The welfare of our people is vitally and intimately concerned with the welfare of the farmer. The Country Life Commission should be revived with greatly increased power. It’s abandonment was a severe blow to the interest of our nation, for the welfare of the farmer is a basic need of this nation. It is the men from the farms who in the past have taken the lead in every great movement within our country, whether in time of war or in time of peace. It is well to have our cities prosper, but it is not well if they prosper at the expense of the country. In this movement, the lead must be taken by the farmers themselves. But our people as a whole, through their governmental agency should back them up. Everything possible should be done for the better economic condition of the farmer and also to increase the social value of the life of the farmer’s wife and their children, no less than of the farmer himself. The burdens of labor and loneliness bear heavily on the women in the country. Their welfare should be the especial concern of all of us. Everything possible should be done to make life in the country profitable so as to be attractive from an economic standpoint, and there should be just the same chance to live as full, as well-rounded, and as useful lives in the country as in the city. The government must cooperate with the farmer to make the farm more productive. There must be no skinning of the soil. The farm should be left to the farmer’s son, in better and not worse condition because of its cultivation. Moreover, every invention and improvement, every discovery and economy, should be at the service of the farmer in the work of production and in addition, he should be helped to cooperate in business fashion with his fellows so that the money paid to the consumer for the product of the soil, shall to as large a degree as possible, go into the pockets of the man who raised that product from the soil. So long as the farmer leaves cooperative activities with their profit sharing to the city man of business, so long will the foundations of wealth be undermined and the comforts of enlightenment be impossible in the country community.

The present condition of living cannot be accepted as satisfactory. There are too many who do not prosper enough, and of the few who prosper greatly, there are certainly some whose prosperity does not mean welfare for the country. Rational progressives, no matter how radical, are well aware that nothing the government can do will make some men prosper, and we heartily approve the prosperity, no matter how great of any man, if it comes because of his rendering service to the community. But we wish, so to shape condition, that a greater number of the small men in business, the decent, respectable, industrious and energetic men, who conduct small businesses, who are retail traders, who run small stores and shops, shall be able to succeed and so that the big man who is dishonest, shall not be allowed to succeed at all. Our aim is to control business, not to strangle it. And above all, not to continue the policy of make-believe strangle toward big concerns that do evil and constant menace towards both big and little concerns that do well. Our aim is to promote prosperity and then to see that prosperity is passed around. But there is a proper division of prosperity. We wish to control big business among other reasons so that we may secure good wages for the wageworker as well as reasonable prices for the consumer. We will not submit to the prosperity that is obtained by lowering the wages of working men and charging an excessive price to the consumer. Nor to that other kind of prosperity that is obtained by swindling investors or by getting unfair advantage over smaller business rivals.

Biography:

With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation's history. He brought new excitement and power to the Presidency, as he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy.

He took the view that the President as a "steward of the people" should take whatever action necessary for the public good unless expressly forbidden by law or the Constitution." I did not usurp power," he wrote, "but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power."

Roosevelt's youth differed sharply from that of the log cabin Presidents. He was born in New York City in 1858 into a wealthy family, but he too struggled--against ill health--and in his triumph became an advocate of the strenuous life.

In 1884 his first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, and his mother died on the same day. Roosevelt spent much of the next two years on his ranch in the Badlands of Dakota Territory. There he mastered his sorrow as he lived in the saddle, driving cattle, hunting big game--he even captured an outlaw. On a visit to London, he married Edith Carow in December 1886.

During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment, which he led on a charge at the battle of San Juan. He was one of the most conspicuous heroes of the war.

Boss Tom Platt, needing a hero to draw attention away from scandals in New York State, accepted Roosevelt as the Republican candidate for Governor in 1898. Roosevelt won and served with distinction.

As President, Roosevelt held the ideal that the Government should be the great arbiter of the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to each and dispensing favors to none.

Roosevelt emerged spectacularly as a "trust buster" by forcing the dissolution of a great railroad combination in the Northwest. Other antitrust suits under the Sherman Act followed.

Roosevelt steered the United States more actively into world politics. He liked to quote a favorite proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick. . . . "

Aware of the strategic need for a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific, Roosevelt ensured the construction of the Panama Canal. His corollary to the Monroe Doctrine prevented the establishment of foreign bases in the Caribbean and arrogated the sole right of intervention in Latin America to the United States.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War, reached a Gentleman's Agreement on immigration with Japan, and sent the Great White Fleet on a goodwill tour of the world.

Some of Theodore Roosevelt's most effective achievements were in conservation. He added enormously to the national forests in the West, reserved lands for public use, and fostered great irrigation projects.

He crusaded endlessly on matters big and small, exciting audiences with his high-pitched voice, jutting jaw, and pounding fist. "The life of strenuous endeavor" was a must for those around him, as he romped with his five younger children and led ambassadors on hikes through Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

Leaving the Presidency in 1909, Roosevelt went on an African safari, then jumped back into politics. In 1912 he ran for President on a Progressive ticket. To reporters he once remarked that he felt as fit as a bull moose, the name of his new party.

While campaigning in Milwaukee, he was shot in the chest by a fanatic. Roosevelt soon recovered, but his words at that time would have been applicable at the time of his death in 1919: "No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way."