Photo of the Day

To be a progressive.

It is February 21, 1912.

Theodore Roosevelt, the former president, is in Columbus, Ohio, to address delegates who are drafting a new state constitution.

Theodore Roosevelt arrives in Columbus, Ohio, February 21, 1912.

In recent weeks, the public has learned that Roosevelt intends

to challenge the current president, William Howard Taft,

his chosen successor,

for the 1912 Republican presidential nomination at the party’s summer convention.

1909 magazine cover depicting out-going President Roosevelt handing new President Taft his progressive policies.

Taft has deviated from progressive principles, Roosevelt believes,

and Roosevelt’s candidacy,

which will culminate in an unsuccessful third-party bid,

is intended to return those guiding principles to the White House.

Left: Roosevelt and new President Taft on inauguration day, March 4, 1909. Right: President Taft, center, inspects construction of the Panama Canal, 1910.

Roosevelt’s Columbus speech,

often called the “Charter of Democracy” speech,

makes those progressive principles plain.

The need to reassert them now is strong.

Roosevelt in Columbus, Ohio, after his speech. He was cheered by a crowd of thousands. [The Columbus Dispatch photo.]

From the speech:

“I protest against any theory

that would make of the constitution

a means of thwarting

instead of securing

the absolute right of the people to rule themselves.

Rosa May Billinghurst, frequently jailed suffragette and polio victim, in her special wheel chair. 1908.

I believe in pure democracy.

With Lincoln, I hold that

“this country, with its institutions,

belongs to the people who inhabit it.”

Edward S. Curtis photo of Bear's Belly, of the Arikara tribe of Native Americans, whose tribal lands included territory in North and South Dakota, along the Missouri River. 1908.

We Progressives believe that the people have the right,

the power,

and the duty

to protect themselves and their own welfare;

William "Froggie" James, a Black man, was lynched, above, and his dead body mutilated on November 11, 1909, by a mob in Cairo, Illinois, after he was charged with the rape and murder of 23-year-old shop clerk Anna Pelley.

that human rights are supreme over all other rights;

that wealth should be the servant,

not the master, of the people.

American domestic servants, c. 1900.

We believe that unless representative government

does absolutely represent the people,

it is not representative government at all.

Italian day laborers working in New York City, 1910.

We test the worth of men and all measures

by asking how they contribute to the welfare

of the men, women, and children

of whom this nation is composed.

Ellis Island immigration data: "Jakob Mittelstadt and family, Russian German, ex SS 'Pretoria', May 9, 1905. Admitted to go to Kullen, N.D."

We are engaged in one of the great battles

of the age-long contest

waged against privilege on behalf of the common welfare.

Industrialist/philantropist Andrew Carnegie and his wife, c. 1910.

We hold it a prime duty of the people

to free our government

from the control of money in politics.”

Street corner newspaper sellers, ages 5 and 8. Richmond, Virginia, 1908. Lewis Hine photo.

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Progressives: stand firm.

Democracy permits no compromise in these principles.

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda