PUBLIC ADDRESSES AND CORRESPONDENCE

OF

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

DURING THE YEAR

1900

ADDRESSES

ADDRESS AT THE DEWEY ARCH FUND CONCERT, NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 6, 1900

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: We have come here to pay honor to the Admiral whose name stands second to that of Farragut alone in our naval annals, the Admiral who has added to the honor and renown of the American name, who has written a fresh page in the glorious history of American patriotism and valor. But we have come to do even more than that, for we have come to try to build a monument which in keeping fresh the memory of what has been done, will inspirit us to exercise the care and the foresight, no less than the courage, which shall guarantee that the future shall reproduce the past. In no way can we better please Admiral Dewey than by extending our glad acknowledgment of our debt, not only to him, not only to the men with him on that hot spring day when he sailed into Manila Bay to strike the last shattering stroke against Spain's empire in the tropic East, but also to the men of every kind, the secretaries of the navy, the congressmen, the shipwrights, the gunsmiths, the officers and enlisted men who, each working in his own way and according to his own capacity, had during the fifteen preceding years built up the navy which

Dewey used so well. Pay all honor to the great man who used aright the instrument intrusted to his care, and without whom, or another as good, the instrument would have been useless, but pay all honor also to those who made ready the instrument without which even Dewey's daring and seamanship could not have availed. If in 1883, before the new navy was built, we had gone to war, not all the great admirals who ever sailed the seas could have won such triumphs as those of 1898, for in 1883 we had with supine indifference permitted our navy to rot into uselessness. Then came the time of the upbuilding, and it was long and hard work before we could get it upbuilt, for we had to face the shortsighted folly of those who insisted that we were a peaceful people, and that to build a navy would provoke possible war; the ignorance of those who thought a navy a mere waste of money, and the coldheartedness of those who thought national honor but an empty name who cared nothing for that self-respect which with a nation as with an individual comes only when there is already present the ability to hold one's own with a strong hand against insult and wrong-doing. Every argument which is now made against going on with the work of upbuilding the navy, or against keeping up our army to the size at which we now have it, of perfecting its organization and efficiency, was then made. against our building the new navy at all. Had the men who made these arguments prevailed in the councils of the nation, had we not obeyed Washington's injunction -"in time of peace prepare for war" we should have had no glorious memories of Manila and Santiago to look back upon. In dealing with the future let us profit by

this lesson of the immediate past. Above all, let us keep clear of ever asserting a policy which we do not intend to carry out. Bluff is a very bad thing in either nation or man. I most heartily believe in the Monroe Doctrine, that the United States should forbid any foreign nation from acquiring, under any pretext whatsoever, a foot of American soil, north or south, beyond what it may already have. I hope that our nation will uphold this doctrine unflinchingly and unwaveringly. But it is idle to assert it unless we intend to make our words good by deeds if the need should arise, and to do this we must be prepared; otherwise we shall bring disaster upon ourselves, and when the disaster comes we shall have to thank, not the men under whom it may chance to come, but ourselves, the people of the United States, for not having the forethought to make full preparation in advance. If we intend, as I earnestly hope and believe we do intend, to keep the Monroe Doctrine as the cardinal feature of American foreign policy, we must never permit our naval rank among the nations of the world to be any lower than it is, and if possible should make it higher; and while we do not need a large army, we do need one of the present size, which is really a very small army compared to the size of the wealth and the needs of the nation. And we must make this an instrument of the highest fighting efficiency. The Secretaries of the Navy, Chandler, Whitney, Tracy, Herbert and Long and the Senators and Congressmen who backed them up, have a right to feel a personal pride in Admiral Dewey's victory, for without them it could not have been obtained. We must continue. to build up and to exercise the navy, to train the officers