the courtesy and good manners, and the obvious sense of responsibility and duty, of the various sovereigns I met. But of course, as was to be expected, they were like other human beings in that the average among them was not very high as regards intellect and force. Indeed the kind of driving force and energy needed to make a first-class President or Prime Minister, a great general or War Minister, would be singularly out of place in the ordinary constitutional monarch. Apparently what is needed in a constitutional king is that he shall be a kind of sublimated American Vice-President; plus being socially at the head of that part of his people which you have called the free masons of fashion." The last function is very important; and the king's lack of political power, and his exalted social position, alike cut him off from all real comradeship with the men who really do the things that count; for comradeship must imply some quality, and from this standpoint the king is doubly barred from all that is most vital and interesting. Politically he can never rise to, and socially he can never descend to, the level of the really able men of the nation. I cannot imagine a more appallingly dreary life for a man of ambition and power. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, October 1, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 246; Bishop II, 211.

Royalty—Roosevelt and

I thoroughly liked and respected almost all the various kings and queens I met; they struck me as serious people, with charming manners, devoted to their people and anxious to justify their own positions by the way they did their duty—it is no disparagement to their good intentions and disinterestedness to add that each sovereign was obviously conscious that he was looking a possible republic in the face, which was naturally an incentive to good conduct; I was very glad to have met them; and it was pleasant to see them for a short while; but longer intercourse, or renewed intercourse, would have been unnatural unless there had been, as there was not, some real intellectual interest, or other bond in common, and if there was any such, it happened not to develop itself. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, October 1, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 238; Bishop II, 204.

Royalty—Visits of

We make a strong effort to prevent royalties coming here. Mr. Bacon will send you a circular issued by John Hay some years ago to our diplomatic and consular representatives, explaining this point. I am continually importuned to get over here, now Emperor William, now President Diaz, now King Edward, and now all sorts and kinds of princes. If one comes it makes a precedent which others are apt to follow, and you know as well as I do that with all these princes we are apt to have difficulties — sometimes because some demagogue thinks it will help him to say disagreeable things about them; sometimes because of the officious and rather snobbish action of the people who regard themselves as of high social position in desiring to entertain the princes; and sometimes from the simple fact that in a democratic government like ours it is very hard to arrange properly for the reception of members of royal houses. Of course you understand that I cannot make him a guest of the nation. Congress only can do that. (To Melville E. Stone, July 16, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 81; Bishop II, 70.

Royalty

See also Kings; Presidency.

Rugby

See Football.

Rural Free Delivery

See Farm Life. Rural Life. See Agriculture; Country Life Commission; Farm Life; Roads.

Russia—Future of

The destruction of Russia is not thinkable, but if it were, it would be a most frightful calamity. The Slavs are a young people, of limitless possibilities, who from various causes have not been able to develop as rapidly as the peoples of central and western Europe. They have grown in civilization until their further advance has become something greatly to be desired, because it will be a factor of immense importance in the welfare of the world. All that is necessary is for Russia to throw aside the spirit of absolutism developed in her during the centuries of Mongol dominion. She will then be found doing what no other race can do and what it is of peculiar advantage to the English-speaking peoples that she should do. (New York Times, October 11, 1914.) Mem. Ed. XX, 57; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 49.

____________. Russia's sufferings have been sore, but it is not possible to overestimate Russia's tremendous tenacity of purpose and power of endurance. Russia is mighty, and her future looms so vast that it is hardly possible to overstate it. The Russian people feel this to be their war. Russia's part in the world is great, and will be greater; it is well that she should stand valiantly and stubbornly for her own rights; and as a firm and ardent friend of the Russian people may I add that Russia will stand for her rights all the more effectively when she also stands for the rights of Finn and Pole and Jew; when she learns the lesson that we Americans must also learn—to grant every man his full rights, and to exact from each man the full performance of his duty. (1916.) Mem. Ed. XX, 257; Nat; Ed, XVIII, 222.

Russia—Tyranny In

If Russia chooses to develop purely on her own line and to resist the growth of liberalism, then she may put off the day of reckoning; but she cannot ultimately avert it, and instead of occasionally having to go through what Kansas has gone through with the Populists, she will some time experience a red terror which will make the French Revolution pale. (To Sir Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, August 11, 1897.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 94; Bishop I, 80.

____________. The most powerful indictment of the corrupt and inefficient tyranny of the Romanoffs, or rather of the Russian autocracy, is that it produced Bolshevism. Dreadful though it is that despotism should ruin men's bodies, it is worse that it should ruin men's souls. (Metropolitan, June 1918.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 386; Nat; Ed, XIX, 350.

____________. Before our eyes the unfortunate Russian nation furnishes an example on a gigantic scale of what to avoid in oscillating between extremes. The autocratic and bureaucratic despotism of the Romanoffs combined extreme tyranny with extreme inefficiency; and the Bolshevists have turned the revolution into a veritable Witches' Sabbath of anarchy, plunder, murder, utterly faithless treachery and inefficiency carried to the verge of complete disintegration. Each side sought salvation by formulas which were condemned alike by common sense and common morality; and even these formulas were by their actions belied. I do not say these things from any desire to speak ill of the Russian people. (1918.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 378; Nat; Ed, XIX, 343.

