On Citizenship and Self-Government
Highlighting some of our favorite writing on active citizenship
The fundamental mission of the RRA is to cultivate active citizenship among New Yorkers. Why is that so important to us? Here we highlight some of our favorite writing on the topic, from people who knew. In the words of RRA founder Daniel Golliher, “sometimes the ‘self’ in ‘self-government’ is yourself.”
Theodore Roosevelt, The Duties of American Citizenship:
If freedom is worth having, if the right of self-government is a valuable right, then the one and the other must be retained exactly as our forefathers acquired them, by labor, and especially by labor in organization, that is in combination with our fellows who have the same interests and the same principles.
Source: Maximum New York
The Report of the Citizens’ Association of New York, 1868:
Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose that a corrupt government in this city is a necessity. Neglect and indifference only have brought us where we are, and energy and determination can alone carry us where we desire to be. Neither passive endurance on the one hand, nor revolution, riot and bloodshed on the other, will do it, but regular, lawful, PERSISTENT efforts will accomplish it… The power, intelligence and capital are here to do it. Remember, with good government we have nothing to fear, and without it, nothing to hope.
Source: Hathitrust.
Elihu Root, The Citizen’s Part in Government:
It is not rightly a matter of choice whether a man shall trouble himself about affairs of government in his community, or confine himself to his business, his profession, or his pleasures, and leave others to govern; it is a matter of peremptory obligation which cannot be avoided by any intelligent man who has any understanding of the conditions under which he lives. A French nobleman could attend the Court of Louis XIV, or retire to his castle, as he chose, without discredit; for under that system of government the question was whether certain men or certain other men conducted the government. The essential feature of the present condition is that the burden and duty of government rest upon all men, and no man can retire to his business or his pleasures and ignore his right to share in government without shirking a duty. The experiment of popular government cannot be successful unless the citizens of a country generally take part in the government. There is no man free from the responsibility; that responsibility is exactly proportioned to each man's capacity—to his education, to his experience in life, to his disinterestedness, to his capacity for leadership—in brief, to his equipment for effective action in the great struggle that is continually going on to determine the preponderance of good and bad forces in government, and upon the issue of which depend results so momentous to himself, his family, his children, his country, and mankind.
Source: Archive.org