HISTORIC SPEECHES
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
The
New Nationalism
August 31, 1910
We come here to-day to commemorate one of the epochmaking
events of the long struggle for the rights of man - the
long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country -
this great Republic - means nothing unless it means the
triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government,
and, in the long run, of an economic system under which
each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the
best that there is in him. That is why the history of America
is now the central feature of the history of the world;
for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy;
and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your
shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake
of your own country, but the burden of doing well and of
seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.
There have been two great crises in our country's history:
first, when it was formed, and then, again, when it was
perpetuated; and, in the second of these great crises -
in the time of stress and strain which culminated in the
Civil War, on the outcome of which depended the justification
of what had been done earlier, you men of the Grand Army,
you men who fought through the Civil War, not only did
you justify your generation, not only did you render life
worth living for our generation, but you justified the
wisdom of Washington and Washington's colleagues. If this
Republic had been founded by them only to be split asunder
into fragments when the strain came, then the judgment
of the world would have been that Washington's work was
not worth doing. It was you who crowned Washington's work,
as you carried to achievement the high purpose of Abraham
Lincoln.
Now, with this second period of our history the name of
John Brown will be forever associated; and Kansas was the
theater upon which the first act of the second of our great
national life dramas was played. It was the result of the
struggle in Kansas which determined that our country should
be in deed as well as in name devoted to both union and
freedom; that the great experiment of democratic government
on a national scale should succeed and not fail. In name
we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we
gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration
of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing
except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere;
but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in political
life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It
is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his
salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which
he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such
a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life.
I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs
to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of
the past partly that they may be honored by our praise
of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the
future.
It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all
such struggles, it had also a dark and terrible side. Very
much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as was
inevitable in such a period of revolution, often the same
man did both good and evil. For our great good fortune
as a nation, we, the people of the United States as a whole,
can now afford to forget the evil, or, at least, to remember
it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride only
on the good that was accomplished. Even in ordinary times
there are very few of us who do not see the problems of
life as through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is
clouded by the murk of furious popular passion, the vision
of the best and the bravest is dimmed. Looking back, we
are all of us now able to do justice to the valor and the
disinterestedness and the love of the right, as to each
it was given to see the right, shown both by the men of
the North and the men of the South in that contest which
was finally decided by the attitude of the West. We can
admire the heroic valor, the sincerity, the self devotion
shown alike by the men who wore the blue and the men who
wore the gray; and our sadness that such men should have
had to fight one another is tempered by the glad knowledge
that ever hereafter their descendants shall be found fighting
side by side, struggling in peace as well as in war for
the uplift of their common country. all alike resolute
to raise to the highest pitch of honor and usefulness the
nation to which they all belong. As for the veterans of
the Grand Army of the Republic, they deserve honor and
recognition such as is paid to no other citizens of the
Republic; for to them the republic owes its all; for to
them it owes its very existence. It is because of what
you and your comrades did in the dark years that we of
to-day walk, each of us, head erect, and proud that we
belong, not to one of a dozen little squabbling contemptible
commonwealths, but to the mightiest nation upon which the
sun shines.
I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from
the historic standpoint. Our interest is primarily in the
application to-day of the lessons taught by the contest
of half a century ago. It is of little use for us to pay
lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely
endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely
the qualities which in other crises enable the men of that
day to meet those crises. It is half melancholy and half
amusing to see the way in which well-meaning people gather
to do honor to the man who, in company with John Brown,
and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved
the great problems of the nineteenth century, while, at
the same time, these same good people nervously shrink
from, or frantically denounce, those who are trying to
meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit
which was accountable for the successful solution of the
problems of Lincoln's time.
Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the
man to whom we owe most is, of course, Lincoln. Part of
our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle
and saw the way out. He said:
"I hold that while
man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own
condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."
And again:
"Labor is prior
to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the
fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor
had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital,
and deserves much the higher consideration."
If that remark was original with me, I should be even
more strongly denounced as a Communist agitator than I
shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln's. I am only quoting it;
and that is one side; that is the side the capitalist should
hear. Now, let the working man hear his side.
