Giants of History presents Theodore Roosevelt episode number nine.

Welcome. Welcome to Giants of History and thank you for joining us. We certainly couldn't do a Theodore Roosevelt series and not include the following quote.

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

You will go far. Theodore Roosevelt.

On August 31st, 1910, during a campaign trip he was making on behalf of the Republican Party. Roosevelt climbed on top of a

kitchen table that had been placed in the same grove outside of Oswatami, Kansas, where John Brown

had famously battled the Missouri Raiders in 1856.

A rain that morning had turned the ground to mud, but still 30,000 people came out to hear

the speech which would set the trajectory for the rest of his political career.

Roosevelt's now famous new nationalism speech.

Roosevelt stood on the table, looked out at the faces in the crowd, and then fired away.

He blasted individuals who enjoyed wealth, power, and position without ever having earned

it by service to their fellow citizens.

He quoted Lincoln by saying labor will always be superior to capital.

Citizens, he said, have the right to control commercial forces they themselves had called into being.

Political representatives were servants of the people and not servants of corporate or monopolistic businesses.

He closed the new nationalism speech by stating, quote,

the prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship,

and to get it we must have progress and our public men must be genuinely progressive."

End quote.

He hadn't officially declared his hat in the ring yet for another presidential run, But most agree that the moment Roosevelt stepped on top

of that kitchen table, it was the moment that set him up for the last great political

...