Part 19

Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth; and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their goodwill by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other Powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this Nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fibre of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centres. Upon the success of our experiment much depends; not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations; and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children’s children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON _March 6, 1905_

_To the Senate:_

I wish to call the attention of the Senate at this executive session to the treaty with Santo Domingo. I feel that I ought to state to the Senate that the condition of affairs in Santo Domingo is such that it is very much for the interest of that Republic that action on the treaty should be had at as early a moment as the Senate, after giving the matter full consideration, may find practicable.

I call attention to the following facts:

1. This treaty was entered into at the earnest request of Santo Domingo itself, and is designed to afford Santo Domingo relief and assistance. Its primary benefit will be to Santo Domingo. It offers the method most likely to secure peace and to prevent war in the island.

2. The benefit to the United States will consist chiefly in the tendency under the treaty to secure stability, order, and prosperity in Santo Domingo, and the removal of the apprehension lest foreign powers make aggressions on Santo Domingo in the course of collecting claims due their citizens; for it is greatly to our interest that all the islands in the Caribbean Sea should enjoy peace and prosperity and feel goodwill toward this country. The benefit to honest creditors will come from the fact that for the first time under this treaty a practicable method of attempting to settle the debts due them will be inaugurated.

3. Many of the debts alleged to be due from Santo Domingo to outside creditors unquestionably on their face represent far more money than ever was actually given Santo Domingo. The proposed treaty provides for a process by which impartial experts will determine what debts are valid and what are in whole or in part invalid, and will apportion accordingly the surplus revenue available for the payment of the debts. This treaty offers the only method for preventing the collection of fraudulent debts, whether owed to Americans or to citizens of other nations.

4. This treaty affords the most practicable means of obtaining payment for the just claims of American citizens.

5. If the treaty is ratified creditors belonging to other nations will have exactly as good treatment as creditors who are citizens of the United States, and at the same time Santo Domingo will be protected against unjust and exorbitant claims. If it is not ratified the chances are that American creditors will fare ill as compared with those of other nations; for foreign nations, being denied the opportunity to get what is rightfully due their citizens under the proposed arrangement, will be left to collect debts due their citizens as they see fit, provided, of course, there is not permanent occupancy of Dominican territory. As in such case the United States will have nothing to say as to what debts should or should not be collected, and as Santo Domingo will be left without aid, assistance, or protection, it is impossible to state that the sums collected from it will not be improper in amount. In such event, whatever is collected by means of forcible intervention will be applied to the creditors of foreign nations in preference to creditors who are citizens of the United States.

6. The correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Minister of Haiti, submitted to the Senate several days ago, shows that our position is explicitly and unreservedly that under no circumstances do we intend to acquire territory in or possession of either Haiti or Santo Domingo; it being stated in these letters that even if the two republics desired to become a part of the United States the United States would certainly refuse its assent.

7. Santo Domingo grievously needs the aid of a powerful and friendly nation. This aid we are able, and I trust that we are willing, to bestow. She has asked for this aid, and the expressions of friendship repeatedly sanctioned by the people and the Government of the United States warrant her in believing that it will not be withheld in the hour of her need.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

ADDRESS AT THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, AT GRACE REFORMED CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 12, 1905

_Mr. Justice, Dr. Schick, and you, my Fellow-Members of this Congregation, and our Guests who are with us to-day_:

I am glad, on behalf of this church, to say amen to the appeal that has been made by Dr. Swift on behalf of the great society to the account of whose work you have been listening. Mr. Justice, you quoted the advice of a poet “to be doers rather than dreamers.” In the Book of all books there is a sentence to the same effect, “Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only.” Let us show ourselves to-day doers of the word, upholders in fact of what has been preached to us by Dr. Swift.

He has set forth the needs of the society, and he has set forth the great field over which it works. I wish to touch only on a small portion of that field, but, after all, the portion that most concerns us—the need here at home, here in this country, of furthering in every way the work of the society, the work of all kindred societies, both among the native-born and among the thousands who come to these shores from abroad. And there is a peculiar propriety in such an appeal being made to this church, for, as I have said here before, this church more than most others should ever keep before it as part of its duty, as one of the chief parts of its duty, that of caring in all ways, but especially in spiritual ways, for the people who come to us from abroad.

