Following Barack Obama's recent economic speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, like you, I've been puzzling over the question of whether Teddy Roosevelt intended to reference the abolitionist insurgent John Brown in his choice of Osawatomie for his 1910 New Nationalism speech, and thus whether Barack Obama can be understood to have obliquely but intentionally referenced John Brown as well.

The answer seems to be that yes, Roosevelt mentioned Brown, together with Lincoln. That makes sense - he had been invited for a dedication of a Brown memorial, and Brown is Osawatomie's main claim to fame. Roosevelt even put his moral arguments in the political context of the Civil War, Brown and Lincoln.

In contrast, the text of Obama's speech refers only to Roosevelt. Much as I might like Obama to explain that we are still battling the Slave Power and the modern day slavers, the number of people for whom John Brown and Osawatomie have current salience is small, and that's not Obama's battle... although it should be.

Roosevelt's Speech: http://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-theodore-roosevelt-s-osawatomi...

Obama's Speech: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obamas-economic-speech-in-osawa...

Finally, because I know this is bothering many of you, how is it possible that Teddy Roosevelt delivered his New Nationalism speech to a reported 30,000 people in Osawatomie in 1910? It appears that the electronic loudspeaker was in the very VERY earliest stages of development. Several sources point to 1906 as the earliest date for the vacuum tube amplifier technology itself. Could a usable, transportable (to Kansas!) loudspeaker based on this technology have been deployed in 1910? I think that would be astonishing, but perhaps it is possible. If did not exist, how many of those 30,000 people could have heard TR? Not many! ( http://www.emolabs.com/emoproducts/history.html )

Roosevelt probably could not have addressed the 30,000 assembled people... and be heard by them, in 1910. It was at least 9 years too soon. At best they would have had to read his words later, because: "The first use of a large-scale sound system for public address in the USA was in 1919, during the Victory Liberty Loan Rally that took place on Park Avenue in New York City, dubbed ‘Victory Way’ for the event. Along the length of the avenue, Western Electric installed one-hundred and twelve loudspeakers intended to play music and amplify speeches to encourage the citizenry to purchase Victory Liberty Loans. " ( http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP41-Cluett.pdf )
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