In my opinion, after all is said and done, there has really only been one president of the United States who in his heart was one of us, the lowly we, the people.
Teddy Roosevelt.
Oh, it could be argued that the Humble Log Cabin Crowd — Abe Lincoln springs to mind — were "one of us", but they all became that most horrid of things, politicians, once they achieved national status. Teddy, alone, never forgot we, the people.
Yeah, ol' TR. He was a Republican, right? Oh, of course he was. One of the most famous Republicans in history! Why, just look at some of his Republican platforms!
— Break up Big Business
— Give Big Labor national power
— Deplore the difference between the rich and poor
— Push for national health care
— Push for national workman's comp insurance
And, if those heinous crimes weren't enough, check this out!
— Give women the right to vote
Scandalous! That's what happens when you let a RINO take power, folks!
But then...
But then, at the time, the country really needed such progressive ideals. Some of the big business barons, alone, were pulling in more cash per year than the federal government, and big business was on a path to monopolize the only means of mass transportation in the country, the railroads. That's simply too much power in the private sector and Roosevelt correctly put an end to it.
He also put an end to the idiocy of women not voting, and he honestly tried to ease the plight of the black man through legislation, but society simply wasn't ready for a Civil Rights-type act. This was only two generations removed from the Civil War, so the South was still, in great part, the South.
And while he was never able to implement his national health and insurance programs, he did raise working conditions for the average slob considerably. This was in an era of mandatory 12-hour work shifts and child labor, both of which he abolished.
He also racked up a number of global accomplishments, such as building the Panama Canal, sending our fleet of battleships around the world to establish ourselves as a world power (the first time a nation had ever done so), and what really put our fledgling nation in the big leagues was his negotiating an end to the bloody Russo-Japanese War, something no diplomat alive thought possible.
And no article on Teddy would be complete without mentioning how he brought the conservation of our natural resources into the public eye. In those days, most Americans viewed the country to be so vast that our resources were infinite, but TR saw otherwise. He strongly believed that we had the right to use the land, but believed just as strongly that we didn't have the right to waste it.
For your education, enlightenment and enjoyment, I highly recommend "Teddy Roosevelt: An American Lion", available on Netflix and presumably Blockbuster. It's reasonably even-handed, pointing out his mistakes as well as his victories, and does a decent job of putting things in historical perspective. As I noted above, when you start listing out his platforms, he sounds shockingly liberal, yet at the time it was exactly what America needed.
America being we, the people.
