Remind me why we admire this guy, please.
Frankly I don’t know that I should be sorry to see a bit of a spar with Germany. The burning of New York and a few other sea coast cities would be a good object lesson in the need of an adequate system of coast defenses, and I think it would have a good effect on our large German population to force them to an ostentatiously patriotic display of anger against Germany.
Teddy Roosevelt, as quoted in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom by John V. Denson. See “Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency” for an excerpt including the above quote. The entire book is available in PDF form at mises.org.
Insightful quote from an inspiring man. The tongue in cheek burning of the Bullmoose’s beloved home city is a good relflection on his activist views he realized that people esspeically those like the then complacient Americans of time needed to be reminded of what is at stake and also to remind forgien immigrants and their American desancedents that your an American now and if you want to reap benifits of an citizen naturilzed or otherwise it would be in your best interest to support America. We desperatly need a president like Mr. Roosevelt in this time of American strife and identity crisis.