The New Nationalism Persuasive Speech
We come here to-day to commemorate one of the epochmaking events of the long struggle for the rights of
man—the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country—this great Republic—means nothing unless it
means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an
economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in
him.
That is why the history of America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set
its face hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders
not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your own country, but the burden of doing well and of seeing
that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.
There have been two great crises in our country's history: first, when it was formed, and then, again, when it
was perpetuated; and, in the second of these great crises—in the time of stress and strain which culminated
in the Civil War, on the outcome of which depended the justification of what had been done earlier—you men
of the Grand Army, you men who fought through the Civil War, not only did you justify your generation, not
only did you render life worth living for our generation, but you justified the wisdom of Washington and
Washington's colleagues.
If this Republic had been founded by them only to be split asunder into fragments when the strain came, then
the judgment of the world would have been that Washington's work was not worth doing. It was you who
crowned Washington's work, as you carried to achievement the high purpose of Abraham Lincoln.
Now, with this second period of our history the name of John Brown will be forever associated; and Kansas
was the theater upon which the first act of the second of our great national life dramas was played. It was the
result of the struggle in Kansas which determined that our country should be in deed as well as in name
devoted to both union and freedom; that the great experiment of democratic government on a national scale
should succeed and not fail.
In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the
Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts.
This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad
enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics.
No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after
election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I care for the great
deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of the past partly that
they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the future.
It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all such struggles, it had also a dark and terrible side. Very
much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as was inevitable in such a period of revolution, often the
same man did both good and evil. For our great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the United States
as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil, or, at least, to remember it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes
with pride only on the good that was accomplished.
Even in ordinary times there are very few of us who do not see the problems of life as through a glass, darkly;
and when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious popular passion, the vision of the best and the bravest is
dimmed.
Looking back, we are all of us now able to do justice to the valor and the disinterestedness and the love of the
right, as to each it was given to see the right, shown both by the men of the North and the men of the South in
that contest which was finally decided by the attitude of the West.
We can admire the heroic valor, the sincerity, the self devotion shown alike by the men who wore the blue
and the men who wore the gray; and our sadness that such men should have had to fight one another is
tempered by the glad knowledge that ever hereafter their descendants shall be found fighting side by side,
struggling in peace as well as in war for the uplift of their common country, all alike resolute to raise to the
highest pitch of honor and usefulness the nation to which they all belong.
As for the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, they deserve honor and recognition such as is paid to
no other citizens of the Republic; for to them the republic owes its all; for to them it owes its very existence. It
is because of what you and your comrades did in the dark years that we of to-day walk, each of us, head
erect, and proud that we belong, not to one of a dozen little squabbling contemptible commonwealths, but to
the mightiest nation upon which the sun shines.
I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic standpoint. Our interest is primarily in the
application to-day of the lessons taught by the contest of half a century ago. It is of little use for us to pay
lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present
precisely the qualities which in other crises enable the men of that day to meet those crises.
It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in which well-meaning people gather to do honor to the
man who, in company with John Brown, and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the great
problems of the nineteenth century, while, at the same time, these same good people nervously shrink from,
or frantically denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit which
was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of Lincoln's time.
Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe most is, of course, Lincoln.
Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the way out. He said:
“I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating
mankind.”
And again:
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if
labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced as a Communist agitator than
I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln's. I am only quoting it; and that is one side; that is the side the capitalist should
hear. Now, let the working man hear his side.
“Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.... Nor should this lead to a war
upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the
world.”
And then comes a thoroughly Lincolnlike sentence:
“Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for
himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”
It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took substantially the attitude that we ought to take; he showed
the proper sense of proportion in his relative estimates of capital and labor, of human rights and property
rights. Above all, in this speech, as in many others, he taught a lesson in wise kindliness and charity; an
indispensable lesson to us of today. But this wise kindliness and charity never weakened his arm or numbed
his heart.
We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us to-day. The issue is joined,
and we must fight or fail.
In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to
achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from
barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next.
One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege.
The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one
man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned
by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for
now.
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have
earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day
it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special
interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will.
At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy
privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and
to the commonwealth. That is nothing new. All I ask in civil life is what you fought for in the Civil War. I ask
that civil life be carried on according to the spirit in which the army was carried on.
You never get perfect justice, but the effort in handling the army was to bring to the front the men who could
do the job. Nobody grudged promotion to Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas, or Sheridan, because they earned
it. The only complaint was when a man got promotion which he did not earn.
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every
man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his
capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can
carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned.
Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service
of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the
commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair
play under the present rules of the games, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a
more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.
When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who
remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not
make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the brave man who
fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked his work. Is not that so?
Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control
of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity
before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and
methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of
our tasks to-day.
Every special interest is entitled to justice—full, fair, and complete—and, now, mind you, if there were any
attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, and I most
dislike the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for
him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice.
For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the
bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we
must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not
the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not
the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty
commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.
There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will
be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that people may know beyond
peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the
confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds
directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly
enforced.
Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service
corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.
It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of
public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate
business. I do not wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the railways if it can possibly be
avoided, and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective regulation, which shall be based on a full
knowledge of all the facts, including a physical valuation of property.
This physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed, for fixing rates; but it is needed as
the basis of honest capitalization.
We have come to recognize that franchises should never be granted except for a limited time, and never
without proper provision for compensation to the public. It is my personal belief that the same kind and
degree of control and supervision which should be exercised over public-service corporations should be
extended also to combinations which control necessaries of life, such as meat, oil, and coal, or which deal in
them on an important scale.
I have not doubt that the ordinary man who has control of them is much like ourselves. I have no doubt he
would like to do well, but I want to have enough supervision to help him realize that desire to do well.
I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible
when any corporation breaks the law.
Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political
legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting
to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare. For that
purpose the Federal Bureau of Corporations is an agency of first importance.
Its powers, and, therefore, its efficiency, as well as that of the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be
largely increased. We have a right to expect from the Bureau of Corporations and from the Interstate
Commerce Commission a very high grade of public service.
We should be as sure of the proper conduct of the interstate railways and the proper management of
interstate business as we are now sure of the conduct and management of the national banks, and we should
have as effective supervision in one case as in the other. The Hepburn Act, and the amendment to the act in
the shape in which it finally passed Congress at the last session, represent a long step in advance, and we
must go yet further.
There is a widespread belief among our people that under the methods of making tariffs, which have hitherto
obtained, the special interests are too influential. Probably this is true of both the big special interests and the
little special interests. These methods have put a premium on selfishness, and, naturally, the selfish big
interests have gotten more than their smaller, though equally selfish brothers.
The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which the interest of the whole people shall be all that
receives consideration. To this end there must be an expert tariff commission, wholly removed from the
possibility of political pressure or of improper business influence. Such a commission can find the real
difference between cost of production, which is mainly the difference of labor cost here and abroad. As fast
as its recommendations are made, I believe in revising one schedule at a time.
A general revision of the tariff almost inevitably leads to logrolling and the subordination of the general public
interest to local and special interests.
The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to
create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and
increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate
power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise.
We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire
regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience.
Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their
promotion by leading the army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is
honorably obtained and well used.
It is not even enough that it should have gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it
to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of
a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have
yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now
necessary.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should
represent a dollar's worth of service rendered—not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big
fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well
as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means.
Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily
collected and far more effective—a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against
evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.
The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a degree substantially unknown
among the other nations which approach us in financial strength. There is no reason why we should suffer
what they escape. It is of profound importance that our financial system should be promptly investigated, and
so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter our currency will no longer fail at
critical times to meet our needs.
It is hardly necessary for me to repeat that I believe in an efficient army and a navy large enough to secure for
us abroad that respect which is the surest guaranty of peace. A word of special warning to my fellow citizens
who are as progressive as I hope I am. I want them to keep up their interest in our internal affairs; and I want
them also continually to remember Uncle Sam's interest abroad.
Justice and fair dealing among nations rest upon principles identical with those which control justice and fair
dealing among the individuals of which nations are composed, with the vital exception that each nation must
do its own part in international police work. If you get into trouble here, you can call for the police; but if Uncle
Sam gets into trouble, he has got to be his own policeman, and I want to see him strong enough to encourage
the peaceful aspirations of other peoples in connection with us.
I believe in national friendships and heartiest good-will to all nations; but national friendships, like those
between men, must be founded on respect as well as on liking, on forbearance as well as upon trust. I should
be heartily ashamed of any American who did not try to make the American Government act as justly toward
the other nations in international relations as he himself would act toward any individual in private relations.
I should be heartily ashamed to see us wrong a weaker power, and I should hang my head forever if we
tamely suffered wrong from a stronger power.
Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere. Conservation means development as much as it
does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of
our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come
after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to
his own children.
That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good
farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children,
leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.
Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not
monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again is another case in which I am accused of taking a
revolutionary attitude. People forget now that one hundred years ago there were public men of good
character who advocated the nation selling its public lands in great quantities, so that the nation could get the
most money out of it, and giving it to the men who could cultivate it for their own uses.
We took the proper democratic ground that the land should be granted in small sections to the men who were
actually to till it and live on it. Now, with the water-power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face
to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they
are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special
interest should be driven out of politics.
Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a
great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a
better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and
pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and
continuance of the nation.
Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests,
waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part.
I have spoken elsewhere also of the great task which lies before the farmers of the country to get for
themselves and their wives and children not only the benefits of better farming, but also those of better
business methods and better conditions of life on the farm. The burden of this great task will fall, as it should,
mainly upon the great organizations of the farmers themselves. I am glad it will, for I believe they are all able
to handle it.
In particular, there are strong reasons why the Departments of Agriculture of the various States, and the
United States Department of Agriculture, and the agricultural colleges and experiment stations should extend
their work to cover all phases of farm life, instead of limiting themselves, as they have far too often limited
themselves in the past, solely to the question of the production of crops. And now a special word to the
farmer.
I want to see him make the farm as fine a farm as it can be made; and let him remember to see that the
improvement goes on indoors as well as out; let him remember that the farmer's wife should have her share
of thought and attention just as much as the farmer himself. Nothing is more true than that excess of every
kind is followed by reaction; a fact which should be pondered by reformer and reactionary alike.
