things that we are commanded to do. Ready both
in body and in soul; that means that we must
fit ourselves physically and mentally, fit ourselves
to work with the weapons necessary for dealing
with this life no less than with the higher, spiritual
weapons; fit ourselves thus to do the work com-
manded; and moreover, to do it cheerfully. Small
is our use for the man who individually helps any
of us and shows that he does it grudgingly. We
had rather not be helped than be helped in such
fashion. A favor extended in a manner which
shows that the man is sorry that he has to grant
it is robbed, sometimes of all, and sometimes of
more than all, its benefit. So. in serving the Lord,
if we serve him, if we serve the cause of decency,'
the cause of righteousness, in a way that impresses
others with the fact that we are sad in doing it,
our service is robbed of an immense proportion of
its efficacy. We have a right to ask a cheerful
heart, a right to ask a buoyant and cheerful spirit
among those to whom is granted the inestimable
privilege of doing the Lord's work in this world.
The chance to do work, the duty to do work is not
a penalty; it is a privilege. Let me quote a sen-
Sā Vol. XIV
49^ Presidential Addresses
tence that I have quoted once before: "In this Hfe
the man who wins to any goal worth winning almost
always comes to that goal with a burden bound on
his shoulders." The man who does best in this world,
the woman who does best, almost inevitably does
it because he or she carries some burden. Life is
so constituted that the man or the woman who has
not some responsibility is thereby deprived of the
deepest happiness that can come to mankind, be-
cause each and every one of us, if he or she is fit to
live in the world must be conscious that responsi-
bility always rests on him or on her ā the responsi-
bility of duty toward those dependent upon us; the
responsibility of duty toward our famiHes, toward
our friends, toward our fellow-citizens ; the respon-
sibility of duty to wife and child, to the state, to the
church. Not only can no man shirk some or all of
those responsibilities, but no man worth his salt will
wish to shirk them. On the contrary, he will wel-
come thrice over the fortune that puts them upon
him.
In closing, I want to call your attention to some-
thing that is especially my business for the time
being, and that is measurably your business all the
time, or else you are unfit to be citizens of this
Republic. In the seventh hymn which we sung, in
the last line, you all joined in singing "God save the
State!" Do you intend merely to sing that, or to
try to do it? If you intend merely to sing it, your
part in doing it will be but small. The State will
be saved, if the Lord puts it into the heart of the
And State Papers 499
average man so to shape his life that the State shall
be worth saving, and only on those terms. We
need civic righteousness. The best constitution that
the wit of man has ever devised, the best institu-
tions that the ablest statesmen in the world have
ever reduced to practice by law or by custom, all
these shall be of no avail if they are not vivified
by the spirit which makes a State great by making
its citizens honest, just, and brave. I do not ask
you as practical believers in applied Christianity to
take part one way or the other in matters that are
merely partisan. There are plenty of questions
about which honest men can and do differ very
greatly and very intensely, but as to which the
triumph of either side may be compatible with the
welfare of the State ā a lesser degree of welfare or
a greater degree of welfare ā but compatible with
the welfare of the State. But there are certain
great principles, such as those which Cromwell
would have called "fundamentals," concerning which
no man has a right to have more than one opinion.
Such a question is honesty. If you have not hon-
esty in the average private citizen, in the average
public servant, then all else goes for nothing. The
abler a man is, the more dexterous, the shrewder,
the bolder, why the more dangerous he is if he has
not the root of right living and right thinking in
him ā and that in private life, and even more in
public life. Exactly as in time of war, although
you need in each fighting man far more than cour-
age, yet all else counts for nothing if there is not
500 Presidential Addresses
that courage upon which to base it, so in our civil
life, although we need that the average man in
private life, that the average public servant, shall
have far more than honesty, yet all other qualities
go for nothing or for worse than nothing unless
honesty underlies them ā honesty in public life and
honesty in private life; not only the honesty that
keeps its skirts technically clear, but the honesty that
is such according to the spirit as well as the letter
of the law; the honesty that is aggressive, the hon-
esty that not merely deplores corruption ā it is easy
enough to deplore corruption ā but that wars against
it and tramples it under foot. I ask for that type
of honesty, I ask for miHtant honesty, for the hon-
esty of the kind that makes those who have it dis-
contented with themselves as long as they have
failed to do everything that in them lies to stamp
out dishonesty wherever it can be found, in high
place or in low. And let us not flatter ourselves,
we who live in countries where the people rule that
it is ultimately possible for the people to cast upon
any but themselves the responsibilities for the shape
the government and the social and political life of
the community assumes. I ask then that our peo-
ple feel quickened within them burning indignation
against wrong in every shape, and condemnation of
that wrong, whether found in private or in public
life. We have a right to demand courage of every
man who wears the uniform; it is not so much a
credit to him to have it as it is shame unutterable
to him if he lacks it. So when we demand honesty,
And State Papers 501
we demand it not as entitling the possessor to
praise, but as warranting the heartiest condemna-
tion possible if he lacks it. Surely in every move-
ment for the betterment of our life, our life social
in the truest and deepest sense, our life political, we
have a special right to ask not merely support but
leadership from those of the Church. We ask that
you here to whom much has been given will re-
member that from you rightly much will be ex-
pected in return. For all of us here the lines have
been cast in pleasant places. Each of us has been
given one talent, or five, or ten talents, and each of
us is in honor bound to use that talent or those
talents aright, and to show at the end that he is
entitled to the praise of having done well as a faith-
ful servant.
I greet you this afternoon, and am glad to see
you here, and I trust and believe that after this
service every one of us will go home feeling that
he or she has been warranted in coming here by
the way in which he or she, after going home, takes
up with fresh heart, with fresh courage, and with
fresh and higher purpose the burden of life as that
burden has been given to him or to her to carry.
AT THE CENTENNIAL EXERCISES IN THE
N. Y. AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
WASHINGTON, D. C, NOV. 16, 1903
Mr. Justice:
Let me first express the appreciation that all of
us feel to Professor McMaster for his exceedingly
502 Presidential Addresses
interesting address ; and the address showed why he
can justly claim to be the historian of the people of
the United States, for what he has told us was what
the people did, not merely what the outward forms
and observances were, but what the life of the peo-
ple was a century ago. And, Mr. Justice, I think
that the recital has left in the minds of all of us
the feeling that while we revere our ancestors, we
are not wholly discontented that we live in the pres-
ent day.
To each generation comes its allotted task; and
no generation is to be excused for failure to per-
form that task. No generation can claim as an ex-
cuse for such failure the fact that it is not guilty
of the sins of the preceding generation. It was a
surprise to me, I suppose it was a surprise to many
of us, to realize that a hundred years ago, in the
days of the fathers, the lot of the poor debtor was
so hard. It seems incredible to us now that there
should have been such callousness to the undeserved
human suffering then. I hope sincerely that a cen-
tury hence it will seem equally incredible to the
American of that generation that there should be
corruption and venality in public life. We can di-
vide, and must divide, on party lines as regards
certain questions ; as regards the deepest, as regards
the vital questions, we can not afford to divide, and
I have the right to challenge the best effort of every
American worthy of the name to putting down by
every means in his power corruption in private life,
and above all corruption in public life. And, re-
And State Papers 503
member, you, the people of this government by the
people, that while the public servant, the legislator,
the executive officer, the judge, are not to be ex-
cused if they fall short of their duty, yet that their
doing their duty can not avail unless you do yours.
In the last resort we have to depend upon the jury
drawn from the people to convict the scoundrel who
has tainted our public life; and unless that jury
does its duty, unless it is backed by the public
sentiment of the people, all the work of legis-
lator, of executive officer, of judicial officer, are
for naught.
