Yale University
What OCT 20.1904

brair.

Roosevelt

Says

(From the Congressional Record)

Washington, D. C.
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What Roosevelt Says.

ABOUT THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF.
Our aim should be to preserve the policy of a protective tariff, in
which the nation as a whole has acquiesced, and yet wherever and
whenever necessary to change the duties in particular paragraphs
or schedules as matters of legislative detail, if such change is de
manded by the interests of the nation as a whole. (Minneapolis,
Minn., April 4, 1903.)
The general tariff policy to which, without regard to changes in
detail, I believe this country to be irrevocably committed is funda
mentally based upon ample recognition of the difference in labor
cost here and abroad; in other words, the recognition of the need
for full development of the intelligence, the comfort, the high stand
ard of civilized living, and the inventive genius of the American
workingman as compared to the workingman of any other country
in the world. (New York, November 11, 1902.)
At all hazards, and no matter what else is sought for or accom
plished by changes of the tariff, the American workingman must
be protected in his standard of wages — that is, in his standard of
living— and must be secured the fullest opportunity of employment.
(Logansport, Ind., September, 1902.)
A nation like ours can adjust its business after a fashion to any
kind of tariff. But neither our nation nor any other can stand the
ruinous policy of readjusting its business to radical changes in the
tariff at short intervals. (Logansport, Ind., September 23, 1902.)
If a tariff law has on the whole worked well and if business has
prospered under it and is prospering, it may be better to endure
some inconveniences and inequalities for a time than by making
changes to risk causing disturbance and perhaps paralysis in the
industries and business of the country. (Minneapolis, Minn., April
4, 1903.) The real evils connected with the trusts can not be remedied by
any change in the tariff laws. The trusts can be damaged by de
priving them of the benefits of a protective tariff only on conditioa
of damaging all their smaller competitors and all the wage-workers
employed in the industry. (Cincinnati, September 20, 1902.)
The tariff affects trusts only as it affects all other interests. It
makes all tbese interests, large or small, profitable; and its benefits

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can be taken from the large only under penalty of taking them from
the small also. (Minneapolis, Minn., April 7, 1903.)
There is general acquiescence in. our present tariff system as a
national policy. The first requisite to our prosperity is the continu
ity and stability of this economic policy. Nothing could be more
unwise than to disturb the business interests of the country by any
general tariff change at this time. Doubt, apprehension, uncertainty
are exactly what we most wish to avoid in the interest of our com
mercial and material well-being.
Our experience in the past has shown that sweeping revisions of
the tariff are apt to produce conditions closely approaching panic in
the business world. Yet it is not only possible, bnt eminently de
sirable, to combine with the stability of our economic system a sup
plementary system of reciprocal benefit and obligation with other
nations. Such reciprocity is an incident and result of the firm estab
lishment and preservation of our present economic policy. It was
specially provided for in the present tariff law.
Reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection.
Our first duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in
every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be
sought for so far as it can safely be done without injury to our home
industries. Just how far this is must be determined according to the
individual case, remembering always that every application of our
tariff policy to meet our shifting national needs must be conditioned
upon the cardinal fact that the duties must never be reduced below
the point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here
and abroad. The well-being of the wage-worker is a prime consid-
eralion of our entire policy of economic legislation. (Annual mes
sage, Fifty-seventh Congress, first session.)
Now, whether a protective tariff is right or wrong may be open
to question; but if it exists at all, it should work as simply and with
as much certainty and exactitude as possible; if its interpretation
varies, or if it is continually meddled with by Congress, great dam
age ensues. It is in reality of far less importance that a law should
be ideally right than that it should be certain and steady in its
workings. Even supposing that a high tariff is all wrong, it would
work infinitely better for the country than would a series of changes
between high and low duties. (Life of Benton, p. 224.)
The upshot of all this is that it is peculiarly incumbent upon us
in a time of such material well-being, both collectively as a nation
and individually as citizens, to show, each on his own account, that
we possess the qualities of prudence, self-knowledge and' self-

restraint. In our Government we need above all things stability,
fixity of economic policy. (Speech at Providence, R. I., August 23,
1902.)
GOLD AS THE STANDARD.
The Act of March 14, 1900, intended unequivocally to establish
gold as the standard money and to maintain at a parity therewith
all forms of money medium in use with us, has been shown to be
timely and judicious. The price of our government bonds in the
world's market, when compared with the price of similar obligations
issued by other nations, is a flattering tribute to our public credit.
This condition it is evidently desirable to maintain. (President's
annual message, Decesnber 3, 1901.)
It would be both unwise and unnecessary at this time to attempt
¦ to reconstruct our financial system, which has been the growth of a
century; but some additional legislation is, I think, desirable. The
mere outline of any plan sufficiently comprehensive to meet these
requirements would transgress the appropriate limits of this com
munication. It is suggested, however, that all future legislation on
the subject should be with the view of encouraging the use of such
instrumentalities as will automatically supply every legitimate de
mand of productive industries and of commerce, not only in the
amount, but in the character of circulation; and of making all kinds
of money interchangeable, and, at the will of the holder, convertible
into the established gold standard. (President's annual message,
December 2, 1902.)
The integrity of our currency is beyond question, and under pres
ent conditions it would be unwise and unnecessary to attempt a
reconstruction of our monetary system. The same liberty should be
granted the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit customs receipts as
is granted him in the deposit of receipts from other sources. In my
message of December 2, 1902, I called attention to certain needs of
the financial situation, and I again ask the consideration of the
Congress for these questions. (President's annual message, Decem
ber 7, 1903.)
In other words, legislation to be permanently good for any class
must also be good for the nation as a whole, and legislation which
does injustice to any class is certain to work harm to the nation.
Take our currency system for example. This nation is on a gold
basis. The Treasury of the public is in excellent condition. Never
before has the per capita of circulation been as large as it is this

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day; and this circulation, moreover, is of money every dollar of
which is at par with gold. Now, our having this sound currency
system is of benefit to banks, of course, but it is of infinitely more
benefit to the people as a whole, because of healthy effect on busi
ness conditions.
In the same way, whatever is advisable in the way of remedial
or corrective currency legislation— and nothing revolutionary is
advisable under present conditions— must be undertaken only from
the standpoint of the business community as a whole; that is, of the
American body politic as a whole. Whatever is done, we can not
afford to take any step backward or to cast any doubt upon the cer
tain redemption in standard coin of every circulating note. (Ad
dress of President Roosevelt at the State fair, Syracuse, N. Y.,
September 7, 1903.)
ABOUT LABOR AND CAPITAL.
Supremacy of the Law.
This is an era of great combinations both of labor and of capital.
In many ways these combinations have worked for good, but they
must work under the law, and the laws concerning them must be
just and wise or they will inevitably do evil; and this implies as
much to the richest corporation as to the most powerful labor union.
Our laws must be wise, sane, healthy, conceived in the spirit of
those who scorn the mere agitator, the mere inciter of class or sec
tional hatred; who wish justice for all men; who recognize the need
of adhering so far as possible to the old American doctrine of giving
the widest possible scope for the free exercise of individual initia
tive, and yet who recognize also that after combinations have
reached a certain stage it is indispensable to the general welfare
that the nation should exercise over them, cautiously and with self-
restraint, but firmly, the power of supervision and regulation.
(Charleston, S. C, April 9, 1902.)
The man who by the use of his capital "develops a great mine;
the man who by the use of his capital builds a great railroad; the
man who by the use of his capital, either individually or joined
with others like him, does any great legitimate business enterprise,
confers a benefit, not a harm, upon the community, and is entitled
to be so regarded. He is entitled to the protection of the law, and
in return he is to be required himself to obey the law. The law is
no respecter of persons. The law is to be administered neither for
the rich man as such nor for the poor man as such. It is to be

