The Strenuous Life: The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume 12 (of 14)Roosevelt, Theodore
General
The Strenuous Life: The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume 12 (of 14)
Roosevelt, Theodore
United States -- Colonial question; United States -- Politics and government
In the first place, you have left us the right of brotherhood with
the gallant men who wore the gray in the ranks against which you were
pitted. At the opening of this new century, all of us, the children
of a reunited country, have a right to glory in the countless deeds
of valor done alike by the men of the North and the men of the South.
We can retain an ever-growing sense of the all-importance, not merely
to our people but to mankind, of the Union victory, while giving the
freest and heartiest recognition to the sincerity and self-devotion of
those Americans, our fellow-countrymen, who then fought against the
stars in their courses. Now there is none left, North or South, who
does not take joy and pride in the Union; and when three years ago we
once more had to face a foreign enemy, the heart of every true American
thrilled with pride to see veterans who had fought in the Confederate
uniform once more appear under Uncle Sam’s colors, side by side with
their former foes, and leading to victory under the famous old flag the
sons both of those who had worn the blue and of those who had worn the
gray.
But there are other ways in which you have taught the lesson of
brotherhood. In our highly complex, highly specialized industrial
life of to-day there are many tendencies for good and there are also
many tendencies for evil. Chief among the latter is the way in which,
in great industrial centres, the segregation of interests invites a
segregation of sympathies. In our old American life, and in the country
districts where to-day the old conditions still largely obtain, there
was and is no such sharp and rigid demarcation between different
groups of citizens. In most country districts at the present day not
only have the people many feelings in common, but, what is quite as
important, they are perfectly aware that they have these feelings in
common. In the cities the divergence of real interests is nothing like
as great as is commonly supposed; but it does exist, and, above all,
there is a tendency to forget or ignore the community of interest.
There is comparatively little neighborliness, and life is so busy and
the population so crowded that it is impossible for the average man
to get into touch with any of his fellow-citizens save those in his
immediate little group. In consequence there tends to grow up a feeling
of estrangement between different groups, of forgetfulness of the great
primal needs and primal passions that are common to all of us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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