“The government is us; WE are the government, you and I."- Theodore Roosevelt”

“Is it only in the army in the Philippines that Americans sometimes commit deeds that cause all other Americans to regret? [Theodore Roosevelt 1901 relating reports of water torture in the Philippines to lynching in the south]”

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.”

“Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.”

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”

“No ability, no strength and force, no power of intellect or power of wealth, shall avail us, if we have not the root of right living in us.”

“I stand for the square deal," Roosevelt said. "But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service. One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit.”