ADDRESS AT THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, AT GRACE REFORMED
CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 12, 1905
_Mr. Justice, Dr. Schick, and you, my Fellow-Members of this
Congregation, and our Guests who are with us to-day_:
I am glad, on behalf of this church, to say amen to the appeal that has
been made by Dr. Swift on behalf of the great society to the account of
whose work you have been listening. Mr. Justice, you quoted the advice
of a poet “to be doers rather than dreamers.” In the Book of all books
there is a sentence to the same effect, “Be ye doers of the word and
not hearers only.” Let us show ourselves to-day doers of the word,
upholders in fact of what has been preached to us by Dr. Swift.
He has set forth the needs of the society, and he has set forth the
great field over which it works. I wish to touch only on a small
portion of that field, but, after all, the portion that most concerns
us—the need here at home, here in this country, of furthering in every
way the work of the society, the work of all kindred societies, both
among the native-born and among the thousands who come to these shores
from abroad. And there is a peculiar propriety in such an appeal being
made to this church, for, as I have said here before, this church more
than most others should ever keep before it as part of its duty, as
one of the chief parts of its duty, that of caring in all ways, but
especially in spiritual ways, for the people who come to us from abroad.
The United States Government does endeavor to do its duty by the
immigrants who come to these shores; and I was glad, Dr. Swift, to
listen to what you said as to the work that is being done on Ellis
Island, for it is a just tribute to that work. But unless people have
had some experience with the dangers and difficulties surrounding the
newly arrived immigrant they can hardly realize how great they are.
The immigrant comes here almost unprotected; he does not, as a rule,
know our language; he is wholly unfamiliar with our institutions, our
customs, our habits of life and ways of thought; and there are, I am
sorry to say, great numbers of evil and wicked people who hope to
make their livelihood by preying on him. He is exposed to innumerable
temptations, innumerable petty oppressions, on almost every hand; and
unless some one is on hand to help him he literally has no idea where
to turn. No greater work can be done by a philanthropic or religious
society than to stretch out the helping hand to the man and the woman
who come here to this country to become citizens and the parents of
citizens, and therefore to do their part in making up for weal or for
woe the future of our land. If we do not take care of them, if we do
not try to uplift them, then as sure as fate our own children will pay
the penalty. If we do not see that the immigrant and the children of
the immigrant are raised up, most assuredly the result will be that
our own children and children’s children are pulled down. Either they
will rise or we shall sink. The level of well-being in this country
will be a level for all of us. We can not keep that level down for
a part and not have it sink more or less for the whole. If we raise
it for a part we shall raise it to a certain extent for the whole.
Therefore, it means much, not merely to the immigrants, but to every
good American, that there should be at Ellis Island the colporteurs
of this society, and the representatives of other religious and
philanthropic societies to try to care for the immigrant’s body, and
above all to try to care for the immigrant’s soul.
It is, of course, unnecessary to say that the things of the body must
be cared for; that the first duty of any man, especially of the man who
has others dependent upon him, is to take care of them, and to take
care of himself. Nobody can help others if he begins by being a burden
upon others. Each man must be able to pull his own weight, to carry his
own weight; and, therefore, each man must show the capacity to earn for
himself and his family enough to secure a certain amount of material
well-being. That must be the foundation. But on that foundation he must
build as a superstructure the spiritual life.
One of the best things done by this society, and by kindred religious
and benevolent societies, is supplying in our American life of to-day
the proper ideals. It is a good thing to have had the extraordinary
material prosperity which has followed so largely on the extraordinary
scientific discoveries alluded to by Justice Brewer, if we use this
material prosperity aright. It is not a good thing, it is a bad thing,
if we treat it as the be-all and end-all of our life. If we make it the
only ideal before this Nation, if we permit the people of this Republic
to get before their minds the view that material well-being carried
to an ever higher degree is the one and only thing to be striven
for, we are laying up for ourselves not merely trouble but ruin. I,
too, feel the faith and hope that have been expressed here to-day by
the vice-president and the secretary of the society; but I so feel
because I believe that we shall not permit mere material well-being
to become the only ideal in this Nation, because I believe that more
and more we shall accustom ourselves to looking at the great fortunes
accumulated by certain men as being nothing in themselves, either to
admire, to envy or to deplore, save as they are used well or ill. If
the great fortune is used well, if the man who has accumulated it has
the strength necessary to resist the temptations either to use it
wrongfully, or what is nearly as bad, not to use it aright—for negation
may be almost as harmful as positive wrongdoing—then he is entitled to
the praise due to whoever employs great powers for the common good. If
the man who accumulates that great fortune uses it ill or does not use
it well, then so far from being an object of envy, still less an object
of admiration, he should take his place among those whom we condemn
and pity—for usually, if we have the root of the matter in us, we will
pity those we condemn.
Wonderful changes have come in the last half century. It may well
be as Mr. Justice Brewer has said, that we tremble on the verge of
still greater changes in the future. The railway, the telegraph, the
telephone, steam, electricity, all the marvelous mechanical inventions
of these last five decades, have changed much in the superficial aspect
of the world, and have, therefore, produced certain great changes in
the world itself. But after all, in glorying over and wondering at
this extraordinary development, I think that we sometimes forget that
compared to the deeper things it is indeed only superficial in its
effect. The qualities that count most in man and woman now are the
qualities that counted most two thousand years ago; and as a Nation
we shall achieve success or merit failure accordingly as we do or do
not display those qualities. Among the members of this congregation
is a man who, in his prime, served as the fleet engineer of Farragut
when Farragut went into Mobile Bay. That was forty-one years ago. The
ships and the guns with which Farragut did that mighty feat are now
almost as obsolete as the galleys that fought for the mastery of the
Ægean Sea when Athens waged war on Sparta. They could no more stand
against a modern ship than could the ships that fought against the
Invincible Armada in 1588. But if the need ever comes for this Nation
to call on its sons to face a foreign foe, the call will or will not be
made in vain just exactly according to whether we do or do not still
retain the spirit which drove Farragut and the men under him onward to
victory. The gun changes, the ship changes; but the qualities needed in
the man behind the gun, in the man who handles the ship, are just the
same as they ever were. So it is in our whole material civilization of
to-day. The railroad, the telegraph, all these wonderful inventions,
produce new problems, confer new benefits, and bring about new
dangers. Cities are built up to enormous size, and, of course, with
the upbuilding of the cities comes the growth of the terrible problems
which confront all of us who have to do with city life. Outward
circumstances change. New dangers spring up and old dangers vanish. But
the spirit necessary to meet the new dangers, the spirit necessary to
ensure the triumph that we must and shall win, is the same now that it
has always been. This is the spirit which lies behind this society, and
all kindred societies; and we owe to this society all the help we can
afford to give; for it is itself giving to our people a service beyond
price, a service of love, a service which no money could buy.
ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL CONGRESS OF MOTHERS, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
MARCH 13, 1905
_Mrs. President_:
In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers
to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good
thing to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the
country; for the small landowners, the men who own their little homes,
and therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of
the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life
in every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too
narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent
danger of falling.
But far more important than the question of the occupation of our
citizens is the question of how their family life is conducted. No
matter what that occupation may be, as long as there is a real home and
as long as those who make up that home do their duty to one another, to
their neighbors and to the state, it is of minor consequence whether
the man’s trade is plied in the country or the city, whether it calls
for the work of the hands or for the work of the head.
But the Nation is in a bad way if there is no real home, if the family
is not of the right kind; if the man is not a good husband and father,
if he is brutal or cowardly or selfish, if the woman has lost her
sense of duty, if she is sunk in vapid self-indulgence or has let her
nature be twisted so that she prefers a sterile pseudo-intellectuality
to that great and beautiful development of character which comes only
to those whose lives know the fulness of duty done, of effort made and
self-sacrifice undergone.
In the last analysis the welfare of the state depends absolutely upon
whether or not the average family, the average man and woman and their
children, represent the kind of citizenship fit for the foundation of a
great nation; and if we fail to appreciate this we fail to appreciate
the root morality upon which all healthy civilization is based.
No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of
artistic development, will permanently avail any people unless its home
life is healthy, unless the average man possesses honesty, courage,
common-sense, and decency, unless he works hard and is willing at need
to fight hard; and unless the average woman is a good wife, a good
mother, able and willing to perform the first and greatest duty of
womanhood, able and willing to bear, and to bring up as they should be
brought up, healthy children, sound in body, mind, and character, and
numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.
There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world
endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the
truth that the primary duty of the husband is to be the homemaker,
the breadwinner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty
of the woman is to be the helpmeet, the housewife, and mother. The
woman should have ample educational advantages; but save in exceptional
cases the man must be, and she need not be, and generally ought not
to be, trained for a lifelong career as the family breadwinner; and,
therefore, after a certain point the training of the two must normally
be different because the duties of the two are normally different. This
does not mean inequality of function, but it does mean that normally
there must be dissimilarity of function. On the whole, I think the
duty of the woman the more important, the more difficult, and the more
honorable of the two; on the whole I respect the woman who does her
duty even more than I respect the man who does his.
No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as
the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for
upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the
day but often every hour of the night. She may have to get up night
after night to take care of a sick child, and yet must by day continue
to do all her household duties as well; and if the family means are
scant she must usually enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole
brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the debtors of
all women. Above all, our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling
wives among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and
whom he so loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often
led on the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.
Just as the happiest and most honorable and most useful task that
can be set any man is to earn enough for the support of his wife and
family, for the bringing up and starting in life of his children, so
the most important, the most honorable and desirable task which can
be set any woman is to be a good and wise mother in a home marked by
self-respect and mutual forbearance, by willingness to perform duty,
and by refusal to sink into self-indulgence or avoid that which entails
effort and self-sacrifice. Of course, there are exceptional men and
exceptional women who can do and ought to do much more than this,
who can lead and ought to lead great careers of outside usefulness
in addition to—not as substitute for—their home work; but I am not
speaking of exceptions; I am speaking of the primary duties, I am
speaking of the average citizens, the average men and women who make up
the Nation.
Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers I shall have
nothing whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work
which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, and most mothers have
very hard times; and yet what true mother would barter her experience
of joy and sorrow in exchange for a life of cold selfishness, which
insists upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which
often finds its fit dwelling-place in some flat designed to furnish
with the least possible expenditure of effort the maximum of comfort
and of luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children?
