Theodore Roosevelt Quotes
We do not ever want our land policy to be shaped so as to create a big class of proprietors who rent to others..
Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, 26th President of the United States (Republican, NY), Speech at Stanford University, Palo Alto CA, May 12, 1903
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In every society where there had been past unjust ownership of land, all efforts of land reform were faced with the problem of having to dispossess the current “owners” who themselves had not been guilty of the crimes of their ancestors in unjustly obtaining the land originally. In America land reform was unworkable in most cases and the solution was usually a large monetary payment as compensation for the land.
Rack-Renting was the term for a Landlord charging the Tenant farmer an exorbitant rent per year for the right to farm and live on the land. Often the rent for a single year would be an amount equal to the fair market value of the purchase of the entire property, but the Landlords would never sell. The tenant farmers rarely had any alternative as that land had their home such as it was and provided their meager living which generally was only slightly more than the Rack Rent. The Irish National Land League was created to reform the land use and allocation system of Ireland.
His bill introduced in the House of Representatives. It did not pass.
Use included renting it. What he opposed was simply holding land when whites were driving Indians off their lands because all the unused land outside of the reservation was owned by someone and the asking price was very high. Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
Fixed tenure meant leases for a significant period of time. For various reasons, Irish landowners were reluctant to invest in improving property in any way. It the tenant invested his own sweat or resources to improve the property, the landlord would evict him and rent to someone else for more money for the “improved” property. So no one would ever improve property until there were laws requiring tenants to have rights of transfer, inheritance and reasonable fixed lease terms.
He was the Russian Reformer who ended serfdom and gave land to the peasants and then was assassinated. Ironically, both Alexander II and Lincoln were assassinated—because of their reform efforts—Lincoln for going too far; the Czar for not going far enough. See the Nickname that was given to the Czar: {622809}.
Excesses that CEOs and other corporate executives were getting for remuneration became an issue of political controversy in the beginning of the 2nd Milleneum. However, this quotation shows that this was not a new problem and has been considered for a long time.
Weaver thought that the huge Federal land holdings should only be used to give land to homeless people. With land, they could build shelter, plant food, and raise cattle. In modern times it is much more difficult to help the homeless for few people could survive on a parcel of land even if given.
At the time, land was much more of a necessity for the average person than today in America. But in early America and much of the rest of the world today, without land one had little or no opportunity to do almost anything. So equality of land distribution was necessary for equality of opportunity. America never solved the problem of equality of land distribution; we just developed an economy where land was not longer so critical to opportunity.
Nelson was referring to the past. The industrial revolution created other forms of wealth and power as a huge factory could be built on a small piece of land. In farming, the yield is proportional to the acreage tilled. Not so in manufacturing. With the knowledge era, intellectual property could produce much wealth and power, and factory size and land ownership was not necessary.
Landlords would abuse tenant farmers {639644}, and then evict them from their home and farm when they could not pay the rack-rents. The Land League fought back. When a landlord evicted a tenant, they would “urge” all other farmers not to rent that farm. If they did, they might be identified and bad things might happen to their livestock or crops. Few would rent a farm where the previous tenant had been evicted after this “program”.
For a later manifestation of the problem Franklin described see Anti-Renters in 1839.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer, who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900 and the 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901. Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
