But considering how resonant its first metaphor was to the public, it's no surprise that the speech took on the name it did: the Man with the Muckrake. If they get their way they will lead the people into a deeper pit than any into which they could fall under the present system. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil. On the contrary, there is almost as much of breeching work as of collar work. In Pilgrim's Progress the Man with the Muck Rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of spiritual things. The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible, but the forces of truth and love and courage and honesty and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever before. There results a general attitude either of cynical belief in and indifference to public corruption or else of a distrustful inability to discriminate between the good and the bad. Any excess is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, unfortunately, the reactions instead of taking the form of punishment of those guilty of the excess, is apt to take the form either of punishment of the unoffending or of giving immunity, and even strength, to offenders. ( Log Out / There stood also one over his head with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his muck-rake; but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces for evil. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth. And that positive good needs to be done calmly, slowly, and rationally. Read some of Theodore Roosevelt's letters to his children. To depend only on traces means that there will soon be a runaway and an upset. Here, therefore, they saw the man in the cage, the man and his dream, the man that cut his way through his enemies, and the picture of the biggest of them all, together with the rest of those things that were then so profitable to Christian. The men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor. On the other hand, the wild preachers of unrest and discontent, the wild agitators against the entire existing order, the men who act crookedly, whether because of sinister design or from mere puzzle headedness, the men who preach destruction without proposing any substitute for what they intend to destroy, or who propose a substitute which would be far worse than the existing evils -- all these men are the most dangerous opponents of real reform. INTERPRETER: Thou hast said right, said he; and his muck-rake doth show his carnal mind. Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only … INTERPRETER: That prayer, said the Interpreter, has lain by till it is almost rusty: “Give me not riches,” is scarce the prayer of one in ten thousand. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Roosevelt, Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was an American politician, author, naturalist, soldier, explorer, and historian who served as the 26th President of the United States. The rich man who benefits from political corruption isn't any worse than the labor leader who sparks up support for a murderer, in an apples and oranges kind of way. The term is a reference to a character in John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress, "the Man with the Muck-rake", who rejected salvation to focus on filth. ' Summary of Section 1: An Open Letter to Journalists of The Man with the Muckrake. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untr uthfully assailed. The material problems that face us today are not such as they were in Washington's time, but the underlying facts of human nature are the same now as they were then. Her work helped lay the foundation for modern codebreaking today. Some persons are sincerely incapable of understanding that to denounce mud slinging does not mean the endorsement of whitewashing; and both the interested individuals who need whitewashing and those others who practice mud slinging like to encourage such confusion of ideas. s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a … "The Man With the Muckrake" by Theodore Roosevelt Roosevelt wants to show that he is both a business man and a reformer. Under altered external form we war with the same tendencies toward evil that were evident in Washington's time, and are helped by the same tendencies for good. Many in the muckraker group took offense that Roosevelt would dismiss their reformist aims with such an allusion. Get a line-by-line breakdown of this section of the text to be sure you're picking up what The Man with the Muckrake is … We now administer the affairs of a nation in which the extraordinary growth of population has been outstripped by the growth of wealth in complex interests. Five strategies to maximize your sales kickoff; Jan. 26, 2021. If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of appetite against appetite, of a contest between the brutal greed of the "have nots" and the brutal greed of the "haves," then it has no significance for good, but only for evil. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does no good, but very great harm. Spiritually and ethically we must strive to bring about clean living and right thinking. It is important to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use of those fortunes, both corporate and individual, in business. As Christiana, Mercy, and the four boys set out once again on their journey, they come to an orchard that is owned by the devil (who owned the barking dog from their previous stop as well).The boys begin to eat the fruit from the garden, despite their mother's warnings that they have no right to it. It is a foolish and timid, no less than a wicked thing, to blink the fact that the forces of evil are strong, but it is even worse to fail to take into account the strength of the forces that tell for good. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. Feb. 3, 2021. Change ), The Man with the Muck Rake, from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, She Said. Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing.” The men who with stern sobriety and truth assail the many evils of our time, whether in the public press, or in magazines, or in books, are the leaders and allies of all engaged in the work for social and political betterment. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; Keep deception and lies far from me. An acknowledged landmark of American public address, Theodore Roosevelt's “The Man with the Muck‐Rake” has long resisted adequate interpretation, largely because historians and rhetoricians have not resolved the apparent anomaly between Roosevelt's “conservative” remarks on journalism and his “progressive” proposals for economic reform. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Explore the life of singer Marian Anderson and her triumphant 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial. 30:8. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price. Of course, no amount of charity in spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct in making them. There is any amount of good in the world, and there never was a time when loftier and more disinterested work for the betterment of mankind was being done than now. He Said. The reason for Roosevelt’s speech, “The Man With the Muck Rake”, allows him to express his views on muckrakers and their wrongful doings toward society. No honesty will make a public man useful if that man is timid or foolish, if he is a hot-headed zealot or an impracticable visionary. We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the man of capital than evil in the man of no capital. “In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muck-rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake himself the filth of the floor…. If it seeks to establish a line of cleavage, not along the line which divides good men from bad, but along that other line, running at right angles thereto, which divides those who are well off from those who are less well off, then it will be fraught with immeasurable harm to the body politic. If a public man is willing to yield to popular clamor and do wrong to the men of wealth or to rich corporations, it may be set down as certain that if the opportunity comes he will secretly and furtively do wrong to the public in the interest of a corporation. n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; SUMMARY. “In Pilgrim’s Progress the Man with the Muck Rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of spiritual things. Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance to show the stuff of which he is made. Then said Christiana, I persuade myself that I know somewhat the meaning of this; for this is a figure of a man of this world: is it not, good sir? It is of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove to be not the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere dissatisfaction with the inevitable inequality of conditions, but the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure the betterment of the individual and the nation. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. muckrake and John Bunyan {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? Purpose Of Theodore Roosevelt The Man With The Muck Rake. t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There is nothing more distressing to every good patriot, to every good American, than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. This done, and after those things had been somewhat digested by Christiana and her company, the Interpreter takes them apart again, and has them first into a room where was a man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand. As an instance in point, I may mention that one serious difficulty encountered in getting the right type of men to dig the Panama canal is the certainty that they will be exposed, both without, and, I am sorry to say, sometimes within, Congress, to utterly reckless assaults on their character and capacity. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, business, or social life. He fought for what he believed and never backed down from that belief. Muckrake definition is - to search out and publicly expose real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business. TR calls on Americans to participate in political life. One attitude is as bad as the other, and no worse; in each case the accused is entitled to exact justice; and in neither case is there need of action by others which can be construed into an expression of sympathy for crime. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual -- a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government. 7 benefits of working from home; Jan. 26, 2021. fbq('track', 'ViewContent'); We now find it necessary to provide by great additional buildings for the business of the government. 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Through a series of questions about early-1900s modes of transportation, prime students to think about what a “muck-raker” does (cleans up horse manure). The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed. It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the rich man." From then on, the name stuck. The wealthy man who exults because there is a failure of justice in the effort to bring some trust magnate to account for his misdeeds is as bad as, and no worse than, the so-called labor leader who clamorously strives to excite a foul class feeling on behalf of some other labor leader who is implicated in murder. /* fbq('track', 'PageView'); */ The American foreign policy statement that provided the basis for Roosevelt's military intervention in Latin America. This year we are making a beginning in the direction of serious effort to settle some of these economic problems by the railway rate legislation. var googletag = googletag || {}; (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Despite Roosevelt's efforts, many of the crusading journalists embraced the term "muckrakers" and indeed forced the country to make changes to ease the situations they reported. Text of speech courtesy of the Program in Presidential Rhetoric, Texas A&M University. It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the poor man." It has been argued that the “Address of President Roosevelt at the Laying of the Corner Stone of the Office Building of the House of Representatives Saturday, April 14, 1906 (The Man with the Muck-Rake)” is really two speeches in one (i.e., the first part of the speech is about investigative journalism and the second part is about a progressive tax). At this moment we are passing through a period of great unrest -- social, political, and industrial unrest. Now, it is easy to twist out of shape what I have just said, easy to affect to misunderstand it, and if it is slurred over in repetition not difficult really to misunderstand it. The welfare of the wage worker, the welfare of the tiller of the soil, upon these depend the welfare of the entire country; their good is not to be sought in pulling down others; but their good must be the prime object of all our statesmanship. There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. too true. In Pilgrim's Progress the Man with the Muck Rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of spiritual things. We should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes well won and fortunes ill won; between those gained as an incident to performing great services to the community as a whole and those gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the limits of mere law honesty.
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