"Capital has its
rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other
rights.... Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners
of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property
is desirable; is a positive good in the world."
And then comes a thoroughly Lincolnlike sentence:
"Let not him who
is houseless pull down the house of another, but let
him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by
example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence
when built."
It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took substantially
the attitude that we ought to take; he showed the proper
sense of proportion in his relative estimates of capital
and labor, of human rights and property rights. Above all,
in this speech, as in many others, he taught a lesson in
wise kindliness and charity; an indispensable lesson to
us of today. But this wise kindliness and charity never
weakened his arm or numbed his heart. We cannot afford
weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which
faces us to-day. The issue is joined, and we must fight
or fail.
In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the
main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve
in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle
for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization,
and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment
to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the
destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle
for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be,
to take from some one man or class of men the right to
enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which
has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.
That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that
is what we strive for now.
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict
between the men who possess more than they have earned
and the men who have earned more than they possess is the
central condition of progress. In our day it appears as
the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government
as against the special interests, who twist the methods
of free government into machinery for defeating the popular
will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the
essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy
privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every
individual the highest possible value both to himself and
to the commonwealth. That is nothing new. All I ask in
civil life is what you fought for in the Civil War. I ask
that civil life be carried on according to the spirit in
which the army was carried on. You never get perfect justice,
but the effort in handling the army was to bring to the
front the men who could do the job. Nobody grudged promotion
to Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas, or Sheridan, because they
earned it. The only complaint was when a man got promotion
which he did not earn.
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when
we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every
man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that
in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities,
unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered
by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and
to get for himself and his family substantially what he
has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that
the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest
service of which he is capable. No man who carries the
burden of the special privileges of another can give to
the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am
for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for
fair play under the present rules of the games, but that
I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for
a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward
for equally good service. One word of warning, which, I
think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I want
a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want
a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has
not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has
had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit.
And you men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the
brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who
shirked his work. Is not that so?
Now, this means that our government, national and State,
must be freed from the sinister influence or control of
special interests. Exactly as the special interests of
cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before
the Civil War, so now the great special business interests
too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government
for their own profit. We must drive the special interests
out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every
special interest is entitled to justice - full, fair, and
complete - and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt
by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special
interest, whatever it may be, and I most dislike and the
wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the
greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would
if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For
every special interest is entitled to justice, but not
one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the
bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution
guarantees protections to property, and we must make that
promise good But it does not give the right of suffrage
to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true
conservative, is he who insists that property shall be
the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who
insists that the creature of man's making shall be the
servant and not the master of the man who made it. The
citizens of the United States must effectively control
the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves
called into being.
There can be no effective control of corporations while
their political activity remains. To put an end to it will
be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate
affairs, so that people may know beyond peradventure whether
the corporations obey the law and whether their management
entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary
that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate
funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it
is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly
enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes,
and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations,
have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption
in our political affairs.
It has become entirely clear that we must have government
supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service
corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of
all corporations doing an interstate business. I do not
wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the
railways if it can possibly be avoided, and the only alternative
is thoroughgoing and effective regulation, which shall
be based on a full knowledge of all the facts, including
a physical valuation of property. This physical valuation
is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed, for
fixing rates; but it is needed as the basis of honest capitalization.
We have come to recognize that franchises should never
be granted except for a limited time, and never without
proper provision for compensation to the public. It is
my personal belief that the same kind and degree of control
and supervision which should be exercised over public-service
corporations should be extended also to combinations which
control necessaries of life, such as meat, oil, and coal,
or which deal in them on an important scale. I have not
doubt that the ordinary man who has control of them is
much like ourselves. I have no doubt he would like to do
well, but I want to have enough supervision to help him
realize that desire to do well.
I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors,
of corporations should be held personally responsible when
any corporation breaks the law.
Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative
economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation.
The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially
failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent
such combinations, but in completely controlling them in
the interest of the public welfare. For that purpose the
Federal Bureau of Corporations is an agency of first importance.