The United States Government does endeavor to do its duty by the immigrants who come to these shores; and I was glad, Dr. Swift, to listen to what you said as to the work that is being done on Ellis Island, for it is a just tribute to that work. But unless people have had some experience with the dangers and difficulties surrounding the newly arrived immigrant they can hardly realize how great they are. The immigrant comes here almost unprotected; he does not, as a rule, know our language; he is wholly unfamiliar with our institutions, our customs, our habits of life and ways of thought; and there are, I am sorry to say, great numbers of evil and wicked people who hope to make their livelihood by preying on him. He is exposed to innumerable temptations, innumerable petty oppressions, on almost every hand; and unless some one is on hand to help him he literally has no idea where to turn. No greater work can be done by a philanthropic or religious society than to stretch out the helping hand to the man and the woman who come here to this country to become citizens and the parents of citizens, and therefore to do their part in making up for weal or for woe the future of our land. If we do not take care of them, if we do not try to uplift them, then as sure as fate our own children will pay the penalty. If we do not see that the immigrant and the children of the immigrant are raised up, most assuredly the result will be that our own children and children’s children are pulled down. Either they will rise or we shall sink. The level of well-being in this country will be a level for all of us. We can not keep that level down for a part and not have it sink more or less for the whole. If we raise it for a part we shall raise it to a certain extent for the whole. Therefore, it means much, not merely to the immigrants, but to every good American, that there should be at Ellis Island the colporteurs of this society, and the representatives of other religious and philanthropic societies to try to care for the immigrant’s body, and above all to try to care for the immigrant’s soul.

It is, of course, unnecessary to say that the things of the body must be cared for; that the first duty of any man, especially of the man who has others dependent upon him, is to take care of them, and to take care of himself. Nobody can help others if he begins by being a burden upon others. Each man must be able to pull his own weight, to carry his own weight; and, therefore, each man must show the capacity to earn for himself and his family enough to secure a certain amount of material well-being. That must be the foundation. But on that foundation he must build as a superstructure the spiritual life.

One of the best things done by this society, and by kindred religious and benevolent societies, is supplying in our American life of to-day the proper ideals. It is a good thing to have had the extraordinary material prosperity which has followed so largely on the extraordinary scientific discoveries alluded to by Justice Brewer, if we use this material prosperity aright. It is not a good thing, it is a bad thing, if we treat it as the be-all and end-all of our life. If we make it the only ideal before this Nation, if we permit the people of this Republic to get before their minds the view that material well-being carried to an ever higher degree is the one and only thing to be striven for, we are laying up for ourselves not merely trouble but ruin. I, too, feel the faith and hope that have been expressed here to-day by the vice-president and the secretary of the society; but I so feel because I believe that we shall not permit mere material well-being to become the only ideal in this Nation, because I believe that more and more we shall accustom ourselves to looking at the great fortunes accumulated by certain men as being nothing in themselves, either to admire, to envy or to deplore, save as they are used well or ill. If the great fortune is used well, if the man who has accumulated it has the strength necessary to resist the temptations either to use it wrongfully, or what is nearly as bad, not to use it aright—for negation may be almost as harmful as positive wrongdoing—then he is entitled to the praise due to whoever employs great powers for the common good. If the man who accumulates that great fortune uses it ill or does not use it well, then so far from being an object of envy, still less an object of admiration, he should take his place among those whom we condemn and pity—for usually, if we have the root of the matter in us, we will pity those we condemn.

Wonderful changes have come in the last half century. It may well be as Mr. Justice Brewer has said, that we tremble on the verge of still greater changes in the future. The railway, the telegraph, the telephone, steam, electricity, all the marvelous mechanical inventions of these last five decades, have changed much in the superficial aspect of the world, and have, therefore, produced certain great changes in the world itself. But after all, in glorying over and wondering at this extraordinary development, I think that we sometimes forget that compared to the deeper things it is indeed only superficial in its effect. The qualities that count most in man and woman now are the qualities that counted most two thousand years ago; and as a Nation we shall achieve success or merit failure accordingly as we do or do not display those qualities. Among the members of this congregation is a man who, in his prime, served as the fleet engineer of Farragut when Farragut went into Mobile Bay. That was forty-one years ago. The ships and the guns with which Farragut did that mighty feat are now almost as obsolete as the galleys that fought for the mastery of the Ægean Sea when Athens waged war on Sparta. They could no more stand against a modern ship than could the ships that fought against the Invincible Armada in 1588. But if the need ever comes for this Nation to call on its sons to face a foreign foe, the call will or will not be made in vain just exactly according to whether we do or do not still retain the spirit which drove Farragut and the men under him onward to victory. The gun changes, the ship changes; but the qualities needed in the man behind the gun, in the man who handles the ship, are just the same as they ever were. So it is in our whole material civilization of to-day. The railroad, the telegraph, all these wonderful inventions, produce new problems, confer new benefits, and bring about new dangers. Cities are built up to enormous size, and, of course, with the upbuilding of the cities comes the growth of the terrible problems which confront all of us who have to do with city life. Outward circumstances change. New dangers spring up and old dangers vanish. But the spirit necessary to meet the new dangers, the spirit necessary to ensure the triumph that we must and shall win, is the same now that it has always been. This is the spirit which lies behind this society, and all kindred societies; and we owe to this society all the help we can afford to give; for it is itself giving to our people a service beyond price, a service of love, a service which no money could buy.

ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL CONGRESS OF MOTHERS, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 13, 1905

_Mrs. President_:

In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small landowners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent danger of falling.

But far more important than the question of the occupation of our citizens is the question of how their family life is conducted. No matter what that occupation may be, as long as there is a real home and as long as those who make up that home do their duty to one another, to their neighbors and to the state, it is of minor consequence whether the man’s trade is plied in the country or the city, whether it calls for the work of the hands or for the work of the head.

But the Nation is in a bad way if there is no real home, if the family is not of the right kind; if the man is not a good husband and father, if he is brutal or cowardly or selfish, if the woman has lost her sense of duty, if she is sunk in vapid self-indulgence or has let her nature be twisted so that she prefers a sterile pseudo-intellectuality to that great and beautiful development of character which comes only to those whose lives know the fulness of duty done, of effort made and self-sacrifice undergone.

In the last analysis the welfare of the state depends absolutely upon whether or not the average family, the average man and woman and their children, represent the kind of citizenship fit for the foundation of a great nation; and if we fail to appreciate this we fail to appreciate the root morality upon which all healthy civilization is based.

No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of artistic development, will permanently avail any people unless its home life is healthy, unless the average man possesses honesty, courage, common-sense, and decency, unless he works hard and is willing at need to fight hard; and unless the average woman is a good wife, a good mother, able and willing to perform the first and greatest duty of womanhood, able and willing to bear, and to bring up as they should be brought up, healthy children, sound in body, mind, and character, and numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.

There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the truth that the primary duty of the husband is to be the homemaker, the breadwinner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmeet, the housewife, and mother. The woman should have ample educational advantages; but save in exceptional cases the man must be, and she need not be, and generally ought not to be, trained for a lifelong career as the family breadwinner; and, therefore, after a certain point the training of the two must normally be different because the duties of the two are normally different. This does not mean inequality of function, but it does mean that normally there must be dissimilarity of function. On the whole, I think the duty of the woman the more important, the more difficult, and the more honorable of the two; on the whole I respect the woman who does her duty even more than I respect the man who does his.

No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of the night. She may have to get up night after night to take care of a sick child, and yet must by day continue to do all her household duties as well; and if the family means are scant she must usually enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the debtors of all women. Above all, our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling wives among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and whom he so loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often led on the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.