...read to me, alone. That was a once in your life event. He read from Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life: I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease,...of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach the highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man...

...faithful to his wife, devoted to his children. And in a famous speech in Chicago he offered his credo: "I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life." Unlike many contemporary politicians, he did not hire pollsters and speechwriters or spend time with...

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...first presented the concept in a speech at the Hamilton Club in Chicago in April 1899. He considered "the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife." He argued that a "healthy state can exist only when Sunday, William "Billy" Ashley 326 the men and...

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...the Century Company a book titled The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses. The title piece begins, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease,...of success which comes, not to the man who desires more easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or bitter toil, and...

...national virility and greatness" (149). As Roosevelt told a group of Chicago club members in 1899, "I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease,...the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife" ("Strenuous Life" 184). The heralded prosperity of the new century threatened a fatal softness. "The...

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...Theodore Roosevelt. In his famous speech of April 1899, he laid out the principle that united them: "I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease,...strenuous life. The life of toil and effort, of labor gold strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy...