THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE by Theodore Roosevelt

mp3 audio:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10155/10155-m/10155-m-001.mp3

Theodore Roosevelt

26th President of the United States

"THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE"

Carnegie Hall, New York City

March 20, 1912

The great fundamental issue now before the Republican party

and before our people can be stated briefly. It is, Are the

American people fit to govern themselves, to rule

themselves, to control themselves? I believe they are. My

opponents do not. I believe in the right of the people to

rule. I believe the majority of the plain people of the

United States will, day in and day out, make fewer mistakes

in governing themselves than any smaller class or body of

men, no matter what their training, will make in trying to

govern them. I believe, again, that the American people

are, as a whole, capable of self-control and of learning by

their mistakes. Our opponents pay lip-loyalty to this

doctrine; but they show their real beliefs by the way in

which they champion every device to make the nominal rule

of the people a sham. I have scant patience with this talk

of the tyranny of the majority. Wherever there is tyranny

of the majority, I shall protest against it with all my

heart and soul. But we are today suffering from the tyranny

of minorities. It is a small minority that is grabbing our

coal-deposits, our water-powers, and our harbor fronts. A

small minority is battening on the sale of adulterated

foods and drugs. It is a small minority that lies behind

monopolies and trusts. It is a small minority that stands

behind the present law of master and servant, the sweat-

shops, and the whole calendar of social and industrial

injustice. It is a small minority that is to-day using our

convention system to defeat the will of a majority of the

people in the choice of delegates to the Chicago

Convention.

The only tyrannies from which men, women, and children are

suffering in real life are the tyrannies of minorities. If

the majority of the American people were in fact tyrannous

over the minority, if democracy had no greater self-control

than empire, then indeed no written words which our

forefathers put into the Constitution could stay that

tyranny.

No sane man who has been familiar with the government of

this country for the last twenty years will complain that

we have had too much of the rule of the majority. The

trouble has been a far different one that, at many times

and in many localities, there have held public office in

the States and in the nation men who have, in fact, served

not the whole people, but some special class or special

interest. I am not thinking only of those special interests

which by grosser methods, by bribery and crime, have stolen

from the people. I am thinking as much of their respectable

allies and figureheads, who have ruled and legislated and

decided as if in some way the vested rights of privilege

had a first mortgage on the whole United States, while the

rights of all the people were merely an unsecured debt. Am

I overstating the case? Have our political leaders always,

or generally, recognized their duty to the people as

anything more than a duty to disperse the mob, see that the

ashes are taken away, and distribute patronage? Have our

leaders always, or generally, worked for the benefit of

human beings, to increase the prosperity of all the people,

to give each some opportunity of living decently and

bringing up his children well? The questions need no

answer.

Now there has sprung up a feeling deep in the hearts of the

people-not of the bosses and professional politicians, not

of the beneficiaries of special privilege-a pervading

belief of thinking men that when the majority of the people

do in fact, as well as theory, rule, then the servants of

the people will come more quickly to answer and obey, not

the commands of the special interests, but those of the

whole people. To reach toward that end the Progressives of

the Republican party in certain States have formulated

certain proposals for change in the form of the State

government -- certain new "checks and balances" which may

check and balance the special interests and their allies.

That is their purpose. Now turn for a moment to their

proposed methods.

First, there are the "initiative and referendum," which are

so framed that if the legislatures obey the command of some

special interest, and obstinately refuse the will of the

majority, the majority may step in and legislate directly.

No man would say that it was best to conduct all

legislation by direct vote of the people-it would mean the

loss of deliberation, of patient consideration but, on the

other hand, no one whose mental arteries have not long

since hardened can doubt that the proposed changes are

needed when the legislatures refuse to carry out the will

of the people. The proposal is a method to reach an

undeniable evil. Then 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.

