iron of vigor and the wine of indulgence dissolve the pearls of purity, there could be but a single ending to the history so splendidly begun, so magnificently maintained. It is providential that in an era of great possibilities-for either good or evil-the happier fate should be assured by the rise of this man; that whatever of moral malaria might have fastened upon the civic health of the people was corrected by the presence of a man of vigorous right, a prophet of the strenuous life, a citizen who teaches the doctrine "Trust in God, and help yourself." It is provi"It dential that the right man came to the nation at the juncture in its history when it needed him. And it is a matter worthy of reflection that his whole life seems to have been dedicated to a preparation for the work which now engrosses him. Combined in his veins, as Mrs. Boylan has well said in her splendid poem, runs the blood of master races. He comes of a family which flourished on American soil long before the American nation was dreamed of. His parentage, his youth, his training, his education up to arrival at manhood, have all been steps in his preparation, as clearly as was the anointing with oil which set apart the son of Jesse for the throne of Israel. His political training, his experience in office, his hunting, his conduct of business affairs, his virile, manly strength and heroic soul-all are the attributes which the man of the hour needed-which the man of the hour must have, or the opportunity of the hour will have vanished forever. In an unusual degree the arrival of this man, so equipped, and at the time, is of the very greatest value to the nation. There can be no tendency to idleness or enervation while the industry and energy of such a man provide an incentive to worthy deeds for the youth of America. Patrick Henry, in that wonderful speech before the Virginia convention, said: "There is but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience." The citizen of the United States can know no better rule by which to decide what shall be the mission and achievement of his country than to study the tendency of the past, and the probable course of the men in control at critical stages. America's history is, or should be, in the possession of the sons of the Republic. It has been a steady progress toward a definite objective, from the very beginning. In a way, that progress has been more a result of extraordinary conditions than of cohesive, concerted planning. The critical time came with the close of the nineteenth century. With power at the flood, with influence untried, with every faculty up to maturity fully developed, there waited possibilities for immeasurable good, for unlimited growth abroad, and consequent unlimited advancement at home; or the probability of growth's cessation-with the inevitable beginning of deterioration, moral and physical, which has come to every people who, content with achievement, has abandoned progress. With that history and tendency known, with the mighty forces understood, the manner of men at the head of affairs in the crisis completes the data required in forming judgment as to what the future of the nation shall be. Very fortunately, Theodore Roosevelt has placed himself on record as to the course he believes his country should follow, and a definite pledge as to the direction in which his influence shall be exerted. At Minneapolis, Minnesota, he delivered a speech September 2, before the blow at his chief had fallen at Buffalo; and in those lines the lamp by which the student may be guided is set aflame. From that speech the following illustrative passages are taken: In his admirable series of studies of twentieth-century problems, Dr. Lyman Abbott has pointed out that we are a nation of pioneers; that the first colonists to our shores were pioneers, and that pioneers selected out from among the descendants of these early pioneers, mingled with others selected afresh from the old world, pushed westward into the wilderness and laid the foundations for new commonwealths. They were men of hope and expectation, of enterprise and energy; for the men of dull content or more dull despair had no part in the great movement into and across the new world. Our country has been populated by pioneers, and therefore it has in it more energy, more enterprise, more expansive power than any other in the wide world. You whom I am now addressing stand for the most part but one generation removed from these pioneers. You are typical Americans, for you have done the great, the characteristic, the typical work of our American life. In making homes and carving out careers for yourselves and your children, you have built up this State. Throughout our history the success of the homemaker has been but another name for the upbuilding of the nation. We have but little room among our people for the timid, the irresolute, and the idle; and it is no less true that there is scant room in the world at large for the nation with mighty thews that dares not to be great. Sometimes we hear those who do not work spoken of with envy. Surely the wilfully idle need arouse in the breast of a healthy man no emotion stronger than that of contempt-at the outside no emotion stronger than angry contempt. The feeling of envy would have in it an admission of inferiority on our part, to which the men who know not the sterner joys of life are not entitled. |