Its powers, and, therefore, its efficiency, as well as
that of the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be largely
increased. We have a right to expect from the Bureau of
Corporations and from the Interstate Commerce Commission
a very high grade of public service. We should be as sure
of the proper conduct of the interstate railways and the
proper management of interstate business as we are now
sure of the conduct and management of the national banks,
and we should have as effective supervision in one case
as in the other. The Hepburn Act, and the amendment to
the act in the shape in which it finally passed Congress
at the last session, represent a long step in advance,
and we must go yet further.
There is a wide-spread belief among our people that under
the methods of making tariffs, which have hitherto obtained,
the special interests are too influential. Probably this
is true of both the big special interests and the little
special interests. These methods have put a premium on
selfishness, and, naturally, the selfish big interests
have gotten more than their smaller, though equally selfish
brothers. The duty of Congress is to provide a method by
which the interest of the whole people shall be all that
receives consideration. To this end there must be an expert
tariff commission, wholly removed from the possibility
of political pressure or of improper business influence.
Such a commission can find the real difference between
cost of production, which is mainly the difference of labor
cost here and abroad. As fast as its recommendations are
made, I believe in revising one schedule at a time. A general
revision of the tariff almost inevitably leads to logrolling
and the subordination of the general public interest to
local and special interests.
The absence of effective State, and, especially, national,
restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create
a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful
men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.
The prime need is to change the conditions which enable
these men to accumulate power which is not for the general
welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no
man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity,
when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his
fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from
your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you
gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained
their promotion by leading the army to victory. So it is
with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it
is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough
that it should have gained without doing damage to the
community. We should permit it to be gained only so long
as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This,
I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental
interference with social and economic conditions in this
country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to
face the fact that such an increase in governmental control
is now necessary.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has
been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent
a dollar's worth of service rendered - not gambling in
stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the
swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires
qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in
degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small
means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on
big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily
collected and far more effective - a graduated inheritance
tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion
and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.
The people of the United States suffer from periodical
financial panics to a degree substantially unknown among
the other nations which approach us in financial strength.
There is no reason why we should suffer what they escape.
It is of profound importance that our financial system
should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and
effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter
our currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet
our needs.
It is hardly necessary for me to repeat that I believe
in an efficient army and a navy large enough to secure
for us abroad that respect which is the surest guaranty
of peace. A word of special warning to my fellow citizens
who are as progressive as I hope I am. I want them to keep
up their interest in our internal affairs; and I want them
also continually to remember Uncle Sam's interest abroad.
Justice and fair dealing among nations rest upon principles
identical with those which control justice and fair dealing
among the individuals of which nations are composed, with
the vital exception that each nation must do its own part
in international police work. If you get into trouble here,
you can call for the police; but if Uncle Sam gets into
trouble, he has got to be his own policeman, and I want
to see him strong enough to encourage the peaceful aspirations
of other peoples in connection with us. I believe in national
friendships and heartiest good-will to all nations; but
national friendships, like those between men, must be founded
on respect as well as on liking, on forbearance as well
as upon trust. I should be heartily ashamed of any American
who did not try to make the American Government act as
Justly toward the other nations in international relations
as he himself would act toward any individual in private
relations. I should be heartily ashamed to see us wrong
a weaker power, and I should hang my head forever if we
tamely suffered wrong from a stronger power.
Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere.
Conservation means development as much as it does protection.
I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop
and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not
recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful
use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing
of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here
behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer
is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless
to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having
enabled the land to support himself and to provide for
the education of his children leaves it to them a little
better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing
of a nation.
Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be
used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized
for the benefit of the few, and here again is another case
in which I am accused of taking a revolutionary attitude.
