the_gneech | Happy Birthday, _litho

For your present, here's today's Forgotten English!

tote right
To be fair; to conform to the local ethics. "I aim to tote right with everybody in this county whether they voted for me or not," said a newly elected sheriff. The phrase tote fair carries the same meaning. Ozarks.
--Vance Randolph's Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech, 1953

Birthday of Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
In 1912 the Republican Party snubbed former President Roosevelt, instead nominating William Howard Taft, whom T. R. considered too conservative, for a second term in the White House. After this defeat, he ran as a candidate for the newly formed Progressive, or Bull Moose, party. This split the Republican vote, which would have elected Taft, and enabled Democratic dark horse Woodrow Wilson to be elected. During the campaign, Roosevelt assailed the politics-as-usual. On accepting the nomination, he declared: "The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day."

Hmm. Sounds familiar!

-The Gneech