United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
That is the ideal of a government like ours, and an interesting thing is
that if you only talk about an idea that will not work long enough,
everybody will see perfectly plainly that it will not work; whereas, if
you do not talk about it, and do not have a great many people talk about
it, you are in danger of having the people who handle it think that it
will work. Many minds are necessary to compound a workable method of
life in a various and populous country; and as I think about the whole
thing and picture the purposes, the infinitely difficult and complex
purposes which we must conceive and carry out, not only does it
minister to my own modesty, I hope, of opinion, but it also fills me
with a very great enthusiasm. It is a splendid thing to be part of a
great wide-awake Nation. It is a splendid thing to know that your own
strength is infinitely multiplied by the strength of other men who love
the country as you do. It is a splendid thing to feel that the wholesome
blood of a great country can be united in common purposes, and that by
frankly looking one another in the face and taking counsel with one
another, prejudices will drop away, handsome understandings will arise,
a universal spirit of service will be engendered, and that with this
increased sense of community of purpose will come a vastly enhanced
individual power of achievement; for we will be lifted by the whole mass
of which we constitute a part.
Have you never heard a great chorus of trained voices lift the voice of
the prima donna as if it soared with easy grace above the whole
melodious sound? It does not seem to come from the single throat that
produces it. It seems as if it were the perfect accent and crown of the
great chorus. So it ought to be with the statesman. So it ought to be
with every man who tries to guide the counsels of a great nation. He
should feel that his voice is lifted upon the chorus and that it is only
the crown of the common theme.
[G] This was at Princeton, in 1902 and 1903.
TO NATURALIZED CITIZENS
[Address delivered at Convention Hall, Philadelphia, May 10, 1915. The
audience included four thousand newly naturalized citizens. This speech
attracted great attention because in it no reference was made to the
sinking of the "Lusitania," three days before.]
MR. MAYOR, FELLOW-CITIZENS:
It warms my heart that you should give me such a reception; but it is
not of myself that I wish to think to-night, but of those who have just
become citizens of the United States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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