People forget now that one hundred years ago there were
public men of good character who advocated the nation selling
its public lands in great quantities, so that the nation
could get the most money out of it, and giving it to the
men who could cultivate it for their own uses. We took
the proper democratic ground that the land should be granted
in small sections to the men who were actually to till
it and live on it. Now, with the water-power with the forests,
with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact
that there are many people who will go with us in conserving
the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit
them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental
reasons why the special interest should be driven out of
politics. Of all the questions which can come before this
nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence
in a great war, there is none which compares in importance
with the great central task of leaving this land even a
better land for our descendants than it is for us, and
training them into a better race to inhabit the land and
pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue for it
involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and
continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and
vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving
as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this
great work the national government must bear a most important
part.
I have spoken elsewhere also of the great task which lies
before the farmers of the country to get for themselves
and their wives and children not only the benefits of better
farming, but also those of better business methods and
better conditions of life on the farm. The burden of this
great task will fall, as it should, mainly upon the great
organizations of the farmers themselves. I am glad it will,
for I believe they are all able to handle it. In particular,
there are strong reasons why the Departments of Agriculture
of the various States, and the United States Department
of Agriculture, and the agricultural colleges and experiment
stations should extend their work to cover all phases of
farm life, instead of limiting themselves. as they have
far too often limited themselves in the past, solely to
the question of the production of crops. And now a special
word to the farmer. I want to see him make the farm as
fine a farm as it can be made; and let him remember to
see that the improvement goes on indoors as well as out;
let him remember that the farmer's wife should have her
share of thought and attention just as much as the farmer
himself. Nothing is more true than that excess of every
kind is followed by reaction; a fact which should be pondered
by reformer and reactionary alike. We are face to face
with new conceptions of the relations of property to human
welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights
of property as against the rights of men have been pushing
their claims too far. The man who wrongly holds that every
human right is secondary to his profit must now give way
to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains
that every man holds his property subject to the general
right of the community to regulate its use to whatever
degree the public welfare may require it.
But I think we may go still further. The right to regulate
the use of wealth in the public interest is universally
admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms
and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of
wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The
fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a
chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest
possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand
what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if
he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he
lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if
he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a
chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be
a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient
to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short
enough so that after his day's work is done he will have
time and energy to bear his share in the management of
the community, to help in carrying the general load. We
keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions
of life with which we surround them. We need comprehensive
workmen's compensation acts, both State and national laws
to regulate child labor and work for women, and, especially,
we need in our common schools not merely education in booklearning,
but also practical training for daily life and work. We
need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers
and to extend the use of safety appliances for our workers
in industry and commerce, both within and between the States.
Also, friends, in the interest of the working man himself
we need to set our faces like Mint against mob-violence
just as against corporate greed; against violence and injustice
and lawlessness by wage-workers just as much as against
lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers.
If I could ask but one thing of my fellow countrymen, my
request would be that, whenever they go in for reform,
they remember the two sides, and that they always exact
justice from one side as much as from the other. I have
small use for the public servant who can always see and
denounce the corruption of the capitalist, but who cannot
persuade himself, especially before elections, to say a
word about lawless mob-violence. And I have equally small
use for the man, be he a judge on the bench, or editor
of a great paper, or wealthy and influential private citizen,
who can see clearly enough and denounce the lawlessness
of mob-violence, but whose eyes are closed so that he is
blind when the question is one of corruption in business
on a gigantic scale. Also remember what I said about excess
in reformer and reactionary alike. If the reactionary man,
who thinks of nothing but the rights of property, could
have his way, he would bring about a revolution; and one
of my chief fears in connection with progress comes because
I do not want to see our people, for lack of proper leadership,
compelled to follow men whose intentions are excellent,
but whose eyes are a little too wild to make it really
safe to trust them. Here in Kansas there is one paper which
habitually denounces me as the tool of Wall Street, and
at the same time frantically repudiates the statement that
I am a Socialist on the ground that is an unwarranted slander
of the Socialists.
National efficiency has many factors. It is a necessary
result of the principle of conservation widely applied.
In the end it will determine our failure or success as
a nation. National efficiency has to do, not only with
natural resources and with men, but is equally concerned
with institutions. The State must be made efficient for
the work which concerns only the people of the State; and
the nation for that which concerns all the people. There
must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for
lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth,
who can hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach
them how to avoid both jurisdictions. It is a misfortune
when the national legislature fails to do its duty in providing
a national remedy, so that the only national activity is
the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding
the State to exercise power in the premises.
