I know that the feelings which characterize all who stand about me and
the whole Nation at this hour are not feelings which can be suitably
expressed in terms of attempted oratory or eloquence. They are things
too deep for ordinary speech. For my own part, I have a singular mixture
of feelings. The feeling that is uppermost is one of profound grief that
these lads should have had to go to their death; and yet there is mixed
with that grief a profound pride that they should have gone as they did,
and, if I may say it out of my heart, a touch of envy of those who were
permitted so quietly, so nobly, to do their duty. Have you thought of
it, men? Here is the roster of the Navy--the list of the men, officers
and enlisted men and marines--and suddenly there swim nineteen stars out
of the list--men who have suddenly been lifted into a firmament of
memory where we shall always see their names shine, not because they
called upon us to admire them, but because they served us, without
asking any questions and in the performance of a duty which is laid upon
us as well as upon them.
Duty is not an uncommon thing, gentlemen. Men are performing it in the
ordinary walks of life all around us all the time, and they are making
great sacrifices to perform it. What gives men like these peculiar
distinction is not merely that they did their duty, but that their duty
had nothing to do with them or their own personal and peculiar
interests. They did not give their lives for themselves. They gave their
lives for us, because we called upon them as a Nation to perform an
unexpected duty. That is the way in which men grow distinguished, and
that is the only way, by serving somebody else than themselves. And what
greater thing could you serve than a Nation such as this we love and are
proud of? Are you sorry for these lads? Are you sorry for the way they
will be remembered? Does it not quicken your pulses to think of the list
of them? I hope to God none of you may join the list, but if you do you
will join an immortal company.
So, while we are profoundly sorrowful, and while there goes out of our
hearts a very deep and affectionate sympathy for the friends and
relatives of these lads who for the rest of their lives shall mourn
them, though with a touch of pride, we know why we do not go away from
this occasion cast down, but with our heads lifted and our eyes on the
future of this country, with absolute confidence of how it will be
worked out. Not only upon the mere vague future of this country, but
upon the immediate future. We have gone down to Mexico to serve mankind
if we can find out the way. We do not want to fight the Mexicans. We
want to serve the Mexicans if we can, because we know how we would like
to be free, and how we would like to be served if there were friends
standing by in such case ready to serve us. A war of aggression is not a
war in which it is a proud thing to die, but a war of service is a thing
in which it is a proud thing to die.
Notice how truly these men were of our blood. I mean of our American
blood, which is not drawn from any one country, which is not drawn from
any one stock, which is not drawn from any one language of the modern
world; but free men everywhere have sent their sons and their brothers
and their daughters to this country in order to make that great
compounded Nation which consists of all the sturdy elements and of all
the best elements of the whole globe. I listened again to this list of
the dead with a profound interest because of the mixture of the names,
for the names bear the marks of the several national stocks from which
these men came. But they are not Irishmen or Germans or Frenchmen or
Hebrews or Italians any more. They were not when they went to Vera Cruz;
they were Americans, every one of them, and with no difference in their
Americanism because of the stock from which they came. They were in a
peculiar sense of our blood, and they proved it by showing that they
were of our spirit--that no matter what their derivation, no matter
where their people came from, they thought and wished and did the things
that were American; and the flag under which they served was a flag in
which all the blood of mankind is united to make a free Nation.
War, gentlemen, is only a sort of dramatic representation, a sort of
dramatic symbol, of a thousand forms of duty. I never went into battle;
I never was under fire; but I fancy that there are some things just as
hard to do as to go under fire. I fancy that it is just as hard to do
your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.
When they shoot at you, they can only take your natural life; when they
sneer at you, they can wound your living heart, and men who are brave
enough, steadfast enough, steady in their principles enough, to go about
their duty with regard to their fellow-men, no matter whether there are
hisses or cheers, men who can do what Rudyard Kipling in one of his
poems wrote, "Meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two
impostors just the same," are men for a nation to be proud of. Morally
speaking, disaster and triumph are impostors. The cheers of the moment
are not what a man ought to think about, but the verdict of his
conscience and of the consciences of mankind.
When I look at you, I feel as if I also and we all were enlisted men.
Not enlisted in your particular branch of the service, but enlisted to
serve the country, no matter what may come, even though we may sacrifice
our lives in the arduous endeavor. We are expected to put the utmost
energy of every power that we have into the service of our fellow-men,
never sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of what is going to
happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the utter length of
complete self-sacrifice.
As I stand and look at you to-day and think of these spirits that have
gone from us, I know that the road is clearer for the future. These boys
have shown us the way, and it is easier to walk on it because they have
gone before and shown us how. May God grant to all of us that vision of
patriotic service which here in solemnity and grief and pride is borne
in upon our hearts and consciences!