Then there is the direct primary-the real one, not the New

York one-and that, too, the Progressives offer as a check

on the special interests. Most clearly of all does it seem

to me that this change is wholly good-for every State. The

system of party government is not written in our

constitutions, but it is none the less a vital and

essential part of our form of government. In that system

the party leaders should serve and carry out the will of

their own party. There is no need to show how far that

theory is from the facts, or to rehearse the vulgar

thieving partnerships of the corporations and the bosses,

or to show how many times the real government lies in the

hands of the boss, protected from the commands and the

revenge of the voters by his puppets in office and the

power of patronage. We need not be told how he is thus

intrenched nor how hard he is to overthrow. The facts stand

out in the history of nearly every State in the Union. They

are blots on our political system. The direct primary will

give the voters a method ever ready to use, by which the

party leader shall be made to obey their command. The

direct primary, if accompanied by a stringent corrupt-

practices act, will help break up the corrupt partnership

of corporations and politicians.

My opponents charge that two things in my programme are

wrong because they intrude into the sanctuary of the

judiciary. The first is the recall of judges; and the

second, the review by the people of, judicial decisions on

certain constitutional questions. I have said again and

again that I do not advocate the recall of judges in all

States and in all communities. In my own State I do not

advocate it or believe it to be needed, for in this State

our trouble lies not with corruption on the bench, but with

the effort by the honest but wrong-headed judges to thwart

the people in their struggle for social justice and fair

dealing. The integrity of our judges from Marshall to White

and Holmes-and to Cullen and many others in our own State-

is a fine page of American history. But -- I say it soberly

-- democracy has a right to approach the sanctuary of the

courts when a special interest has corruptly found

sanctuary there; and this is exactly what has happened in

some of the States where the recall of the judges is a

living issue. I would far more willingly trust the whole

people to judge such a case than some special tribunal-

perhaps appointed by the same power that chose the judge-if

that tribunal is not itself really responsible to the

people and is hampered and clogged by the technicalities of

impeachment proceedings.

I have stated that the courts of the several States -- not

always but often -- have construed the "due process" clause

of the State constitutions as if it prohibited the whole

people of the State from adopting methods of regulating the

use of property so that human life, particularly the lives

of the working men, shall be safer, freer, and happier. No

one can successfully impeach this statement. I have

insisted that the true construction of "due process" is

that pronounced by Justice Holmes in delivering the

unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court of the United

States, when he said: "The police power extends to all the

great public need. It may be put forth in aid of what is

sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or

strong and preponderant opinion to be greatly and

immediately necessary to the public welfare." I insist that

the decision of the New York court of appeals in the Ives

case, which set aside the will of the majority of the

people as to the compensation of injured workmen in

dangerous trades, was intolerable and based on a wrong

political philosophy. I urge that in such cases where the

courts construe the due process clause as if property

rights, to the exclusion of human rights, had a first

mortgage on the Constitution, the people may, after sober

deliberation, vote, and finally determine whether the law

which the court set aside shall be valid or not. By this

method can be clearly and finally ascertained the

preponderant opinion of the people which Justice Holmes

makes the test of due process in the case of laws enacted

in the exercise of the police power. The ordinary methods

now in vogue of amending the Constitution have in actual

practice proved wholly inadequate to secure justice in such

cases with reasonable speed, and cause intolerable delay

and injustice, and those who stand against the changes I

propose are champions of wrong and injustice, and of

tyranny by the wealthy and the strong over the weak and the

helpless.

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 has set

aside as unconstitutional a law passed hy 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?

The President of the United States, Mr. Taft, devoted most

of a recent speech to criticism of this proposition. He

says that it "is utterly without merit or utility, and,

instead of being in the interest of all the people, and of

the stability of popular government, is sowing the seeds of

confusion and tyranny." (By this he, of course, means the

tyranny of the majority, that is, the tyranny of the

American people as a whole.) He also says that my proposal

(which, as he rightly sees, is merely a proposal to give

the people a real, instead of only a nominal, chance to

construe and amend a State constitution with reasonable

rapidity) would make such amendment and interpretation

"depend on the feverish, uncertain, and unstable

determination of successive votes on different laws by

temporary and changing majorities"; and that "it lays the

axe at the root of the tree of well-ordered freedom, and

subjects the guaranties of life, liberty, and property

without remedy to the fitful impulse of a temporary

majority of an electorate."