administered for every man, rich or poor, if he is an honest and
law-abiding citizen; and it is to be invoked against any man, rich or
poor, who violates it, without regard to which end of the social scale
he may stand at; without regard to whether his offense takes the
form of greed and cunning or the form of physical violence. In
either case, if he violates the law, the law is to be invoked against
him; and in so invoking it I have the right to challenge the support
of all good citizens and to demand the acquiescence of every good
man. I hope I will have it; but, once for all, I wish it understood
that even if I do not have it I shall enforce the law. (Speech at
Butte, Mont, May 27, 1903.)
We have the right to ask every decent American citizen to rally
to the support of the law if it is ever broken against the interest of
the rich man; and we have the same right to ask that rich man
cheerfully and gladly to acquiesce in the enforcement against his
seeming interest of the law, if it is the law. Incidentally, whether
he acquiesces or not, the law will be enforced, and this whoever he
may be, great or small, and at whichever end of the social scale he
may be. (Spokane, Wash., May 26, 1903.)
This is not and never shall be a government of a plutocracy; it
is not and never shall be a government by a mob. It is, as it has
been and as it will be, a government in which every honest man,
every decent man, be he employer or employed, wage-worker, me
chanic, banker, lawyer, farmer, be he who he may, if he acts
squarely and fairly, if he does his duty by his neighbor and the
State, receives the full protection of the law and is given the
amplest chance to exercise the ability that there is within him, alone
or in combination with his fellows, as he desires. (Butte, Mont.,
May 27, 1903.)
Above all, the administration of the government, the enforce
ment of the laws, must be fair and honest. The laws are not to be
administered either in the interest of the poor man or the interest of
the rich man. They are simply to be administered justly— in the
interest of justice to each man, be he rich or be he poor— giving
immunity to no violator, whatever form the violation may assume.
Such is the obligation which every public servant takes, and to it he
must be true under penalty of forfeiting the respect both of himself
and of his fellows. (Charleston, S. C, April 9, 1902.)
Least of all can the man of great wealth afford to break the law,
even for his own financial advantage; for the law is his prop and
support, and it is both foolish and profoundly unpatriotic for him to
fail in giving hearty support to those who show that there is in very

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fact one law, and one law only, alike for the rich and the poor, for
the great and the small. (Syracuse, N. Y., September 7, 1903.)
Corporations that are handled honestly and fairly, so far from
being an evil, are a natural business evolution and make for the
general prosperity of our land. We do not wish to destroy corpora
tions, but we do wish to make them subserve the public good. All
individuals, rich or poor, private or corporate, must be subject to the
law of the land, and the Government will hold them to a rigid
obedience thereto. The biggest corporation, like the humblest pri
vate citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the
people as expressed in the fundamental law. The rich man who
does not see that this is in his interest is indeed shortsighted. When
we make him obey the law we insure for him the absolute protec
tion of the law. (Cincinnati, Ohio, September 20, 1902.)
The Need for Caution.
Modern industrial competition is very keen between nation and
nation, and now that our country is striding forward with the pace
of a giant to take the leading position in the international industrial
world, we should beware how we fetter our limbs, how we cramp
our titan strength. While striving to prevent industrial injustice at
home we must not bring upon ourselves industrial weakness abroad.
This is a task for which we need the finest abilities of the states
man, the student, the patriot, and the farseeing lover of mankind.
(Speech at opening of Pan-American Exposition, May 20, 1901.)
The mechanism of modern business is tremendous in its size and
complexity, and ignorant intermeddling with it would be disastrous.
(Cincinnati, Ohio, September 20, 1902.)
The mechanism of modern business is altogether too delicate and
too complicated for us to sanction for one moment any intermeddling
with it in a spirit of ignorance, above all in a spirit of rancor. Some
thing can be done, something is being done now. Much more can be
done if our people resolutely but temperately will that it shall be
done. But the certain way of bringing great harm upon ourselves,
without in any way furthering the solution of the problem, but, on
the contrary, deferring indefinitely its proper solution, would be to
act in a spirit of ignorance, of violence, of rancor, in a spirit which
would make us tear down the temple of industry in which we live
because we are not satisfied with some of the details of its manage
ment. (Fitchburg, Mass., September 2, 1902.)
As a nation we stand in the very forefront in the giant inter-

national industrial competition of the day. We can not afford by
any freak or folly to forfeit the position to which we have thus
triumphantly attained. (Minneapolis, Minn., April 4, 1903.)
.Labor and Capital Have Common Interests.
We are no more against organizations of capital than against
organizations of labor. We welcome both, demanding only that each
shall do right and shall remember its duty to the Republic. (Mil
waukee, Wis., April 3, 1903.)
The average American knows not only that he himself intends
to do about what is right, but that his average fellow-countryman
has the same intention and the same power to make his intention
effective. He knows, whether he be business man, professional man,
farmer, mechanic, employer, or wage-worker, that the welfare of
each of these men is bound up with the welfare of all the others;
that each is neighbor to the other, is actuated by the same hopes
and fears, has fundamentally the same ideals, and that all alike
have much the same virtues and the same faults. Our average
fellow-citizen is a sane and healthy man, who believes in decency
and has a wholesome mind. He therefore feels an equal scorn alike
for the man of wealth guilty of the mean and base spirit of arro
gance toward those who are less well off, and for the man of small
means who in his turn either feels or seeks to excite in others the
feeling of mean and base envy for those who are better off. (Syra
cuse, N. Y., September 7, 1903.)
Under present-day conditions it is as necessary to have corpora
tions in the business world as it is to have organizations — unions —
among wage-workers. We have a right to ask in each case only
this: that good, and not harm, shall follow. (Providence, R. I.,
August 23, 1902.)
There is no worse enemy of the wage-worker than the man who
condones mob violence in any shape, or who preaches class hatred;
and surely the slightest acquaintance with our industrial history
should teach even the most shortsighted that the times of most
suffering for our people as a whole, the times when business is stag
nant, and capital suffers from shrinkage and gets no return from
its investments, are exactly the times of hardship and want and
grim disaster among the poor. (Syracuse, N. Y., September 7, 1903.) ,
You must face the fact that only harm will come from a proposi
tion to attack the so-called trusts in a vindictive spirit by measures
conceived solely with a desire of hurting them, without regard as to
whether or not discrimination should be made between the good and

10
evil in them, and without even any regard as to whether a necessary
sequence of the action would be the hurting of other interests. The
adoption of such a policy would mean temporary damage to the
trusts, because it would mean temporary damage to all of our busi
ness interests; but the effect would be only temporary, for exactly
as the damage affected all alike, good and bad, so the reaction would
affect all alike, good and bad. (Cincinnati, Ohio, September 20, 1902.)
The upshot of all this is that it is peculiarly incumbent upon us
in a time of such material well-being, both collectively as a nation
and individually as citizens, to show, each on his own account, that
we possess the qualities of prudence, self-knowledge, and self-
restraint. In our Government we need above all things stability,
fixity of economic policy, while remembering that this fixity must
not be fossilization; that there must not be inability to shift our laws
so as to meet our shifting national needs. There are real and great
evils in our social and economic life, and these evils stand out in all
their ugly baldness in time of prosperity, for the wicked who prosper
are never a pleasant sight. There is every need of striving in all
possible ways, individually and collectively, by combinations among
ourselves and through the recognized government agencies, to cut
out those evils. All I ask is to be sure that we do not use the knife
with an ignorant zeal which would make it more dangerous to the
patient than to the disease. (Providence, R. I., August 23, 1902.)
It would be neither just nor expedient to punish the big corpora
tions as big corporations; what we wish to do is to protect the people
from any evil that may grow out of their existence or maladminis
tration. (Cincinnati, September 20, 1902.)
Above all, let us remember that our success in accomplishing
anything depends very much upon our not trying to accomplish
everything. (Providence, R. I., August 23, 1902.)
Very much of our effort in reference to labor matters should be
by every device and expedient to try to secure a constantly better
understanding between employer and employee. Everything possi
ble should be done to increase the sympathy and fellow-feeling be
tween employer and employee. Everything possible should be done
to increase the sympathy and fellow-feeling between them, and
every chance taken to allow each to look at all questions, especially
at questions in dispute, somewhat through the other's eyes. (Sioux
Falls, S. Dak., April 6, 1903.)
Every man who has made wealth or used it in developing great
legitimate business enterprises has been of benefit and not harm to
the country at large. (Spokane, Wash., May 26, 1903.)

