_Mr. President and Gentlemen_:
This country of ours is pre-eminently a business country, and we can
succeed only if as a country we carry on the national business as the
typical member of this association carries on his business; that is, in
an entirely practical spirit, in a spirit which desires and commands
success, but which desires it and commands it as an incident to acting
with decency toward all our fellow-citizens. No business community
can permanently succeed if the average member of it does not possess
a certain quantity of high ideals; and, gentlemen, there is not a
business man of large experience here who will not agree with me when I
say that. Permanent success will come to the business community where
the average man’s word can be trusted, where the average man himself
can be trusted in dealing with his fellows. Just as that is true of the
average business community, so it is true of the Nation as a whole.
The Nation must act in a spirit which gives full recognition to the
national demands, which is not in the least Quixotic, which sees the
need of working for the interests of the average individual of the
Nation, but in a spirit which recognizes duties as well as rights,
which recognizes this in our internal affairs, which recognizes it in
our external affairs.
This leads me up to a subject concerning which I wish not merely to
congratulate, but on behalf of the Nation to thank those present;
the part played by the Merchants’ Club in initiating, and with the
aid of the Commercial Club in carrying to a successful conclusion,
the movement which resulted in the establishment of a naval training
station here on Lake Michigan. I need not say to those of you who know
anything at all about me that I believe in a big navy; and I hope I
need not say that I believe in it not as a provocative to war, but as a
guarantee of peace. I want to see every section of this country realize
that the navy stands for the whole country, and that the people of
the seacoast are not a particle more interested in it than the people
of the Mississippi Valley. There were two sides to the establishment
of that naval station here, where it was established. In the first
place, we get, as perhaps some of you know, a peculiarly valuable class
of recruit for the navy from the Mississippi Valley and the region
adjoining the Great Lakes. In the next place, I wanted to see part
of the establishment of the navy have its local habitation and name
here in the great West. So I feel that this organization conferred
a favor not only upon the city of Chicago, but an advantage to the
whole country in what it did toward securing the establishment of that
station here where it has been established.
I do not think that it is now very necessary to make an argument for
an efficient navy. We are so fortunate that in this country we can
get along with a very small army, an army which relatively to the
population of the country is smaller than the police force of many of
our great cities. With the navy the case is different We have not the
choice, gentlemen, as to whether or not this country will play a great
part in the world. We can not help playing a great part. All we can
decide is whether we shall play it well or ill. That is the decision we
have to make. We can decide whether we will do badly or well, but we
can not decide whether the part is to be played. We have got to play
it. We can not abandon our position on the Monroe Doctrine. We can not
abandon the Panama Canal. We can not abandon the duties that have come
to us from the mere fact of our growth as a Nation, from the growth of
our commercial interests in the East and in the West, on the Atlantic
and in the Pacific. I earnestly hope that with the added responsibility
will come not merely a growth of power to meet that responsibility,
but a growth of mental attitude on our part toward these new duties.
If there is one thing that ought to be more offensive to every good
American than almost anything else it is the habit of speaking with a
loose tongue, speaking offensively about foreign nations, or adopting
an ill-considered and irritating attitude toward any one of them. In
private life there is no one to whom we rightly object more than to the
man who is continually offending and insulting his neighbors; except
to the man who in addition to doing that then fails to make good. I
hope to see our foreign policy conducted always in a spirit not merely
of scrupulous regard for the rights of others, but of scrupulous
courtesy toward others; and at the same time to see us keep prepared
so that there is no position that we take in either hemisphere that
once taken we can not stand on. With this in order not only is it
important that the Government officials should behave themselves, but
it is also important that private citizens should. The public speaker,
the writer in the press, the legislator, the public servant, all owe
it to this country to behave with the courtesy toward others which we
would like to have extended toward us; but to behave with that courtesy
whether it is extended in return or not. Outsiders can not hurt us by
being insolent so long as we behave ourselves. What they say is of no
consequence to us compared to what we say to them. Hard words will
not hurt us if we will only disregard them. Let them say anything;
but let us go on and build up the navy. That will be a much greater
provocative to friendship and respect than any amount of recrimination.
I have a right to appeal to the men here before me, to the men who
in so many different walks take the lead in this great city, to aid
in consistently building up just that type of foreign policy, a
foreign policy under which we shall make the name of the United States
Government a symbol on the one hand, as it ought to be, for the just
and proper insistence upon its own rights, but also a symbol for a
disinterested and generous willingness to treat all other nations, all
other powers, with just and with frank courtesy and good-will, and to
make it evident that in this country’s foreign policy it recognizes
its duty toward the weak just as much as its responsibility to the
strong.