This criticism is really less a criticism of my proposal

than a criticism of all popular government. It is wholly

unfounded, unless it is founded on the belief that the

people are fundamentally untrustworthy. If the Supreme

Court's definition of due process in relation to the police

power is sound, then an act of the legislature to promote

the collective interests of the community must be valid, if

it embodies a policy held by the prevailing morality or a

preponderant opinion to be necessary to the public welfare.

This is the question that I propose to submit to the

people. How can the prevailing morality or a preponderant

opinion be better and more exactly ascertained than by a

vote of the people? The people must know better than the

court what their own morality and their own opinion is. I

ask that you, here, you and the others like you, you the

people, be given the chance to state your own views of

justice and public morality, and not sit meekly by and have

your views announced for you by well-meaning adherents of

outworn philosophies, who exalt the pedantry of formulas

above the vital needs of human life.

The object I have in view could probably be accomplished by

an amendment of the State constitutions taking away from

the courts the power to review the legislature's

determination of a policy of social justice, by defining

due process of law in accordance with the views expressed

by Justice Holmes of the Supreme Court. But my proposal

seems to me more democratic and, I may add, less radical.

For under the method I suggest the people may sustain the

court as against the legislature, whereas, if due process

were defined in the Constitution, the decision of the

legislature would be final.

Mr. Taft's position is the position that has been held from

the beginning of our government, although not always so

openly held, by a large number of reputable and honorable

men who, down at bottom, distrust popular government, and,

when they must accept it, accept it with reluctance, and

hedge it around with every species of restriction and check

and balance, so as to make the power of the people as

limited and as ineffective as possible.

Mr. Taft fairly defines the issue when he says that our

government is and should be a government of all the people

by a representative part of the people. This is an

excellent and moderate description of all oligarchy. It

defines our government as a government of all the people by

a few of the people.

Mr. Taft, in his able speech, has made what is probably the

best possible presentation of the case for those who feel

in this manner. Essentially this view differs only in its

expression from the view nakedly set forth by one of his

supporters, Congressman Campbell. Congressman Campbell, in

a public speech in New Hampshire, in opposing the

proposition to give the people real and effective control

over all their servants, including the judges, stated that

this was equivalent to allowing an appeal from the umpire

to the bleachers. Doubtless Congressman Campbell was not

himself aware of the cynical truthfulness with which he was

putting the real attitude of those for whom he spoke. But

it unquestionably is their real attitude. Mr. Campbell's

conception of the part the American people should play in

self-government is that they should sit on the bleachers

and pay the price of admission, but should have nothing to

say as to the contest which is waged in the arena by the

professional politicians. Apparently Mr. Campbell ignores

the fact that the American people are not mere onlookers at

a game, that they have a vital stake in the contest, and

that democracy means nothing unless they are able and

willing to show that they are their own masters.

I am not speaking jokingly, nor do I mean to be unkind; for

I repeat that many honorable and well-meaning men of high

character take this view, and have taken it from the time

of the formation of the nation. Essentially this view is

that the Constitution is a straight-jacket to be used for

the control of an unruly patient-the people. Now, I hold

that this view is not only false but mischievous, that our

constitutions are instruments designed to secure justice by

securing the deliberate but effective expression of the

popular will, that the checks and balances are valuable as

far, and only so far, as they accomplish that deliberation,

and that it is a warped and unworthy and improper

construction of our form of government to see in it only a

means of thwarting the popular will and of preventing

justice.

