Editor’s note: This is the 57th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. Like Populism, the Progressive Movement was embodied by a great personage, Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). He embodied it the way he lived, and he expressed it repeatedly in words, for example, in an address delivered in Chicago, in April 1899, two years before he became President, entitled “The Strenuous Life.” The title says it all, but these words from the speech spell it out: “In the las … (read more)