The woman who is a good wife, a good mother, is entitled to our respect
as is no one else; but she is entitled to it only because, and so long
as, she is worthy of it. Effort and self-sacrifice are the law of
worthy life for the man as for the woman; though neither the effort
nor the self-sacrifice may be the same for the one as for the other. I
do not in the least believe in the patient Griselda type of woman, in
the woman who submits to gross and long-continued ill-treatment, any
more than I believe in a man who tamely submits to wrongful aggression.
No wrongdoing is so abhorrent as wrongdoing by a man toward the wife
and the children who should arouse every tender feeling in his nature.
Selfishness toward them, lack of tenderness toward them, lack of
consideration for them, above all, brutality in any form toward them,
should arouse the heartiest scorn and indignation in every upright soul.
I believe in the woman’s keeping her self-respect just as I believe in
the man’s doing so. I believe in her rights just as much as I believe
in the man’s, and indeed a little more; and I regard marriage as a
partnership in which each partner is in honor bound to think of the
rights of the other as well as of his or her own. But I think that the
duties are even more important than the rights; and in the long run I
think that the reward is ampler and greater for duty well done than for
the insistence upon individual rights, necessary though this, too, must
often be. Your duty is hard, your responsibility great; but greatest of
all is your reward. I do not pity you in the least. On the contrary, I
feel respect and admiration for you.
Into the woman’s keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to
come after us. In bringing up your children you mothers must remember
that while it is essential to be loving and tender it is no less
essential to be wise and firm. Foolishness and affection must not be
treated as interchangeable terms; and besides training your sons and
daughters in the softer and milder virtues you must seek to give them
those stern and hardy qualities which in after life they will surely
need. Some children will go wrong in spite of the best training; and
some will go right even when their surroundings are most unfortunate;
nevertheless an immense amount depends upon the family training. If
you mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be selfish and to
think only of themselves, you will be responsible for much sadness
among the women who are to be their wives in the future. If you let
your daughters grow up idle, perhaps under the mistaken impression
that as you yourselves have had to work hard they shall know only
enjoyment, you are preparing them to be useless to others and burdens
to themselves. Teach boys and girls alike that they are not to look
forward to lives spent in avoiding difficulties but to lives spent in
overcoming difficulties. Teach them that work, for themselves and also
for others, is not a curse but a blessing; seek to make them happy, to
make them enjoy life, but seek also to make them face life with the
steadfast resolution to wrest success from labor and adversity, and
to do their whole duty before God and to man. Surely she who can thus
train her sons and her daughters is thrice fortunate among women.
There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of
children, and for these we have the respect and sympathy always
due to those who, from no fault of their own, are denied any
of the other great blessings of life. But the man or woman who
deliberately foregoes these blessings, whether from viciousness,
coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to
appreciate aright the difference between the all-important and the
unimportant—why, such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any
visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle, or upon the man who
refuses to work for the support of those dependent upon him, and who
though able-bodied is yet content to eat in idleness the bread which
others provide.
The existence of women of this type forms one of the most unpleasant
and unwholesome features of modern life. If any one is so dim of
vision as to fail to see what a thoroughly unlovely creature such a
woman is I wish they would read Judge Robert Grant’s novel “Unleavened
Bread,” ponder seriously the character of Selma, and think of the fate
that would surely overcome any nation which developed its average
and typical woman along such lines. Unfortunately it would be untrue
to say that this type exists only in American novels. That it also
exists in American life is made unpleasantly evident by the statistics
as to the dwindling families in some localities. It is made evident
in equally sinister fashion by the census statistics as to divorce,
which are fairly appalling; for easy divorce is now, as it ever has
been, a bane to any nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home,
an incitement to married unhappiness and to immorality, an evil thing
for men and a still more hideous evil for women. These unpleasant
tendencies in our American life are made evident by articles such as
those which I actually read not long ago in the “Independent,” where
a clergyman was quoted, seemingly with approval, as expressing the
general American attitude when he said that the ambition of any save a
very rich man should be to rear two children only, so as to give his
children an opportunity “to taste a few of the good things of life.”
This man, whose profession and calling should have made him a moral
teacher, writing in what is professedly a religious paper, actually set
before others the ideal, not of training children to do their duty,
not of sending them forth with stout hearts and ready minds to win
triumphs for themselves and their country, not of allowing them the
opportunity and giving them the privilege of making their own place in
the world, but, forsooth, of keeping the number of children so limited
that they might “taste a few good things!” The way to give a child a
fair chance in life is not to bring it up in luxury, but to see that
it has the kind of training that will give it strength of character.
Even apart from the vital question of national life, and regarding
only the individual interest of the children themselves, happiness in
the true sense is a hundredfold more apt to come to any given member
of a healthy family of healthy-minded children, well brought up, well
educated, but taught that they must shift for themselves, must win
their own way, and by their own exertions make their own positions of
usefulness, than it is apt to come to those whose parents themselves
have acted on and have trained their children to act on, the selfish
and sordid theory that the whole end of life is “to taste a few good
things.”
The intelligence of the remark is on a par with its morality, for the
most rudimentary mental process would have shown the speaker that
if the average family in which there are children contained but two
children the Nation as a whole would decrease in population so rapidly
that in two or three generations it would very deservedly be on the
point of extinction, so that the people who had acted on this base and
selfish doctrine would be giving place to others with braver and more
robust ideals. Nor would such a result be in any way regrettable; for a
race that practiced such doctrine—that is, a race that practiced race
suicide—would thereby conclusively show that it was unfit to exist,
and that it had better give place to people who had not forgotten the
primary laws of their being.