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It is foolish to pride ourselves upon our progress and prosperity,
upon our commanding position in the international world, and at the
same time have nothing but denunciation for the men to whose com
manding position we in part owe this very progress and prosperity.
(Cincinnati, Ohio, September 20, 1902.)
The foundation of our whole social structure rests upon the
material and moral well-being, the intelligence, the foresight, the
sanity, the sense of duty, and the wholesome patriotism of the wage-
worker. (Address at Labor Day picnic, Chicago, September 3, 1900.)
I am President of all the people of the United States, without
regard to creed, color, birthplace, occupation, or social condition.
My aim is to do equal and exact justice as among them all. In the
employment and dismissal of men in the Government service I can
no more recognize the fact that a man does or does not belong to a
union as being for or against him than I can recognize the fact that
he is a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or
against him. (Statement to executive council American Federation
of Labor, September 29, 1903.)
There is no objection to the employees of the Government Print
ing Office constituting themselves into a union if they so desire; but
no rules or resolutions of that union can be permitted to override the
laws of the United States, which it is my sworn duty to enforce.
(Letter to Secretary Cortelyou, July 13, 1903.)
Where possible, it is always better to mediate before the strike
begins than to try to arbitrate when the fight is on and both sides
have grown stubborn and bitter. (Address at Labor Day picnic,
Chicago, September 3, 1900.)
Wise factory laws— laws to forbid the employment of child labor
and to safeguard the employees against the effects of culpable negli
gence by the employer— are necessary, not merely in the interest of
the wage-worker, but in the interest of the honest and humane em
ployer. (Sioux Falls, S. Dak., April 6, 1903.)
THE FARMER A TRUE AMERICAN TYPE.
It remains true now as it always has been, that in the last resort
the country districts are those in which we are surest to find the
old American spirit, the old American habits of thought and ways ot
living. Conditions have changed in the country far less than they
have changed in the cities, and in consequence there has been little
breaking away fi-om the methods of life which have produced the
great majority of the leaders of the Republic in the past. Almost

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all of our great Presidents have been brought up in the country, and
most of them worked hard on the farms in their youth and got their
early mental training in the healthy democracy of farm life. (Speech
at Bangor, Me., August 27, 1902.)
The countryman— the man on the farm, more than any other of
our citizens to-day, is called upon continually to exercise the quali
ties which -ne like to think of as typical of the United States
throughout its history— the qualities of rugged independence, mas
terful resolution, and individual euergy and resourcefulness. He
works hard (for which no man is to be pitied), and often he lives
hard (which may not be pleasant); but his life is passed in healthy
surroundings, surroundirjgs which tend to develop a fine type of citi
zenship. In the country, moreover, the conditions are fortunately
such as to allow a closer touch between man and man than, too
often, we find to be the case in the city. Men feel more vividly the
underlying sense of brotherhood, of community of interest. (Bangor,
Me., August 27, 1902.)
The man who tills his own farm, whether on the prairie or in the
woodland, the man who grows what we eat and the raw material
which is worked up into what we wear, still exists more nearly
under the conditions which obtained when the "embattled farmers"
of '76 made this country a nation than is true of any others of our
people. (Sioux Falls, S. Dak., April C, 1903.)
The true welfare of the nation is indissolubly bound up with the
welfare of the farmer and the wage-worker— of the man who tills
the soil, and of the mechanic, the handicraftsman, the laborer. If
we can insure the prosperity of these two classes we need not trou
ble ourselves about the prosperity of the rest, for that will follow as
a matter of course. (Speech at opening of the Pan-American Expo
sition, May 20, 1901.)
The success of the capitalist, and especially of the banker, is
conditioned upon the prosperity of both workingman and farmer.
(The Law of Civilization and Decay— American Ideals, p. 367.)
In a country like ours it is fundamentally true that the well-
being of the tiller of the soil and the wage-worker is the well-being
of the State. (Sioux Falls, S. Dak., April 6, 1903.)
ABOUT OUR FOREIGN POLICY.
The Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe doctrine is simply a statement of our very firm be
lief that on this continent the nations now existing here must be

13
left to work out their own destinies among themselves, and that the
continent is not longer to be regarded as colonizing ground for any
European power. (Speech at Augusta, Me., August 26, 1902.)
We of the two Americas must be left to work out our own salva
tion along our own lines; and if we are wise we will make it under
stood as a cardinal feature of our joint foreign policy that on the
one hand we will not submit to territorial aggrandizement on this
continent by any Old World power, and that on the other hand,
among ourselves, each nation must scrupulously regard the rights
and interests of the others, so that, instead of any one of us com
mitting the criminal folly of trying to rise at the expense of our
neighbors, we shall all strive upward in honest and manly brother
hood, shoulder to shoulder. (Speech at opening of the Pan-American
Exposition, May 20, 1901.)
It is for the interest of every commonwealth in the Western
Hemisphere to see every other commonwealth grow in riches and in
happiness, in material wealth, and in the sober, strong, self-respect
ing manliness without which material wealth avails so little. (Speech
at opening of Pan-American Exposition, May 20, 1901.)
I believe in the Monroe doctrine with all my heart and soul; I
am convinced that the immense majority of our fellow-countrymen
so believe in it; but I would infinitely prefer to see us abandon it
than to see us put it forward and bluster about it, and yet fail to
build up the efficient fighting strength which in the last resort can
alone make it respected by any strong foreign power whose interest
it may ever happen to be to violate it. (Washington, D. C, Novem
ber 13, 1902.)
I believe in the Monroe doctrine. I shall try to see that this
nation lives up to it, and as long as I am President it will be lived
up to. But I do not intend to make the doctrine an excuse or a
justification for being unpleasant to other powers, for speaking ill of
other powers. We want the friendship of mankind. We want to
get on well with the other nations of mankind, with the small
nations and with the big nations. We want so to carry ourselves
that if— which I think most unlikely— any quarrel should arise, it
would be evident that it was not a quarrel of our own seeking, but
one that was forced on us. If it is forced on us, I know you too well
not to know that you will stand up to it if the need comes; but you
will stand up to it all the better if you have not blustered or spoken
ill of other nations in advance. (Waukesha, Wis., April 3, 1903.)
When a question of national honor or of national right or wrong
is at stake, no question of financial interest should be considered for