I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that
we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism
when we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We
are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as
the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as
I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital
problems are those which affect us all alike. The national
government belongs to the whole American people, and where
the whole American people are interested, that interest
can be guarded effectively only by the national government.
The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe,
mainly through the national government.
The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism,
without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems.
The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional
or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion
that results from local legislatures attempting to treat
national issues as local issues. It is still more impatient
of the impotence which springs from overdivision of governmental
powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local
selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special
interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock.
This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the
steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary
that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare
rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative
body shall represent all the people rather than any one
class or section of the people.
I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect
property as well as human welfare. Normally, and in the
long run, the ends are the same; but whenever the alternative
must be faced, I am for men and not for property, as you
were in the Civil War. I am far from underestimating the
importance of dividends; but I rank dividends below human
character. Again, I do not have any sympathy with the reformer
who says he does not care for dividends. Of course, economic
welfare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight
and be able to support his family. I know well that the
reformers must not bring upon the people economic ruin,
or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin. But
we must be ready to face temporary disaster, whether or
not brought on by those who will war against us to the
knife. Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember
that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national
life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for
the few and the triumph in both politics and business of
a sordid and selfish materialism.
If our political institutions were perfect, they would
absolutely prevent the political domination of money in
any part of our affairs. We need to make our political
representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive
to the people whose servants they are. More direct action
by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards
is vitally necessary. The direct primary is a step in this
direction, if it is associated with a corrupt-practices
act effective to prevent the advantage of the man willing
recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more
honest competitor. It is particularly important that all
moneys received or expended for campaign purposes should
be publicly accounted for, not only after election, but
before election as well. Political action must be made
simpler, easier, and freer from confusion for every citizen.
I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent
public servants should be made easy and sure in whatever
way experience shall show to be most expedient in any given
class of cases.
One of the fundamental necessities in a representative
government such as ours is to make certain that the men
to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the
people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests.
I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed,
should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any
compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations;
and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within
the States.
The object of government is the welfare of the people.
The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable
chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare
of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average
man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and
high ideals, active in public affairs - but, first of all,
sound in their home life, and the father and mother of
healthy children whom they bring up well - just so far,
and no farther, we may count our civilization a success.
We must have - I believe we have already - a genuine and
permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation
or administration really means anything; and, on the other
hand, we must try to secure the social and economic legislation
without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation
is necessarily evanescent. Let me again illustrate by a
reference to the Grand Army. You could not have won simply
as a disorderly and disorganized mob. You needed generals;
you needed careful administration of the most advanced
type; and a good commissary - the cracker line. You well
remember that success was necessary in many different lines
in order to bring about general success. You had to have
the administration at Washington good, just as you had
to have the administration in the field; and you had to
have the work of the generals good. You could not have
triumphed without that administration and leadership; but
it would all have been worthless if the average soldier
had not had the right stuff in him. He had to have the
right stuff in him, or you could not get it out of him.
In the last analysis, therefore, vitally necessary though
it was to have the right kind of organization and the right
kind of generalship, it was even more vitally necessary
that the average soldier should have the fighting edge,
the right character.
So it is in our civil life. No matter how honest and decent
we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right
kind of law and the right kind of administration of the
law, we cannot go forward as a nation. That is imperative;
but it must be an addition to, and not a substitution for,
the qualities that make us good citizens. In the last analysis,
the most important elements in any man's career must be
the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we
speak of as character. If he has not got it, then no law
that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the
law by the boldest and strongest executive, will avail
to help him. We must have the right kind of character -
character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in
the home, a good father, a good husband - that makes a
man a good neighbor. You must have that, and, then, in
addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of
administration of the law which will give to those qualities
in the private citizen the best possible chance for development.
The prime problem of our nation is to get the right type
of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress,
and our public men must be genuinely progressive.
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