October 30, 2008
Breaking News - Theodore Roosevelt Breaks With Party and Supports Barack Obama

Dear neighbors,

In the course of reading Theodore Roosevelt's scrap books today, I came across a lecture he gave in 1893.  At the time, he wanted to be Mayor of New York City (but instead soon became Police Commissioner, followed by Governor of New York, and then President at the age of 42).   I was struck by how relevant his comments are vis a vis the educational policy differences between our Presidential candidates today.  Everything below is T.R.'s speech, except for my fictional addition in italics.  The title of T.R.'s talk is: Our Common Schools: the Importance of Enlisting in Their Support Citizens of Every Religious Faith and of All Political Parties.

"The public schools are the nurseries from which spring the future masters of the commonwealth; and, in making up the estimate of any state’s real greatness, the efficiency of the public school, and the extent to which it is successful in teaching all the children in the state count for a hundred fold more than railroads and manufactories, than shipping or farms, than anything which is symbolic of mere material prosperity, great though the importance of this mere material prosperity undoubtedly also is. . .

Because we are unqualifiedly and without reservation against any system of denominational schools maintained by the adherents of any creed with the help of state aid, therefore we as strenuously insist that the public schools shall be Free from Sectarian Influence . . . Exactly as we welcome to them alike the children of Jew and Gentile, of Catholic and Protestant, so we insist that in their management no one creed shall have any special jurisdiction, but the professors of all creeds be treated alike, in order that every American citizen, without regard to what his own private religious belief may be, feel that he has as much voice as any other man. . .

The Know-nothing movement in every form is entirely repugnant to true Americanism, and this is, perhaps, especially the case when it is directed not merely against American citizens of foreign origin, but also against even native born Americans of a different creed. . . We should set our faces like a rock against any attempt to allow state aid to be given to any sectarian system of education. . .

I am a pretty good party man, and do not leave my party on any issue unless I think that I really ought to, yet I should most certainly refuse to support a school ticket made up by any party if it was made up avowedly in the interests of the professor of one creed – whether it was my own creed or not . . . One of the very greatest benefits arising from the public schools is that Catholics and Protestants, Americans of every origin and faith, brought up in them inevitably in after life have kindlier feelings towards their old school-fellows of different creeds, and look at them with a wiser and manlier charity, than could possibly be the case had they never had a chance to mingle together in their youth; thus the possibility for the growth on American soil of the savage sectarian hatreds of Europe is minimized.” 

And, therefore, I must strongly disagree with the policy positions and disposition of my beloved Republican party and support the ticket of Obama and Biden.  Bully!  Theodore Roosevelt

See you at the polls!

Amy Werbel
Ward 5 School Commissioner
awerbel@bsdvt.org