American Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt/Appendix A

by Edward Stratemeyer

APPENDIX A

BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM FAMOUS ADDRESSES DELIVERED BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill."

"All honor must be paid to the architects of our material prosperity; to the captains of industry who have built our factories and our railroads; to the strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; for great is the debt of the nation to these and their kind. But our debt is still greater to the men whose highest type is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, a soldier like Grant."

"A man's first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the state; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman."

—Extracts from "The Strenuous Life."

"Is America a weakling to shrink from the work that must be done by the world's powers? No! The young giant of the West stands on a continent and clasps the crest of an ocean in either hand. Our nation, glorious in youth and strength, looks into the future with eager and fearless eyes, and rejoices, as a strong man to run the race."

—Extract from Speech seconding the Nomination of William McKinley for President.

"Poverty is a bitter thing, but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits, the pursuit of mere pleasure."

"Our interests are at bottom common; in the long run we go up or go down together."

"The first essential of civilization is law. Anarchy is simply the hand-maiden and forerunner of tyranny and despotism. Law and order, enforced by justice and by strength, lie at the foundation of civilization."

—Extracts from a Speech delivered at Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2, 1901.

"We hold work, not as a curse, but as a blessing, and we regard the idler with scornful pity."

"Each man must choose, so far as the conditions allow him, the path to which he is bidden by his own peculiar powers and inclinations. But if he is a man, he must in some way or shape do a man's work."

"It is not given to us all to succeed, but it is given to us all to strive manfully to deserve success."

"We cannot retain the full measure of our self-respect if we do not retain pride in our citizenship."

—Extracts from an Address on "Manhood and Statehood."

"The true welfare of the nation is indissolubly bound up in the welfare of the farmer and wage-worker; of the man who tills the soil, and of the mechanic, the handicraftsman, and the laborer. The poorest motto upon which an American can act is the motto of 'some men down,' and the safest to follow is that of 'all men up.'"

—Extract from Speech delivered at the Dedication of the Pan-American Fair Buildings.

"The men we need are the men of strong, earnest, solid character—the men who possess the homely virtues, and who to these virtues add rugged courage, rugged honesty, and high resolve."

—Extract from Speech delivered upon the Life of General Grant.