Russia

See also Bolshevists; Witte, Count.

Russia and the United States

I have a strong liking and respect for them [the Russians], but unless they change in some marked way they contain the chance of menace to the higher life of the world. I knew they now disliked the United States; I did not know that they singled out me. In one way they are right. Our people have become suspicious of Russia and I personally share this view. Probably our interests are not at the moment so great as to make it possible for us to be drawn into war with them; I shall certainly not fight unless we have ample reasons, and unless I can show our people that we have such cause. Remote though the chance is, it does exist, if the Russians push us improperly and too evidently. "Peace, if possible; but in any event, Justice!" (To Spring Rice, February 2, 1904.) The Letters and the Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice. (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1929), I, 377-378.

Russian Government — Distrust of

I like the Russian people, but I abhor the Russian system of government and I cannot trust the word of those at the head. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, May 13, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 438; Bishop I, 381.

____________. Of course, if the Russians go on as they have gone ever since I have been President—and so far as I can find out, ever since the Spanish War—they are hopeless creatures with whom to deal. They are utterly insincere and treacherous; they have no conception of truth, no willingness to look facts in the face, no regard for others of any sort or kind, no knowledge of their own strength or weakness; and they are helplessly unable to meet emergencies. (To Henry Cabot Lodge, June 5, 1905.) Lodge Letters II, 133-134.

Russo-Japanese War

I am entirely sincere in my purpose to keep this Government neutral in the war. And I am no less sincere in my hope that the area of the war will be as limited as possible, and that it will be brought to a close with as little loss to either combatant as is possible. But this country as a whole tends to sympathise with Russia; while the Jews are as violent in their anti-Russian feeling as the Irish in their pro- Russian feeling. I do not think that the country looks forward to, or concerns itself about, the immense possibilities which the war holds for the future. I suppose democracies will always be short-sighted about anything that is not brought roughly home to them. Still, when I feel exasperated by the limitations upon preparedness and forethought which are imposed by democratic conditions, I can comfort myself by the extraordinary example of these very limitations which the autocratic government of Russia has itself furnished in this crisis. (To Spring Rice, March 19, 1904.) The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice. (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1929), I, 397.

____________. It is now nearly four years since the close of the Russian-Japanese war. There were various factors that brought about Russia's defeat; but most important by all odds was her having divided her fleet between the Baltic and the Pacific, and, furthermore, splitting up her Pacific fleet into three utterly unequal divisions. The entire Japanese force was always used to smash some fraction of the Russian force. The knaves and fools who advise the separation of our fleet nowadays and the honest, misguided creatures who think so little that they are misled by such advice, ought to take into account this striking lesson furnished by actual experience in a great war but four years ago. Keep the battle fleet either in one ocean or the other and have the armed cruisers always in trim, as they are now, so that they can be at once sent to join the battle fleet if the need should arise. (To William Howard Taft, March 3, 1909.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 139; Bishop II, 120.

Russo-Japanese War—Peace Settlement of

During the past fortnight, and indeed for a considerable time before, I have been carrying on negotiations with both Russia and Japan, together with side negotiations with Germany, France and England, to try to get the present war stopped. With infinite labor and by the exercise of a good deal of tact and judgment—if I do say it myself—I have finally gotten the Japanese and Russians to agree to meet to discuss the terms of peace. Whether they will be able to come to an agreement or not I can't say. But it is worth while to have obtained the chance of peace, and the only possible way to get this chance was to secure such an agreement of the two powers that they would meet and discuss the terms direct. Of course Japan will want to ask more than she ought to ask, and Russia to give less than she ought to give. Perhaps both sides will prove inpracticable. Perhaps one will. But there is the chance that they will prove sensible, and make a peace, which will really be for the interest of each as things are now. At any rate the experiment was worth trying. I have kept the secret very successfully, and my dealings with the Japanese in particular have been known to no one, so that the result is in the nature of a surprise. (To Kermit Roosevelt, June 11, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 545; Nat; Ed, XIX, 490.

____________. You know how urgently I advised the Russians to conclude peace. With equal firmness I advise Japan not to continue the war for the sake of war indemnity. Should she do so, I believe that there will occur a considerable reversal of public opinion against her. I do not believe that this public opinion could have a tangible effect. Nevertheless, it must not be altogether neglected. Moreover, I do not think that the Japanese people could attain its aims if it continued the war solely because of the question of an indemnity. I think that Russia will refuse to pay and that the common opinion of the civilized world will support her in her refusal to pay the enormous sum which is being demanded or anything like that sum. Of course, if Russia pays that sum, there is nothing else for me to say. But should she refuse to pay, you will see that, having waged war for another year, even if you succeeded in occupying Eastern Siberia, you would spend four or five hundred more millions in addition to those expended, you would shed an enormous quantity of blood, and even if you obtained Eastern Siberia, you would get something which you do not need, and Russia would be completely unable to pay you anything. At any rate, she would not be in a position to pay you enough to cover the surplus expended by you. Of course, my judgment may be erroneous in this case, but it is my conviction expressed in good faith, from the standpoint of Japan's interests as I understand them. Besides, I consider that all the interests of civilization and humanity forbid the continuation of the war for the sake of a large indemnity. (To Baron Kaneko, August 22, 1905.) The Memoirs of Count Witte. (Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1921), pp. 156-157.

____________. It is enough to give any one a sense of sardonic amusement to see the way in which the people generally, not only in my own country, but elsewhere, gauge the work purely by the fact that it succeeded. If I had not brought about peace I should have been laughed at and condemned. Now I am over-praised. I am credited with being extremely long-headed, etc. As a matter of fact I took the position I finally did not of my own volition but because events so shaped themselves that I would have felt as if I was flinching from a plain duty if I had acted otherwise. (To Alice Roosevelt, September 2, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 476; Bishop I, 415.

____________. My object . . . was not my own personal credit or even the advancement of this country, but the securing of peace. Peace was secured. Personally I believe that the credit of this country was greatly increased by it, and as far as I am personally affected I have received infinitely more praise for it than in my opinion I deserve, and I have not been very greatly concerned as to whether I was praised or blamed I acted at the time I did at the written request of Japan, and when Japan made the request I explained to the Japanese Government that in my judgment she would not get an indemnity, and she asked me to bring about the peace meeting with full knowledge of the fact that in my opinion she neither deserved nor would get an indemnity. . . . I believe that Japan was partly influenced by proper motives of humanity and by the desire to have the respect of the nations as a whole, and that this feeling had its weight in influencing the Japanese statesmen who knew the facts to disregard the views held by the Tokio mob and which are substantially the views set forth by you. But the main factor in influencing Japan was undoubtedly the fact that to go on with the war meant such an enormous loss, such an enormous cost to her, that she could not afford to incur it save from dire need. (To George Kennan, written October 15, 1905, but never sent.) Tyler Dennett, Roosevelt and the Russo- Japanese War. (Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1925), pp. 282-284.

____________. I have been blamed by both the Russians and Japanese for bringing the war in Manchuria to an end prematurely, when neither side had gained a decisive victory and neither was willing to quit. The Russians claimed that they were just getting into their stride, while the Japanese asserted that had the war continued a few months more they would have been able to obtain a huge indemnity. It will probably astonish you, then, to learn that I jammed through the Treaty of Portsmouth because I had been secretly implored by the Japanese government itself to intervene and bring about a cessation of hostilities on my own initiative. Rather a peculiar phrasing, wasn't it? The message from the Emperor, making this extraordinary request, was brought to the White House late one evening by the Japanese ambassador, who insisted on seeing me even when informed that I had retired for the night. The truth was that the Japanese had to have peace. Their money was exhausted. So was their credit. The villages from one end of the country to the other had been so drained of men that the greatest difficulty was experienced in harvesting the rice crop. When I intervened, Japan was on the verge of collapse. She was bled white. I don't believe that I could have concluded the Treaty of Portsmouth, however, without the help of George Meyer, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, who enjoyed the confidence of the Czar and had his ear. For the Russian diplomats lied to me right and left, while the officials who surrounded the Czar deliberately misrepresented to him everything I said and did. At length it became necessary for me to order Meyer to ignore the Russian Foreign Office and deliver my messages to the Czar himself in order that they might not be falsified or distorted. I could have won the Czar over to my way of thinking in ten minutes had I been able to sit down and talk things over with him. (In conversation with Mr. Powell aboard Hamburg, March, 1909.) E. Alexander Powell, Yonder Lies Adventure! (Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1932), pp. 313-314.

____________. During the early part of the year 1905, the strain on the civilized world caused by the Russo- Japanese War became serious. The losses of life and treasure were frightful. From all sources of information at hand, I grew most strongly to believe that a further continuation of the struggle would be a very bad thing for Japan, and an even worse thing for Russia. Japan was already suffering terribly from the drain upon her men, and especially upon her resources, and had nothing further to gain from continuation of the struggle; its continuance meant to her more loss than gain, even if she were victorious. Russia, in spite of her gigantic strength, was, in my judgment, apt to lose even more than she had already lost if the struggle continued. . . .

If the war went on, I thought it, on the whole, likely that Russia would be driven west of Lake Baikal. But it was very far from certain. There is no certainty in such a war. Japan might have met defeat, and defeat to her would have spelled overwhelming disaster; and even if she had continued to win, what she thus won would have been of no value to her, and the cost in blood and money would have left her drained white. I believed, therefore, that the time had come when it was greatly to the interest of both combatants to have peace, and when therefore it was possible to get both to agree to peace. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 613; Nat; Ed, XX, 527.