To sum up, then, the whole matter is simple enough. If either a race
or an individual prefers the pleasures of mere effortless ease, of
self-indulgence, to the infinitely deeper, the infinitely higher
pleasures that come to those who know the toil and the weariness, but
also the joy, of hard duty well done, why, that race or that individual
must inevitably in the end pay the penalty of leading a life both vapid
and ignoble. No man and no woman really worthy of the name can care for
the life spent solely or chiefly in the avoidance of risk and trouble
and labor. Save in exceptional cases the prizes worth having in life
must be paid for, and the life worth living must be a life of work for
a worthy end, and ordinarily of work more for others than for one’s
self.
The man is but a poor creature whose effort is not rather for the
betterment of his wife and children than for himself; and as for
the mother, her very name stands for loving unselfishness and
self-abnegation, and, in any society fit to exist, is fraught with
associations which render it holy.
The woman’s task is not easy—no task worth doing is easy—but in doing
it, and when she has done it, there shall come to her the highest and
holiest joy known to mankind; and having done it, she shall have the
reward prophesied in Scripture; for her husband and her children, yes,
and all people who realize that her work lies at the foundation of all
national happiness and greatness, shall rise up and call her blessed.
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDLY SONS OF ST. PATRICK,
DELMONICO’S, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 17, 1905
It is, of course, a matter of peculiar pleasure to me to come to my
own city and to meet so many men with whom I have been associated for
the last quarter of a century—for it was nearly that time ago, Judge,
that you and I first met when we were both in the New York Legislature
together—and to be greeted by you as you have greeted me to-night. I
wish to express at the outset my special sense of obligation—and I
know that the rest of you will not grudge my expressing it—my special
sense of obligation to Colonel Duffy and the officers and men of the
Sixty-ninth, who were my escort to-day. I shall write to Colonel Duffy
later, to give him formal notice, and to ask him to give the regiment
formal notice, of my appreciation, but I wish to express it thus
publicly to-night.
And now, before I begin my speech proper, I wish to read a telegram
which has been handed to me as a sop to certain of my well-known
prejudices. It has been sent up to me by one of the members here
to-night, who when we came into the dining-room was only a father, but
who at this moment is a grandfather. This telegram runs as follows:
“Peter McDonnell, Friendly Sons’ Dinner, Delmonico’s. Patrick just
arrived. Tired after parade. Sends his regards to the President. He is
the first on record since the President attended the Friendly Sons’
dinner. He is a fine singer. No race suicide in this family. Weighs
eight pounds, looks like the whole family. The mother is doing well.
Robert McDonnell.”
And, gentlemen, I want you to join with me in drinking the health of
Patrick, Peter, Robert, and above all, of the best of the whole outfit,
Mrs. McDonnell, the mother.
Now we will pass from the present to the past. The Judge has spoken to
you of the formation of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
in Philadelphia, in colonial days. It was natural that it should have
started in Philadelphia and at the time of which the Judge spoke. For
we must not forget, in dealing with our history as a Nation, that long
before the outbreak of the Revolution there had begun on the soil of
the colonies, which afterward became the United States, that mixture of
races which has been and still is one of the most important features in
our history as a people. At the time, early in the eighteenth century,
when the immigrants from Ireland first began to come in numbers to this
country, the race elements were still imperfectly fused, and for some
time the then new Irish strain was clearly distinguishable from the
others. And there was one peculiarity about these immigrants who came
from Ireland to the colonies in the eighteenth century which has never
been paralleled in the case of any other immigrants whatsoever. In all
other cases since the very first settlements, the pushing westward of
the frontier, the conquest of the Continent has been due primarily
to the men of native birth. But the immigrants from Ireland in the
eighteenth century, and those alone, pushed boldly through the settled
districts and planted themselves as the advance guard of the conquering
civilization on the borders of the Indian-haunted wilderness.
This was true in Northern Maine and New Hampshire, in Western
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas alike. And, inasmuch as
Philadelphia was the largest city which was in touch with that extreme
Western frontier, it was most natural that the Society of the Friendly
Sons of St. Patrick should first be formed in that city. We had, I
wish to say, in New York, frequently during colonial days, dinners
of societies of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, but apparently the
society in New York did not take a permanent form; but we frequently
had dinners on March 17 of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick here in New
York City even in colonial days.
By the time the Revolution had broken out, the men of different race
strains had begun to fuse together, and the Irish among those strains
furnished their full share of leadership in the struggle. Among their
number was Commodore John Barry, one of the two or three officers to
whom our infant Navy owed most. I had the honor in the last session of
Congress to recommend that a monument to Barry should be erected in
Washington. I heartily believe in economy, but I think we can afford to
let up enough to let that monument through.
On land, the men of this strain furnished generals like Montgomery, who
fell so gloriously at Quebec, and like Sullivan, the conqueror of the
Iroquois, who came of a New Hampshire family, which furnished governors
to three New England States. In her old age, the mother, Mrs. Sullivan,
used to say that she had known what it was to work hard in the fields
carrying in her arms the Governor of Massachusetts, with the Governors
of New Hampshire and Vermont tagging on at her skirts.
