I congratulate the people of Brooklyn, not primarily upon raising this statue, because that they ought to do, but upon the opportunity, upon the chance of having it to raise. I congratulate them upon the good fortune of having a fellow-citizen who in war and in peace alike served his people so well as to make it their duty, not so much to him as to themselves, to erect this statue that it might serve as a lesson for the generations to come. And, my fellow-citizens, I am sure we all realize the peculiar appropriateness of having the statue of General Slocum received on behalf of the city of New York by its chief magistrate, whose father was General Slocum’s illustrious commander. Surely there is need for me to say but little in emphasis of what has been set forth before I began to speak as to the prime significance of General Slocum’s career. He was a fine soldier, a gallant and able commander. Once the war was over he turned as whole-heartedly to the pursuits of peace as he had during the war turned to the strife of arms. General Slocum was one of those men on whose career we are fortunately able to dwell in its entirety. We do not have to dwell with emphasis on part of it because we do not care to speak of another part of it. We are able to point to General Slocum as the type of what a decent American citizen should be, as a man who was an example in his family life, an example in his business relations, an honest and upright public servant, no less than a tried and fearless soldier. Now I want our people to remember the two sides of the lesson taught by General Slocum’s life. A successful war for unrighteousness is the most dreadful of all things; it is the thing that sets back more than aught else the course of civilization. But no people worth preserving ever existed or will exist that was not able to fight well if the need arose. So it is with the individual. The man who possesses great ability and great courage unaccompanied by the moral sense, a courage and ability unguided by the stern purpose to do what is just and upright, that man is rendered by the very fact of his courage and ability only so much the greater menace to the community in which he unfortunately dwells. We can not afford as a people ever to forget for one moment that ability, farsightedness, iron resolution, perseverance, willingness to do and dare, are qualities to be admired only if they are put at the service of the right, at the service of decency and of justice. The man who possesses those qualities and does not shape his course by a fundamental and underlying moral principle is a menace to each and all of us; and thrice foolish, thrice wicked is the other man who condones his moral shortcomings because of his intellectual or physical strength and prowess.