State of the Union Addresses by United States Presidents (1901 - 1908)
State of the Union Addresses by United States Presidents (1901 - 1908)
Roosevelt's State of the Union addresses capture a president at the height of his power and vision. These aren't the measured, poll-tested words of modern politics but the passionate declarations of a leader who believed deeply in the promise and peril of American industrial power. From his first address in 1901, delivered shortly after ascending to the presidency following McKinley's assassination, through his famed 1902 speech announcing the Northern Securities antitrust suit, to his 1905 call for a "Square Deal" for all Americans, these addresses trace the birth of the modern presidency itself. Here Roosevelt speaks directly to Congress about the issues that would define the twentieth century: the concentrated power of corporate trusts, the preservation of wilderness, the construction of the Panama Canal, and the emerging role of America on the world stage. His prose crackles with conviction. Every sentence bears the weight of a man who saw himself as the champion of ordinary citizens against the entrenched interests of the powerful. For anyone who wonders how the executive branch became the center of American political life, the answer begins here, in these vigorously argued speeches.
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