The TR Center is CLOSED to the public today and tomorrow, 10/8 and 10/9 for staff preparation and participation in #TeddyCon, the first ever Theodore Roosevelt Convention! For our friends attending the events, we look forward to seeing you! And for those who would like to visit the gallery, we hope to see you another day! theodoreroosevelt.org/teddyc…

Theodore Roosevelt is known for taking on big businesses and corrupt corporate leaders, famously encapsulated in his phrase “malefactors of great wealth.” But he also noted that great wealth didn’t necessarily equal malicious intent. As Roosevelt mentioned in his second annual message from December 1902, “We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.” He believed corporations and their leaders should work for the public good. And Roosevelt believed the government played an important role in regulating corporations—not preventing or limiting corporate activity—but holding it “accountable to some sovereign,” as he detailed in a speech delivered in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1905. In the speech, Roosevelt rejects a common business principle used to this day, which we’ve selected for today’s #WednesdayWisdom: “There are other men who use the noxious phrase ‘business is business,’ as an excuse and justification for every kind of mean and crooked work; and these men make honest Americans hang their heads because of some of the things they do.” Roosevelt believed that the people and businesses who used this logic and who were willing to do things that may hurt or upset people in order for a business to be successful—Merriam-Webster's definition of “business is business”—were the “worst citizens.” “Of all the men in the country, the worst citizens, those who should excite in our minds the most contemptuous abhorrence, are the men who have achieved great wealth, or any other form of success, in any save a clean and straight forward manner.” Roosevelt believed that the federal government ought to “strive to secure such effective supervision over it, such power of regulation over it, as to enable us to guarantee that its activity will be exercised only in ways beneficial to the public.” As Roosevelt succinctly said, “[T]his accountability should be real and not sham.” Read Roosevelt’s entire speech discussing industrialism and corporate accountability here: presidency.ucsb.edu/document… #CorporateAccountability #TheodoreRoosevelt #BusinessEthics #Industrialism

#OnThisDay in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency at just 42 years old, the youngest man ever to take the office. President William McKinley had been shot by an anarchist at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York on September 6. Although it initially appeared that he might survive, the president died of gangrene in the early morning hours of the 14th. Vice President Roosevelt, who was vacationing in the Adirondacks, was rushed to Buffalo to be inaugurated in an emergency ceremony at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a lawyer and legal scholar. Roosevelt initially promised the public that he intended to carry out McKinley's policies and vision to the letter. Such a thing was not in Roosevelt's nature, however, and he quickly pivoted to blazing his own path. That path led him to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, popular, controversial, significant presidents in the history of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt approached the office of the presidency with vigor and righteousness and tenacity in achieving what he believed what would bring material and moral prosperity to Americans at large. He believed at once in both strong presidential power and the power of the people. His vision was to make America a strong player on the world stage, and to lay the groundwork for America to thrive for generations. The effects of his words, actions, and policies have been strenuously debated since he first made them. Whether viewed positively, negatively, or somewhere in-between, there can be no doubt that the effects of Roosevelt's presidency have reverberated through the ages.