Mr. Taft says that "every class" should have a "voice" in

the government. That seems to me a very serious

misconception of the American political situation. The real

trouble with us is that some classes have had too much

voice. One of the most important of all the lessons to be

taught and to be learned is that a man should vote, not as

a representative of a class, but merely as a good citizen,

whose prime interests are the same as those of all other

good citizens. The belief in different classes, each having

a voice in the government, has given rise to much of our

present difficulty; for whosoever believes in these

separate classes, each with a voice, inevitably, even

although unconsciously, tends to work, not for the good of

the whole people, but for the protection of some special

class-usually that to which he himself belongs. The same

principle applies when Mr. Taft says that the judiciary

ought not to be "representative" of the people in the sense

that the legislature and the Executive are. This is

perfectly true of the judge when he is performing merely

the ordinary functions of a judge in suits between man and

man. It is not true of the judge engaged in interpreting,

for instance, the due process clause-where the judge is

ascertaining the preponderant opinion of the people (as

Judge Holmes states it ). When he exercises that function

he has no right to let his political philosophy reverse and

thwart the will of the majority. In that function the judge

must represent the people or he fails in the test the

Supreme Court has laid down. Take the Workmen's

Compensation Act here in New York. The legislators gave us

a law in the interest of humanity and decency and fair

dealing. In so doing they represented the people, and

represented them well. Several judges declared that law

constitutional in our State, and several courts in other

States declared similar laws constitutional, and the

Supreme Court of the nation declared a similar law

affecting men in interstate business constitutional; but

the highest court in the State of New York, the court of

appeals, declared that we, the people of New York, could

not have such a law. I hold that in this case the

legislators and the judges alike occupied representative

positions; the difference was merely that the former

represented us well and the latter represented us ill.

Remember that the legislators promised that law, and were

returned by the people partly in consequence of such

promise. That judgment of the people should not have been

set aside unless it were irrational. Yet in the Ives case

the New York court of appeals praised the policy of the law

and the end it sought to obtain; and then declared that the

people lacked power to do justice!

Mr. Taft again and again, in quotations I have given and

elsewhere through his speech, expresses his disbelief in

the people when they vote at the polls. In one sentence he

says that the proposition gives "powerful effect to the

momentary impulse of a majority of an electorate and

prepares the way for the possible exercise of the grossest

tyranny." Elsewhere he speaks of the "feverish uncertainty"

and "unstable determination" of laws by "temporary and

changing majorities"; and again he says that the system I

propose "would result in suspension or application of

constitutional guaranties according to popular whim," which

would destroy "all possible consistency" in constitutional

interpretation. I should much like to know the exact

distinction that is to be made between what Mr. Taft calls

"the fitful impulse of a temporary majority" when applied

to a question such as that I raise and any other question.

Remember that under my proposal to review a rule of

decision by popular vote, amending or construing, to that

extent, the Constitution, would certainly take at least two

years from the time of the election of the legislature

which passed the act. Now, only four months elapse between

the nomination and the election of a man as President, to

fill for four years the most important office in the land.

In one of Mr. Taft's speeches he speaks of "the voice of

the people as coming next to the voice of God." Apparently,

then, the decision of the people about the presidency,

after four months' deliberation, is to be treated as "next

to the voice of God"; but if, after two years of sober

thought, they decide that women and children shall be

protected in industry, or men protected from excessive

hours of labor under unhygienic conditions, or wage-workers

compensated when they lose life or limb in the service of

others, then their decision forthwith becomes a "whim" and

"feverish" and "unstable" and an exercise of "the grossest

tyranny" and the "laying of the axe to the root of the tree

of freedom."

It seems absurd to speak of a conclusion reached by the

people after two years' deliberation, after thrashing the

matter out before the legislature, after thrashing it out

before the governor, after thrashing it out before the

court and by the court, and then after full debate for four

or six months, as "the fitful impulse of a temporary

majority." If Mr. Taft's language correctly describes such

action by the people, then he himself and all other

Presidents have been elected by "the fitful impulse of a

temporary majority"; then the constitution of each State,

and the Constitution of the nation, have been adopted, and

all amendments thereto have been adopted, by "the fitful

impulse of a temporary majority." If he is right, it was

"the fitful impulse of a temporary majority" which founded,

and another fitful impulse which perpetuated, this nation.