14
a moment. Those wealthy men who wish the abandonment of the
Monroe doctrine because its assertion may damage their business
bring discredit to themselves, and, so far as they are able, discredit
to the nation of which they are a part. (The Monroe Doctrine,
American Ideals, p. 260.)
We do not wish to bring ourselves to a position where we shall
have to emulate the European system of enormous armies. Every
true patriot, every man of statesmanlike habit, should look forward
to the day when not a single European power will hold a foot on
American soil. At present it is not necessary to take the position
that no European power shall hold American territory, but it cer
tainly will become necessary if the timid and selfish "peace at any
price" men have their way, and if the United States fails to check
at the outset European aggrandizement on this continent. (Monroe
Doctrine, American Ideals, p. 252.)
The United States has not the slightest wish to establish a
universal protectorate over other American States, or to become
responsible for their misdeeds. If one of them becomes involved in
an ordinary quarrel with a European power, such quarrel must be
settled between them by any one of the usual methods. But no
European State is to be allowed to aggrandize itself on American
soil at the expense of any American State. Furthermore, no trans
fer of an American colony from one European State to another is to
be permitted, if, in the judgment of the United States, such transfer
would be hostile to its own interests. (The Monroe Doctrine, Ameri
can Ideals, p. 248.)
The Monroe doctrine should be the cardinal feature of the for
eign policy of all the nations of the two Americas, as it is of the
United States. Just seventy-eight years have passed since President
Monroe in his annual message announced that "the American conti
nents are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future
colonization by any European power."
In other words, the Monroe doctrine is a declaration that there
must be no territorial aggrandizement by any non-American power
at the expense of any American power on American soil. It is in
do wise intended as hostile to any nation in the Old World. Still
less is it intended to give cover to any aggression by one New World
power at the expense of any other. It is simply a step, and a long
step, toward assuring the universal peace of the world by securing
the possibility of permanent peace on this hemisphere. (Annual
message, Fifty-seventh Congress, first session.)
If the Monroe doctrine did not already exist it would be neces-

15
sary forthwith to create it. (The Monroe Doctrine, American Ideals,
p. 246.) The Monroe doctrine is not a question of law at all. It is a
question of policy. It is a question to be considered not only by
statesmen, but by all good citizens. Lawyers, as lawyers, have
absolutely nothing whatever to say about it. To argue that it can
not be recognized as a principle of international law, is a mere waste
of breath. Nobody cares whether it is or is not so recognized, any
more than any one cares whether the Declaration of Independence
and Washington's Farewell Address are so recognized. (The Monroe
Doctrine, American Ideals, p. 248.)
The Navy a Guaranty ot Peace.
We need to keep in a condition of preparedness, especially as
regards our Navy, not because we want war, but because we de
sire to stand with those whose plea for peace is listened to with
respectful attention. (New York, November 11, 1902.)
Unreadiness for war is merely rendered more disastrous by
readiness to bluster; to talk defiance and advocate a vigorous policy
in words, while refusing to back up these words by deeds is cause
for humiliation. It has always been true, and in this age it is more
than ever true, that it is too late to prepare for war when the time
for peace has passed. The shortsightedness of many people, the
good-humored indifference to facts of others, the sheer ignorance of
a vast number, and the selfish reluctance to insure against future
danger by present sacrifice among yet others — these are the chief
obstacles to building up a proper navy and carrying out a proper
foreign policy. ("Washington's forgotten maxim," American Ideals',
p. 274.) A nation should never fight unless forced to; but it should
always be ready to fight. The mere fact that it is ready will gen
erally spare it the necessity of fighting. ("Washington's forgotten
maxim," American Ideals, p. 284.1
The American people must either build and maintain an ade
quate navy or else make up their minds definitely to accept a
secondary position in international affairs, not merely in political,
but in commercial matters. It has been well said that there is
no surer way of courting national disaster than to be "opulent, ag
gressive and unarmed." (Annual message, first session, Fifty-
seventh Congress.)
There never is and never has been on our part a desire to use

16
a weapon because of its being well tempered. There is not the
least danger that the possession of a good navy will render this
country overbearing toward its neighbors. The direct contrary is
the truth. ("Washington's forgotten maxim," American Ideals,
p. 284.) We ask for a great navy, we ask for an armament fit for the
nation's needs, not primarily to fight, but to avert fighting. Pre
paredness deters the foe and maintains right by the show of ready
might without the use of violence. Peace, like freedom, is not a gift
that tarries long in the hands of cowards or of those too feeble or
too shortsighted to deserve it, and we ask to be given the means
to insure that honorable peace which alone is worth having. ("Wash
ington's forgotten maxim," American Ideals, p. 288.)
So far from being in any way a provocation to war, an adequate
and highly trained navy is the best guaranty against war, the
cheapest and most effective peace insurance. The cost of building
and maintaining such a navy represents the very lightest premium
for insuring peace which this nation can possibly pay. (Annual mes
sage, first session, Fifty-seventh Congress.)
If in the first decade of the present century the American people
and their rulers had possessed the wisdom to provide an efficient
fleet of powerful battleships, there would probably have been no
war of 1812; and even if war had come, the immense loss to and
destruction of trade and commerce by the blockade would have been
prevented. Merely from the monetary standpoint the saving would
have been incalculable; and yet this would have been the smallest
part of the gain. ("Washington's forgotten maxim," American
Ideals, p. 278.)
In public as in private life, a bold front tends to insure peace
and not strife. If we possess a formidable navy, small is the chance
indeed that we shall ever be dragged into a war to uphold the Mon
roe doctrine. If we do not possess such a navy, war may be forced
on us at any time. ("Washington's forgotten maxim," American
Ideals, p. 281.)
In all our history there has never been a time when prepared
ness for war was any menace to peace. On the contrary, again and
again we have owed peace to the fact that we were prepared for
war, and in the only contest which we have had with a European
power since the Revolution-the war of 1812-the struggle and all its
attendant disasters were due solely to the fact that we were not
prepared to face, and were not ready instantly to resent, an attack
upon our honor and interest, while the glorious triumphs at sea

17
which redeemed that war were dut to the few preparations which
wc had actually made. We are a great, peaceful nation — a nation
of merchants and manufacturers, of farmers and mechanics; a
nation of workingmen who labor incessantly with head or hand. It
is idle to talk of such a nation ever being led into a course of wan
ton aggression or conflict with military powers by the possession of
a sufficient navy. ("Washington's forgotten maxim," American
Ideals, p. 266.)
Any really great nation must be peculiarly sensitive to two
things — stain on the national honor at home and disgrace to the
national arms abroad. Our honor at home, our honor in domestic
and internal affairs, is at all times in our own keeping, and depends
simply upon the possession of an awakened public conscience. But
the only way to make safe our honor, as affected not by our own
deeds but by the deeds of others, is by readiness in advance. (Haver-
'lill, Mass., August 26, 1902.)

