Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 3 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 3 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
One hundred and eight years ago, just before he left the Presidency, he
issued his farewell address, and in it he laid down certain principles
which he believed should guide the citizens of this Republic for all
time to come, his own words being “which appear to me all-important to
the permanency of your felicity as a people.”
Washington, though in some ways an even greater man than Lincoln, did
not have Lincoln’s wonderful gift of expression—that gift which makes
certain speeches of the rail-splitter from Illinois read like the
inspired utterances of the great Hebrew seers and prophets. But he had
all of Lincoln’s sound common-sense, farsightedness, and devotion to a
lofty ideal. Like Lincoln he sought after the noblest objects, and like
Lincoln he sought after them by thoroughly practical methods. These two
greatest Americans can fairly be called the best among the great men of
the world, and greatest among the good men of the world. Each showed in
actual practice his capacity to secure under our system the priceless
union of individual liberty with governmental strength. Each was as
free from the vices of the tyrant as from the vices of the demagogue.
To each the empty futility of the mere doctrinaire was as alien as the
baseness of the merely self-seeking politician. Each was incapable
alike of the wickedness which seeks by force of arms to wrong others
and of the no less criminal weakness which fails to provide effectively
against being wronged by others.
Among Washington’s maxims which he bequeathed to his countrymen were
the two following: “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations,”
and “To be prepared for war is the most effective means to promote
peace.” These two principles taken together should form the basis of
our whole foreign policy. Neither is sufficient taken by itself. It is
not merely an idle dream, but a most mischievous dream, to believe that
mere refraining from wrongdoing will ensure us against being wronged.
Yet, on the other hand, a nation prepared for war is a menace to
mankind unless the national purpose is to treat other nations with good
faith and justice. In any community it is neither the conscientious man
who is a craven at heart, nor yet the bold and strong man without the
moral sense, who is of real use to the community; it is the man who to
strength and courage adds a realizing sense of the moral obligation
resting upon him, the man who has not only the desire but the power to
do his full duty by his neighbor and by the State. So, in the world at
large, the nation which is of use in the progress of mankind is that
nation which combines strength of character, force of character, and
insistence upon its own rights, with a full acknowledgment of its own
duties toward others. Just at present the best way in which we can
show that our loyalty to the teachings of Washington is a loyalty of
the heart and not of the lips only is to see to it that the work of
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