Details
ROOSEVELT, Theodore. Typed letter signed ("Theodore Roosevelt"), as former President, to Horace A. Keefer, Oyster Bay, 1 June 1915. 1 page, 4to, personal stationery.
"WE ARE DEGENERATING AND BECOMING WEAK AND TIMID": ROOSEVELT BLASTS THE "MORAL FLABBINESS" OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
"Perhaps it may interest you to know," he tells Keefer, "that I too am partly of German origin." But this doesn't make him any less eager to get the U. S. into the war against the Kaiser. "There are moments when I feel as downcast as you do about the moral flabbiness of our people and fear lest we are degenerating and becoming weak and timid. This whole peace-at-any-price propagandism has, I firmly believe, represented a worse evil than anything due either to the excesses of labor or capital, a worse evil than bossism and corruption and violence in our great cities. But I think we will get rid of it in the end, just as we will get rid of corruption in politics and business. It's a long, long fight, but in the end I think the heart of this people will be found to be in the right place."
T. R.'s concerns about moral degeneracy were shared by many Americans in the early twentieth century. Nations, like individuals, he believed, had a character, which could become corrupted by vices. A country, like a person, had to grow, to meet new challenges, to expand capabilities and responsibilities. To fail to do so meant regression and stagnation. For Roosevelt, Wilson's neutrality was precisely such a failure of courage as well as responsibility.
"WE ARE DEGENERATING AND BECOMING WEAK AND TIMID": ROOSEVELT BLASTS THE "MORAL FLABBINESS" OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
"Perhaps it may interest you to know," he tells Keefer, "that I too am partly of German origin." But this doesn't make him any less eager to get the U. S. into the war against the Kaiser. "There are moments when I feel as downcast as you do about the moral flabbiness of our people and fear lest we are degenerating and becoming weak and timid. This whole peace-at-any-price propagandism has, I firmly believe, represented a worse evil than anything due either to the excesses of labor or capital, a worse evil than bossism and corruption and violence in our great cities. But I think we will get rid of it in the end, just as we will get rid of corruption in politics and business. It's a long, long fight, but in the end I think the heart of this people will be found to be in the right place."
T. R.'s concerns about moral degeneracy were shared by many Americans in the early twentieth century. Nations, like individuals, he believed, had a character, which could become corrupted by vices. A country, like a person, had to grow, to meet new challenges, to expand capabilities and responsibilities. To fail to do so meant regression and stagnation. For Roosevelt, Wilson's neutrality was precisely such a failure of courage as well as responsibility.