Arbitration.
As civilization grows warfare becomes less and less the normal
condition of foreign relations. The last century has seen a marked
diminution of wars between civilized powers; wars with uncivilized
powers are largely mere matters of international police duty, essen
tial for the welfare of the world. Wherever possible arbitration or
some similar method should be employed in lieu of war to settle
difficulties between civilized nations, although as yet the world has
not progressed sufficiently to render it possible, or necessarily desir
able, to invoke arbitration in every case. (Annual message, Fifty-
seventh Congress, second session.)
The true end of every great and free people should be self-
respecting peace, and this nation most earnestly desires sincere
and cordial friendship with all others. Over the entire world of
recent years wars between the great civilized powers have become
less and less frequent. Wars with barbarous or semi-barbarous peo
ples come into an entirely different category, being merely a most
regrettable but necessary international police duty which must be
performed for the sake of the welfare of mankind.
Peace can only be kept with certainty where both sides wish to
ieep it; but more and more the civilized peoples are realizing the
wicked folly of war and are attaining that condition of just and
intelligent regard for the rights of others which will in the end, as

18
we hope and believe, make world-wide peace possible. (Annual mes
sage, Fifty-seventh Congress, first session.)
There seems good ground for the belief that there has been a
real growth among the civilized nations of a sentiment which will
permit a gradual substitution of other methods than the method of
war in the settlement of disputes. It is not pretended that as yet
we are near a position in which it will be possible wholly to pre
vent war, or that a just regard for national interest and honor will
in all cases permit of the settlement of international disputes by
arbitration; but by a mixture of prudence and firmness with wisdom
we think it is possible to do away with much of the provocation and
excuse for war, and at least in many cases to substitute some other
and more rational method for the settlement of disputes. (Annual
message, second session, Fifty-seventh Congress.)
International Courtesy.
We want friendship; we want peace. We wish well to the na
tions of mankind. We look with joy at any prosperity of theirs; we
wish them success, not failure. We rejoice as mankind moves for
ward over the whole earth. Each nation has its own difficulties.
We have difficulties enough at home. Let us improve ourselves, lift
ing what needs to be lifted here, and let others do their own work;
let us attend to our own business; keep our own hearthstone swept
and in order. Do not shirk any duty; do not shirk any difficulty that
is forced upon us, but do not invite it by foolish language. Do not
assume a quarrelsome and unpleasant attitude toward other people.
Let the friendly expressions of foreign powers be accepted as tokens
of their sincere good will and reflecting their real sentiments, and let
us avoid any language on our part which might tend to turn their
good will into ill will. (Waukesha, Wis., April 3, 1903.)
Boasting and blustering are as objectionable among nations as
among individuals, and the public men of a great nation owe it to
their sense of national self-respect to speak courteously of foreign
powers, just as a brave and self-respecting man treats all around
him courteously. (Washington, D. C, November 13, 1902.)
I would like to impress upon every public man, upon every
writer in the press, the fact that strength should go hand in hand
with courtesy, with scrupulous regard in word and deed, not only for
the rights, but for the feelings, of other nations. (Waukesha Wis
April 3, 1903.)
It is a good lesson for nations and individuals to learn never to

19
hit if it can be helped, and then never to hit softly. I think it is
getting to be fairly understood that that is our foreign policy. (San
Francisco, Cal., May 13, 1903.)
The duties of peace are with us always; those of war are but
occasional; and with a nation as with a man, the worthiness of life
depends upon the way in which the every-day duties are done.
The home duties are the vital duties. (Sherman statue unveiling,
October 15, 1903.)
The period of war is but a fractional part of the life of our
Republic, and I earnestly hope and believe that it will be an even
smaller part in the future than it has been in the past. (Chatta
nooga, Tenn., September 8, 1902.)
We all of us earnestly hope that the occasion for war may
not arise, but if it has to come then this nation must win. (Annap
olis'; Md., May 2, 1902.)
The American flag stands for orderly liberty, and it stands for
it abroad as it stands for it at home. (Memphis, Tenn., November
19, 1902.)
Of course, the very first thing that any nation has to do is to
keep in order the affairs of its own household; to do that which is
best for its own life. (New York, May 20, 1902.)
The army never has been and, I am sure, it never will be or can
be a menace to anybody save America's foes, or aught but a source
of pride to every gdod and far-sighted American. (The Presidency,
p. 10.) Again and again in a nation's history the time may, and, indeed,
sometimes must, come when the nation's highest duty is war. But
peace must be the normal condition, or the nation will come to a
bloody doom. Twice in great crises, in 1776 and 1861, and twice
in lesser crises, in 1812 and 1898, the nation was called to arms in
the name of all that makes the words "honor," "freedom" and
"justice" other than empty sounds. On each occasion the net result
of the war was greatly for the benefit of mankind. But on each
occasion this net result was of benefit only because after the war
came peace, came justice and order and liberty. (Speech at Galena,
111., on Grant's birthday, April 27, 1900.)
ABOUT EXPANSION AND THE PHILIPPINES.
The inevitable march of events gave us the control of the Philip
pine Islands at a time so opportune that it may without irreverence
be called providential. Unless we shpw ourselves weak, unless we

20
show ourselves degenerate sons of the sires from whose loins we
sprang, we must go on with the work we have undertaken. I most
earnestly hope that this work will ever be of a peaceful character.
(Speech at San Francisco, Cal., May 13, 1903.)
If we are wise, if we care for our reputation abroad, if we are
sensitive of our honor at home, we will allow no question of parti
san politics ever to enter into the administration of the great islands
which came under our flag as a result of the war with Spain.
(Speech at Memphis, Tenn., November 19, 1902.)
If we do our duty aright in the Philippines, we will add to that
national renown which is the highest and finest part of national life,
we will greatly benefit the people of the Philippine Islands, and,
above all, we will play our part well in the great work of uplifting
mankind. (Strenuous Life, p. 20.)
Fundamentally the cause of expansion is the cause of peace.
("Expansion and peace," Strenuous Life, p. 34.)
The guns that thundered off Manila and Santiago left us echoes
of glory, but they also left us a legacy of duty. If we drove out
a mediseval tyranny only to make room for savage anarchy, we had
better not have begun the task at all. It is worse than idle to say
that we have no duty to perform and can leave to their fates the
islands we have conquered. Such a course would be the course of
infamy. It would be followed at once by utter chaos in the wretched
islands themselves. Some stronger, manlier power would have to
step in and do the work. (Strenuous Life, p. 11.)
Our greatest statesmen have always been those who believed in
the nation— who had faith in the power of our people to spread until
they should become the mightiest among the peoples of the world.
("Manhood and statehood," Strenuous Life, p. 205.)
In the Philippines let us remember that the spirit and not the
mere form of government is the essential matter. The Tagalogs
have a hundredfold the freedom under us that they would have if
we had abandoned the islands. We are not trying to subjugate a
people; we are trying to develop them and make them a law-abiding,
industrious, and educated people, and we hope ultimately a self-
governing people. In short, in the work we have done we are but
carrying out the true principles of our democracy. We work in a
spirit of self-respect for ourselves and of good will toward others,
in a spirit of love for aud of infinite faith in mankind. We do not
blindly refuse to face the evils that exist or the shortcomings inher
ent in humanity; but across blundering and shirking, across selfish
ness and meanness of motive, across shortsightedness and coward-

21
ice we gaze steadfastly, toward the far horizon of golden triumph.
("National duties," Strenuous Life, p. 243.)
Our warfare in the Philippines has been carried on with singu
lar humanity. For every act of cruelty by our men there have been
innumerable acts of forbearance, magnanimity, and generous kind
ness. These are the qualities which have characterized the war as
a whole. (Memorial Day address at Arlington, May 30, 1902.)
The progress of the American arms means the abolition of
cruelty, the bringing of peace, and the rule of law and order under
the civil government. Other nations have conquered to create irre
sponsible military rule. We conquer to bring just and responsible
civil government to the conquered. (Memorial Day address at Ar
lington, May 30, 1902.)
Taking the work of the army and the civil authorities together,
it may be questioned whether anywhere else in modern times the
world has seen a better example of real constructive statesman
ship than our people have given in the Philippine Islands. (Annual
message, second session, Fifty-seventh Congress.)
No policy ever entered into by the American people has vin
dicated itself in more signal manner than the policy of holding the
Philippines. The triumph of our arms, above all the triumph of our
laws and principles, has come sooner than we had any right to ex
pect. Too much praise cannot be given to the army for what it
has done in the Philippines both in warfare and from an adminis
trative standpoint in preparing the way for civil government; and
similar credit belongs to the civil authorities for the way in which
they have planted the seeds of self-government in the ground thus
made ready for them. (Annual message, second session, Fifty-
seventh Congress.)
In dealing with the Philippine people we must show both
patience and strength, forbearance and steadfast resolution. Our
aim is high. We do not desire to do for the islanders merely what
has elsewhere been done for tropic peoples by even the best foreign
governments. We hope to do for them what has never before been
done for any people of the tropics— to make them fit for self-govern
ment after the fashion of the really free nations. (Annual Message,
first session, Fifty-seventh Congress.)
I have felt that the events of the last five or six years have been
steadily hastening the day when the Pacific will loom in the world's
commerce as the Atlantic now looms, and I have wished greatly to
see these marvelous communities growing up on the Pacific slope.
(Barstow, Cal., May 7, 1903.)

