Chapter X: Part 10

Just as the great doctor, the man who stands high in his profession in any city, counts as one of the most valuable assets in that city’s civic work, so in the Navy or the Army the effect of having thoroughly well-trained men with a high and sensitive standard of professional honor and professional duty is wellnigh incalculable upon the service itself. I want you now, as you graduate, to feel that on your shoulders rests a great weight of responsibility; that your position is one of high honor, and that it is impossible to hold a position of high honor and not hold it under penalty of incurring the severest reprobation if you fail to live up to its requirements.

I am not competent to speak save in the most general terms of your professional duties. I do want, however, to call your attention to one or two features connected with them. In the first place: In connection with the work you do for the service you have certain peculiar advantages in doing work that will be felt for the whole profession. For instance, it will fall to your lot to deal with certain types of tropical diseases. You will have to deal with them as no ordinary American doctor, no matter how great his experience, will have to deal with them, and you should fit yourselves by most careful study and preparation, so that you shall not only be able to grapple with the cases as they come up, but in grappling with them to make and record observations upon them that will be of permanent value to your fellows in civil life. You can there do what no civilian doctor can possibly do. There probably is not a branch of the profession into which, during your career, you will not have to go; no type of disease that you will not have to treat. But there are certain diseases you will have to treat that the ordinary man who stays at home, of course, does not; and it is of consequence to the entire medical profession that you should so fit yourself by study, by preparation, that you shall not only be able to deal with those cases, but to deal with them in a way that will be of advantage to your stay-at-home brethren.

There is one other point. Every effort should, of course, be made to provide you with ample means to do your work. Every effort ought to be made to persuade the National Legislature to take that view of the situation; to remember that in case of war it is out of the question to improvise a great medical service for the Army and the Navy. The need of the increase would be more keenly felt in the Army than in the Navy, because it is always the Army that undergoes the greatest expansion in time of war. But it is felt in both services. And when, as is perfectly certain to be the case if ever a war comes, and if we have made no greater preparation than at present, there is fever in the camps, there is sickness among the volunteer forces, it will be mere dishonest folly for the public men, and especially for the public press, to shriek against the people who happen to be in power at that time. Let them, if ever such occasion arises, solemnly think over and repent of the fact that they have not made their representatives provide adequately in advance for the medical system in its personnel and its material, for the organization, and for the physical instruments necessary to make that organization effective. Only adequate preparation in advance will obviate the trouble which otherwise is certain to come if we have a war. Let critics remember not to blame the people in power when such a breakdown comes, but to blame themselves, the people of the United States, because they have not had the forethought to take the steps in advance which would prevent such breakdown from occurring.

Means ought to be provided in advance. That is part of our duty. If we fail in it then it is our responsibility, not yours. But now for your duty. I want to impress, with all the strength that in me lies, upon every medical man in either the Army or the Navy, to remember always that in any time of crisis the chances are that you will have to work with imperfect implements. And your conduct will then afford a pretty good test of your worth. If you sit down and do nothing but say you could have done excellently if only you had had the right implements to work with, you will show your unfitness for your position. Your business will be to do the very best you can do, if you have nothing in the world but a jack-knife to do it with. Keep before your minds all the time that when the crisis occurs it is almost sure to be the case that you will have to do no small part of your work with make-shifts; to do it, as I myself saw at Santiago the Army physicians do their work, roughly and hastily, when worn out with fatigue and having but one-fourth or one-fifth of the appliances that they would expect normally to have. Make up your mind that while you will do all you can to get the best material together in advance, you will not put forward the lack of that material as an excuse for not doing the best work possible with imperfect tools. Make it a matter of pride to do your utmost, without regard to the inadequacy of your instruments.

I am sure that all of us outsiders here realize the weight of responsibility resting upon those who now join the great and honorable body of men who in the Navy and in the Army have by their actions upheld not only the standard of honor of the medical profession, but the standard of honor of the officers of the Army and the Navy of the United States.

I greet you on your entrance into the service. I welcome you as servants of the Nation, and I wish you every success in the great and honorable calling which you have chosen as yours.

