“Because of your attitude, I earnestly approve your work. The safety of this country depends upon our immediate, serious, and vigorous efforts to square our words with our deeds, and to secure our own national rehabilitation. The slumbering patriotism of our people must be waked and translated into concrete and efficient action. The awakening must be to a sense of national and international duty and responsibility.” After going into greater length as to his personal principles and opinions, Mr. Roosevelt continues: “Our citizens must act as Americans, not as Americans with a prefix and qualifications.... Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin. The timid man who cannot fight, and the selfish, short-sighted or foolish man who will not take the steps that will enable him to fight, stand on almost the same plane. Preparedness deters the foe and maintains right by the show of ready might without the use of violence. Peace, like Freedom, is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards, or of those too feeble or too short-sighted to deserve it, and we ask to be given the means to insure that honorable peace which alone is worth having.” In answering from other sources the same suggestion--namely, that he should take anew the leadership and be himself the nominee against President Wilson--he boldly replied that he doubted if it would be wise to name him, for if he should be named, his followers would have to be in a “heroic mood.” On May 31 he announced: “I speak for universal service based on universal training. Universal training and universal service represent the only service and training a democracy should accept.... Performance of international duty to others means that in international affairs, in the commonwealth of nations, we shall not only refrain from wronging the weak, but, according to our capacity and as opportunity offers, we should stand up for the weak when the weak are wronged by the strong.” Every speech by Colonel Roosevelt had again become the subject of national discussion, and as the Democratic policy began to shape itself, each position taken by the Republican party, as well as by the Progressive party, followed the lines laid down in some speech made by Colonel Roosevelt. By this time he had fully come to realize that, if it were possible to defeat the policies which, from his standpoint, were lulling the country into ignoble avoidance of its national and international duty, such defeat could only be brought about by the amalgamation of the Progressive and Republican parties, a result extremely difficult to accomplish.