Mr. Taft's position is perfectly clear. It is that we have

in this country a special class of persons wiser than the

people, who are above the people, who cannot be reached by

the people, but who govern them and ought to govern them;

and who protect various classes of the people from the

whole people. That is the old, old doctrine which has been

acted upon for thousands of years abroad; and which here in

America has been acted upon sometimes openly, sometimes

secretly, for forty years by many men in public and in

private life, and I am sorry to say by many judges; a

doctrine which has in fact tended to create a bulwark for

privilege, a bulwark unjustly protecting special interests

against the rights of the people as a whole. This doctrine

is to me a dreadful doctrine; for its effect is, and can

only be, to make the courts the shield of privilege against

popular rights. Naturally, every upholder and beneficiary

of crooked privilege loudly applauds the doctrine. It is

behind the shield of that doctrine that crooked clauses

creep into laws, that men of wealth and power control

legislation. The men of wealth who praise this doctrine,

this theory, would do well to remember that to its adoption

by the courts is due the distrust so many of our wage-

workers now feel for the courts. I deny that that theory

has worked so well that we should continue it. I most

earnestly urge that the evils and abuses it has produced

cry aloud for remedy; and the only remedy is in fact to

restore the power to govern directly to the people, and to

make the public servant directly responsible to the whole

people-and to no part of them, to no "class" of them.

Mr. Taft is very much afraid of the tyranny of majorities.

For twenty-five years here in New York State, in our

efforts to get social and industrial justice, we have

suffered from the tyranny of a small minority. We have been

denied, now by one court, now by another, as in the

Bakeshop Case, where the courts set aside the law limiting

the hours of labor in bakeries -the "due process" clause

again-as in the Workmen's Compensation Act, as in the

Tenement-House Cigar-Factory Case -in all these and many

other cases we have been denied by small minorities, by a

few worthy men of wrong political philosophy on the bench,

the right to protect our people in their lives, their

liberty, a nd their pursuit of happiness. As for

"consistency"-why, the record of the courts, in such a case

as the income tax, for instance, is so full of

inconsistencies as to make the fear expressed of

"inconsistency" on the part of the people seem childish.

Well-meaning, short-sighted persons have held up their

hands in horror at my proposal to allow the people

themselves to construe the constitution which they

themselves made. Yet this is precisely what the Association

of the Bar of the City of New York proposed to do in the

concurrent resolution which was introduced at their request

into our legislature on January 16 last, proposing to amend

the State constitution by a section reading as follows:

"Nothing contained in this Constitution shall be construed

to limit the powers of the legislature to enact laws" such

as the Workmen's Compensation Act. In other words, the New

York Bar Association is proposing to appeal to the people

to construe the constitution in such a way as will directly

reverse the court. They are proposing to appeal from the

highest court of the State to the people. That is just what

I propose to do; the difference is only one of method, not

of purpose; my method will give better results, and will

give them more quickly. The Bar Association by its action

admits that the court was wrong, and sets to work to change

the rule which it laid down. As Lincoln announced of the

Dred Scott decision in his debates with Douglas: "Somebody

has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we mean

to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably." Was Lincoln

wrong? Was the spirit of the nation that wiped out slavery

"the fitful impulse of a temporary majority?"

Remember, I am not discussing the recall of judges-

although I wish it distinctly understood that the recall is

a mere piece of machinery to take the place of the

unworkable impeachment which Mr. Taft in effect defends,

and that if the days of Maynard ever came back again in the

State of New York I should favor it. I have no wish to come

to it; but our opponents, when they object to all efforts

to secure real justice from the courts, are strengthening

the hands of those who demand the recall. In a great many

States there has been for many years a real recall of

judges as regards appointments, promotions, reappointments,

and re-elections; and this recall was through the turn of a

thumbscrew at the end of a long-distance rod in the hands

of great interests. I believe that a just judge would feel

far safer in the hands of the people than in the hands of

those interests.