AT OUTDOOR MEETING AT DALLAS, TEX., APRIL 5, 1905

_Mr. Mayor; and you, My Fellow-Americans_:

It has been indeed a pleasure for me to come to-day within the limits of your mighty and beautiful State. This afternoon I have been traveling through a veritable garden of the Lord. It is only a few weeks ago that I did my part in helping on the growth here when I signed the bill under which the Trinity River will be improved, which I was mighty glad to do. For I think that we Americans have learned the lesson that whatever is good for some of us is good for all of us. We are all going to go up, and not down, because we are going to go together. I have been impressed even more than by the beauty and fertility of your State by the character of its people. Surely no President could be more touched by any greeting than by a greeting such as this; and above all (I know the others of you will not mind my saying) to be greeted by the men who, when the hour of trial came in 1861, sprang to arms, and whether they wore the blue, or whether they wore the gray, proved the sincerity of their devotion by the valor with which they risked their lives. Oh, my fellow-countrymen, think what a blessed thing it is that now every man in this land can feel the same pride in the valor and devotion of those who fought for one side and of those who fought for the other! I can, in a sense, claim to be, by blood at least, a typical President, for I am half Southern and half Northern; I was born in the East and I have lived much in and learned much from the West.

The Civil War has left us as a heritage of honor not merely the memory of the mighty deeds done in it alike by the men of the North and the men of the South; it has left us also as an inspiration and a memory the way in which when the war was over those men turned to the works of peace, and wrought out in peace success exactly as they had wrought it out in war.

I come to Texas not for the first time. Seven years ago, again there was a call to arms, a call to arms against a foreign foe. It then fell to my lot to come here to help in raising a regiment, a regiment in which I think over half of the men had fathers who served in the Confederate army, and about one-third, perhaps somewhat more, fathers who served in the Union army. We were the sons of the men who wore the blue, the sons of the men who wore the gray, and our only desire was to show ourselves not wholly unworthy of the mighty men of the years that are past.

You of this State of Texas have behind you a history containing the deeds of which not only you but all of the country must be forever proud. My regiment was raised under the walls of that historic building of which it was said that “Thermopylæ had its messengers of death, but the Alamo had none.” You, the men of Texas, like the men of Oregon and California, like the men of Kentucky and Tennessee in a previous generation, did your part in changing this Nation from a string of Atlantic seaboard commonwealths into a people bounded only by a continent. No people more than the Texans have rendered it impossible for this country to be anything but great. It is not open to us to choose whether we shall play a small part or a great part. Your fathers helped to make that choice impossible. Play a great part we must. All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill; and I know too well, oh, my fellow-countrymen, not to know what your decision will be.

The problems change. One generation faces different difficulties from the difficulties faced by its predecessors. But the spirit in which those problems must be faced is forever the same. You, the men of the Civil War, who wrought deeds of deathless fame, who left memories of honor that will last as long as this Nation endures, fought with muzzle-loading, percussion-cap muskets and rifles, with cannon that you could afford to put out in the open when you wanted to shoot at the foe. You fought still in the shoulder-to-shoulder tactics. Nowadays men must fight with different weapons; men must fight with different tactics; but the spirit in which they must fight if they are to win must be the spirit that sustained you alike in triumph and defeat. The outward problem changes, the outward means of solving that problem changes, but the heart of the man who is to solve it can not be changed. We must show as a Nation now the same spirit that has been shown by the mighty men of times past under penalty of failure; show it in war if the need arises; and we must also show it in peace; show it in the days that are with us all the time instead of waiting for the heroic days that may never come.

Just as in time of war the man who does his duty in camp, on the march, who does not throw away his blanket at noon because it is heavy, and then wishes that he had two at midnight, is the type of man who makes the best soldier in the long run; so it is true that in civil life the man who does his duty as a citizen in the long run is the man who does his ordinary work day by day, doing each day’s duty, great or small, behaving as he should toward his wife, toward his children, toward his neighbor, in his business, in his home; and if he does those duties well the sum of the duties performed means that he is a good citizen.

I want you men of Texas, you men of my age, to see to it that exactly as you lift your heads higher because of what your fathers have done, so your children have the right to hold their heads higher because of the way in which you handle yourselves. A glorious memory is the best of all things for a nation if it spurs that nation on to try to rise level with that memory. It is a poor thing for a nation if it uses the memory of the past to excuse it for inaction or failure in the present. Keep it before yourselves ever that the very fact that you are proud of those who have gone before makes it incumbent upon you to leave a heritage of honor to those who are to come after you, and to train up those who are to come after you so that they can do their work in the world. One of the things that has pleased me most in passing through the part of your State that I have passed through this afternoon was to see the care that you are giving to the education of the children, to see the public schools and the private schools that you have built and in which your boys and girls are being trained. Do not forget that besides the training of the school must come the training in the family. Take care the next generation is able to rise level to its duty. You can not make it rise level if you do not give it the proper training. Remember always that this life is certain to contain much that is hard, much that is unpleasant. It is not a kindness to the children, it is a curse, if you train them so that they can not meet any need that arises. I do not believe that we ought ever to try to delude ourselves with the thought that we can make life easy, effortless, and yet keep it worth having. For a nation as for an individual the life is the life of effort. You have made this great State of Texas what it is because your forefathers had in them the spirit which recognized in a difficulty something not to be flinched from, but to be overcome.

I can not sufficiently thank you for the way you have greeted me to-day. I am more touched than I can express by it. I come to the soil of this State, hallowed by the great deeds of great men, I come knowing your people already and believing in them with my heart and soul. A couple of years ago I went from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have now come down to this mighty State, this wonderful commonwealth, which borders on the Gulf, and I shall go away with the feeling that after all, while there are small differences among us, the fundamental fact is that wherever you find the average American, the average American is a pretty good man. It is our unity, not our divergency, that is the great fundamental fact of our national life. I shall go away a stronger and better American for having been in this State of strong and good Americans, this mighty commonwealth of Texas.

AT THE BANQUET AT DALLAS, TEX., APRIL 5, 1905

_Mr. Toastmaster, and you, My Hosts_:

Before I came to Texas I knew the generous hospitality which is one of your chief characteristics, and I anticipated a good reception, but neither I nor any one else could have anticipated such a reception, and it has touched me and pleased me more than I can well say. I think I was a middling good American before I came here, but I go away an even better one.

Mr. Simpson spoke of the fact that nearly seven years ago I came to this State to take part in raising a volunteer regiment. Many among you who served on one side or the other in the Civil War will remember the number of things that you did not know at the beginning. If you will take that lack of knowledge and multiply it by two you will get a fair estimate of what I and the regiment did not know when we started. That we learned something I hope is true.

I want to say a word of serious thanks to you, and a word as to my accountability as a steward to you. No man is fit to hold the position of President of the United States at all unless as President he feels that he represents no party but the people as a whole. So far as in me lies I have tried and shall try so to handle myself that every decent American citizen can feel that I have at least made the effort. Each man has got to carry out his own principles in his own way. If he tries to model himself on some one else he will make a poor show of it. My own view has been that if I must choose between taking risks by not doing a thing or by doing it, I will take the risks of doing it.

I have been a very close student of Texan history. The history of your State has always held a peculiar fascination for me. I had begun certain historic studies connected with the growth of our Western people many years ago, before I took much of a part in public life.

However little some of you may now agree with me, when you come to take into account what I have done in the Caribbean Sea, in future you will find that I have been carrying out the doctrine of the Texans who made Texas what it is. Especially as regards what was done in Panama, I want to say that while I was most anxious to deserve the approval of my countrymen, and while I was very glad to be elected President, I would without one moment’s hesitation have given up the second term in the Presidency rather than not to have begun the Panama Canal.

Now in the same way with our internal affairs; take what the toastmaster was kind enough to say as to my standing for a square deal. I want that understood literally. I do not want it exaggerated on one side or the other. When I say I believe in a square deal I do not mean, and nobody who speaks the truth can mean, that he believes it possible to give every man the best hand. If the cards do not come to any man, or if they do come, and he has not got the power to play them, that is his affair. All I mean is that there shall not be any crookedness in the dealing. In other words, it is not in the power of any human being to devise legislation or administration by which each man shall achieve success and have happiness; it not only is not in the power of any man to do that, but if any man says that he can do it, distrust him as a quack. If the hand of the Lord is heavy upon any man, if misfortune comes upon him, he may be unable to win; or even if fortune favors him and he lacks the courage, the nerve, the common-sense, the ability, to do the best with the chance given him, then he will fail. All any of us can pretend to do is to come as near as our imperfect abilities will allow to securing through governmental agencies an equal opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him; and that must be done with no more intention of discrimination against the rich man than the poor man, or against the poor man than the rich man; with the intention of safeguarding each man, rich or poor, poor or rich, in his rights, and giving him as nearly as may be a fair chance to do what his powers permit him to do; always provided he does not wrong his neighbor.