22
Our place as a nation is and must be with the nations that have
left indelibly their impress on the centuries. Men will tell you that
the great expanding nations of antiquity have passed away. So they
have; and so have all others. (San Francisco, Cal., May 13, 1903.)
The insurrection among the Filipinos has been absolutely
quelled. The war has been brought to an end sooner than even
the most sanguine of us dared to hope. The world has not in recent
years seen any military task done with more soldierly energy and
ability; and done, moreover, in a spirit of great humanity. (Phila
delphia, Pa., November 22, 1902.)
The empire that shifted from the Mediterranean will in the
lifetime of those now children bid fair to shift once more westward
to the Pacific. (San Francisco, Cal., May 13, 1903.)
In short, we are governing the Filipinos primarily in their inter
est and for their very great benefit. And we have acted in practical
fashion— not trying to lay down rules as to what should be done in
the remote and uncertain future, but turning our attention to the
instant need of things and meeting that need in the fullest and
amplest way. * * * It would be hard to find in modern times
a better example of successful constructive statesmanship than
the American representatives have given to the Philippine Islands.
(Providence, R. I.. August 23, 1902.)
There is no question as to our having gone far enough and
fast enough in granting self-government to the Filipinos; the only
possible danger has been lest we should go faster and further than
was in the interest of the Filipinos themselves. (Memphis, Tenn.,
November 19, 1902.)
It is natural that most nations should be thus blind to the pos
sibilities of the future. Few indeed are the men who can look a
score of years into the future, and fewer still those who will make
great sacrifices for the real, not the fancied, good of their children's
children; but in questions of race supremacy the look ahead should
be for centuries rather than decades, and the self-sacrifice of the in
dividual must be for the good, not of the next generation, but per
chance of the fourth or fifth in line of descent. The Frenchman
and the Hollander of the seventeenth century could not even dimly
see the possibilities that loomed vast and vague in the colonization
of America and Australia. They did not have, and it was hardly
possible that they should have, the remotest idea that it would be
well for them to surrender, one the glory gained by his German
conquests, the other the riches reaped from his East Indian trade, in
order that three hundred years later huge unknown continents

S3
should be filled with French and Dutch commonwealths. (Winning
of the West, vol. 4, p. 27.)
Stout of heart, we see across the dangers the great future that
lies beyond and we rejoice as a giant refreshed, as a strong man
girt for the race; and we go down into the arena where the nations
strive for mastery, our hearts lifted with the faith that to us and to
our children and our children's children it shall be given to make
this Republic the mightiest among the peoples of mankind. (De
troit, Mich., September 22, 1902.)
ABOUT THE FOREIGN^BORN AMERICAN.
From his own standpoint, it is beyond all question the wise
thing for the immigrant to become thoroughly Americanized. More
over, from our standpoint, we have a right to demand it. We freely
extend the hand of welcome and of good-fellowship to every man,
no matter what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly
intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of
us. ("True Americanism," American. Ideals, p. 45.)
The only way to teach our foreign-born fellow-citizens how to
govern themselves is to give each the full rights possessed by other
American citizens. ("Phases of State legislation," American Ideals,
p. 102.) We cannot have too much immigration of the right kind, and
we should have none at all of the wrong kind. (Annual message,
.second session, Fifty-seventh Congress.)
We need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become
an American citizen — every immigrant who comes here to stay —
who brings here a strong body, a stout heart, a good head, and a
resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way, and to bring up
his children as law-abiding and God-fearing members of the com
munity. (Annual message, Fifty-seventh Congress, first session.)
Not only must our labor be protected by the tariff, but it should
also be protected, so far as it is possible, from the presence in this
country of any laborers brought over by contract or of those who,
coming freely, yet represent a standard of living so depressed that
they can undersell our men in the labor market and drag them to a
lower level. (Annual message, first session, Fifty-seventh Congress.)
A Scandinavian, a German, or an Irishman who has really be
come an American has the right to stand on exactly the same foot
ing as any native-born citizen in the land, and is just as much
entitled to the friendship and support, social and political, of his

24
neighbors. Among the men with whom I have been thrown in close
personal contact socially, and who have been among my stanchest
friends and allies politically, are not a few Americans who happen
to have been born on the other side of the water, in Germany,
Ireland, Scandinavia, and there could be no better man in the ranks
of our native-born citizens. ("True Americanism," American Ideals,
p. 48.)
ABOUT HONESTY IN PUBLIC LIFE.
No community is healthy where it is ever necessary to distin
guish one politician among his fellows because "he is honest." Hon
esty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient
service to the public. Unless a man is honest we have no right
to keep him in public life, it matters not how brilliant his capacity,
it hardly matters how great his power of doing good service on
certain lines may be. ("The eighth and ninth commandments in
politics," The Strenuous Life, p. 108.)
We need absolute honesty in public life; and we shall not get it
until we remember that truth-telling must go hand in hand with
it and that it is quite as important not to tell an untruth about a
a decent man as it is to tell the truth about one who is not decent.
("The eighth and ninth commandments in politics," The Strenuous
Life, p. 112.)
We can as little afford to tolerate a dishonest man in the pub
lic service as a coward in the Army. The murderer takes a single
life; the corruptionist in public life, whether he be bribe-giver or
bribe-taker, strikes at the heart of the commonwealth. (Speech at
Sherman statue unveiling, October 15, 1903.)
There can be no crime more serious than bribery. Other offenses
violate one law, while corruption strikes at the foundation of all
law. Under our form of government all authority is vested in the
people and by them delegated to those who represent them in official
capacity. There can be no offense heavier than that of him in
whom such a sacred trust has been reposed, who sells it for his own
gain and enrichment; and no less heavy is the offense of the bribe
giver. He is worse than the thief, for the thief robs the individual,
while the corrupt official plunders an entire city or State. He is as
wicked as the murderer, for the murderer may only take one life
against the law, while the corrupt official and the man who cor
rupts the official alike aim at the assassination of the Common
wealth itself. Government of the people, by the people, for the

