But Brown, argued Roosevelt, should serve as much as a warning as a model. He represented the dangers inherent in acts of “heedless violence” that would only “invite reaction.” It was the socialists rather than the Progressives who were Brown’s modern day successors; Brown’s “notion that the evils of slavery could be cured by a slave insurrection was a delusion analogous to the delusions of those who expect to cure the evils of plutocracy by arousing the baser passions of workingmen against the rich in an endeavor at violent industrial revolution.” Progressives should not shun the John Browns of the current moment, and could profitably cooperate with them, but should reject the “vindictiveness” that poisoned their works. Instead, they must make sure that it was the spirit of Abraham Lincoln—marked by “patience and moderation in the policy pursued, and … kindly charity and consideration and friendliness to those of opposite belief”—that inspired their efforts.

And so in the statements inspired by his trip to Osawatomie, Roosevelt did not merely announce his commitment to a bold program of progressive activism. He also proclaimed that he would both marshal—and contain—the fervor of his allies in reform. He would protect them from the temptations of both the right and the left. In fact, in his speech, he celebrated the fact that he was denounced—sometimes by the same paper—as both a tool of Wall Street and as a socialist fanatic. That he was the target of the attacks of both reactionaries and radicals was proof, for Roosevelt, of his integrity, of his transcendence of special interests and his devotion to the common good.

In light of this reading of Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech, Obama’s cultivation of the historical analogy with TR takes on an additional resonance. For Obama too has often sought to throw his own reasonableness into relief against the excesses of the right and the left, and his remarks at Osawatomie provided him another opportunity to do so. The president invoked the concept of “fairness” fifteen times in his address; the concept clearly compliments the address’s presiding theme of the need to restore a degree of solidarity and common purpose to the economic realm. But the references to fairness, as well as his portrayal of the current crisis as a “make or break moment for the middle class,” also suggest a subtle act of political positioning. By invoking fairness, Obama, like Roosevelt, suggests that he will reject the special interests who threaten the unity of the nation, no matter their origin on the political spectrum.

In fact, if Roosevelt scanted John Brown in his speech, Obama paid only a modest tribute to the Occupy movement that has done much to bring the issue of income inequality into the public consciousness. “I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules,” he declared. “Those aren’t Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values, and we have to reclaim them.” Obama seemed to endorse the Occupy movement’s concerns while distancing himself from its divisiveness. In the months ahead, if Obama can harness the movement's intense commitment to economic egalitarianism while at the same time reaching out to moderates through a repudiation of the spirit of “vindictiveness,” the president will prove himself an even more savvy student of Roosevelt’s address at Osawatomie than many have suspected.