Try It
In this activity, you will use the two strategies, context clues and word parts, to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. The activity will focus on words that describe political, social or economic aspects of the Progressive Era. At any time during the activity, you may go back to the Learn It pages to review the two strategies.
Read the following excerpt from a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt on August 31, 1910, in which he described his "Square Deal" policy. Use the two strategies, context clues and word parts, to determine the meaning of words and phrases that are underlined in the quotation. After the excerpt, you will be asked about the meanings of the words.
"Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service…"
- Theodore Roosevelt, August 31, 1910