25
people will perish from the face of the earth if bribery is tolerated.
The givers and takers of bribes stand on an evil pre-eminence of
infamy. The exposure and punishment of public corruption is an
honor to a nation, not a disgrace. The disgrace lies in toleration,
not in correction. (Annual message, second session, Fifty-seventh
Congress.) We can divide and must divide ou party lines as regards certain
questions. As regards the deepest, as regards the vital questions,
we cannot afford to divide, and I have the right to challenge the
best effort of every American worthy of the name to putting down
by every means in his power corruption in private life, and above
all corruption in public life. And remember, you, the people of this
government by the people, that while the public servant, the legisla
tor, the executive officer, the judge, are not to be excused if they
fall short of their duty, yet that their doing their duty cannot avail
unless you do yours. In the last resort we have to depend upon the
jury drawn from the people to convict the scoundrel who has tainted
our public life, and unless that jury does its duty, unless it is backed
by the public sentiment of the people, all the work of legislator,
of executive officer, of judicial officer are for naught. (Washington,
D. C, November 16, 1903.)
There are plenty of questions about which honest men can and
do differ very greatly and very intensely, but as to which the
triumph of either side may be compatible with the welfare of the
state — a lesser degree of welfare or a greater degree of welfare, but
compatible with the welfare of the state. But there are certain
great principles, such as those which Cromwell would have called
"fundamentals," concerning which no man has a right to have more
than one opinion. Such a question is honesty. (Washington, D. C,
October 25, 1903.)
It is well for us in this place, and at this time, to remember that
exactly as there are certain homely qualities the lack of which will
prevent the most brilliant man alive from being a useful soldier to
his country, so there are certain homely qualities for the lack of
which in the public servant no shrewdness or ability can atone.
(Washington, D. C, October 15, 1903.)
There are many qualities which we need alike in private citizen
and in public man, but three above all— three for the lack of which
no brilliancy and no genius can atone— and those three are courage,
honesty and common sense. (Antietam, Md., September 17, 1903.)
It is an even graver offense to sin against the commonwealth
than to sin against an individual. The man who debauches our

26
public life, whether by malversation of funds in office, by the actual
bribery of voters or of legislators, or by the corrupt use of the
offices as spoils wherewith to reward the unworthy and the vicious
for their noxious and interested activity in the baser walks of
political life— this man is a greater foe to our well-being as a nation
than is even the defaulting cashier of a bank or the betrayer of a
private trust. No amount of intelligence and no amount of energy
will save a nation which is not honest, and no government can
ever be a permanent success if administered in accordance with base
ideals. The first requisite in the citizen who wishes to share the
work of our public life, whether he wishes himself to hold office
or merely to do his plain duty as an American by taking part in
the management of our political machinery, is that he shall act dis
interestedly and with a sincere purpose to serve the whole common
wealth. ("The manly virtues and practical politics," American
Ideals, p. 51.)
Character is shown in peace no less than in war. As the great
est fertility of invention, the greatest perfection of armament, will
not make soldiers out of cowards, so no mental training and no
bodily vigor will make a nation great if it lacks the fundamental
principles of honesty and moral cleanliness. ("Character and suc
cess," The Strenuous Life, p. 105.)
There are not a few public men who, though they would repel
with indignation an offer of a bribe, will give certain corporations
special legislative and executive privileges because they have con
tributed heavily to campaign funds; will permit loose and extrava
gant work because a contractor has political influence; or, at any
rate, will permit a public servant to take public money without ren
dering an adequate return, by conniving at inefficient service on the
part of men who are protected by prominent party leaders. Various
degrees of moral guilt are involved in the multitudinous actions
of this kind, but after all, directly or indirectly, every such case
comes dangerously near the border line of the commandment which,
in forbidden theft, certainly by implication forbids the connivance
at theft, or the failure to punish it ("The eighth and ninth com
mandments in politics," The Strenuous Life, p. 109.)
ABOUT THE RESPONSIBILITIES RESTING ON THE
EDUCATED MAN.
A heavy responsibility rests on the educated man. It is a double
discredit to him to go wrong, whether his shortcomings take the

form of shirking his every-day civic duties or of abandonment of
the nation's rights in a foreign quarrel. He must no more be mis
led by the sneers of those who always write "patriotism" between
inverted commas than by the coarser but equally dangerous ridicule
of the politicians who jeer at "reform." It is as unmanly to be
taunted by one set of critics into cowardice as it is to be taunted
by the other set into dishonesty. ("The Monroe doctrine," American
Ideals, p. 259.)
The man who is content to go through life owing his alma mater
for an education for which he has made no adequate return is not
true to the ideals of American citizenship. He is in honor bound
to make such return. He can make it in but one way; he can return
what he owes to his alma mater only by making his alma mater
proud of what he does in service rendered to his fellow-men. That
is the type of return we have the right to expect of the university
men in this country. (Speech at Charlottesville, Va., June 16, 1903.)
Where the State has bestowed education the man who accepts it
must be content to accept it merely as a charity unless he returns
it to the State in full in the shape of good citizenship. I do not ask
of you, men and women here to-day, good citizenship as a favor to
the State. I demand it of you as a right, and hold you recreant to
your duty if you fail to give it. (Speech at Berkeley, Cal., May 14,
1903.) If a college education means anything, it means fitting a man to
do better service than he could do without it; if it does not mean
that it means nothing, and if a man does not get that out of it he
gets less than nothing out of it. No man has a right to arrogate to
himself one particle of superiority or consideration because he has
had a college education, but he is bound, if he is in truth a man, to
feel that the fact of his having had a college education imposes upon
him a heavier burden of responsibility, that it makes it doubly in
cumbent upon him to do well and nobly in his life, private and pub
lic. (Cambridge, Mass., June 25, 1902.)
Every educated man who puts himself out of touch with the cur
rent of American thought, and who on conspicuous occasions as
sumes an attitude hostile to the interest of America, is doing what
he can to weaken the influence of educated men in American life.
("The Monroe Doctrine," American Ideals, p. 258.)
If an educated man is not heartily American in instinct and feel*
ing and taste and sympathy, he will amount to nothing in our public
life. Patriotism, love of country, and pride in the flag which sym
bolizes country may be feelings which the race will at some period

2S
outgrow, but at present they are very real and strong, and the man
who lacks them is a useless creature, a mere incumbrance to the
land. ("The college graduate and public life," American Ideals,
p. 75.) If a man does not have belief and enthusiasm, the chances are
small indeed that he will ever do a man's work in the world; and
the paper or the college which, by its general course, tends to eradi
cate this power of belief and enthusiasm, this desire for work, has
rendered to the young men under its influence the worst service it
could possibly render. ("The college graduate and public life,"
American Ideals, p. 69.)
An educated man must not go into politics as such; he must go
in simply as an American; and when he is once in, he will speedily
realize that he must work very hard indeed or he will be upset by
sosne other American with no education at all, but with much natu
ral capacity. His education ought to make him feel particularly
ashamed of himself if he acts meanly or dishonorably, or in any
way falls short of the ideal of good citizenship, and it ought to make
him feel that he must show that he has profited by it; but it should
certainly give him no feeling of superiority until by actual work he
has shown that superiority. In other words, the educated man must
realize that he is living in a democracy and under democratic condi
tions, and that he is entitled to no more respect and consideration
than he can win by actual performance. ("The college graduate and
public life," American Ideals, p. 65.)
It is proper to demand more from the man with exceptional ad
vantages than from the man without them. A heavy moral obliga
tion rests upon the man of means and upon the man of education to
do their full duty by their country. ("The college graduate and
public life," American Ideals, p. 03.)
a S.BOUT OUR REUNITED COUNTRY.
If ever the need comes in the future the past has made abund
antly evident the fact that from this time on Northerner and South
erner will in war know only the generous desire to strive how each
can do the more effective service for the flag of our common country.
the same thing is true in the endless work of peace, the never-end
ing work of building and keeping the marvelous fabric of our indus
trial prosperity. The upbuilding of any part of our country is a
benefit to the whole, and every such effort as this to stimulate the
resources and industry of a particular section is entitled to the