This is not in the least a partisan question. It is one of those questions that affect all our citizens, a question that goes to the root of our citizenship; and when it comes to a question like that you citizens of this country have the right to expect your representatives in public life to join hands and work for the common good and without regard to any mere party differences. As to the details of carrying out those general principles we can not expect everybody to agree. My own views are pretty definite, both about foreign and domestic policies. In foreign policies, for instance, I have this strong belief, which I am sure will appeal to every cow-man present—never draw, unless you mean to shoot; and that implies, of course, that when you draw it shall not be an empty gun. Do not speak impolitely, disrespectfully of other nations. Always treat them with courtesy. Remember that nobody likes to be insulted. One would rather be wronged than insulted; and this is just as true internationally as among individuals. Always speak courteously; be dead sure you are right before going into trouble; being in, see it through.

As a corollary to that, if you need a weapon which you can not possibly improvise, get it ready in advance. The individual who gets into trouble and then thinks he will go and buy a six-shooter is left. He does not want to get into trouble unless he has the six-shooter. It is just so with us. We have built up and are building up a pretty good navy. If we had not done that and were not doing it, I for one would not have recommended going into the Panama business, and I would not advocate the Monroe Doctrine, for I do not intend to go into anything and make a bluff and then have the bluff called and not be able to make good.

In the same way when you come to internal affairs; I have advocated giving the Interstate Commerce Commission increased power; power that will enable it to work effectively and quickly. I should not do that for one moment if I believed that there would be injustice done to the railroads by the Interstate Commerce Commission. I wish it understood definitely that if I find any subordinate of mine doing an injustice against a railroad, or doing an injustice for it, I will cinch him just as quickly in one case as in the other. I shall expect him to do the square thing, both by the railroad and by the public. If the railroad wants more than it is entitled to have, then he must decide against it; if the public ignorantly demands that the railroad shall do more than it can with propriety do, then just as fearlessly he must antagonize public sentiment, even if the public sentiment is unanimous.

These are the general principles. It is much easier to lay down general principles than it is to work out those principles in detail. But I have told you substantially what are, as I regard them, the main features of the platform upon which I stand, and I think that you agree with me that it is a pretty straight American platform.

TO THE LEGISLATURE OF TEXAS, AUSTIN, TEX., APRIL 6, 1905

_Governor, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President pro tem., Senators, and Members
of the House of Representatives, and all of you, men and women of
Texas, those whom I am so proud to call my Fellow-Americans_:

No President of the United States, no good American proud of his country, could enter this Capitol and stand in this hall without feeling a certain thrill of pride in his citizenship, and in the history of the country’s past. This building in which we are now is not only one of the largest but one of the most beautiful of its kind throughout the world. It is eminently fitting that so great a State should have so fine a capitol building.

There are one or two things that I would like particularly to say in this chamber, and to the members of the Texas Legislature. I received a copy of the resolution passed by your body, introduced, I understand, by ex-Minister Terrell, in reference to the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act. I wish to thank you most heartily for what you did. I think, Governor, Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen, that the longer our experience in public office is, the more we realize that at least ninety-five per cent, if not more, in importance, of the work done by any public officer who is worth his salt has nothing whatever to do with partisan politics. The things that concern us all as good citizens are infinitely larger than the matters concerning which we are divided one from the other along party lines. Fundamentally our attitude in our foreign affairs and in reference to foreign nations must in the long run, if we are to be successful as a people, be based upon certain common-sense rules of conduct, the identical rules upon which every self-respecting citizen must base his private actions.

This is equally true as regards all questions dealing with capital and labor; and especially with those dealings with the great aggregates of capital usually to be found in corporate form through which so much of our business at the present day is conducted. It is essential, in dealing thus by legislative action with corporate wealth, or indeed with wealth in any form, that we remember and act upon certain rules simple enough and commonplace enough to state, but not always easy to act upon. Most emphatically we can not as good Americans bear hostility to any rich man as such any more than to any poor man as such. My experience has been that the man who talks over-loudly of his hostility to corporate wealth can not be trusted even to antagonize corporate wealth when it is wrong. Let us be moderate in our statements; but let us make our deeds bear out absolutely our words.

