with their ships. That is all right; if there is nothing else to be done, go down with the ships rather than surrender. But try to make the other fellow’s ship go down first! I want our people to feel that in assuming to dig the Isthmian canal, in assuming the position we have assumed as regards this Western Hemisphere and in the Oriental seas, we bind ourselves to keep our navy at such a point of efficiency that there shall be no chance of humiliation at the hands of any foreign foe. I appreciate immensely this mighty outpouring of people. The Mayor in his most gratifying and touching speech spoke of the fact of our agreement on the fundamental questions, without regard to our differences on what are really matters only of political detail. The things that count are the things upon which we are all agreed and must be all agreed in our civic life. Whether President, Governor, Mayor, Congressman, or State Legislator, there are certain basic principles to which we must prove true if we are to make this country what it shall be made. We can perfectly well afford to differ about the currency or the tariff; but we can not afford to differ about such questions as honesty in public life, decency and cleanliness in private life. Those qualities and others like them go to the root of the whole question of citizenship. I believe in the future of this country; I believe that this great self-governing Republic will rise to a height never even dreamed of by any other nation, because I believe that the average American citizen, North or South, East or West, has the right stuff in him; that the average American citizen has the three fundamental virtues of honesty, courage, and common-sense. AT THE ALABAMA CONFERENCE FEMALE COLLEGE, TUSKEGEE, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905 _Mr. Mayor; and you, My Friends and Fellow Americans_: