Class warfare is the problem behind all of this hemming and hawing about morality, honesty, and virtue. The wealth gap was one of the defining issues of the Gilded Age, and corruption in politics and business was on everyone's minds, along with the escalating conflict between factory workers and their employers.
While TR is super aware of the class conflict, by addressing it in "The Man with the Muckrake" he wants to replace the conflict with an alliance of good workers and businesses against bad workers and businesses, obliterating class lines.
Questions About Society and Class
- Why does TR think that workers and millionaires are equally at fault for causing problems in the US?
- What harm does Roosevelt think is specifically being done to corporations by newspapers?
- What reforms does Roosevelt suggest for curbing the power of the wealthy?
- What damage is Roosevelt worried about working-class people doing to America?
Chew on This
In this speech, Roosevelt seems to ignore all of the extra powers corporations get from their oodles and oodles of money. While it's true that rich men and poor men alike can be good or evil, the rich evil man has a lot more power to throw around.
With the working class, Teddy's most freaked out about violent uprisings. The assassination of William McKinley might have been an influence in this line of thinking, or the Haymarket bombing in Chicago. Roosevelt lays out the tools for evil that each class uses: for the rich, it's their money and influence, and for the poor it's their influence to get desperate people to go out and do violence.