We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because
certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far.
The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the
advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general
right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.
But I think we may go still further. The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally
admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element
of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give
him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare.
Understand what I say there.
Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is
a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the
worth that is in him.
No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and
hours of labor short enough so that after his day's work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share
in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from
being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them.
We need comprehensive workmen's compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor
and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in booklearning,
but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers
and to extend the use of safety appliances for our workers in industry and commerce, both within and
between the States.
Also, friends, in the interest of the working man himself we need to set our faces like flint against
mob-violence just as against corporate greed; against violence and injustice and lawlessness by
wage-workers just as much as against lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers.
If I could ask but one thing of my fellow countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they go in for
reform, they remember the two sides, and that they always exact justice from one side as much as from the
other. I have small use for the public servant who can always see and denounce the corruption of the
capitalist, but who cannot persuade himself, especially before elections, to say a word about lawless
mob-violence.
And I have equally small use for the man, be he a judge on the bench, or editor of a great paper, or wealthy
and influential private citizen, who can see clearly enough and denounce the lawlessness of mob-violence,
but whose eyes are closed so that he is blind when the question is one of corruption in business on a gigantic
scale. Also remember what I said about excess in reformer and reactionary alike.
If the reactionary man, who thinks of nothing but the rights of property, could have his way, he would bring
about a revolution; and one of my chief fears in connection with progress comes because I do not want to see
our people, for lack of proper leadership, compelled to follow men whose intentions are excellent, but whose
eyes are a little too wild to make it really safe to trust them.
Here in Kansas there is one paper which habitually denounces me as the tool of Wall Street, and at the same
time frantically repudiates the statement that I am a Socialist on the ground that it is an unwarranted slander
of the Socialists.
National efficiency has many factors. It is a necessary result of the principle of conservation widely applied. In
the end it will determine our failure or success as a nation. National efficiency has to do, not only with natural
resources and with men, but is equally concerned with institutions. The State must be made efficient for the
work which concerns only the people of the State; and the nation for that which concerns all the people.
There must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of
great wealth, who can hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both jurisdictions. It is
a misfortune when the national legislature fails to do its duty in providing a national remedy, so that the only
national activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding the State to exercise power in the
premises.
I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism
when we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as
broad as the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for
the most vital problems are those which affect us all alike.
The national government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are
interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government. The betterment which we
seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the national government.
The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal
with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is
impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local
issues.
It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from overdivision of governmental powers, the
impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special
interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the
steward of the public welfare.
It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as
it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of
the people.
I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property as well as human welfare. Normally, and in
the long run, the ends are the same; but whenever the alternative must be faced, I am for men and not for
property, as you were in the Civil War. I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends; but I rank
dividends below human character. Again, I do not have any sympathy with the reformer who says he does
not care for dividends.
Of course, economic welfare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight and be able to support his
family. I know well that the reformers must not bring upon the people economic ruin, or the reforms
themselves will go down in the ruin. But we must be ready to face temporary disaster, whether or not brought
on by those who will war against us to the knife.
Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life
brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a
sordid and selfish materialism.
If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any
part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to
the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper
safeguards is vitally necessary.
The direct primary is a step in this direction, if it is associated with a corrupt-practices act effective to prevent
the advantage of the man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more honest
competitor. It is particularly important that all moneys received or expended for campaign purposes should be
publicly accounted for, not only after election, but before election as well. Political action must be made
simpler, easier, and freer from confusion for every citizen.
I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent public servants should be made easy and sure
in whatever way experience shall show to be most expedient in any given class of cases.
One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the
men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the
special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform
any service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar
provision could not fail to be useful within the States.
The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are
desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.
Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals,
active in public affairs—but, first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children
whom they bring up well—just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a success.
We must have—I believe we have already—a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no
wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure
the social and economic legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation is
necessarily evanescent. Let me again illustrate by a reference to the Grand Army. You could not have won
simply as a disorderly and disorganized mob.
You needed generals; you needed careful administration of the most advanced type; and a good
commissary—the cracker line. You well remember that success was necessary in many different lines in
order to bring about general success. You had to have the administration at Washington good, just as you
had to have the administration in the field; and you had to have the work of the generals good.
You could not have triumphed without that administration and leadership; but it would all have been worthless
if the average soldier had not had the right stuff in him. He had to have the right stuff in him, or you could not
get it out of him. In the last analysis, therefore, vitally necessary though it was to have the right kind of
organization and the right kind of generalship, it was even more vitally necessary that the average soldier
should have the fighting edge, the right character.
So it is in our civil life. No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right
kind of law and the right kind of administration of the law, we cannot go forward as a nation. That is
imperative; but it must be an addition to, and not a substitution for, the qualities that make us good citizens. In
the last analysis, the most important elements in any man's career must be the sum of those qualities which,
in the aggregate, we speak of as character.
If he has not got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the law by the boldest and
strongest executive, will avail to help him. We must have the right kind of character—character that makes a
man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a good husband—that makes a man a good
neighbor.
You must have that, and, then, in addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the
law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible chance for development. The
prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress,
and our public men must be genuinely progressive.