With this preliminary I would like to say in brief just what my position is as regards the particular question with which I had to deal and as regards which the Texas Legislature took the action I so much appreciate.

On the whole there have been few instruments in the economic development of the country which have done more for the country than the railroads. I do not wish in any shape or way to interfere with the legitimate gain of any of the big men whose special industrial capacity enables them to handle the railroads so as to be of profit to themselves and of advantage to all of us. I should be most reluctant—I will put it stronger than that—I should absolutely refuse to be a party to any measure, to any proposition, that interfered with the proper and legitimate prosperity of those men; and I should feel that such a measure was aimed not only at them, but at all of us, for any attack upon the legitimate prosperity of any of us is in the long run sure to turn into an attack upon all. With that proviso (as to which I ask you to remember that I mean literally every word) let me further add that the public has the right (not a privilege, but in my view a duty) to see that there is on its behalf exercised such supervisory and regulatory power over the railroads as will ensure that while they get fair treatment themselves, they give it in return. The proper exercise of that power is conditioned upon the securing of proper legislation, which will enable the representatives of the public to see to it that any unjust or oppressive or discriminating rate is altered, so as to be a just and fair rate, and is altered immediately.

I know well that when you give that power there is a chance of its being occasionally abused. There is no power that can be given to the representatives of the people which it is not possible to abuse. As every one knows, the power of taxation, which must of course be given to the representatives of the people, is the power of death, for it is possible to kill any industry by excessive taxation. There must be a certain trust placed in the common-sense and common honesty of those who are to enforce the law. If it ever falls, and I think it will, to my lot to nominate a board to carry out such a law, I shall nominate men, as far as I am able, on whose ability, courage, and integrity I can count, men who will not be swayed by any influence whatever, direct or indirect, social, political, or any other, to show improper favoritism to any railroad, and who, on the other hand, if a railroad is unjustly attacked, no matter if that attack has behind it the feeling of prejudice of ninety-nine per cent of the people, will stand up against that attack. That is my interpretation of the doctrine of the square deal.

I want to say just one word more on an entirely different subject. I have always taken a very great interest in the National Guard in this country. It is our pride that we have the smallest possible regular army. There is not another first-class power, there is not a second or third class power in the world that has not got relatively to its population and wealth a very much larger regular army than we have. We do not need anything but a small regular army. We need and must and shall have the very best regular army of its size that is to be found anywhere. We do not need a large regular army, because of the possibilities of our people in raising volunteer troops. Those possibilities are largely conditioned upon the excellence of the National Guard. Since I have been in Texas, at almost every stopping place there have been members of the National Guard, companies of the National Guard out to do duty in connection with keeping the crowds in order, in preventing any trouble of any kind, keeping the whole proceedings orderly and proper. I have been immensely struck with their soldier-like efficiency. It is only what I ought to expect. When I was last in Texas I was engaged with certain others in raising a volunteer regiment, and as I think I know a good thing when I see it, I got just as many Texans as possible in that regiment.

Your whole history, from the days of Austin and Houston and Davy Crockett, right to the present time, shows what fighting material the average Texan makes. But I do not care how good the material, it is not going to amount to much if it is not given a chance. It is a most important thing for all of us, if we desire to keep the regular army small, that we shall have the militia, the National Guard of the several States, kept up to a proper point. Last year, I am happy to be able to say, that, at the manœuvres of the regulars, your Texan troops did admirably. I have been told again and again how well they did. I want to congratulate you upon the excellent law for the administration of the National Guard that has recently been passed by the Texas Legislature. With that law backed up by a sufficient appropriation to make it available, you can count upon having the Texas National Guard a model for the National Guard of the country.

I feel very much at home here: I have been Governor, and I have served in the Legislature, so I have a good deal of fellow-feeling with all of you. I have had for a good many years to grapple with just about the problems you are grappling with from time to time here; and I know, as any man who has taken part in active work must know, how easy it is for the outsider to say that everything should be managed perfectly, and how difficult it is in practice to get even fairly good results. There is a heap of difference between the critic, the onlooker on one side, and on the other the doer, the man who does the job.

