Chapter I: Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

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Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

Page numbers are continuous with volume 3.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

The original edition did not include a Table of Contents. For the
convenience of the reader one has been created:

Presidential Addresses and State Papers 361

At the Luncheon of the Merchants’ Club, Chicago, Ill.,
May 10, 1905 361

At the Banquet of the Iroquois Club, Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1905 365

Remarks to Strikers’ Committee, Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1905 374

At the Unveiling of the Statue of General Henry W. Slocum, Brooklyn,
N. Y., May 30, 1905 378

At the Naval Branch, Y. M. C. A., Brooklyn, N. Y., May 30, 1905 386

At the Graduating Exercises of the Collegiate Department of Clark
University, Worcester, Mass., June 21, 1905 391

At Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass., June 21, 1905 397

At Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., June 22, 1905 398

At Harvard University, June 28, 1905 407

To the National Educational Association, Ocean Grove, N. J.,
July 7, 1905 422

To the Long Island Medical Society, at Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
July 12, 1905 429

At Wilkesbarre, Pa., August 10, 1905 433

At Chautauqua, N. Y., August 11, 1905 439

To the Representatives of the Colored Industrial Association,
Richmond, Va., October 18, 1905 456

At Capitol Square, Richmond, Va., October 18, 1905 456

At the Luncheon at Richmond, Va., October 18, 1905 465

At Raleigh, N. C., October 19, 1905 467

Remarks in Presenting the Patterson Memorial Cup to Mr. John
Charles Mcneill, in the Senate Chamber, Raleigh, N. C.,
October 19, 1905 477

At Durham, N. C., October 19, 1905 478

At Greensboro, N. C., October 19, 1905 481

At Charlotte, N. C., October 19, 1905 482

At Roswell, Ga., October 20, 1905 485

At Piedmont Park, Atlanta, Ga., October 20, 1905 487

At the Luncheon of the Piedmont Club, Atlanta, Ga.,
October 20, 1905 500

At Jacksonville, Fla., October 21, 1905 505

At the Florida Baptist College, Jacksonville, Fla.,
October 21, 1905 510

At Mobile, Ala., October 23, 1905 513

At the Alabama Conference Female College, Tuskegee, Ala.,
October 24, 1905 518

At Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala., October 24, 1905 521

At the Capitol Building, Montgomery, Ala., October 24, 1905 527

At Birmingham, Ala., October 24, 1905 530

Remarks on Being Presented With Two Confederate Badges, at
Birmingham, Ala., October 24, 1905 532

At City Park, Little Rock, Ark., October 25, 1905 533

At the Luncheon at Little Rock, Ark., October 25, 1905 538

To a Delegation of the Grand Army of the Republic, at New Orleans,
La., October 26, 1905 544

To a Delegation of Confederate Veterans, at New Orleans, La.,
October 26, 1905 544

At the Luncheon, New Orleans, La., October 26, 1905 545

Speech to the Officers and Crew of the U. S. Flagship “West
Virginia,” at Sea, October 29, 1905 552

Remarks to a Delegation of Railway Employees’ Orders—executive
Office, Washington, November 14, 1905 556

Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress at the
Beginning of the First Session of the Fifty-ninth Congress,
December 5, 1905. 560

“The Children of the Night” 659

To the Central Juvenile Reformatory Committee, at the White House,
December 15, 1905 664

To the Board of Education of the District of Columbia and Others, at
the White House, December 18, 1905 665

Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress,
January 8, 1906 666

To the Members of the Legislative Council of the American Medical
Association, at the White House, January 10, 1906 671

To the Members of the Interstate National Guard Association, at the
White House, January 22, 1906 673

To the Students of the Manassas, Virginia, Industrial School, at the
White House, February 14, 1906 676

Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress,
February 19, 1906 678

Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress, March 5, 1906 681

Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress, March 7, 1906 688

To the Consular Reform Association, at the White House,
March 14, 1906 691

To the Committee and Assistant Committees on Department Methods, at
the Residence of Mr. Pinchot, Washington, March 20, 1906 694

To the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor and
the Representatives of Labor Associated With Them, at the
Executive Office, March 21, 1906 702

To the Members of the National Playgrounds Councils at the White
House, April 12, 1906 708

To the German Veterans, at the White House, April 12, 1906 709

_October 20, 1905_ ]

Homeward Bound Edition

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS

_May 10, 1905, to April 12, 1906_

BY

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE
AUTHOR THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

VOLUME IV

=NEW YORK=
THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
MCMX

The Publishers desire to make clear to the readers that Ex-president Roosevelt
retains no pecuniary interest in the sale of the volumes containing these
speeches. He feels that the material contained in these addresses
has been dedicated to the public, and that it is, therefore,
not to be handled as copyrighted material from which
Mr. Roosevelt should receive any pecuniary return.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS

MAY 10, 1905
TO
APRIL 12, 1906

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

AT THE LUNCHEON OF THE MERCHANTS’ CLUB, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905

_Mr. President and Gentlemen_:

This country of ours is pre-eminently a business country, and we can succeed only if as a country we carry on the national business as the typical member of this association carries on his business; that is, in an entirely practical spirit, in a spirit which desires and commands success, but which desires it and commands it as an incident to acting with decency toward all our fellow-citizens. No business community can permanently succeed if the average member of it does not possess a certain quantity of high ideals; and, gentlemen, there is not a business man of large experience here who will not agree with me when I say that. Permanent success will come to the business community where the average man’s word can be trusted, where the average man himself can be trusted in dealing with his fellows. Just as that is true of the average business community, so it is true of the Nation as a whole.

The Nation must act in a spirit which gives full recognition to the national demands, which is not in the least Quixotic, which sees the need of working for the interests of the average individual of the Nation, but in a spirit which recognizes duties as well as rights, which recognizes this in our internal affairs, which recognizes it in our external affairs.

This leads me up to a subject concerning which I wish not merely to congratulate, but on behalf of the Nation to thank those present; the part played by the Merchants’ Club in initiating, and with the aid of the Commercial Club in carrying to a successful conclusion, the movement which resulted in the establishment of a naval training station here on Lake Michigan. I need not say to those of you who know anything at all about me that I believe in a big navy; and I hope I need not say that I believe in it not as a provocative to war, but as a guarantee of peace. I want to see every section of this country realize that the navy stands for the whole country, and that the people of the seacoast are not a particle more interested in it than the people of the Mississippi Valley. There were two sides to the establishment of that naval station here, where it was established. In the first place, we get, as perhaps some of you know, a peculiarly valuable class of recruit for the navy from the Mississippi Valley and the region adjoining the Great Lakes. In the next place, I wanted to see part of the establishment of the navy have its local habitation and name here in the great West. So I feel that this organization conferred a favor not only upon the city of Chicago, but an advantage to the whole country in what it did toward securing the establishment of that station here where it has been established.

I do not think that it is now very necessary to make an argument for an efficient navy. We are so fortunate that in this country we can get along with a very small army, an army which relatively to the population of the country is smaller than the police force of many of our great cities. With the navy the case is different We have not the choice, gentlemen, as to whether or not this country will play a great part in the world. We can not help playing a great part. All we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill. That is the decision we have to make. We can decide whether we will do badly or well, but we can not decide whether the part is to be played. We have got to play it. We can not abandon our position on the Monroe Doctrine. We can not abandon the Panama Canal. We can not abandon the duties that have come to us from the mere fact of our growth as a Nation, from the growth of our commercial interests in the East and in the West, on the Atlantic and in the Pacific. I earnestly hope that with the added responsibility will come not merely a growth of power to meet that responsibility, but a growth of mental attitude on our part toward these new duties. If there is one thing that ought to be more offensive to every good American than almost anything else it is the habit of speaking with a loose tongue, speaking offensively about foreign nations, or adopting an ill-considered and irritating attitude toward any one of them. In private life there is no one to whom we rightly object more than to the man who is continually offending and insulting his neighbors; except to the man who in addition to doing that then fails to make good. I hope to see our foreign policy conducted always in a spirit not merely of scrupulous regard for the rights of others, but of scrupulous courtesy toward others; and at the same time to see us keep prepared so that there is no position that we take in either hemisphere that once taken we can not stand on. With this in order not only is it important that the Government officials should behave themselves, but it is also important that private citizens should. The public speaker, the writer in the press, the legislator, the public servant, all owe it to this country to behave with the courtesy toward others which we would like to have extended toward us; but to behave with that courtesy whether it is extended in return or not. Outsiders can not hurt us by being insolent so long as we behave ourselves. What they say is of no consequence to us compared to what we say to them. Hard words will not hurt us if we will only disregard them. Let them say anything; but let us go on and build up the navy. That will be a much greater provocative to friendship and respect than any amount of recrimination. I have a right to appeal to the men here before me, to the men who in so many different walks take the lead in this great city, to aid in consistently building up just that type of foreign policy, a foreign policy under which we shall make the name of the United States Government a symbol on the one hand, as it ought to be, for the just and proper insistence upon its own rights, but also a symbol for a disinterested and generous willingness to treat all other nations, all other powers, with just and with frank courtesy and good-will, and to make it evident that in this country’s foreign policy it recognizes its duty toward the weak just as much as its responsibility to the strong.