Mr. Justice, a man would be a poor citizen of this
country if he could sit in Abraham Lincoln's pew
and not feel the solemn sense of the associations
borne in upon him ; and I wish to thank the people
of this church for that reverence for the historic
past, for the sense of historic continuity, which has
made them keep this pew unchanged. I hope it
will remain unchanged in this church as long as
our country endures. We have not too many
monuments of the past; let us keep every little
bit of association with that which is highest and
best of the past as a reminder to us, equally of
what we owe to those who have gone before and of
how we should show our appreciation. This even-
ing I sit in this pew of Abraham Lincoln's, to-
gether with Abraham Lincoln's private secretary,
who, for my good fortune, now serves as Secretary
of State in my Cabinet.
If ever there lived a President who during his
504 Presidential Addresses
term of service needed all of the consolation and
of the strength that he could draw from the unseen
powers above him, it was Abraham Lincoln, who
worked and suffered for the people, and when he
had lived for them to good end gave his life at the
end. If ever there was a man who practically ap-
plied what was taught in our churches, it was Abra-
ham Lincoln. The other day I was rereading ā on
the suggestion of Mr. Hay ā a little speech not often
quoted of his, yet which seems to me one of the
most remarkable that he ever made; delivered right
after his re-election, I think, to a body of serenaders
who had come, if my memory is correct, from Mary-
land, and called for an address from him from the
White House. It is extraordinary to read that
speech, and to realize that the man who made it
had just come successfully through a great political
contest in which he felt that so much was at stake
for the Nation that he had no time to think whether
or not anything was at stake for himself. The
speech is devoid of the least shade of bitterness.
There is not a word of unseemly triumph over those
who have been defeated. There is not a word of
glorification of himself, or in any improper sense
of his party. There is an earnest appeal, now that
the election is over, now that the civic strife has
been completed, for all decent men who love the
country to join together in service to the country;
and in the speech he uses a thoroughly Lincoln-like
phrase when he says "I have not willingly planted
a thorn in the breast of any man," thus trying to
And State Papers 505
make clear that he has nothing to say against any
opponent, no bitterness toward any opponent; that
all he wishes is that those who opposed him should
join with those who favored him in working toward
a common end. In reading his works and ad-
dresses, one is struck by the fact that as he went
higher and higher all personal bitterness seemed to
die out of him. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates one
can still catch now and then a note of personal an-
tagonism; the man was in the arena, and as the
blows were given and taken you can see that now
and then he had a feeling against his antagonist.
When he became President and faced the crisis that
he had to face, from that time on I do not think that
you can find an expression, a speech, a word of Lin-
coln's, written or spoken, in which bitterness is
shown to any man. His devotion to the cause was
so great that he neither could nor would have feel-
ing against any individual.
In closing, Mr. Justice, in thanking you of this
church, the church so closely kindred to my own
Dutch Reformed Church, in thanking you for
asking me here, let me say how peculiarly glad
I am that in the chair sits one man, a Justice of
the Supreme Court, and that I could be escorted
here by another man, who has just severed his con-
nection with one of the highest places in the United
States Army, both of whom ā you. Justice Harlan,
you, General Breckinridge ā had enjoyed the won-
derful privilege of proving by their deeds the faith
that was in them in the days that tried men's souls;
5o6 Presidential Addresses
both of whom did their part in holding up the hands
of mighty Lincoln, and both of whom were born in
the State of Lincoln's birth.
REMARKS TO THE DELEGATES OF THE GER-
MAN SOCIETIES RECEIVED AT THE WHITE
HOUSE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1903
Mr. Voelckner, and Gentlemen:
It gives me peculiar pleasure to greet you to-day ;
and it is a matter of real regret to me that I can
not attend formally your celebration.
You are quite right, Mr. Chairman, when you
speak of the stand that the German element in our
citizenship has always taken in all crises of our
national life. In the first place, from the beginning
of our colonial history to this day, the German
strain has been constantly increasing in importance
among the many strains that go to make up our
composite national character. I do not have to
repeat to you the story of the early German im-
migration to this country ā the German immigra-
tion that began in a mass toward the end of the
seventeenth century, but before that time had been
represented among the very first settlers. Allow
me to give you one bit of ancestral experience of
mine. The first head of the New York City Gov-
ernment who was of German birth was Leisler,
about the year 1680. He w^as the representative
of the popular faction in the New York colony of
that day, and among the Leislerian aldermen was
a forbear of mine named Roosevelt. You are en-
And State Papers 507
tirely familiar, of course, with the German immi-
gration that went to the formation of Pennsylvania
from the beginning. That element was equally
strong in the Mohawk Valley in New York; it
was equally strong in Middle and Western Mary-
land. For instance, in the Revolutionary War, one
of the distinguished figures contributed by New
York to the cause of independence was that of the
German Herkimer, whose fight in the Mohawk Val-
ley represented one of the turning points in the
struggle for independence; and one of the New
York counties is now named after him. The other
day I went out to the battlefield of Antietam, here
in Maryland. There the Memorial Church is the
German Lutheran Church, which was founded in
1768, the settlement in the neighborhood of An-
tietam being originally exclusively a German set-
tlement. There is a list of its pastors, and curi-
ously enough a series of memorial windows of men
with German names ā men who belonged to the
Maryland regiment recruited largely from that re-
gion for the Civil War, which Maryland regiment
was mainly composed of men of German extraction.
In the Civil War it would be difficult to paint in too
strong colors what I may well-nigh call the all-
importance of the attitude of the American citizens
of German birth and extraction toward the cause
of Union and Liberty, especially in what were then
known as the border States. It would have been
out of the question to have kept Missouri loyal
had it not been for the German element therein.
5o8 Presidential Addresses
It was the German portion of the city of St. Louis
which formed the core of the Union cause in Mis-
souri. And but httle less important was the part
played by the Germans in Maryland, and also in
Louisville and other portions of Kentucky.
Each body of immigrants, each element that has
thus been added to our national strain, has contri-
buted something of value to the national character;
and to no element do we owe more than we owe
to that element represented by those whom I have
the honor this day of addressing.
White House, Washington,
October i8, 1902
My dear Mrs. Van Vorst :
I must write you a line to say how much I have
appreciated your article, "The Woman who Toils."
But to me there is a most melancholy side to it,
when you touch upon what is fundamentally infi-
nitely more important than any other question in this
country ā that is, the question of race suicide, com-
plete or partial.
An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a desire to
be "independent," that is, to live one's life purely
according to one's own desires, are in no sense sub-
stitutes for the fundamental virtues, for the prac-
tice of the strong racial qualities without which
there can be no strong races ā the qualities of cour-
age and resolution in both men and women, of
scorn of what is mean, base, and selfish, of eager
And State Papers 509
desire to work or fight or suffer as the case may
be, provided the end to be gained is great enough,
and the contemptuous putting aside of mere ease,
mere vapid pleasure, mere avoidance of toil and
worry. I do not know whether I most pity or
despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who
does not understand that the only things really worth
having in life are those the acquirement of which
normally means cost and effort. If a man or
woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes
throughout life denied those highest of all joys
which spring only from home life, from the having
and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel
for them deep and respectful sympathy; the sym-
pathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the
beginning of a campaign, or the man who toils hard
and is brought to ruin by the fault of others. But
the man or woman who deliberately avoids mar-
riage and has a heart so cold as to know no passion
and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike
having children, is in effect a criminal against the
race and should be an object of contemptuous ab-
horrence by all healthy people.
Of course no one quality makes a good citizen,
and no one quality will save a nation. But there
are certain great qualities for the lack of which no
amount of intellectual brilliancy or of material pros-
perity or of easiness of life can atone, and which
show decadence and corruption in the nation, just
as much if they are produced by selfishness and
coldness and ease-loving laziness among compara-
5IO Presidential Addresses
lively poor people as if they are produced by vicious
or frivolous luxury in the rich. If the men of the
nation are not anxious to work in many different
ways, with all their might and strength, and ready
and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers
of families, and if the women do not recognize that
the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good
wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be
alarmed about its future.
There is no physical trouble among us Ameri-
cans. The trouble with the situation you set forth
is one of character, and therefore we can conquer
it if we only will.
Very sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt
Mrs. Bessie Van Vorst,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Personal. White House, Washington,
_, ^ November 26, 1002
My dear Sir :
I am in receipt of your letter of November 10
and of one from Mr, under date of November
II, in reference to the appointment of Dr. Crum
as collector of the Port of Charleston.
In your letter you make certain specific charges
against Dr. Crum, tending to show his unfitness in
several respects for the office sought. These charges
are entitled to the utmost consideration from me
and I shall go over them carefully before taking
any action. After making these charges you add,
And State Papers 511
as a furtlier reason for opposition to him, that he
is a colored man, and after reciting the misdeeds
that followed carpet-bag rule and negro domina-
tion in South Carolina, you say that "we have sworn
never again to submit to the rule of the African,
and such an appointment as that of Dr. Crum to
any such office forces us to protest unanimously
against this insult to the white blood" ; and you add
that you understood me to say that I would never
force a negro on such a community as yours. Mr.
puts the objection of color first, saying: "First,
he is a colored man, and that of itself ought to
bar him from the office." In view of these last
statements, I think I ought to make clear to you
why I am concerned and pained by your making
them and what my attitude is as regards all such
appointments. How any one could have gained the
idea that I had said I would not appoint reputable
and upright colored men to office, when objection was
made to them solely on account of their color, I con-
fess I am wholly unable to understand. At the time
of my visit to Charleston last spring, I had made,
and since that time I have made, a number of such
appointments from several States in which there is
a considerable colored population. For example, I
made one such appointment in Mississippi, and an-
other in Alabama, shortly before my visit to Charles-
ton. I had at that time appointed two colored men
as judicial magistrates in the District of Columbia.
I have recently announced another such appoint-
ment for New Orleans, and have just made one
5^2 Presidential Addresses
from Pennsylvania. The great majority of my
appointments in every State have been of white
men. North and South alike it has been my sedu-
lous endeavor to appoint only men of high charac-
ter and good capacity, whether white or black. But
it has been my consistent policy in every State where
their numbers warranted it to recognize colored men
of good repute and standing in making appoint-
ments to office. These appointments of colored men
have in no State made more than a small proportion
of the total number of appointments. I am unable
to see how I can legitimately be asked to make an
exception for South Carolina. In South Carolina,
to the four most important positions in the State
I have appointed three men and continued in office
a fourth, all of them white men ā three of them
originally Gold Democrats ā two of them, as I am
informed, the sons of Confederate soldiers. I have
been informed by the citizens of Charleston whom I
have met that these four men represent a high grade
of public service.
I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office.
So far as I legitimately can I shall always endeavor
to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the
people of each locality ; but I can not consent to take
the position that the door of hope ā the door of op-
portunity ā is to be shut upon any man, no matter
how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or
color. Such an attitude would, according to my
convictions, be fundamentally wrong. If, as you
hold, the great bulk of the colored people are not
And State Papers s^3
yet fit in point of character and influence to hold
such positions, it seems to me that it is worth while
putting a premium upon the effort among them to
achieve the character and standing which will fit
them.
The question of "negro domination" does not
enter into the matter at all. It might as well be
asserted that when I was Governor of New York
I sought to bring about negro domination in that
State because I appointed two colored men of good
character and standing . to responsible positions ā
one of them to a position paying a salary twice as
large as that paid in the office now under considera-