I think I know why some people call middle aged white men, “The Man.” I come from a long line of men that are considered The Man. Which makes me, in some peoples mind, The Man. Or at least, I hold some of the privileges of being associated with The Man. For most of history, The Man was an unconscious rich boy, white supremacy club. Some called it the “good ol’ boys club,” the KKK, or the racist, sexist, capitalist, plantation owners/country club members. The Man was the cop that arrested people for “driving while black,” and the Wal-Mart manager that made you punch your timecard out and go back to work unpaid, if you wanted to keep your job. The Man was also the Wall Street executive that cheated granny out of her retirement plan and the CEO that cut corners to save a buck at the risk of his own employees or the environment. These are all well known examples of The Man.
Just over one hundred years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a now famous speech known as The Man with the Muck Rake. Midway through his second term, Roosevelt continued to rein in on corporate excesses and abuses. The nation was growing faster than the government. The federal and state powers were unable to protect every day Americans from the growing influences of monopoles and the consequences of corporate malfeasance. All the while Roosevelt had to deal with some very powerful unions. This was also the time when Roosevelt managed to help pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, protections for everyday Americans.
With his speech, The Man with the Muck Rake, Roosevelt needed to accomplish two things. First, he had to persuade Americans that a progressive tax on the rich was important in providing the security and general welfare of all Americans. And second, he needed to assure everyone he was an impartial arbitrator, with only the best interest of all at heart. That is why Roosevelt chose the analogy of the man raking muck. In his speech, Roosevelt barrows a scene from John Bunyan’s classic Christian allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress:
“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 to himself the filth of the floor.
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. 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.”
Roosevelt sets himself apart from The Man that fixes his eyes only on raking the muck all day and never spends a moment to look up to see the celestial crown. What Roosevelt was essentially sayings was, while it is valuable and important to help rake away the muck, one must also be able to see the beauty and the brilliance of your opponents arguments. And if you are unable to both rake the muck and occasionally look up, you will be damned to only see the vile and disgusting, and never see the celestial crown, the “worthy endeavors.” As Roosevelt states:
“To assail the great and admitted evils of our political and industrial life with such crude and sweeping generalizations as to include decent men in the general condemnation means the searing of the public conscience. 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. Either attitude is fraught with untold damage to the country as a whole.”
Roosevelt believes, as should we all, that truth supersedes partisanship. If you are attempting to rake around muck based on lies and deception, well Roosevelt declared you are morally bankrupt and a detriment to the nation. In fact, Roosevelt proclaimed partisan lies to be downright evil:
“Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. 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. 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.
… I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform or in a book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.”
Roosevelt used this speech to promote a progressive tax on the rich in order to grow our nation and make it more secure. He witnessed firsthand how both the wealthy and poor could mount vicious smear campaigns to discredit the character of good men or generalized about whole segments of our society.
“An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does no good, but very great harm. the soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed … the effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment …”
Roosevelt was known as a “truth buster.” Today we see rightwing media in full stream, spewing lies and generalizing about progressive liberals, unions, blacks, religious social justice activists, Latinos, centrists, socialists, hippies, Wiccans, Muslims, musicians, communists, atheists, humanists, gays, anyone that wears a tie die in public, and any other group the radical right sets their sights on. Nearly every day president Obama has to deal with a new conspiracy theory based on a lie. The Man is endlessly fabricating stories about Obama’s birth certificate or death panels. The Man is paying off their buddies to skirt the law, or skillfully slide just under the bar to avoid the law. Knowing full well every Man on the bench or in the legislative branch can be bought. Every Man has his price. That is how the game is played.
However, back in the day, Teddy Roosevelt was having none of it. He didn’t need The Man’s money, nor did he have to agree with all the political pressure coming from the powerful labor unions demands. All he need to do was become an honest broker between the two. And that is what he did. That is how he was able to pass so many progressive taxes and regulations on business, along with a number of added taxes on the America’s rich, including an inheritance tax. Roosevelt believed we need to hold accountable the arrogant executives that were running roughshod over America and pissing on the public’s interest. Here again is a quote from The Man and the Muck Rake:
“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. 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. Of course, no amount of charity in spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct in making them.”
The Man is the mining operator that chooses it is more economical to pay the weak regulatory fines than to incorporate all of the safety regulations required to keep his workers safe. The Man is the oil company that claims their offshore drilling operations pose no threat to the environment. And The Man is the guy in the government that rubber stamps the corporations conclusions. Yes, once again, Teddy got it right when he said:
“More important than aught else is the development of the broadest sympathy of man for man. 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.
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. Spiritually and ethically we must strive to bring about clean living and right thinking. We appreciate that the things of the body are important; but we appreciate also that the things of the soul are immeasurably more important.”
While I’m not a religious man, I can totally feel where Roosevelt is coming from. His speech is as relevant as ever. We must always be aware of The Man raking muck, and never looking up.
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