The Rough Rider and the Professor

By TIMOTHY EGAN
NYT

In traveling to the soft hills of Osawatomie, in eastern Kansas, on Tuesday, to the small town where Theodore Roosevelt laid out an agenda for advancing American civilization through the 20th century, President Obama tried on the words of a Republican president who committed Republican heresy in the same place in 1910.

And though Obama gave a good speech, one that framed the coming campaign as a “make or break moment for the middle class,” he is no Teddy Roosevelt. Nor, for that matter, is the Republican party of today anything close to the one that T.R. led through nearly two terms.

In a century’s time, the two parties have switched roles. Roosevelt, with his plea for an income tax, child labor laws, health care and conservation, his call for worker protections, control of corporate abuse, and “a square deal for the poor man,” would be booed out of the room of any Republican gathering today.

Consider just one line from the 1910 speech. “There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains,” Roosevelt said. “To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.”

(More here.)