AT THE BANQUET OF THE IROQUOIS CLUB, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905

_Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, and you, my Hosts_:

Our country is governed, and under existing circumstances can only be governed, under the party system, and that should mean, and that will mean, when we have a sufficient number of people who take the point of view that Judge Dickinson takes, that there shall be a frank and manly opposition of party to party, of party man to party man, combined with an equally frank refusal to conduct a party contest in any such way as to give good Americans cause for regret because of what is said before election, when compared with what is said after election. The frankest opposition to a given man or a given party on questions of public policy not only can be, but almost always should be, combined with the frankest recognition of the infinitely greater number of points of agreement than of the points of difference. I have accepted your kind and generous invitation to come before you this evening, because the longer I am in public life the more firmly I am convinced that the great bulk of the questions of most importance before us as a people are questions which we can best decide not from the standpoint of republicanism or democracy, but from the standpoint of the interests of the average American citizen, whether Republican or Democrat.

This is true of both foreign and domestic questions. Our political differences should, and in the great majority of cases do, disappear at the water’s edge. When I had to choose a man to represent to a peculiar degree the interests of this Government in one of the most important foreign negotiations of recent years—that concerning the Alaskan boundary—I chose the best lawyer, one of the ablest public men, and one of the most fair-minded patriots that could be found in the country; and the fact that he was of opposite political faith did not interfere with Judge Dickinson’s doing that work well. That was a question that concerned the United States—all of the United States. Most questions that come up in Washington are questions that go much deeper than party, are questions that affect the whole country, and the man would be indeed unfit for the position of President who did not feel that when he held that office he held it in the most emphatic sense as the representative of all the people.

One of the works that Uncle Sam has on hand just at present is digging the Panama Canal; and it is going to be dug. It is going to be dug honestly and as cheaply as is compatible with efficiency; but with the efficiency first. I wanted Congress to give me power to remodel the commission. It did not do it. So I remodeled it anyhow, purely in the exercise of my executive functions. I made up my mind this time that I was not going to make the slightest effort to represent different sections of the country on that commission, that I was going to have the whole country represented, by putting the best man I could get in any given position, without the slightest regard to where he came from; and while it was an accident, still I may mention it as a fortunate accident that the two most important positions were filled from Illinois—Shonts and Wallace are both from Illinois.

These are external questions, as regards which the interests of the whole country and not the interests of any party or any section of the country must be considered by the President. So it is with certain of our great internal policies.

Among the vital questions that have come up for solution, because of the extraordinary industrial development of this country, as of all the modern world, are the questions affecting capital and labor as regards each other, and the questions resulting from the effect upon the public of the organization into great masses of both capital and labor. I believe thoroughly in each kind of organization, but I recognize that if either kind of organization does what is wrong, the increase in its power for efficiency that has resulted from the combination means the increase in its power to do harm; and that, therefore, corporation—that is, organized capital—and union—that is, organized labor—must alike be held to a peculiar responsibility to the public at large, and that from each alike we have the right to demand not only obedience to the law, but service to the public.

There are two sides to what I have said, and we are very apt to hear only insistence upon one side—sometimes insistence upon one side, sometimes insistence upon the other, but not as often as we should insistence upon both sides.

I take up first the question of organized capital. When this Nation was created, such a thing as a modern corporation not only did not exist, but could not be imagined. This is especially true of the great modern corporations engaged in interstate commerce. A century ago the highways of commerce were exactly such as they had been from the days of the dawn of civilization on the banks of the Nile and in Mesopotamia. All that could be done by waterways and by roads for wheeled vehicles drawn by animal power had been developed to a very marked degree; but sails, oars, wheeled vehicles and beasts of burden were, as they had been for many thousands of years, the only means of commerce, the only methods by which individuals or corporations engaged in commerce could act. Under such circumstances the fathers and founders of this Republic could not foresee, and therefore, doubly, could not provide for, the conditions of the present day. We now have the great highways of commerce of an entirely different kind. The waterway, the road for wheeled vehicles, have sunk into absolute insignificance compared with the railway. We therefore have for the first time in history a highway for the commerce of all the people under the control of a private individual or private corporation. Now, gentlemen, let me in the first place insist upon this fact, that we should keep ever before us that the men who have built up the great railroad systems of this country, like the men who have built up the other great industries of this country, have as a rule (there are exceptions, but as a rule) made their fortunes as incidents to benefiting and not to harming the country. As a rule benefit and not harm has come from their efforts, and in making fortunes for themselves they have done good to all of us. We have all benefited by the talents of the great captains of industry. I am speaking, as I say, as a rule, with full knowledge of the exceptions to what I say, but disregarding those exceptions in making a general statement. We can not afford to do damage to those men or to those corporations, because in the first place we can not afford to do injustice to any man, rich or poor; in the next place, because to do such damage to them would mean widespread damage among the wage-workers and among the general public. All of this that I have said I wish kept in mind steadily in appreciating what I am about to say; for while acknowledging in the frankest manner the benefits that have come from the development of these great industrial enterprises, I also feel that we must recognize that the time has now come when it is essential in the interests of the public that there should be, and be exercised, an effective power of supervision and regulation over them in the interests of the public.

