# Theodore Roosevelt — "a graduated income tax on big fortunes" > [!quote] "The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective — a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." > — Theodore Roosevelt, "The New Nationalism," Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910 ## Context Delivered at Osawatomie, Kansas, as the former president launched the "New Nationalism" program that would carry him into the 1912 Bull Moose campaign. Three years before the [[Sixteenth Amendment]] made a federal income tax constitutional, Roosevelt — a Republican — was openly campaigning for both a graduated income tax and a steep graduated estate tax aimed squarely at "swollen fortunes." ## Why this matters The most explicit Republican endorsement of progressive taxation in American history, from one of the party's towering figures. Roosevelt's argument is not envy but structure: very large fortunes "differentiate in kind," concentrating power in a way that threatens self-government, so the tax code should rise "rapidly" with the size of income and estate. This is the intellectual core of the progressive tax — and the precise position the modern Republican Party, with its drive to abolish the estate tax and flatten rates, has inverted. It is one of the load-bearing receipts in this collection. ## Verification - **Primary source:** [The American Yawp Reader, Theodore Roosevelt on "The New Nationalism" (1910)](https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/20-the-progressive-era/theodore-roosevelt-on-the-new-nationalism-1910/); overview at [Wikipedia, New Nationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Nationalism_(Theodore_Roosevelt)). - **Status:** Verbatim from the speech text. Undisputed. ## Related quotes - [[Abraham Lincoln - labor is the superior of capital]] — the earlier Republican premise Roosevelt converts into tax policy. - [[Franklin D. Roosevelt - taxes according to ability to pay]] — his cousin's [[New Deal]] restatement a generation later. - Featured in [[Presidents on Tax Fairness]].