I stand on the Columbus speech. The principles there

asserted are not new, but I believe that they are necessary

to the maintenance of free democratic government. The part

of my speech in which I advocated the right of the people

to be the final arbiters of what is due process of law in

the case of statutes enacted for the general welfare will

ultimately, I am confident, be recognized as giving

strength and support to the courts instead of being

revolutionary and subversive. The courts to-day owe the

country no greater or clearer duty than to keep their hands

off such statutes when they have any reasonably permissible

relation to the public good. In the past the courts have

often failed to perform this duty, and their failure is the

chief cause of whatever dissatisfaction there is with the

working of our judicial system. One who seeks to prevent

the irrevocable commission of such mistakes in the future

may justly claim to be regarded as aiming to preserve and

not to destroy the independence and power of the judiciary.

My remedy is not the result of a library study of

constitutional law, but of actual and long continued

experience in the use of governmental power to redress

social and industrial evils. Again and again earnest

workers for social justice have said to me that the most

serious obstacles that they have encountered during the

many years that they have been trying to save American

women and children from destruction in American industry

have been the courts. That is the judgment of almost all

the social workers I know, and of dozens of parish priests

and clergymen, and of every executive and legislator who

has been seriously attempting to use government as an

agency for social and industrial betterment. What is the

result of this system of judicial nullification? It was

accurately stated by the court of appeals of New York in

the employers' liability case, where it was calmly and

judicially declared that the people under our Republican

government are less free to correct the evils that oppress

them than are the people of the monarchies of Europe.

To any man with vision, to any man with broad and real

social sympathies, to any man who believes with all his

heart in this great democratic Republic of ours, such a

condition is intolerable. It is not government by the

people, but mere sham government in which the will of the

people is constantly defeated. It is out of this experience

that my remedy has come; and let it be tried in this field.

When, as the result of years of education and debate, a

majority of the people have decided upon a remedy for an

evil from which they suffer, and have chosen a legislature

and executive pledged to embody that remedy in law, and the

law has been finally passed and approved, I regard it as

monstrous that a bench of judges shall then say to the

people: "You must begin all over again. First amend your

Constitution (which will take four years); second, secure

the passage of a new law (which will take two years more);

third, carry that new law over the weary course of

litigation (which will take no human being knows how long);

fourth, submit the whole matter over again to the very same

judges who have rendered the decision to which you object.

Then, if your patience holds out and you finally prevail,

the will of the majority of the people may have its way."

Such a system is not popular government, but a mere mockery

of popular government. It is a system framed to maintain

and perpetuate social injustice, and it can be defended

only by those who disbelieve in the people, who do not

trust them, and, I am afraid I must add, who have no real

and living sympathy with them as they struggle for better

things. In lieu of it I propose a practice by which the

will of a majority of the people, when they have determined

upon a remedy, shall, if their will persists for a minimum

period of two years, go straight forward until it becomes a

ruling force of life. I expressly propose to provide that

sufficient time be taken to make sure that the remedy

expresses the will, the sober and well-thought-out

judgment, and not the whim, of the people; but, when that

has been ascertained, I am not willing that the will of the

people shall be frustrated. If this be not a wise remedy,

let those who criticize it propose a wise remedy, and not

confine themselves to railing at government by a majority

of the American people as government by the mob. To

propose, as an alternative remedy, slight modifications of

impeachment proceedings is to propose no remedy at all-it

is to bid us to be content with chaff when we demand bread.

