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What Is the Role of Government?

On general election day, consider this question. Your answer might inform your voting decisions!

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, the former twenty-sixth president of the United States, answered it this way. "The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens."

Today's artwork was created as part of the series "Great Ideas of Western Man." Joseph Hirsch illustrated Roosevelt's quotation in 1954 with this remarkable likeness in gouache. An opaque watercolor medium, gouache reflects light differently from transparent watercolors.

Pictured: Joseph Hirsch, 1910–1981, "The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as ...", 1954, gouache on paperboard, 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America.