--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 22 number: 5 published: 1919-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Theodore Roosevelt, American,\" *Improvement Era* 22, no. 5 (March 1919): 369." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2205unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2205unse start_page: 369 end_page: 369 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2205unse publication_year: 1919 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Theodore Roosevelt, American Theodore Roosevelt, American On learning of the death of Theodore Roosevelt, the press of the country pronounced him "more typically American than any other man that ever lived in America," "the most respected American," "the great composite American of his day and generation." As a proof, here is a page of his Americanisms: "A man to be a good American, must be straight, and he must also be strong." "Leadership is of avail only so far as there is a wise and resolute public sentiment behind it." "The worst foes of America are the foes to that orderly liberty without which our republic must speedily perish." "If a man does his work in a slipshod fashion, then, no matter what kind of work it is, he is a poor American citizen." "This government is not and never shall be government by a plutocracy. This government is not and never shall be government by a mob." "Any man who says he loves the country from which he came as well as this country, is no better than the man who loves another woman as well as he loves his wife." "Never forget that law and the administration of law, important though they are, must always occupy a wholly secondary place as compared with the character of the average citizen himself." "We are not for the poor man as such, nor for the rich man as such. "We are for every man, rich or poor, provided he acts justly and fairly by his fellows, and if he so acts, the Government must do all it can to see that inasmuch as he does no wrong, so he shall suffer no wrong." "Certain representatives of labor called upon me and in the midst of a very pleasant conversation, told me that they regarded me as 'the friend of labor.' I answered that I certainly was, and that I would do everything in my power for the laboring man except anything that was wrong. I have the same answer to make to the business man. I will do everything I can do to help business conditions, except anything that is wrong." "We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual ini- tiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more complex, we continually find that things, which once it was desirable to leave to indi- vidual initiative, can, under the changed conditions, be performed with bet- ter results by common effort. It is quite impossible, and equally undesir- able, to draw in theory a hard-and-fast line which shall always divide the two sets of cases." From his last message, read on January 5, the night before he died, at a meeting of the American Defense Society, in New York, we read: "Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn't an American at all." "We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile." "We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot board- ing house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."