President Obama’s State of the Union address was, in many ways, an extension of the argument he forcefully made in his recent economic speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Theodore Roosevelt made that site famous with his “New Nationalism” speech over 100 years ago on similar themes—themes that will be a constant refrain as Obama continues to channel TR and takes his State of the Union message on the road.
However, while that speech has inspired Obama's economic rhetoric, progressives—and even Obama himself—could still learn quite a bit from Roosevelt’s 1910 address. Especially on the question of special interests in government, TR's words could have been written today, and they call for reforms far more robust than anything recently proposed by either side. In his address, Roosevelt declared, “We must drive the special interests out of politics.” He also outlined specific proposals, ones that gained traction and built up protection from corporate power over the course of the twentieth century. Many of those same protections have been dismantled in the last two years, making Roosevelt's prescriptions more relevant than ever. Here are some examples that might sound familiar:
- Get corporate money out of politics: “There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains…It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.”
- Elected officials should be accountable to the voters—not corporations: “One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within the States.”
- Corporations aren’t people: “[E]very special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.”
Of course, these are just a few excerpts. Teddy Roosevelt's speech was a hallmark of the Progressive Movement, and much of what he said in 1910 is still relevant over a century later. Read the full text of his speech here.