Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 2 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 2 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
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 people 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, we demand it not as entitling
the possessor to praise, but as warranting the heartiest condemnation
possible if he lacks it. Surely in every movement 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 remember that from you rightly much will be
expected 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 faithful 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 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 people 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 present day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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