The State can properly deal with the corporations doing business within its own limits. The State can not deal at all with corporations doing business in many different States, and it is an absurdity at once ludicrous and harmful to leave it in the power of one State to create a corporation of gigantic size which shall do all its work in a number of other States, and perhaps with the scantiest regard for their laws.

Personally, I believe that the Federal Government must take an increasing control over corporations. It is better that that control should increase by degrees than that it should be assumed all at once. But there should be, and I trust will be, no halt in the steady progress of assuming such national control. The first step toward it should be the adoption of a law conferring upon some executive body the power of increased supervision and regulation of the great corporations engaged primarily in interstate commerce of the railroads. My views on that subject could not have been better expressed than they were expressed yesterday by Secretary Taft in Washington, and as they were expressed by the Attorney-General in his communication to the Senate Committee a couple of weeks ago. I believe that the representatives of the Nation—that is, the representatives of all the people—should lodge in some executive body the power to establish a maximum rate, the power to have that rate go into effect practically immediately, and the power to see that the provisions of the law apply in full to companies owning private cars and private tracks, just as much as the railroads themselves. The courts will retain, and should retain, no matter what the Legislature does, the power to interfere and upset any action that is confiscatory in its nature. I am well aware that the action of such a body as I have spoken of may stop far short of confiscation, and yet do great damage. In other words, I am well aware that to give this power means the possibility that the power may be abused. That possibility we must face. Any power strong enough, any power which could be granted sufficiently great to be efficient, would be sufficiently great to be harmful if abused. That is true of the power of taxation. It is perfectly possible for the body that has the power of taxation intrusted to it to use it viciously and harmfully against certain interests or certain classes. Nevertheless, the power must exist. The power must be lodged in the representatives of the people. So it is with the power of which I speak. It must exist; it must be lodged in some body which is to give expression to the needs of the people as a whole. The fact that it is possible that the power may be abused is not, and can not be, an argument against placing it where we shall have a right to expect that it will be used fairly toward all.

One thing I wish definitely understood. If the power is granted me to create such a board, such a commission, or to continue in power, if I so desire, a commission or board with increased powers, I shall strive to appoint and retain men who will do exactly the same justice to the railroads as they will exact from the railroads. False hopes are always raised by any measure of reform, because there are always people who expect the impossible. If the measure which I advocate is enacted into law, a good many people will expect that it will bring the millennium considerably nearer than will prove to be the case. The men whom I appoint to execute that law will be, so far as my ability to choose them exists, men who will no more be frightened by an even sincere popular clamor into doing an act of injustice to any great corporation than they will be frightened, on the other hand, into refraining from doing an act of justice because it is against the interests of some great corporation. In other words, I shall strive to see that that branch of the Government with its increased power is administered as every branch of the Government ought to be administered—that is, in a spirit of striving to do exact justice to the men of great means just as much as, and no more than, to the man of small means.

Now for the other side of the question. There have been a great many republics before our time, and again and again these republics have split upon the rock of disaster. The greatest and most dangerous rock in the course of any republic is the rock of class hatred. Sometimes in the past the republic became a republic in which one class grew to dominate over another class, so that for loyalty to the republic was substituted loyalty to a class. The result was in such case inevitable. It meant disaster and ultimately the downfall of the republic, and it mattered not one whit which class became dominant; it mattered not one whit whether the poor plundered the rich or the rich exploited the poor. In either case, just as soon as the republic became one in which one class substituted loyalty to that class for loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand. No true patriot will fail to do everything in his power to prevent the growth of any such spirit in this country.

