This letter first appeared in The RECORD on September 30, 2005. We thought it was so pertinent to current political events in Maine, we decided to reprint it for your enjoyment.

Since the greatest problem facing our state today is the preservation of marriage and the family, we thought it would be only appropriate to try our hand at a letter from Theodore Roosevelt, a man who loved both his family and the state of Maine. The letter is postmarked Washington, D.C., September 30, 1915 and reads as follows:

My Dear Friends in the State of Maine:

I have just seen my boys Quentin, Kermit, and Archie off to bed after a long day camping in the great wilderness. I had a splendid time teaching them how to paddle a canoe. Archie got wet and didn't seem to enjoy it much at first, but then he took to it like a duck to water. At dinner time we had a grand time frying beefsteak and potatoes in bacon fat over a campfire. Watching the boys learn to live in the woods took me back to my boyhood days in Island Falls where I first learned to hunt and fish. I owe the people of Maine a great debt, since it was there I learned my love of the outdoors.

I hear you are having problems in Maine, and what is worse, the politicians who have caused these problems are calling themselves "Progressive." I know a little bit about what it means to be "Progressive" because that is what we called the Bull Moose Party. "Progressive" means that you leave the bad things behind and move on to better things. But it seems that those in charge of government in Maine are doing just the opposite, and are deliberately trying to make things worse for everybody.

As I said, you know you are progressive when you see yourself moving towards good things and leaving the bad things behind. I will mention a few of those things that those in Augusta have asked you to leave behind. First, they have asked you to leave behind a sense of individual initiative, responsibility, and duty. The material well-being of America has been developed to a very high degree by the energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative of its citizens. A welfare state which creates dependence on an all-powerful government, while encouraging an individual to shirk his duty, is not "progressive." It is retrogressive.

Another thing the Progressives in Augusta have asked you to leave behind is the concept of honest labor. It was only through hard, honest labor that America earned the splendid heritage we now enjoy. Some wicked men have introduced gambling into Maine as a get rich quick scheme. But no society has ever profited through vice.

The worse thing I see happening in the state of Maine, is that the current governor, who claims to be "progressive," wants to build business by bringing unmanly men into the state. He calls this plan "The Creative Economy." As a former Rough Rider, explorer of the Amazon, and big game hunter, I can assure you that this harebrained scheme will not work. What will build up your economy is lowering the taxes on business and nourishing the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great.

And let me add a word about conservation. Being a faithful steward of the earth does not mean making the earth and all that is in it your master. Conservation will not work if it is not based on sound American principles, and the Biblical belief that man has dominion over the earth. The idea that an animal or plant is of equal worth to a man is a wicked and dangerous notion, unworthy to be held by any American. Again, such thinking is not progressive; it is retrogressive.

And last of all, I would like to warn you against those who would allow -- I can hardly bring myself to write the words -- same-sex marriage. Those who are working to achieve such a horrible thing want you to leave the family behind. But nothing is as important to a society as the family. Sins against pure and healthy family life are those which of all others are sure in the end to be visited most heavily upon the nation in which they take place. Be sure that any individual or party who tells you that men may marry men, or women, women aims not at your progress, but your destruction.

Since I have spent so much time in Maine, and regard you all as friends, I thought I would speak openly and candidly. That is why I am going to take this opportunity to tell you frankly that under your current leadership in Augusta you are not making progress - you are being marched backwards into oblivion. But then again, that is just as they would have it.

Your Friend,

Theodore Roosevelt
President of the United States

Photo Courtesy of the National Park Service