You wouldn’t think that I’d have a soft spot for Teddy Roosevelt.  I’m a pacifist and detest cowboy machismo.  At the same time, I love his boundless energy, his turn of the century nerdiness, and his populist, trust-busting ways.  The Wikipedia entry says that he read “tens of thousands of books” (it also says he skinny-dipped in the freezing Potomac). Here was a Republican who challenged big business, all but launched the conservation movement, and advocated universal health care.  With his youth (42 when he became president), his oratory powers, and his popular appeal, it’s difficult for me to not make comparisons between him and Barack Obama.  It’s amazing how much of this speech is still applicable a century later:

The great fundamental issue now before our people can be stated briefly. It is, are the American people fit to govern themselves, to rule themselves, to control themselves? I believe they are. My opponents do not. I believe in the right of the people to rule…Our opponents pay lip-loyalty to this doctrine; but they show their real beliefs by the way in which they champion every device to make the nominal rule of the people a sham.

I am not leading this fight as a matter of aesthetic pleasure. I am leading because somebody must lead, or else the fight would not be made at all…Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social and industrial justice, achieved through the genuine rule of the people…In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is spend and be spent.

I can’t remember what blog revealed this link, but you can listen to T.R. in his own words.  YouTube meets early Edison: