1912 US Election Campaign Speech Audio - Theodore Roosevelt 2 of 9

[temp4010]

Unbelievable. His voice sounds just as eloquent and forceful as I thought it would. Why can't politicians talk this way anymore? Why do we settle for verbal jousting and 4-second sound bites?

[RedTV8888]

i totally expected his voice to sound different

[sfafasfasfsa]

i wish my party would remember him and eisenhower

[djiinraidinnae]

This.

I agree with everything he is saying. Though part of it he seems to be nodding toward his view on potential prohibition (a hot topic of the time), which is over and done with now (unless you count illegal/restricted drugs, which is kind of a form of temperance, just not over alcohol). Moderates need to be more noted. Pity that someone like him has to get in "by accident," due to an assassination.

[thesega99]

Fact: Dr.Eggman's appearance is base on Teddy. Look at Eggman's art from Sonic 3 and compare it to the famous picture of Teddy.

[geert574]

what a bag of hot air!! Freedom, liberty and justice when you're white and rich yadda yadda yadda....

[RonocDondra352]

@geert574 Are you kidding me?! He was the most radical progressive, second only to Eugene Debs in the department of "radical progressivism"

[1yearyounger]

if only there was more progressive liberals like him in the white house

[RonocDondra352]

So stupid that TR didn't win.  He would have kicked ass in WW2 and it might not have even happened; Germany might have been so scared to even look at him they wouldn't have dared advance

[deepwoodskentuckian]

@RonocDondra352 tr would have been dead by ww2.

[RonocDondra352]

@deepwoodskentuckian Not if he had been president; if he were president he wouldn't have contracted malaria on a safari, as he wouldn't go on vacation while president...something the last 3 or 4 presidents really ought to think about....

[deepwoodskentuckian]

@RonocDondra352 ya it is possible. he would have been around 83 to 87ish.

[RonocDondra352]

@deepwoodskentuckian I think I may have meant ww1 and typed ww2 by accident....whoops.  But then again, look at daniel inouye

[deepwoodskentuckian]

@RonocDondra352 its still possible he would have been alive. i do give you credit for that

[agbjr57]

To Aaronthegreatest: A postscript ... don't tell me - or anyone - I have no right to criticize Obama, the First Amendment is still the law of the land. You and I have our God-given Constitutional right to disagree, that is the greatness of America.

[agbjr57]

To Aaronthegreatest: To conclude ... I will also advise that some who are well-read in the US Constitution do so not to uphold it but rather to circumvent it. I have read both Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto", not because I would ever subscribe to such beliefs but because I learned many years ago: KNOW YOUR ENEMY..

[agbjr57]

To Aaronthegreatest: I also add ... You should also realize that a Harvard education doesn't necessarily make someone infallible. You'll find that most who pursue an academic career have difficulty relating to the world outside a classroom - book smarts do not make a practical education.

[agbjr57]

To Aaronthegreatest: Thinly veiled bigoted criticism? Where do you read bigotry into my comments? To be blunt: how dare you?!! I take serious offense at anyone being accused of bigotry because they may have a differing opinion - and that accusation seems to be the standard defense of Obama die-hards whenever someone questions anything about him. YOU, sir, owe me an apology!

[shizont]

Jefferson's thinking was still alive in Teddy. "The people will make fewer mistakes in governing themselves thna any smaller group of men will make in attempting to govern the people". Now both parties have allowed an elite of bureacrats to arise and enslave us.

[RonocDondra352]

@shizont His thinking is still alive in Ron and Rand Paul though.

[UrbanTiger74]

Greatness speaks.

[agbjr57]

Other than a well-educated practical mind and cultivated voice, the difference between Theodore Roosevelt and our current president is that Roosevelt understood the American people. He meant what he said - he walked the walk - and he honored the Constitution.

[Aaronthegreatest]

@agbjr57 I don't like this thinly veiled bigoted criticism of our current President at all. I do not care for Obama either, but you have no right to criticize his education or his speaking voice. That's pathetic. President Obama is a graduate of Harvard, a self-made man, and a constitutional scholar. Does that not qualify as 'well-educated'? And if a man who spent his academic career studying the Constitution doesn't honor it, I don't know who has.

