312 PUBLIC PAPERS OF GOVERNOR ROOSEVELT
applies just as much to the smart politician, who by bribery and
chicanery and sharp practice, who by misuse of public office, by
mendacity, by cleverness in hoodwinking the people, rises to high
station, as it applies to the unscrupulous man of affairs who makes a
fortune, not legitimately, but illegitimately, in some form of gambling,
which is not merely gambling, but gambling with loaded dice, and who
can count upon having, from no inconsiderable section of our people,
the same admiring homage that would be gained by the most respected
business man whose success has been even more beneficial to the
community than to himself. Woe to the men who condone either form
of success, and woe no less to the men who, in condemning such
success, mix with their condemnation of that, condemnation of the
legitimate success. Woe to the men who help to make all politicians
scoundrelly by indiscriminate criticism of all alike, whether they be
good or whether they be bad; and woe to the men who put a premium
upon rascality in business by condemning all men of means, all
successful men of business, alike, whether their success has been
attained in ways of which we should all feel ashamed or whether it has
been attained by working along lines which have made them the
benefactors of the entire community.
The temptation is great to speak to you of other phases of our
political life than merely the phase of the relations of wealth, the use
and abuse of property in our political life; but I shall confine myself
solely to the latter. Any man who has had to do with our legislative
bodies, as Senator, as Assemblyman, as Congressman, especially if he
has been a Speaker of the Lower House, knows, as I have known, as I
have seen again and again during the three years that