The Theodore Roosevelt Centennial CD-ROM

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.

<- Previous First Next ->