Malefactors of Great Wealth

I finally finished the second book of Edmund Morris's Theodore Roosevelt trilogy. So far it has been an excellent series, and I look forward to finishing the life and career of the most interesting president in American history (some might argue this, but hey, the man was shot point blank and went on to finish the speech). Many of the challenges faced by the Roosevelt administration are recurrent today, including the balance of economic interests and national interests. Two of my favorite quotes from TR are regarding what he called the "malefactors of great wealth." His description of the "malefactors" could easily be applied to many personalities today:

Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country.

(Forum, February 1895.) Mem. Ed. XV, 10; Nat. Ed. XIII, 9

This second passage might as well describe the fight we are witnessing today over the tax code:

It may well be that the determination of the government (in which, gentlemen, it will not waver) to punish certain malefactors of great wealth, has been responsible for something of the trouble; at least to the extent of having caused these men to combine to bring about as much financial stress as possible, in order to discredit the policy of the government and thereby secure a reversal of that policy, so that they may enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil-doing. . . . I regard this contest as one to determine who shall rule this free country—the people through their governmental agents, or a few ruthless and domineering men whose wealth makes them peculiarly formidable because they hide behind the breastworks of corporate organization.

(At Pilgrim Memorial Monument, Provincetown, Mass., August 20, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 99; Nat. Ed. XVI, 84.

US Politics were more conservative in TR's era than they are today, yet such comments propelled TR to massive popularity and power. Obama is an excellent pragmatist, but he could learn a few tricks from TR.