This Government is not and never shall be a government of a plutocracy. This Government is not, and never shall be, a Government of a mob. I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern industrialism; but I believe that they should be so supervised and regulated that they shall act for the interest of the community as a whole. So I believe in unions. I am proud of the fact that I am an honorary member of one union. But I believe that the union, like the individual, must be held to a strict accountability to the power of the law.

Mr. Mayor, as President of the United States, and therefore as representative of the people of this country, I give you, as a matter of course, my hearty support in upholding the law, in keeping order, in putting down violence, whether by a mob or by an individual. There need not be the slightest apprehension in the heart of the most timid that ever the mob spirit will triumph in this country. Those immediately responsible for dealing with the trouble must, as I know you feel, exhaust every effort in so dealing with it before a call is made upon any outside body. But if ever the need arises, back of the city stands the State, and back of the State stands the Nation.

There, gentlemen, is a point upon which all good Americans are one. They are all one in the conviction, in the firm determination that this country shall remain in the future as it has been in the past, a country of liberty and justice expressed through the forms of law; a country in which the will of the people is supreme, but in which that will finds its expression as provided for in the Constitution of the United States, and of the several States that go to make up our Nation.

REMARKS TO STRIKERS’ COMMITTEE, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905

_Mr. Shea_:

We are here as a committee to present to you a statement stating our position in this controversy between the Employers’ Association and the Teamsters’ Association. We have understood that they had asked your aid for bringing troops into Chicago. We want to present our position to you. Mr. Quinn has the memorial.

_Mr. Quinn_:

It will take about ten minutes to read this. Perhaps we had better leave it with you.

_The President_, after reading the memorial:

Mr. Shea, Mr. Quinn, and Gentlemen:

I have read the petition you have presented to me, the conclusion of which is a request for a hearing before any action be taken by the Federal President, relating to the Chicago strike situation. As yet no suggestion of any kind has come to me from any source that I should take any action. Of the merits of the case I am wholly ignorant. I have no knowledge of what the situation is, or of what steps should properly be taken to end it. I feel, however, that in view of one statement, or series of statements, in your letter, I ought to say this: I regret that you should have in the letter spoken at all of the use of the Federal army as you have there spoken. No request has been made to me for action by the Federal Government, but at the same time, Mr. Shea, as you have in this communication to me brought up that fact, I want to say one thing with all the emphasis in my power. In upholding law and order, in doing what he is able to do to suppress mob violence in any shape or way, the Mayor of Chicago, Mayor Dunne, has my hearty support. I am glad to be able to say this to you gentlemen before I say it to any other body. Now let me repeat that I know nothing of the facts of the situation. I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of the points at issue. What I have to say is based purely upon what I regard as the unfortunate phrasing of a letter presented to the President of the United States. I have not been called upon to interfere in any way, but you must not misunderstand my attitude. In every effort of Mayor Dunne to prevent violence by mobs or individuals, to see that the laws are obeyed and that order is preserved, he has the hearty support of the President of the United States, and in my judgment he should have that of every good citizen of the United States.

Now, gentlemen, it has been a great pleasure to see you, and I am glad to have had the chance to say this to you.

_Mr. Quinn_:

Mr. President, what prompted us to come to you with this statement is that for the past two or three weeks there has been a continual howl for the Federal army. I have known you long enough to know that you would not respond to a one-sided demand, that you will not respond until you have thoroughly investigated the case.

_The President_:

Mr. Quinn, as yet the Mayor has not made any appeal to the Governor, and therefore, of course, the Governor has made none to me; and as yet nothing in the situation has demanded action by me.

_Mr. Shea_:

Let me explain that. The Governor has been requested by the committee of the employers to demand Federal troops. The statement has been made in the papers. I immediately telegraphed Governor Deneen that we would allow him to appoint a commission.

Regardless of that I want to make our position known to you in regard to mob violence. Every time a mob congregates, every act of violence performed by either a union man or a sympathizer, it reacts to our detriment. I believe that we are skilled workmen enough in our particular craft to demonstrate to our business men of Chicago that it is to their interest to employ us. There is nothing at stake but the re-employment of citizens of Chicago who have been forced out of their positions. Acts of violence meet with the condemnation of the officials, both local and national, of our organization. It does not meet with the sympathies of our organization. I simply want to say that we want to be fair, to preserve the business interests of Chicago, realizing that the prosperity of our employers is our prosperity.

_The President_:

Mr. Shea, I can only repeat what I have said. I am a believer in unions. I am an honorary member of one union. But the union must obey the law just as the corporation must obey the law, just as every man, rich or poor, must obey the law. As yet no action whatever has been called for by me, and most certainly if action is called for by me I shall try to do exact justice under the law to every man, so far as I have power. But the first essential is the preservation of law and order, the suppression of violence by mobs or individuals.

AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF GENERAL HENRY W. SLOCUM,
BROOKLYN, N. Y., MAY 30, 1905

_Mr. Mayor, Mr. Commissioner, and you, my Fellow Citizens, and, above
all, you who took part in the great war in which the man whose statue
is raised to-day won for himself and his country renown and honor_:

Day before yesterday I listened to a sermon in which the preacher, dwelling upon the exercises to be held throughout the Union to-day, preached on the text which tells of the altar raised by command of Moses to commemorate the victory gained by the children of Israel over the wild tribes of the desert who sought to bar their march toward the promised land. Amalek came out against Israel and they fought all day, while Aaron and Hur upheld the hands of Moses until as night fell the sun went down on Israel’s triumph. Then they raised an altar to “Jehovah is my banner”; to Jehovah, who stood as the exponent of the principle for which Israel warred. They raised it to the principle of righteousness, which alone can justify any war or any struggle. Mr. Mayor, that is the thought that you developed in the excellent address to which we have just listened; that we meet to-day to commemorate a great victory, the triumph of the cause of union and liberty, not primarily because it was a mere victory, but because it was a victory for righteousness and for the peace and liberty and eternal spiritual welfare of mankind.

I see before me here men who won high honor serving as comrades in arms of General Slocum, and I know that there exists in the Union no men who will appreciate more the fact that now, forty years after the war, the crowning triumph of what they did is to be found in the fact that we have a genuinely reunited country, a country in which the man who wore the blue stretches out the hand of loyal friendship to his erstwhile foe, his now devoted friend and fellow-countryman, the man who wore the gray. A short while ago I passed through the great State of Texas. Wherever I stopped in that great State I was greeted by representatives of the Grand Army marching side by side with or intermingled with men clad in the gray uniform that showed that they had fought in the armies of the Confederacy. They had tested one another’s worth on the stricken fields, they knew each that the other had been ready when the hour of supreme appeal came to show his truth by his endeavors. Now these men, now you and those like you, now the men in blue and the men in gray, know that they leave to their children and their children’s children as a heritage of honor forever the memory of the great deeds done alike by those who fought under Grant and by those who fought under Lee; for we, because of the very fact that the Union triumphed now have the right to feel a like pride in the valor and devotion of those who valiantly fought against the stars in their courses, no less than of those who finally saw their efforts and their sufferings crowned by triumph.

Think of it, my fellow-countrymen! Think of what a thrice-blessed fortune is ours, that the greatest war that the nineteenth century saw after the close of the Napoleonic struggles has left, not as most wars inevitably do and must leave, memories of bitterness and anger and shame to offset the memories of glory, memories which make the men of one side hang their heads because the men of the other side walk exultingly; that it has left not such dreadful memories, but instead to victor and vanquished alike, after the temporary soreness is over, the same right to feel the proudest satisfaction in the fact that the Union was saved, and the utmost pride in the honor, the gallantry, the devotion to the right as each side had given it the light to see the right, shown alike by those who warred under one banner and by those who warred under the other.

I congratulate the people of Brooklyn, not primarily upon raising this statue, because that they ought to do, but upon the opportunity, upon the chance of having it to raise. I congratulate them upon the good fortune of having a fellow-citizen who in war and in peace alike served his people so well as to make it their duty, not so much to him as to themselves, to erect this statue that it might serve as a lesson for the generations to come. And, my fellow-citizens, I am sure we all realize the peculiar appropriateness of having the statue of General Slocum received on behalf of the city of New York by its chief magistrate, whose father was General Slocum’s illustrious commander.

Surely there is need for me to say but little in emphasis of what has been set forth before I began to speak as to the prime significance of General Slocum’s career. He was a fine soldier, a gallant and able commander. Once the war was over he turned as whole-heartedly to the pursuits of peace as he had during the war turned to the strife of arms. General Slocum was one of those men on whose career we are fortunately able to dwell in its entirety. We do not have to dwell with emphasis on part of it because we do not care to speak of another part of it. We are able to point to General Slocum as the type of what a decent American citizen should be, as a man who was an example in his family life, an example in his business relations, an honest and upright public servant, no less than a tried and fearless soldier.

Now I want our people to remember the two sides of the lesson taught by General Slocum’s life. A successful war for unrighteousness is the most dreadful of all things; it is the thing that sets back more than aught else the course of civilization. But no people worth preserving ever existed or will exist that was not able to fight well if the need arose. So it is with the individual. The man who possesses great ability and great courage unaccompanied by the moral sense, a courage and ability unguided by the stern purpose to do what is just and upright, that man is rendered by the very fact of his courage and ability only so much the greater menace to the community in which he unfortunately dwells. We can not afford as a people ever to forget for one moment that ability, farsightedness, iron resolution, perseverance, willingness to do and dare, are qualities to be admired only if they are put at the service of the right, at the service of decency and of justice. The man who possesses those qualities and does not shape his course by a fundamental and underlying moral principle is a menace to each and all of us; and thrice foolish, thrice wicked is the other man who condones his moral shortcomings because of his intellectual or physical strength and prowess.

But it is equally important to remember that no amount of good intention, no amount of sweetness and light, no amount of appreciation of decency avails in the least in the rough work of the world as we find it, unless back of the honesty of purpose, back of the decency of life and thought, lies the power that makes a man a man. This is true of the individual and it is true of the Nation. It is absolutely essential that this Nation, if it is to hold the position in the future that it has held in the past, must act not only within but without its own borders in a spirit of justice and of large generosity toward all other peoples. We owe this as an obligation to ourselves, we owe it as an obligation to all mankind. More and more as we increase in strength I hope to see a corresponding increase in the sober sense of responsibility which shall prevent us either injuring or insulting any other people. You may notice that I said “insulting” as well as “injuring.” If there is one quality sometimes shown among us which is not commendable it is the habit of speaking loosely about foreign powers, foreign races. You do not need any of you to be told that in private life you will often resent an insult quite as much as an injury; and our public speakers and writers need to steadily keep before their minds the thought that no possible good can come to us by speaking offensively of any one else; while trouble may come.

It has been well said that the surest way for a nation to invite disaster is to be opulent, aggressive, and unarmed. Now, we are opulent, and I hope we shall remain so. I trust that we shall never be aggressive unless aggression is not merely justified, but demanded; demanded either by our own self-respect or by the interests of mankind. But above all, let us remember that to be aggressive in speech or act, and not to be armed, invites not merely disaster, but the contempt of mankind.

Brooklyn not only furnished valiant soldiers to the Civil War, but it furnished in time of peace a most excellent Secretary of the Navy of the United States, General Tracy. If our navy is good enough, we have a long career of peace before us. The only likelihood of trouble ever coming to us as a nation will arise if we let our navy become too small or inefficient. A first-class navy—first-class in point of size, above all first-class in point of efficiency of the individual units acting as units and in combination—is the surest and the cheapest guarantee of peace. I should think that any man looking at what is happening and what has happened abroad and in our own history during the past few years, must be indeed blind if he can not read that lesson clearly.

General Slocum did his first great public service when the crisis called not primarily for the softer and milder, but for the sterner and harder virtues; and we can not afford in this day of material luxury, in this day when civilization tends to make life easy, to ignore those hard and stern virtues. In the workaday world as it is, not only in war, but in private life and in public life alike, a man has to have toughness of fibre or he can not put into effect even the best of intentions. We can not afford to let the generation that is coming grow up with the feeling that any quality will serve as a substitute for the old, essential qualities of manliness in a man and womanliness in a woman.

Much, very much, has been done in this country by education. No one can overstate the debt that this country is under to the educators; but in taking advantage of all the improved methods let us not forget that there are certain qualities which are not new, which are eternal because they are eternally true, the failure to develop which will cause a loss that can not be offset by any merely intellectual or mental gain. A sound body is a first-class thing, a sound mind is an even better thing, but the thing that counts for most in the individual as in the Nation is character—the sum of those qualities which make a man a good man and a woman a good woman. You men of the Civil War, you men to whom this country owes more than to any others, no matter how great the service of those others may be (because to you this country owes its life), you won the place you did, you won for this country its salvation, because you had in you those qualities which in the aggregate we know by the name of character, the qualities which made you put material gain, material well-being, not merely below, but immeasurably below devotion to an ideal, when the crisis called for showing your manhood.

You went to the war leaving those behind who would make more money, but carrying with you in your hearts the honor and the future of a mighty Nation. You had, in the first place, the right spirit, and then you had the quality of making that spirit evident in the time of need. If you had not had patriotism, devotion to the country and to the flag, you could have done nothing. But you could not have done much more if your patriotism, your devotion to the flag, had not been backed up by the power to show that your metal rang true in battle.

You showed in times that tried men’s souls what this country has a right to expect from its sons. You had the supreme good fortune to test your manhood in one of the two great crises of the Nation’s history, the great crisis in which the Nation was born in the days of 1776, and the no less great crisis in which the Nation was saved by the men of 1861. You have left us not merely a reunited country, but you have left us the glorious heritage of the memory of the exploits, of the qualities by which the country was left reunited.

Our days have fallen, for our good fortune, in times of peace. We have not had to show the qualities that you showed in the dark years that closed in the sunburst of Appomattox; but if we are to leave undimmed to our children the heritage that you left to us, we must show in peace, and, should the need ever arise, in war also, the qualities that you showed; the qualities that make it now the pleasantest of all tasks for a public servant who appreciates the greatness of America to come on an occasion like this and see the people of a great city dedicate a monument in honor of a great citizen, who, at every point of his career, illustrated what the name American should be when it is used in its highest, its deepest, and its best significance.

AT THE NAVAL BRANCH, Y. M. C. A., BROOKLYN, N. Y., MAY 30, 1905

_Officers and Enlisted Men of the United States Navy; and you, Friends
of the Navy, for if you are good Americans, you can be nothing else_:

I made up my mind to-day that, although there were very many invitations extended to me in addition to that because of which I first agreed to come here, there was just one which I could not refuse, and that was to come to this building and meet you here. I do not have to tell you that I believe in the navy of the United States with all my heart, and that I believe in that which counts most in the navy, the officers and enlisted men, the man behind the gun; the man in the conning tower, in the gun turret, in the engine room, the man, wherever he is, if he is doing his duty.

We owe a peculiar debt of gratitude to those who have taken the lead in securing this building. The people of the United States should make it their especial duty to see to the welfare, moral even more than physical, of the men upon whose exertions, upon whose skill, training, and prowess, upon whose character in time of crisis the honor of the entire Nation will depend. All respect is due to those who, led by Miss Gould, have erected this building, who have given expression to the spirit which lies behind the building up of everything of this nature. It shows that we are fortunately past the period when we are afraid that if we make a man too decent he will not fight well enough.

I have had a good deal of experience in civil life, and I have never yet found any job in civil life to which, other things being equal, I did not prefer to appoint a man who had seen service in the navy or army of the United States; because he has learned, if he is worth his salt, certain qualities which double and treble his value in whatever position he may be put. Therefore, not only for his sake do we owe it to him to see that he has every chance to lead a wholesome and manly life, but we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the Nation of which we are all part, to see that that man’s capacities for good are given the fullest chance for development. And much though I believe in the Y. M. C. A., and in kindred organizations generally, I believe in them most when they take such shape as this.

Now, a special word to you upon whom so heavy a responsibility rests; because it depends upon the way you do your duty in peace as to whether or not, should ever the need for war arise, our flag will receive credit or discredit at your hands, or at the hands of your successors. I can not too often say, in speaking to civilians, what every naval man knows, that in battle those win who have prepared best for the battle beforehand. I have seen to-day men who fought at Manila and men who fought off Santiago. In both places we won, and we won hands down. We won because the shots that hit were those that counted; because the men on our ships knew how to handle them alone and in squadron, knew how to get the best speed out of them, and how to do decent shooting with them. I want you to notice I said decent shooting. I did not say it was first-class. I think most of you are doing first-class shooting now; and I would be mightily ashamed of you if you did not do better than was done seven years ago; and I shall be ashamed of you if you don’t do even better in the future.

Nothing has given Americans a better right to satisfaction than the way in which the target practice of the average American ship has improved, until I think we can fairly say that there are certain gun crews and certain individual gun pointers who have reached as high a degree of excellence as it is possible for any man to reach. The gun crew counts for more than its individual pointer. You might have all the individual shots you could gather, and they would not be worth a rap if they could not act together, if they did not act so as to subordinate in the mind of each man the success of that particular man to the success for which they all stood.

More and more our people are waking up to the need of a navy. I think in view of events now happening all over the world that we can count upon having Congress continue to build up our navy. It is all-important that we should have ships, the best in hull, the best in armor, the best in armament, of any nation in the world. But there is something that is more important still, and that is the character of you men to whom I am speaking here, and of your comrades in the navy. You can do nothing without the proper training, but the training will not do very much if there is not the right stuff in you to train. I wish a big navy; but I wish still more a navy first class for its size. Every warship which is not first class in efficiency becomes in battle not a help to the Nation, but a menace to the national honor. If the officers and enlisted men are not trained to the highest point, then the best ships are useless; and it is better to have none than to have useless ships.