The decisions of which we complain are, as a rule, based

upon the constitutional provision that no person shall be

deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process

of law. The terms "life, liberty, and property" have been

used in the constitutions of the English-speaking peoples

since Magna Carta. Until within the last sixty years they

were treated as having specific meanings; "property" meant

tangible property; "liberty" meant freedom from personal

restraint, or, in other words, from imprisonment in its

largest definition. About 1870 our courts began to attach

to these terms new meanings. Now "property" has come to

mean every right of value which a person could enjoy, and

"liberty" has been made to include the right to make

contracts. As a result, when the State limits the hours for

which women may labor, it is told by the courts that this

law deprives them of their "liberty"; and when it restricts

the manufacture of tobacco in a tenement, it is told that

the law deprives the landlord of his "property." Now, I do

not believe that any people, and especially our free

American people, will long consent that the term "liberty"

shall be defined for them by a bench of judges. Every

people has defined that term for itself in the course of

its historic development. Of course, it is plain enough to

see that, in a large way, the political history of man may

be grouped about these three terms, "life, liberty, and

property." There is no act of government which cannot be

brought within their definition, and if the courts are to

cease to treat them as words having a limited, specific

meaning, then our whole government is brought under the

practically irresponsible supervision of judges. As against

that kind of a government I insist that the people have the

right, and can be trusted, to govern themselves. This our

opponents deny; and the issue is sharply drawn between us.

If my critics would only show the same sober judgment of

which they declare the people at large to be incapable,

they would realize that my proposal is one of moderation

and common sense. I wish to quote the remarks of William

Draper Lewis, dean of the Law School of the University of

Pennsylvania:

"To a lawyer the most interesting suggestion Colonel

Roosevelt has made is to allow the people, after

consideration, to re-enact legislation which a court

decision has declared is contrary to some clause in the

existing State constitution. Anyone who has been asked to

draft specific amendments to State constitutions will

hesitate to condemn, without serious consideration, the

suggestion made by Colonel Roosevelt. To take a concrete

instance: The New York court of appeals declared the

Workmen's Compensation Act, passed by the New York

legislature, unconstitutional, as depriving in its

operation the employer of his property without due process

of law. A number of amendments to the New York

constitution, designed to validate a compensation act, have

been drafted, and it is not unlikely that one of them will

be adopted. Personally, one or more of these amendments

having been shown to me, i cannot but feel that

constitutional amendments, designed to meet particular

cases, run the danger of being so worded as to produce far-

reaching results not anticipated or desired by the people.

Colonel Roosevelt's suggestion avoids this difficulty and

danger. If a persistent majority of the people of New York

State want a workmen's compensation act, they should have

it. But, in order to obtain it, they should not be driven

to pass an amendment to their State constitution which may

have effects which they do not anticipate or desire. Let

them pass on the act, as gassed by the legislature, after a

full knowledge that their highest court has unanimously

expressed its opinion that the act is contrary to the State

constitution which the people at a prior election have

declared to be their fundamental law. I may not always

approve of what the persistent majority wants. I might

sometimes think the measure unwise. But that doesn't alter

the right of that majority to enforce its will in

government. The Roosevelt idea, it seems to me, supplies an

instrument by which that majority can enforce its will in

the most conservative way. It makes explosions unnecessary.

"I would have been very proud to have been the author of

that plan, although I want to emphasize the fact that it

involves no new principle, only a new method. I don't mind

saying, however, that I think it unfortunate that it should

have been proposed by Colonel Roosevelt. He is a man of

such marked characteristics, and his place in the political

world is such, that he arouses intense enthusiasm on the

one hand, and intense animosity on the other. Because of

this, the great idea which he has propounded is bound to be

beclouded, and its adoption to be delayed. It is a pity

that anything so important should be confounded with any

man's personality."