OUTSIDE OF CAPITOL BUILDING, AUSTIN, TEX., APRIL 6, 1905

_Mr. Governor; and you, My Fellow-Citizens_:

I have been particularly pleased to be greeted wherever I have gone by the great masses of school children, the children from the public schools and the children from the higher institutions of learning, State and private. It is a mere truism to say that the prime work of any State should be to keep up and raise ever higher its standard of citizenship. Texas has a right to be proud of its industrial development and of its wonderful natural resources, but I tell you the best crop for any State to rear after all is the crop of men and women. I believe in the future of Texas so heartily because I believe that you are steadily taking measures for the uptraining of the children, for the uptraining of the generations that in a very few years will take our places and rule the destinies of the State.

No State can be great without paying the penalty of responsibility that comes with greatness. That is true of the Nation; it is true likewise of the States that go to make up the Nation. You have here in Texas a commonwealth which in area and diversification of resources already stands unequaled, which in population and wealth will soon be one of the three or four first in the entire land. That means that besides feeling exaltation about it you ought to have a very heavy sense of responsibility entailed upon you thereby. No man can do any work worth doing except at the cost of effort, of self-restraint, of forcing himself to achieve things. No State can do anything except by possessing just those qualities, because the State is of course simply the aggregate of the individuals within it. If Texas fails in any way the failure will be felt by the entire country, because its influence and its power are so great. There is no royal road to good government; and I think all those interested in managing your public affairs will agree with me that what we need in our public officials is not genius, not even brilliancy, so much as the exercise of the ordinary rather commonplace qualities of honesty, courage, and common-sense—the qualities that make a man a good husband, a good father, a good neighbor; that make it advantageous to have dealings with him in business, or make it worth while having him as a friend. These are the qualities which are fundamental, which should be shown by the man who has to do with public life; and do not forget that each one of you here has to do his share in governing this commonwealth. It is not a figure of speech, it is the literal fact that in the United States every man is a sovereign. Remember that the fate of the sovereign who does not do his duty is to get dethroned; and if the average man who is sovereign does not do his duty he will get ousted from his sovereignty. If a man can not govern himself he will find a boss or some one else who can govern him, and then do not blame the boss, blame yourself for not having the self-control, the resolution, the forethought, and the sense of civic duty which would make you do your full part in the work of governing this country. We will not lose our birthright of citizenship unless by our own fault. If the average man keeps his head and his wits, and if he takes a little pains, he will be governed just about the way he desires to be governed. If he is not governed that way do not let him sit down and blame the politicians, let him blame himself, for it is in his power to get any government that he seriously desires to have. My fellow-citizens, together with expressing the exultation that we have a right to express about our country, we need to have impressed upon us a sense of our own responsibility, and of the shortcomings of which we are guilty if we do not rise level to that responsibility. It is a very good thing that we should gather together on state occasions, on the 4th of July, and at public festivals, and hear speakers say how big a country we have. But it is a better thing if we will go home and think over certain of the shortcomings that all of us have and make up our minds to remedy them in the future. What I ask of you and what I most firmly believe you will give is a patriotic perseverance in doing each his average round of duties, in doing the duties both of private life and as a citizen in public affairs each day. Do not wait for some special time when heroism will be called for, but do unweariedly the humdrum work that comes to every man. If we will do that, we will find that the affairs of state will be settled as we desire to have them settled. There is no use sitting at home finding fault with the way in which public affairs are handled, and then every four years, in a burst of animosity against some person, voting to turn him out. What you need to do is, month in and month out, year in and year out, to do your ordinary political duties as those political duties come up, and only under such conditions can you get really good public servants.

Let me say one more word of warning. In public life you will sometimes encounter a man who will endeavor to lead you to do something which down at bottom you doubt being right, which he tells you will be to your advantage to do, usually something that looks like wronging some one else. But the man who will wrong some one else for your advantage will, when the chance comes, be sure to wrong you for his own advantage.

My fellow-citizens, my fellow-Americans, I address you here under the shadow of your beautiful capitol of this great and wonderful State, with its heroic memories of Austin, of Sam Houston, of Davy Crockett, of all the men who in picture or in statue are commemorated on these walls; and my strongest feeling is that, proud though you are of Texas, you can not be prouder of it than I am. One of the great and splendid features of our American life is that each American has a right to be proud of the deeds of every other American, no matter from what part of the country his fellow-American may come. Your honor, your glory, are the honor and the glory of every man of our great country. All that is necessary for our people is that they should get to know one another in order to appreciate how slight are the divergencies and how vital and fundamental is the union among them.

