ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, AT
WASHINGTON, NOV. 19, 1904
_Mr. Ambassador_:
Through you I wish on behalf of the people of the United States to
thank his Majesty, the German Emperor, and the people of Germany for
the gift to the Nation which you have just formally delivered to
me. I accept it with deep appreciation of the friendly regard which
it typifies for the people of this Republic both on the part of the
Emperor and on the part of the German people. I accept it not merely as
the statue of one of the half-dozen greatest soldiers of all time, and
therefore peculiarly appropriate for placing in this War College, but I
accept it as the statue of a great man, whose life was devoted to the
service of a great people, and whose deeds hastened the approach of the
day when a united Germany should spring into being.
As a soldier Frederick the Great ranks in that very, very small
group which includes Alexander, Cæsar, and Hannibal in antiquity,
and Napoleon, and possibly Gustavus Adolphus, in modern times. He
belonged to the ancient and illustrious house of Hohenzollern, which,
after playing a strong and virile part in the Middle Ages, and after
producing some men, like the great Elector, who were among the most
famous princes of their time, founded the royal house of Prussia two
centuries ago, and at last in our own day established the mighty
German Empire as among the foremost of world powers. We receive this
gift now at the hands of the present Emperor, himself a man who has
markedly added to the lustre of his great house and his great nation,
a man who has devoted his life to the welfare of his people, and who,
while keeping ever ready to defend the rights of that people, has also
made it evident in emphatic fashion that he and they desire peace and
friendship with the other nations of the earth.
It is not my purpose here to discuss at length the career of the
mighty King and mighty General whose statue we have just received.
In all history no other great commander save only Hannibal fought so
long against such terrible odds, and while Hannibal finally failed,
Frederick finally triumphed. In almost every battle he fought against
great odds, and he almost always won the victory. When defeated he
rose to an even greater altitude than when victorious. The memory of
the Seven Years’ War will last as long as there lives in mankind the
love of heroism, and its operations will be studied to the minutest
detail as long as the world sees a soldier worthy of the name. It is
difficult to know whether to admire most the victories of Leuthen
and Prague, Rossbach and Zorndorf, or the heartbreaking campaigns
after Kunersdorf, when the great King, after having been beaten to
the ground by the banded might of Europe, yet rose again and by an
exhibition of skill, tenacity, energy, and daring such as had never
before been seen united in one person, finally wrested triumph from
defeat. Not only must the military scholar always turn to the career of
Frederick the Great for lessons in strategy and tactics; not only must
the military administrator always turn to his career for lessons in
organizing success; not only will the lover of heroism read the tales
of his mighty feats as long as mankind cares for heroic deeds; but even
those who are not attracted by the valor of the soldier must yet, for
the sake of the greatness of the man, ponder and admire the lessons
taught by his undaunted resolution, his inflexible tenacity of purpose,
his farsighted grasp of lofty possibilities, and his unflinching,
unyielding determination in following the path he had marked out.
It is eminently fitting that the statue of this iron soldier, this
born leader of men, should find a place in this War College; for when
soldierly genius and soldierly heroism reach the highest point of
achievement the man in whom they are displayed grows to belong not
merely to the nation from which he sprang, but to all nations capable
of showing, and therefore capable of appreciating, the virile and
masterful virtues which alone make victors in those dread struggles
where resort is at last had to the arbitrament of arms.
But, Mr. Ambassador, in accepting the statue given us to-day through
you from the German Emperor, I accept it not merely because it is the
statue of a mighty and terrible soldier, but I accept it as a symbol
of the ties of friendship and goodwill which I trust as the years go
on will bind ever closer together the American and the German peoples.
There is kinship of blood between the two nations. We of the United
States are of mixed stock. In our veins runs the blood of almost all
the peoples of middle, northern, and western Europe. We already have
a history of which we feel that we have the right to be legitimately
proud, and yet our nationality is still in the formative period. Nearly
three centuries have elapsed since the landing of the English at
Jamestown marked the beginning of what has since grown into the United
States.
During these three centuries streams of newcomers from many different
countries abroad have in each generation contributed to swell the
increase of our people. Soon after the English settled in Virginia and
New England, the Hollander settled at the mouth of the Hudson and the
Swede at the mouth of the Delaware. Even in Colonial days the German
element had become very strong among our people in various parts of
this country; the Irish element was predominant in the foothills of
the Alleghenies; French Huguenots were numerous. By the time of the
Declaration of Independence that process of fusion which has gone on
ever since was well under way. From the beginning of our national
history men of German origin or German parentage played a distinguished
part in the affairs both of peace and of war. In the Revolutionary War
one of the leading generals was Muhlenberg, an American of German
descent, just as among the soldiers from abroad who came to aid us one
of the most prominent was the German, Steuben. Muhlenberg was the first
Speaker of the House of Representatives; and the battle which in the
Revolution saved the valley of the Mohawk to the American cause was
fought under the lead of the German, Herkimer. As all the different
races here tend rapidly to fuse together, it is rarely possible after
one or two generations to draw a sharp line between the various
elements; but there is no student of our national conditions who has
failed to appreciate what an invaluable element in our composite stock
the German is. Here, on this platform, Mr. Ambassador, among those
present to-day are many men partly or wholly of German blood, and
among the officers of the Army and Navy who have listened to you and
who now join with me in greeting you there are many whose fathers or
grandfathers were born in Germany, and not a few who themselves first
saw the light there.
Each nation has its allotted tasks to do; each nation has its peculiar
difficulties to encounter; and as the peoples of the world tend to
become more closely knit together alike for good and for evil, it
becomes ever more important to all that each should prosper; for
the prosperity of one is normally not a sign of menace but a sign
of hope for the rest. Here on this Continent where it is absolutely
essential that the different peoples coming to our shores should
not remain separate, but should fuse into one, our unceasing effort
is to strive to keep and profit by the good that each race brings
to our shores, and at the same time to do away with all racial and
religious animosities among the various stocks. In both efforts we
have met with an astonishing measure of success. As the years go by
it becomes not harder but easier to live in peace and goodwill among
ourselves; and I firmly believe that it will also become not harder
but easier to dwell in peace and friendship with the other nations
of the earth. A young people, a people of composite stock, we have
kinship with many different nations, but we are identical with none of
them, and are developing a separate national stock as we have already
developed a separate national life. We have in our veins the blood of
the Englishman, the Irishman, and the Welshman, the German and the
Frenchman, the Scotchman, the Dutchman, the Scandinavian, the Italian,
the Magyar, the Finn, the Slav, so that to each of the great powers of
the Old World we can claim a more or less distant kinship by blood; and
to each strain of blood we owe some peculiar quality in our national
life or national character. As such is the case it is natural that we
should have a peculiar feeling of nearness to each of many peoples
across the water. We most earnestly wish not only to keep unbroken our
friendship for each, but so far as we can without giving offence by an
appearance of meddling, to seek to bring about a better understanding
and a broader spirit of fair dealing and toleration among all nations.
It has been my great pleasure, Mr. Ambassador, in pursuance of this
object, recently to take with you the first steps in the negotiation of
a treaty of friendly arbitration between Germany and the United States.
In closing, let me thank you, and through you the German Emperor and
the German people, for this statue, which I accept in the name of the
American people; a people claiming blood kinship with your own; a
people owing much to Germany; a people which, though with a national
history far shorter than that of your people, nevertheless, like your
people, is proud of the great deeds of its past, and is confident in
the majesty of its future. I most earnestly pray that in the coming
years these two great nations shall move on toward their several
destinies knit together by ties of the heartiest friendship and
goodwill.