[ToxicOdiousOne]

So how did Woodrow Wilson win the 1912 election again?

[agbjr57]

@ToxicOdiousOne, in reply: Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 election for the same reason Clinton took the 1992 election, a split Republican Party. The Republicans nominated Taft for a second term, angering many - Roosevelt included - who felt he had strayed from the Party's core values. The Bull Moose Party was set up by disenfranchised republicans with Roosevelt as their nominee. The result was a three-way race with democrats united behind Wilson, giving him the largest number of votes.

[PierzStyx]

@agbjr57 Correction, the larget number of elctoral votes. TR actually kicked Wilson's arse in the popular election.

[LTF6161]

@PierzStyx

No. Wilson easily won the popular vote over TR as well. WW = 6.3 million. TR = 4.1 million.

[MIKESOWELL]

@LTF6161 That was due to the split in the Republican base. Taft received 3.5 million votes. I tend to believe that if it was a head on battle, Roosevelt would have won quite easily.

[LTF6161]

@MIKESOWELL

Or if progressives hadn't bolted the party, Taft may well have won quite easily. In some ways Taft was in fact more progressive than Roosevelt, eg when it came to trust-busting. TR was quite happy w/ monopolies he approved of b/c he thought them more efficient (if regulated by govt) than industries faced with stiff competition. Such a view appalled both Taft & Wilson. It is very possible that many or even most Taft Reps would have supported Wilson over TR giving WW the win

[MIKESOWELL]

@LTF6161 I see your premise, and I sort of agree with you. I think Roosevelt may still have won, but there are some things that make me question this. Number one, as you have said the country was get in a more progressive mood (i.e. the rise of Debs and the Socialist Party). Also, the Republicans had been in control of the White House for 16 years at that point. I would think that many would have grown tired of the party.

[RonocDondra352]

@MIKESOWELL That's what everyone thought in 1948 too

[MIKESOWELL]

@RonocDondra352 True, but there is a HUGE difference between Dewey and TR.......

[RonocDondra352]

@MIKESOWELL they both ran against people that everyone thought they would win against. both were liberal republicans

[RonocDondra352]

@PierzStyx No actually he only won by ~15% of popular vote, yes that would constitute as an old-fashioned ass-kicking but TR got 27% of pop vote, Taft got 25%; had they been together against wilson who got 42% they would have been at 52%, effectively a good old-fashioned ass-kicking

[MIKESOWELL]

@RonocDondra352 Taft got 23.2% of the popular vote. Roosevelt received 27.4%. Together they about 50.6%. Although Wilson won a sweeping 435 of 531 Electoral Votes, it was caused by the near even split in the Republican Party. Wilson's victory was a fluke. And if Hughes had simply CAMPAIGNED in California in 1916 he would have won there instead of losing by a mere 3,773 votes.

[MIKESOWELL]

@ That's not entirely true. Of the 19.8 million voters that pledged to Perot, about 35% would have voted for Bush, and 35% would have went to Clinton. The rest would have stayed home. LaFollette kept Coolidge from having a record landslide, though.

[SodiumCyanide]

Thank you for taking the time to share this unique piece of history with the world.

[meximetal96]

hard to believe this was about 98 years ago...and Theodore's words are just as powerful today as they were back then.RIP.

[peaceandmetal88]

It's not hard to grasp the gist of what he's saying if you just listen. What's gone these days is that educated accent that he exhibits when he speaks. Speaking in those days was much more like prose than today.

[fishhead06]

What beautiful elocution and elegant oratory! How far society has fallen.

[catndryer]

Puleeeeeeeeeeeeeze......you like that singy songy stuff?????...... I can't make out half of what he says.

[Dragoon91786]

@catndryer

Which is why Theodore was laughed out of the NY Congress House by fellow Republicans when he spoke, due to his high voice. However, the man's words were far greater than his voice, and even then, there is a passion and intensity that is not present in modern oration. He was like listening to the great actors of Shakespeare. He knew what he was saying and how to say it. Ironically, however, he was in body and mind the opposite of his so called ,"Sing Sing" voice. To each their own.

[jimmbo13]

I know. I wish to God sometime I could go back to the turn of the last century...

[jonboyxl]

wooot!