To my mind the failure resolutely to follow progressive policies is the negation of democracy as well of progress, and spells disaster. But for this … - Theodore Roosevelt

Inasmuch as it is so often impossible to punish wrongs done in the past, and to prevent the consequences of the wrongs thus committed being felt by one innocent class, without shifting the burden to the shoulders of another innocent class, we ought to provide that hereafter business shall be carried on from its inception in such a way as to prevent swindling. Incidentally, this will also tend to prevent that excessive profit by one man, which may not be swindling, under existing laws, but which nevertheless is against the interest of the commonwealth. To know all the facts is of as much interest to the investor and the wage-worker as to the shipper, the producer, the consumer. Full knowledge of the past helps us in dealing with the future. If we find that high rates are due to overcapitalization in the past, or to any kind of sharp practice in the past, then, whether or not it is possible to take action which will partly remedy the wrong, we are certainly in a better position to prevent a repetition of the wrong.

A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood. We have not the slightest sympathy with that socialistic idea which would try to put laziness, thriftlessness and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift and efficiency; which would strive to break up not merely private property, but what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civilization stands. Such a theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the entire country — a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves. But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.