I have spoken of the generals. Now for the rank and file. The
Continental troops of the hardest fighter among Washington’s generals,
Mad Anthony Wayne, were recruited so largely from this stock that
Lighthorse Harry Lee of Virginia, the father of the great general,
Robert Lee, always referred to them as “The Line of Ireland.” Nor must
we forget that of this same stock there was a boy during the days of
the Revolution who afterward became the chief American general of his
time, and, as President, one of the public men who left his impress
most deeply upon our Nation, Andrew Jackson, the victor of New Orleans.
The Revolution was the first great crisis of our history. The Civil War
was the second. And in this second great crisis the part played by the
men of Irish birth or parentage was no less striking than it had been
in the Revolution. Among the three or four great generals who led the
Northern Army in the war, stood Phil Sheridan. Some of those whom I am
now addressing served in that immortal brigade which on the fatal day
of Fredericksburg left its dead closest to the stonewall which marked
the limit that could not be overpassed even by the highest valor.
And, gentlemen, it was my good fortune when it befell me to serve
as a regimental commander in a very small war—but all the war there
was—to have under me more than one of the sons of those who served in
Meagher’s brigade. Among them was one of my two best captains, both
of whom were killed, Allen Capron, and this man Bucky O’Neill. Bucky
O’Neill was killed at Santiago, showing the same absolute indifference
to life, the same courage, the same gallant readiness to sacrifice
everything on the altar of an ideal, that his father had shown when he
died in Meagher’s brigade in the Civil War.
The people who have come to this country from Ireland have contributed
to the stock of our common citizenship qualities which are essential
to the welfare of every great nation. They are a masterful race of
rugged character, a race the qualities of whose womanhood have become
proverbial, while its men have the elemental, the indispensable virtues
of working hard in time of peace and fighting hard in time of war.
And I want to say here, as I have said and shall say again elsewhere,
as I shall say again and again, that we must never forget that no
amount of material wealth, no amount of intellect, no artistic or
scientific growth can avail anything to the nation which loses the
elemental virtues. If the average man can not work and fight, the race
is in a poor way; and it will not have, because it will not deserve,
the respect of any one.
Let us avoid always, either as individuals or as a Nation, brawling,
speaking discourteously or acting offensively toward others, but let
us make it evident that we wish peace, not because we are weak, but
because we think it right; and that while we do not intend to wrong any
one, we are perfectly competent to hold our own if any one wrongs us.
There has never been a time in this country when it has not been true
of the average American of Irish birth or parentage, that he came up to
this standard, able to work and able to fight at need.
But the men of Irish birth or of Irish descent have been far more than
soldiers—I will not say more than, but much in addition to, soldiers.
In every walk in life in this country men of this blood have stood and
now stand pre-eminent, not only as soldiers but as statesmen, on the
bench, at the bar, and in business. They are doing their full share
toward the artistic and literary development of the country.
And right here let me make a special plea to you, to this society and
kindred societies: We Americans take a just pride in the development
of our great universities, and more and more we are seeking to provide
for creative and original work in these universities. I hope that an
earnest effort will be made to endow chairs in American universities
for the study of Celtic literature and for research in Celtic
antiquities. It is only of recent years that the extraordinary wealth
and beauty of the old Celtic Sagas have been fully appreciated, and we
of America, who have so large a Celtic strain in our blood, can not
afford to be behindhand in the work of adding to modern scholarship by
bringing within its ken the great Celtic literature of the past.
My fellow-countrymen, I have spoken to-night especially of what has
been done for this Nation of ours by men of Irish blood. But, after
all, in speaking to you, or, to any other body of my fellow-citizens,
no matter from what Old World country they themselves or their
forefathers may have come, the great thing is to remember that we are
all of us Americans. Let us keep our pride in the stocks from which
we have sprung, but let us show that pride, not by holding aloof from
one another, least of all by preserving the Old World jealousies and
bitternesses, but by joining in a spirit of generous rivalry to see
which can do most for our great common country.
Americanism is not a matter of creed or birthplace or descent. That man
is the best American who has in him the American spirit, the American
soul. Such a man fears not the strong and harms not the weak. He scorns
what is base or cruel or dishonest. He looks beyond the accidents of
occupation or social condition and hails each of his fellow-citizens
as his brother, asking nothing save that each shall treat the other on
his worth as a man, and that they shall all join together to do what in
them lies for the uplifting of this mighty and vigorous people. In our
veins runs the blood of many an Old World nation. We are kin to each of
these nations and yet identical with none.
Our policy should be one of cordial friendship for them all, and yet
we should keep ever before our eyes the fact that we are ourselves
a separate people with our own ideals and standards, and destined,
whether for better or for worse, to work out a wholly new national
type. The fate of the twentieth century will in no small degree—I ask
you to think of this from the standpoint of the world—the fate of the
twentieth century as it bears on the world will in no small degree
depend upon the type of citizenship developed on this Continent. Surely
such a thought must thrill us with the resolute purpose so to bear
ourselves that the name American shall stand as the symbol of just,
generous, and fearless treatment of all men and all nations. Let us be
true to ourselves, for we can not then be false to any man.
