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Home  »  Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen  »  Page 416

Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.

Page 416

fellow, with whom, for weal or for woe, his own fortunes are indissolubly bound.
  “No patent remedy can be devised for the solution of these grave problems in the industrial world; but we may rest assured that they can be solved at all only if we bring to the solution certain old-time virtues, and if we strive to keep out of the solution some of the most familiar and most undesirable of the traits to which mankind has owed untold degradation and suffering throughout the ages. Arrogance, suspicion, brutal envy of the well-to-do, the hard refusal to consider the rights of others, the foolish refusal to consider the limits of beneficent action, the base appeal to the spirit of selfish greed, whether it take the form of plunder of the fortunate or of oppression of the unfortunate—from these and from all kindred vices this nation must be kept free if it is to remain in its present position in the forefront of the peoples of mankind.
  “On the other hand, good will come, even out of the present evils, if we face them armed with the old homely virtues; if we show that