As regards the dean's last paragraph, I can only say that I

wish somebody else whose suggestions would arouse less

antagonism had proposed it; but nobody else did propose it,

and so I had to. I am not leading this fight as a matter of

aesthetic pleasure. I am leading because somebody must

lead, or else the fight would not be made at all. I prefer

to work with moderate, with rational, conservatives,

provided only that they do in good faith strive forward

toward the light. But when they halt and turn their backs

to the light, and sit with the scorners on the seats of

reaction, then I must part company with them. We the people

cannot turn back. Our aim must be steady, wise progress. It

would be well if our people would study the history of a

sister republic. All the woes of France for a century and a

quarter have been due to the folly of her people in

splitting into the two camps of unreasonable conservatism

and unreasonable radicalism. Had pre-Revolutionary France

listened to men like Turgot, and backed them up, all would

have gone well. But the beneficiaries of privilege, the

Bourbon reactionaries, the short-sighted ultra-

conservatives, turned down Turgot; and then found that

instead of him they had obtained Robespierre. They gained

twenty years' freedom from all restraint and reform, at the

cost of the whirlwind of the red terror; and in their turn

the unbridled extremists of the terror induced a blind

reaction; and so, with convulsion and oscillation from one

extreme to another, with alternations of violent radicalism

and violent Bourbonism, the French people went through

misery toward a shattered goal. May we profit by the

experiences of our brother republicans across the water,

and go forward steadily, avoiding all wild extremes; and

may our ultra-conservatives remember that the rule of the

Bourbons brought on the Revolution, and may our would-be

revolutionaries remember that no Bourbon was ever such a

dangerous enemy of the people and of freedom as the

professed friend of both, Robespierre. There is no danger

of a revolution in this country; but there is grave

discontent and unrest, and in order to remove them there is

need of all the wisdom and probity and deep-seated faith in

and purpose to uplift humanity we have at our command.

Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social and

industrial justice, achieved through the genuine rule of

the people. This is our end, our purpose. The methods for

achieving the end are merely expedients, to be finally

accepted or rejected according as actual experience shows

that they work well or ill. But in our hearts we must have

this lofty purpose, and we must strive for it in all

earnestness and sincerity, or our work will come to

nothing. In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired

idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who

dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true;

who can kindle the people with the fire from their own

burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he

may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and

then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will

care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he

is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory

may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the

watchword for all of us is spend and be spent. It is of

little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but

the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind.

We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the

world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace

will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is

dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. If

on this new continent we merely build another country of

great but unjustly divided material prosperity, we shall

have done nothing; and we shall do as little if we merely

set the greed of envy against the greed of arrogance, and

thereby destroy the material well-being of all of us. To

turn this government either into government by a plutocracy

or government by a mob would be to repeat on a larger scale

the lamentable failures of the world that is dead. We stand

against all tyranny, by the few or by the many. We stand

for 'the rule of the many in the interest of all of us, for

the rule of the many in a spirit of courage, of common

sense, of high purpose, above all in a spirit of kindly

justice toward every man and every woman. We not merely

admit, but insist, that there must be self-control on the

part of the people, that they must keenly perceive their

own duties as well as the rights of others; but we also

insist that the people can do nothing unless they not

merely have, but exercise to the full, their own rights.

The worth of our great experiment depends upon its being in

good faith an experiment -- the first that has ever been

tried -- in true democracy on the scale of a continent, on

a scale as vast as that of the mightiest empires of the Old

World. Surely this is a noble ideal, an ideal for which it

is worth while to strive, an ideal for which at need it is

worth while to sacrifice much; for our ideal is the rule of

all the people in a spirit of friendliest brotherhood

toward each and every one of the people.

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trrotptr.html

- - -

The Right of the People to Rule

By Theodore Roosevelt

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10155

End of forwarded article

Jai Maharaj

http://tinyurl.com/24fq83

http://www.mantra.com/jai

http://www.mantra.com/jyotish

Om Shanti

Hindu Holocaust Museum

http://www.mantra.com/holocaust

Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy

http://www.hindu.org

http://www.hindunet.org

The truth about Islam and Muslims

http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate

DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS

o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational

purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not

have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the

poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for

fair use of copyrighted works.

o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,

considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current

e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.

o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are

not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of

which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright

owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the

understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,

democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed

that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title

17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without

profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included

information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by

subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information

go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of

your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the

copyright owner.