29
heartiest support from every quarter of the Union. Thoroughly good
national work can be done only if each of us works hard for him
self, and at the same time keeps constantly in mind that he must
work in conjunction with others. (Speech at Charleston, S. C, April
9, 1902.) The war with Spain was the most absolutely righteous foreign
war in which any nation has engaged during the nineteenth century,
and not the least of its many good features was the unity it brought
about between the sons of the men who wore the blue and of those
who wore the gray. This necessarily meant the dying out of the old
antipathy. Of course embers smolder here and there, but the coun
try at large is growing more and more to take pride in the valor,
the self-devotion, the loyalty to an ideal, displayed alike by the sol
diers of both sides in the civil war. We are all united now. ("Fel
low-feeling as a political factor," The Strenuous Life, p. 59.)
Nobody is interested in the fact that Dewey comes from Ver
mont, Hobson from Alabama, or Funston from Kansas. If all three
came from the same county it would make no difference to us. They
are Americans, and every American has an equal right to challenge
his share of glory in their deeds. As we read of the famous feats of
our army in the Philippines, it matters nothing to ns whether the
regiments come from Oregon, Idaho, California, Nebraska, Pennsyl
vania, or Tennessee. What does matter is that these splendid sol
diers are all Americans; that they ai-e our heroes; that our blood
runs in their veins; that the flag under which we live is the flag for
which they have fought, for which some of them have died. ("Fel
low-feeling as a political factor," The Strenuous Life, p. 61.)
The devotion, the self-sacrifice, the steadfast resolution and lofty
daring, the high devotion to the right, as each man saw it, whether
Northerner or Southerner— all these qualities of the men and women
of the early sixties now shine luminous and brilliant before our eyes,
while the mists of anger and hatred that once dimmed them have
passed away forever. (Speech at Charleston, S. C, April 9, 1902.)
Virginia has always rightly prided herself upon the character of
the men whom she has sent into public life. No more wonderful ex
ample of governmental ability, ability in statecraft and public ad
ministration, has ever been given than by the history of Virginia's
sons in public life. (Speech at Charlottesville, Va., June 16, 1903.)
I am sure that none of my friends who fought in the Confederate
service will misunderstand me or will grudge what I am about to
say when I say that the greatest debt owed by this country to any
set of men is owed by it to those men of the so-called border States

30
—the men who, in statesmanship, followed Clay and the Crittendens
and the Blairs; the men who, as soldiers, fought on the same side
with Thomas and Farragut; the men who were for the Union, with
out regard to whether their immediate associates were for it or not.
(Speech at Washington, D. C, December 9, 1902.)
Besides the material results of the civil war, we are all, North
and South, incalculably richer for its memories. We are the richer
for each grim campaign, for each hard-fought battle. We are the
richer for valor displayed alike by those who fought so valiantly for
the right and by those who, no less valiantly, fought for what they
deemed the right. We have in us nobler capacities for what is great
and good because of ihe infinite woe and suffering, and because of
the splendid ultimate triumph. (American Ideals, p. 19.)
Knowing the Southern people as I do, I would heartily advocate
fighting twice as hard as you fought from 1861 to 1865 for the privi
lege of staying in the same Union with them. (Speech at Washing
ton, D. C, December 9, 1902.)
MAXIMS.
In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is:
Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line
hard! ("The American boy," The Strenuous Life, p. 137.)
Any healthy-minded American is bound to think well of his fel
low-Americans if he only gets to know them. ("P'ellow-feeling as a
political factor," The Strenuous Life, p. 64.)
No nation has ever prospered as we are prospering now, and we
must see to it that by our own folly we do not mar this prosperity.
(Speech at Union League banquet, Philadelphia, Pa., November 22,
1902). If there is any one quality that is not admirable, whether in a
nation or in an individual, it is hysterics, either in religion or in any
thing else. The man or woman who makes up for ten days' indif
ference to duty by an eleventh-day morbid repentance about that
duty is of scant use in the world. (Boston, Mass., August 25, 1902.)
Wherever a deed is done by an American which reflects credit
upon our country, each of us can walk with his head a little higher
in consequence; and wherever anything happens through the fault
of any of us that is discreditable it discredits all of us more or less.
(Danville, Va., September 9, 1902.)
Throughout our history no one has been able to render really
great service to the country if he did not believe in the country.
(Speech at Augusta, Me., August 26, 1902.)

31
It is all right and inevitable that we should divide on party lines,
but woe to us if we are not Americans first and party men second.
(Speech at Logansport, Ind., September 23, 1902.)
Practical politics must not be construed to mean dirty politics.
On the contrary, in the long run the politics of fraud and treachery
and foulness are unpractical politics, and the most practical of all
politicians is the politician who is clean and decent and upright.
("The manly virtues and practical politics," American Ideals, p. 58.)
The American who is to make his way in America should be
brought up among his fellow-Americans. ("True Americanism,"
American Ideals, p. 41.)
There is. scant room in the world at large for the nation with
mighty thews that dares not to be great. (Address at Minnesota
State Fair, September 2, 1902.)
The prosperity of any of us can best be attained by measures
that will promote the prosperity of all. The poorest motto upon
which an American can act is the motto of "Some men down" and
the safest to follow is that of "All men up." (Speech at opening of
Pan-American Exposition, May 20, 1901.)
A nation's greatness lies in its possibility of achievement in the
present, and nothing helps it more than the consciousness of achieve
ment in the past. (American Ideals, p. 30.)
Cynicism in public life is a curse, and when a man has lost the
power of enthusiasm for righteousness it will be better for him and
the country if he abandons public life. ("Latitude and longitude
among reformers," The Strenuous Life, p. 53.)
The best boys I know— the' best men I know— are good at their
studies or their business, fearless and stalwart, hated and feared by
all that is wicked and depraved; incapable of submitting to wrong
doing, and equally incapable of being aught but tender to the weak
and helpless. ("The American boy," The Strenuous Life, p. 136.)
I think that the average American is a decent fellow, and that
the prime thing in getting him to get in well with the other average
American is to have each remember that the other is a decent fel-
lcw, and try to look at the problems a little from the other's stand
point. (Speech at Barstow, Cal., May 7, 1903.)
The future welfare of our nation depends upon the way in which
we can combine in our men— in our young men— decency and
strength. (Speech at Oyster Bay, N. Y., August 16, 1903.)
I call special attention to the need of strict economy in expendi
tures. The fact that our national needs forbid us to be niggardly in
providing whatever is actually necessary to our wellbeing should

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make us doubly careful to husband our national resources, as each
of us husbands his private resources, by scrupulous avoidance of
anything like wasteful or reckless expenditure. Only by avoidance
of spending money on what is needless or unjustifiable can we legiti
mately keep our income to the point required to meet our needs that
are genuine. (Annual Message, Fifty-seventh Congress, first ses
sion.) Life can mean nothing worth meaning unless its prime aim is
the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.
(Speech at Syracuse, N. Y., September 7, 1903.)
Duty, a word that stands above glory or any other word. Glory
is a good word, too, but duty is a better one. (Speech at Washing
ton, D. C, February 19, 1902.)
The man who dues not care to do any act until the time for
heroic action comes does not do the heroic act when the time does
come. (Address at Arlington, May 21, 1902.)
All I ask is a square deal for every man. Give him a fair
chance. Do not let him wrong any one, and do not let him be
wronged. (Speech at Grand Canyon, Ariz., May (i, 1003.)
No man is warranted in feeling pride in the deeds of the Army
and Navy of the past if he does not back up the Army and the Navy
of the present. (Speech at Sherman statue unveiling, October 15,
1903.) I believe in the future — not in a spirit which will sit down and
look for the future to work itself out, but with a determination to clo
its part in making the future what it can and shall be made. (Speech
at Detroit, Mich., September 22, 1902.)
It is a good thing that the guard around the tomb of Lincoln
should be composed of colored soldiers. It was my own good for
tune at Santiago to serve beside colored troops. A man who is good
enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given
a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled to, and
less than that no man shall have. (Speech at Lincoln monument,
Springfield, 111., June 4, 1903.)