To do our duty—that is the sum and substance of the whole matter. We are not trying to win glory. We are not trying to do anything especially brilliant or unusual. We are setting ourselves vigorously at each task as the task arises, and we are trying to face each difficulty as Grant faced innumerable and infinitely greater difficulties. The sure way to succeed is to set about our work in the spirit that marked the great soldier whose life we this day celebrate: the spirit of devotion to duty, of determination to deal fairly, justly, and fearlessly with all men, and of iron resolution never to abandon any task once begun until it has been brought to a successful and triumphant conclusion. THE TWO AMERICAS SPEECH AT THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION, BUFFALO, MAY 20, 1901 To-day we formally open this great exposition by the shores of the mighty inland seas of the North, where all the peoples of the Western Hemisphere have joined to show what they have done in art, science, and industrial invention, what they have been able to accomplish with their manifold resources and their infinitely varied individual and national qualities. Such an exposition, held at the opening of this new century, inevitably suggests two trains of thought. It should make us think seriously and solemnly of our several duties to one another as citizens of the different nations of this Western Hemisphere, and also of our duties each to the nation to which he personally belongs. The century upon which we have just entered must inevitably be one of tremendous triumph or of tremendous failure for the whole human race, because, to an infinitely greater extent than ever before, humanity is knit together in all its parts, for weal or woe. All about us there are innumerable tendencies that tell for good, and innumerable tendencies that tell for evil. It is, of course, a mere truism to say that our own acts must determine which set of tendencies shall overcome the other. In order to act wisely we must first see clearly. There is no place among us for the mere pessimist; no man who looks at life with a vision that sees all things black or gray can do aught healthful in molding the destiny of a mighty and vigorous people. But there is just as little use for the foolish optimist who refuses to face the many and real evils that exist, and who fails to see that the only way to ensure the triumph of righteousness in the future is to war against all that is base, weak, and unlovely in the present.