IN FRONT OF THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO, TEX., APRIL 7, 1905

_Mr. Mayor; Mr. Kirkpatrick; and you, My Fellow-Americans of this
mighty Commonwealth_:

I thank you for the way in which I have been greeted to-day. You can hardly imagine how much it means to me to come back to San Antonio in this way, and to be received as you have received me. I know that the rest of you will not grudge my saying a special word of acknowledgment to two sets among your citizens; first to the men of the great war, to the men who wore the blue or wore the gray in the days that tried men’s souls. My fellow-citizens, infinitely more important than any President, infinitely more important even than the reception to any President, is what is symbolized by seeing the men who fought in the Union army and the men who fought in the Confederate army standing mingled together, fellow-Americans, one in devotion and honor and loyalty to the country, shoulder to shoulder as fellow-citizens of the mightiest republic upon which the sun has ever shone. Indeed the man would have a poor heart, a poor spirit, who would not be thrilled by such a meeting as this, by such a sight as you accord me to-day, you of the gray, you of the blue, all one under the flag of this reunited country.

I suppose you must know it, but I want to tell you that it was of course the memory of the valor, the self-sacrifice, the endurance you displayed in the great war, that made us of the younger generation feel that when the lesser war came we wished to emulate your course. The regiment which I had the honor to command, and which was raised and organized in this city, took part in what were only skirmishes compared with the campaigns in which you did your share; and all that we claim is that while it was not given to us to have the chance to do great deeds, yet we hope we made you feel that the old spirit was not altogether lost. This regiment served under men who had themselves fought in the Civil War, both under Grant and under Lee. The commander of the cavalry division was that gallant ex-Confederate soldier, Major-General Joseph Wheeler; and our immediate commander, our brigade commander, was an ex-Union soldier, who entered the Union army as a private, and to whom for my great good fortune it befell me to sign the commission as Lieutenant-General of the army of the United States—Lieutenant-General Young. Afterward at San Juan the cavalry served under General Sumner, from whom I took my orders.

I can not say how much it meant to me to be able to take part in raising that regiment under the shadow of the Alamo. My admiration for Texas and Texans is no new thing. Since I have been a boy and first studied the history of this country my veins have thrilled and tingled as I read of the mighty deeds of Houston, of Bowie, of Crockett, of Travis, of the men who were victorious at the fight at San Jacinto, of the even more glorious men who fell in the fight of the Alamo, of which it was said, “Thermopylæ had its messengers of death, but the Alamo had none.”

I remember so well seven years ago when we were raising this regiment, riding in here one day to see the Alamo, and going away feeling that come what would I was going to try to handle myself so that there should no disgrace come to the memory of the Americans who died there. I want you to remember that ours was a volunteer regiment and a small war, and that we do not claim any credit for what we did more than falls to the lot of any number of other people. All we ask of you is to believe that we tried to show the spirit which would have made us do the kind of a job that you of the Civil War did, if the need had arisen.

I wish to express my acknowledgments for the greeting which I have received here in San Antonio and which I have received throughout the length and breadth of Texas. This is the third time I have visited this beautiful city—and it is such a beautiful city. I wonder if you yourselves, proud though you are of it, appreciate the charm it has to an outsider coming here. It is fifteen years ago that I first came here, simply passing through as any number of other travelers pass through, and saw it. Seven years ago when I came here I was here strictly on business. When we got back that year from Santiago I said to the officers of the regiment, “Now we have got to have a reunion of the regiment in San Antonio.” All kinds of things happened in between. I have led a middling busy life myself since; and now at last the chance has come to make good the promise and to have those of the regiment who are able to come together here in the city where the regiment was raised to greet one another and talk over the past. In a sense we can claim that that regiment was a typical American body. The men composing it were raised chiefly in the Southwest, but some from the North, some from the East, so that we had the Northerner and the Southerner, the Easterner and the Westerner in that regiment; we had men in it who worshiped their Creator some according to one creed, some according to another, for almost every religious body of any size in the United States was represented within our ranks. We had men who had been born abroad and men who were born here, whose ancestors came to what is now the United States at the time of the landing of the first colonists at the mouth of the James or at Plymouth. We had men of inherited wealth and men who all their lives long had earned each day’s bread by that day’s toil. We had men of every grade socially; men who worked with their heads; men who worked with their hands; men of all the types that our country produces; but each of them glad to get in on his worth as a man only, and content to be judged purely by what he could show himself to be.

It has always seemed to me that one of the greatest lessons taught by the Civil War was the lesson of brotherhood. You, my friends, who wore the blue; you, my friends, who wore the gray, what each of you when he went forward to battle was concerned with about the man on his right hand and the man on his left was not what that man’s ancestry was, not as to how he worshiped his Maker, not as to what his profession was, or his means; what you wanted to know was whether he would stay put. If he did you were for him, and if he did not you were against him.

The same thing that was true in the great war is true in time of peace. This Government is emphatically a government by the people, for the people, of the people. Now, besides applauding that sentiment, let us live up to it. It has two sides to it. In the first place, it applies in a dozen different directions. It applies, for instance, in reference to creed. We have a right to ask that our neighbor do his duty toward God and man; but we have no business to dictate to him how he shall worship his Maker, and no business to discriminate for or against him because of the way in which he does it. In the same way, if a man is a decent citizen, he is a decent citizen, whether rich or poor. To judge from some of the talk you occasionally hear, a man can not be a square man if he is rich. Remember always that you listen at your peril to any man who would seek to inflame you against your fellow-citizen because he is better off. Again, in the Civil War, come back to the consideration about your bunkie. You did not care whether he was a banker or bricklayer. If he was a banker he was all right if he was a good fellow, if he did his duty in camp, if he did not straggle on the march, if he did not drop his share of the joint provisions on the march, and then expect you to share yours with him at the end of the day. You wanted him to do his part, and if he did it you were for him. Now, apply that in civil life. If the rich man does not his duty, cinch him, and I will help you just as far as I can. But don’t cinch him because he is a rich man. If you do you are a mighty mean creature yourself; you are not a good American yourself. Give him a perfectly fair show. If he is a poor man and does his duty, help him, stand by him. If he whines about his poverty and says that he ought to be carried, you may just as well make up your mind to drop him then and there. Every man of us stumbles at times. Every man of us at times needs a helping hand stretched out to him; and shame to any man who will not stretch out that helping hand to his brother if that brother needs it. But if the brother lies down, you can do mighty little in carrying him. You can help him up; but once up he has got to walk himself. The only way in which you can ever really help any man is to help him to help himself.

That brings me to the second set of people here whom I have been most especially glad to see and to greet—the children. In the first place, I believe in them, as you know, and judging by the showing that San Antonio has made to-day, San Antonio is all right as regards both quality and quantity. As I like your stock I am glad that it does not seem likely to die out. In passing through Texas I have been more impressed than by anything else by the evident care you are giving to education, the evident care given to training your children, the school facilities, both for primary and higher education, and the way in which those facilities are being taken advantage of. Of course it is a mere truism to say that the care of the children is the most important task of any generation. You have a wonderful empire here in Texas. It is literally larger than most Old World empires. Your diversification of soil and climate, the marvelous fertility of your soil, your natural advantages, ensure you a phenomenal future agriculturally and industrially, ensure this State a wonderful growth in population and wealth. All that is essential. You must have the material basis upon which to build as a foundation, but I need not say to you to remember that it is only a foundation. The material counts for nothing if you do not build upon it the spiritual, if you do not build upon it the things of the soul, of the mind.

Let me again take an example from the war. We need arms and equipment, but the best rifle ever made does not make a soldier if it has not got the right man behind it. You may take the finest modern weapon, put it in the hands of a weakling or a coward, and a good man will beat him with a club. If the other man is a good man too, you want a mighty good weapon, or you will get beaten. But the weapon does not in any shape or way serve as a substitute for the spirit of the soldier. That is what counts in the last resort. Tactics change, weapons change, but the soul that drives a man forward to victory does not change as the ages go by. The men of the Civil War, alike the men who wore the gray and the men who wore the blue, made a record which remains forever a heritage of honor and of glory for all this people. They did that because they had in them the spirit which from time immemorial has made the soldiers of whom the world is proud, the spirit for the lack of which no other quality in man or in nation will atone. We of to-day, we who, if a war should come, will have to fight under new conditions, with new arms, will win (as assuredly I believe we shall win) only because our men still have in them the spirit that made their forefathers do well in battle. So you must train your children up so that in addition to having what counts for material prosperity in a State, you must have the things that tell most for greatness, the things that make for the soul of the Nation.