Theodore Roosevelt Quotes
Congress did not themselves wish to be investigated..
The Secret Service was then the only Federal police force. Some members of Congress were protecting constituents who were involved with these crimes and some were themselves owners who were committing the crimes.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, 26th President of the United States (Republican, NY), Reaction to an amendment Congress passed prohibiting the Secret Service from investigating land frauds, anti-trust violations and other crimes, Quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Sparta, an ancient Greek city-state, trained all its young men for war. One “test” was each youth was to sneak into the countryside and murder someone’s slave and not get caught. The murder was against the laws of the society, but if the young man was caught he was punished severely, not for murder or attempted murder, but for getting caught.
15% of the entire Brazilian national legislature were accused of taking bribes, and most member of the ruling party had not even been investigated yet.
Referring to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy:
He was referring to a transportation bill that had been packed with earmarks and pork by his own party.
In general, there are so many versions of a bill as it goes through the Congressional process, that the members of Congress do not read each and every draft. Some do not read any of the drafts and leave it to the Committee; others trust their staffs or their party leadership. More often they trust the lobbyists who donate to their campaigns. Sometimes, the bills are so large—many thousands of pages that the members of Congress lose track of all the aspects of the proposed law and only read a few sections in which they may have participated in debate. Often, the only people who read the entire bill are the lobbyists and one or two of committee staff.
He was asked to comment on the poor initial response of the Federal Government during the Hurricane Katrine crisis.
The bills and legislative processes in Congress had become so large and convoluted that literally members of Congress either voted on bills that were so lage that they rarely read the entire bill or on procedures so arcane that the members could not determine ehate they were voting for. As a result most just followed the lead of their party's Congrssional Leadership.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer, who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900 and the 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901. Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