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, HOTEL
ASTOR, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 17, 1905
_Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I am glad to greet not merely the Sons but the Daughters of the
American Revolution, and it is indeed a pleasure to be with you and say
a few words, partly of greeting to you and partly in reference to what
I feel should be the work, the special work, of a society like this,
the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. It ought to fulfil
more than one function. In the first place, it should, of course, keep
up our sense of historic continuity with the past. It is a good thing,
pre-eminently a good thing, for this Nation never to lose sight of what
has been done in the past by those who founded and those who preserved
the Republic. It is eminently fit that there should be associations
banded together for the special purpose of keeping fresh in the minds
of all of us the great memories of the men of the past and of what
these men did. But if we treat that merely as a relaxation, merely as a
pleasant mental exercise, I think we come lamentably short of what we
ought to do.
The way to pay effective homage to the men of the mighty past is to
live decently and efficiently in the present. We have a right to expect
that every society like this shall be a nucleus for patriotic endeavor
in the affairs of the day. Now, in studying the past I wish that
societies like this would pay heed not only to what is pleasant for us
to read about, but also to what is unpleasant. I do not think that a
diet of all praise is good for any one, and it is no better for us as a
body politic than for any one of us individually. Admiral Coghlan will
tell you that the first step necessary in bringing the Navy up to its
present standard of marksmanship was having the Navy understand that
its marksmanship was not what it ought to be. I think the facts will
bear me out.
The thing to do is to remember what Emerson says, that in the long
run an unpleasant truth is a very much safer companion than even the
pleasantest falsehood. Our pride in what was done in the past should
not permit us to be led away into blindness by failure to appreciate
whatever was wrong in the past. Read what Washington said about the
average militia regiment of the Revolutionary War, and you will not
find he used complimentary language. It was because our people declined
to accept Washington’s judgment on the militia, and persisted in
trying the experiment of fighting the War of 1812 with militia, that
the first two years of that war resulted not merely disastrously, but
shamefully, and among other things resulted in the burning of the city
of Washington. We did not begin to win on land until we had evolved
through mighty hard knocks a small army under Brown and Scott on the
northern frontier, which, when evolved, proved able to do what no
Continental army at that time could do, that is, meet to advantage
the best troops of Britain. We won at sea because we had a number of
frigates and sloops which had been built more than fifteen years before
and whose officers had been trained in the school of their profession
at sea and in action. We won these victories because we had the fleet;
and if the fleet had been bigger we would not have had to fight the war
at all.
Now, I ask that societies like this teach the truth; teach the truth
that helps, even if it hurts a little in the helping. Take our struggle
in building up our Navy to its present strength. We were hampered in
that struggle by the ignorant and unspeakably foolish belief that
somehow or other America was so big and smart a Nation that we did not
need a Navy, and could improvise one out of hand if the need ever arose.
Admiral Coghlan lived through the period which saw the United States
at the close of the Civil War, with Farragut and his fellows as our
admirals, loom up as one of the great naval Powers of the earth, which
then saw us about the year 1882 reduced to a condition of effective
sea-strength when it would have been flattery to call us a fifth-rate
Power, and which then saw the building up of our Navy until at present,
taking into account the ships built and authorized, and, above all,
taking into account the way those ships are handled, singly and in
squadrons—taking into the account the ships, the armor, the guns, and,
above all, the men in the conning towers, in the engine rooms and
behind the guns—we rank as one of the big naval Powers of the earth.
We rank as such, we occupy our present position and we are a power
potent for peace because we deliberately faced the fact that we did not
have a Navy worth anything in 1882.
I take immense interest in the Navy, because the Navy is the arm upon
which this country must most depend for holding its own and upholding
its honor so far as our international relations are concerned. We
had to educate our people slowly up to the need of a Navy. We began
by building some cruisers. We then built two or three fast vessels
called commerce destroyers. We had quite a time for several years in
persuading excellent people of good intentions, but not entirely clear
minds, that it was rather less immoral to destroy commerce than to take
life in battleships. Then we had to go through the stage of meeting and
by degrees overcoming the arguments of those other excellent people who
said we must have fighting ships, but only for defence; that we must
only have coast defence ships; that is, we must win the fight not by
hitting, but by parrying. If we had carried out that theory, Admiral
Coghlan and his fellow-captains under Dewey would have been cooped up
in coast defence vessels in San Francisco, while the hostile ships
rested unharmed in Manila. That is the theory of coast defence; and
in that case the war would never have had any end. We won because by
that time our people had at last awakened to the fact that in a navy
you want the very best type of ship; and that of all foolish things,
the most foolish is to hit soft. Do not hit at all if you can help it.
Avoid trouble of every kind. Do not hit at all if you can help it,
but never hit soft. When Dewey and the captains under him went into
Manila Bay they went in in ships that had been built, not that year nor
the year before. Some of them had been built as much as fifteen years
before, twelve years, eight years; and the legislators who authorized
the building of those ships, the men who built them, the captains who
first took them out, the captains who trained the men aboard them,
every man who did his part in bringing up the Navy to the standard of
efficiency which it had reached in 1898 is justly entitled to his share
of the credit in the victory won on that first day of May.
