A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

Indeed, the doctrine that “To the victor belong the spoils,” the cynical battle-cry of the spoils politician in America for the sixty years preceding my own entrance into public life, is so nakedly vicious that few right-thinking men of trained mind defend it. To appoint, promote, reduce, and expel from the public service, letter-carriers, stenographers, women typewriters, clerks, because of the politics of themselves or their friends, without regard to their own service, is, from the standpoint of the people at large, as foolish and degrading as it is wicked.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)

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The #AntiquitiesAct, championed by #TeddyRoosevelt, was signed by him on #ThisDayInHistory in 1906. This allows presidents to create #NationalMonuments on public land to protect areas of historical significance or natural beauty for conservation. #DevilsTower was the first such.

A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

   Civil Service Reform had two sides. There was, first, the effort to secure a more efficient administration of the public service, and, second, the even more important effort to withdraw the administrative offices of the Government from the domain of spoils politics, and thereby cut out of American political life a fruitful source of corruption and degradation.
   The spoils theory of politics is that public office is so much plunder which the victorious political party is entitled to appropriate to the use of its adherents. […] Yet there were many flagrant instances of inefficiency, where a powerful chief quartered friend, adherent, or kinsman upon the Government. Moreover, the necessarily haphazard nature of the employment, the need of obtaining and holding the office by service wholly unconnected with official duty, inevitably tended to lower the standard of public morality, alike among the office-holders and among the politicians who rendered party service with the hope of reward in office.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)

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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

He had not learned that the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would have to oppress the former; and that, if there is a moral principle at stake, the saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God may be quite as untrue, and do quite as much mischief, as the old theory of the divine right of kings. The distinguishing feature of our American governmental system is the freedom of the individual; it is quite as important to prevent his being oppressed by many men as it is to save him from the tyranny of one.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Thomas Hart Benton, ch. 6 (1886)

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#CitizensUnited #OverturnCitizensUnited #MoneyInPolitics #EndDarkMoney #DemocracyNotForSale #FreeSpeechForPeople #CampaignFinanceReform #CorporationsAreNotPeople #FixOurDemocracy #TheodoreRoosevelt #TeddyRoosevelt #CampaignFinance #CorporateInfluence #PoliticalHistory #GetMoneyOut #ProgressiveEra #USPolitics #PoliticalMemes #TR

A quotation from Theodore Roosevelt

The most important factor in getting the right spirit in my Administration, next to the insistence upon courage, honesty, and a genuine democracy of desire to serve the plain people, was my insistence upon the theory that the executive power was limited only by specific restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution or imposed by the Congress under its Constitutional powers. My view was that every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, was a steward of the people bound actively and affirmatively to do all he could for the people, and not to content himself with the negative merit of keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin. I declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 10 "The Presidency" (1913)

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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 22 “The Big Stick and the Square Deal” (1913)

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Trump’s coercive tactics in Latin America evoke era of gunboat diplomacy – and the rise of anti-imperialism it helped spur. #CIA #Communism #Cuba #Empire #Imperialism #LatinAmerica #Leftism #Leftists #MexicoCity #SalvadorAllende #SouthAmerica #TeddyRoosevelt #Venezuela
https://iwpost.com/trumps-coercive-tactics-in-latin-america-evoke-era-of-gunboat-diplomacy-and-the-rise-of-anti-imperialism-it-helped-spur/?fsp_sid=7696

A page from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech struck by a bullet in the 1912 assassination attempt has been uncovered. The 26th president was wounded, but the thick manuscript in his breast pocket slowed the bullet and likely saved his life. #history #TeddyRoosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt all over the Compass