Plus ça change...
Dec. 2nd, 2018 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowOne of the books I'm currently reading is a biography of Theodore Roosevelt. In the discussion of TR's push to regulate the railroads, there's a description of the counterattack by the railroad magnates.
"Bogus conventions, packed for the purpose... passed resolutions unanimously, to be scattered broadcast by free telegraphic dispatches all over the country. 'Associations for the Maintenance of Property' held conventions; the fact being duly advertised. Palpably garbled news items from Washington were distributed without cost... An elaborate card catalogue of small newspapers through the United States was made; in which was noted all the hobbies, prejudices, and even the personal weakness of the editors..."
Who knew that astroturfing was so old? The whole deal sounds disturbingly familiar.
This is followed by a quote from TR himself: "There can be no delusion more fatal to the nation, than the delusion that the standard of profits, of business prosperity, is sufficient in judging any business or political question - from rate legislation to municipal government." His goal was to set up a standard that would free "the corporation that wishes to do well from being driven into doing ill, in order to compete with its rival, which prefers to do ill."
Roosevelt had his flaws, some of them serious, but there are times when I could wish for a person of his fire and moral vision to hold the Presidency.
"Bogus conventions, packed for the purpose... passed resolutions unanimously, to be scattered broadcast by free telegraphic dispatches all over the country. 'Associations for the Maintenance of Property' held conventions; the fact being duly advertised. Palpably garbled news items from Washington were distributed without cost... An elaborate card catalogue of small newspapers through the United States was made; in which was noted all the hobbies, prejudices, and even the personal weakness of the editors..."
Who knew that astroturfing was so old? The whole deal sounds disturbingly familiar.
This is followed by a quote from TR himself: "There can be no delusion more fatal to the nation, than the delusion that the standard of profits, of business prosperity, is sufficient in judging any business or political question - from rate legislation to municipal government." His goal was to set up a standard that would free "the corporation that wishes to do well from being driven into doing ill, in order to compete with its rival, which prefers to do ill."
Roosevelt had his flaws, some of them serious, but there are times when I could wish for a person of his fire and moral vision to hold the Presidency.