When you cheer for Dewey, when you think of Farragut, when you speak of
the founders of the American Navy in the days of the Revolution, do not
confine yourselves to cheers, do not confine yourselves to saying what
a great man Washington was and how he was backed up by generals and
statesmen of that day; but take example from what those men did, take
warning from what their less wise fellows did, and prepare for victory
in the only way in which victory can be prepared for, by preparing for
it in advance.
I spoke to you of the difficulties to be met with in getting the Navy
built up. Among these difficulties is the fact that there are some
very good people who, whenever you say that you want a good Navy, say
that “this is a lamentable illustration of the jingo spirit, and that
there is no reason why this country should ever have a war.” I know
one excellent gentleman in Congress who said he preferred arbitration
to battleships. So do I. But suppose the other man does not. I want to
have the battleships as a provocative for arbitration so far as the
other man is concerned.
We have now got our Navy up to a good point. We have built and are
building forty armored ships. For a year or two, or two or three
years, to come, what we need to do is to provide for the personnel of
those ships, and to secure the very highest standard of efficiency in
handling them, singly and in squadrons; above all, for handling the
great guns. So much for the Navy.
Now a word for the Army. I was very sorry that this year Congress did
not provide the means for having field manœuvres such as those General
Grant and General Bell took part in last year. Those manœuvres are
very useful. It is impossible to take National Guard regiments and put
them into such manœuvres without causing them great discomfort, and it
may be better to keep such manœuvres as were carried on last year for
the Regular Army. But it is a great mistake not to continue them for
the Regular Army. We have a small Regular Army. It is not advisable
or necessary that we should have a large one. It is advisable, it is
necessary, that the Army we have should be efficient as a whole as
well as efficient in its individual parts. I firmly believe that given
an equal chance, the officers and enlisted men of the American Army
offer material quite as good as any to be found in any army of the
world. Because I believe that I think it not merely an iniquity but a
crime not to give the officers and the enlisted men that equal chance.
We have an Army now short of seventy thousand men. Deducting the men
necessary for the manning of the coast defences, it would give us at
the very outside figure a possible Army of fifty thousand men—that is,
an Army about one-fourteenth the size of the forces that have been
contending in the mighty death wrestle around Mukden. Surely we owe
it to this Nation that we should have that Army of fifty thousand men
able to manœuvre as an Army of fifty thousand men and able to render as
good service as such as any army can render. We can never achieve that
ideal unless we are willing as a Nation to spend the money so that the
Army shall have the chance of being handled in time of peace in great
masses by the men who will handle it in masses in time of war. If when
war comes you set thirty thousand men, of whom no more than five or
six hundred have ever served together, under officers who have never
handled, any of them, more than five or six hundred men, you can not
expect anything but disaster; unless perchance you go against a foe
even more foolish than you are.
So I ask you of this society, the Sons of the American Revolution, to
study the war of the Revolution, to study the War of 1812, to study
the war with Mexico, and the Civil War, not only from the standpoint
of the victories, but from the standpoint of the defeats, and to try
to see to it that in our policy at the present time we carry out the
old policies that won the victories, and avoid the old policies that
brought about the defeats.
I speak in the interest of peace when I ask for an efficient Army
and Navy. This is a high-spirited people. This is a people that will
not abandon the Monroe Doctrine, will not stop building the Isthmian
Canal, will not surrender its hold upon the islands of the sea. Very
good; then take such steps as are necessary to make your hold on those
possessions, your backing of this doctrine, effective, and not empty
bluster.
So it is in civic affairs. Study not only what Washington and
Washington’s supporters did, but study what was done by those who
brought the Continental Congress to absolute impotence. Study what was
done by those who nearly undid the good work of Washington. Study what
has been done in the past by the men who have made errors no less than
by the men who have won triumphs, and profit alike by the study of the
triumphs and by the study of the errors.
Talking among ourselves, man to man, each of us will admit to the other
that there are things in our life that he does not like; but when one
of us gets on his feet to address the rest he often seems to feel as
if somehow he ought never to speak save in indiscriminate praise of
all. The same man who will take an unwarrantably pessimistic view of
all our governmental matters in private will feel obliged to speak
in unwarrantable praise of all these matters in public. We ought to
avoid ignorant praise as much as ignorant blame. It is only by making a
correct diagnosis that we can find out how to treat any given disease.
A good physician in making a diagnosis is not either an optimist or
a pessimist. He wants to find out the facts; for to take either too
dark or too rosy a view may be fatal to the patient. Just so in our
body politic. Try to find out what the facts really are, try to find
out what the good qualities, what the defects; what the good side is
in any portion of our Government, what the defect is in any portion of
our Government. State the truth; do not hysterically exaggerate what is
good; do not hysterically exaggerate what is evil. Find out the facts;
and then with your whole heart set to work to preserve and make better
the good and to cut out and do away with the evil.
ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL MEDICAL SCHOOL,
WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 25, 1905
_Ladies and Gentlemen; and especially the Members of the Graduating
Class_:
I am glad to have the chance of saying a word of greeting to you this
morning. You represent two professions, for you are members of the
great medical body and you are also officers of the Navy of the United
States, and therefore you have a double standard of honor up to which
to live. I think that all of us laymen, men and women, have a peculiar
appreciation of what a doctor means; for I do not suppose there is one
of us who does not feel that the family doctor stands in a position
of close intimacy with each of us, in a position of obligation to him
under which one is happy to rest to an extent hardly possible with
any one else; and those of us, I think most of us, who are fortunate
enough to have a family doctor who is a beloved and intimate friend,
realize that there can be few closer ties of intimacy and affection in
the world. And while, of course, even the greatest and best doctors can
not assume that very intimate relation with more than a certain number
of people (though it is to be said that more than any other man, the
doctor does commonly assume such a relation to many people)—while it
is impossible this relation in its closest form shall obtain between
a doctor and more than a certain number of people, still with every
patient with whom the doctor is thrown at all intimately he has this
peculiar relation to a greater or less extent. The effect that the
doctor has upon the body of the patient is in very many cases no
greater than the effect that he has upon the patient’s mind. Each one
of you here has resting upon him not only a great responsibility for
the care of the body of the officer or enlisted man who will be under
his supervision, but a care—which ought not to be too consciously
shown, but which should be unconsciously felt—for the man’s spirit. The
morale of the entire ship’s company, of the entire body of men with
which you are to be thrown, will be sensibly affected by the way in
which each of you does his duty.
Just as the great doctor, the man who stands high in his profession
in any city, counts as one of the most valuable assets in that city’s
civic work, so in the Navy or the Army the effect of having thoroughly
well-trained men with a high and sensitive standard of professional
honor and professional duty is wellnigh incalculable upon the service
itself. I want you now, as you graduate, to feel that on your shoulders
rests a great weight of responsibility; that your position is one of
high honor, and that it is impossible to hold a position of high honor
and not hold it under penalty of incurring the severest reprobation if
you fail to live up to its requirements.
I am not competent to speak save in the most general terms of your
professional duties. I do want, however, to call your attention to one
or two features connected with them. In the first place: In connection
with the work you do for the service you have certain peculiar
advantages in doing work that will be felt for the whole profession.
For instance, it will fall to your lot to deal with certain types of
tropical diseases. You will have to deal with them as no ordinary
American doctor, no matter how great his experience, will have to deal
with them, and you should fit yourselves by most careful study and
preparation, so that you shall not only be able to grapple with the
cases as they come up, but in grappling with them to make and record
observations upon them that will be of permanent value to your fellows
in civil life. You can there do what no civilian doctor can possibly
do. There probably is not a branch of the profession into which, during
your career, you will not have to go; no type of disease that you will
not have to treat. But there are certain diseases you will have to
treat that the ordinary man who stays at home, of course, does not; and
it is of consequence to the entire medical profession that you should
so fit yourself by study, by preparation, that you shall not only be
able to deal with those cases, but to deal with them in a way that will
be of advantage to your stay-at-home brethren.
There is one other point. Every effort should, of course, be made
to provide you with ample means to do your work. Every effort ought
to be made to persuade the National Legislature to take that view
of the situation; to remember that in case of war it is out of the
question to improvise a great medical service for the Army and the
Navy. The need of the increase would be more keenly felt in the Army
than in the Navy, because it is always the Army that undergoes the
greatest expansion in time of war. But it is felt in both services.
And when, as is perfectly certain to be the case if ever a war comes,
and if we have made no greater preparation than at present, there is
fever in the camps, there is sickness among the volunteer forces, it
will be mere dishonest folly for the public men, and especially for
the public press, to shriek against the people who happen to be in
power at that time. Let them, if ever such occasion arises, solemnly
think over and repent of the fact that they have not made their
representatives provide adequately in advance for the medical system
in its personnel and its material, for the organization, and for the
physical instruments necessary to make that organization effective.
Only adequate preparation in advance will obviate the trouble which
otherwise is certain to come if we have a war. Let critics remember not
to blame the people in power when such a breakdown comes, but to blame
themselves, the people of the United States, because they have not had
the forethought to take the steps in advance which would prevent such
breakdown from occurring.
Means ought to be provided in advance. That is part of our duty. If we
fail in it then it is our responsibility, not yours. But now for your
duty. I want to impress, with all the strength that in me lies, upon
every medical man in either the Army or the Navy, to remember always
that in any time of crisis the chances are that you will have to work
with imperfect implements. And your conduct will then afford a pretty
good test of your worth. If you sit down and do nothing but say you
could have done excellently if only you had had the right implements
to work with, you will show your unfitness for your position. Your
business will be to do the very best you can do, if you have nothing in
the world but a jack-knife to do it with. Keep before your minds all
the time that when the crisis occurs it is almost sure to be the case
that you will have to do no small part of your work with make-shifts;
to do it, as I myself saw at Santiago the Army physicians do their
work, roughly and hastily, when worn out with fatigue and having but
one-fourth or one-fifth of the appliances that they would expect
normally to have. Make up your mind that while you will do all you can
to get the best material together in advance, you will not put forward
the lack of that material as an excuse for not doing the best work
possible with imperfect tools. Make it a matter of pride to do your
utmost, without regard to the inadequacy of your instruments.
I am sure that all of us outsiders here realize the weight of
responsibility resting upon those who now join the great and honorable
body of men who in the Navy and in the Army have by their actions
upheld not only the standard of honor of the medical profession, but
the standard of honor of the officers of the Army and the Navy of the
United States.
I greet you on your entrance into the service. I welcome you as
servants of the Nation, and I wish you every success in the great and
honorable calling which you have chosen as yours.