_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I have enjoyed more than I can say passing through this great State
to-day. I entered your borders a pretty good American, and I leave
them a better American. I have rejoiced in the symptoms of your
abounding material prosperity. I am here in a great centre of cotton
manufacturing. Within a radius of a hundred miles of this city probably
half of the cotton manufacturing of the United States is done. I
realize to the full, as every good citizen should realize, that there
must be a foundation of material prosperity upon which to build the
welfare of State or Nation; but I realize also, as every good citizen
should, that material prosperity, material well-being, can never be
anything but the foundation. It is the indispensable foundation; but
if we do not raise upon it the superstructure of a higher citizenship
then we fail in bringing this country to the level to which it shall
and will be brought.
So, though I congratulate you upon what you have done in the way of
material growth, I congratulate you even more upon the great historic
memories of your State. It is not so far from here that the Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence was made; the declaration that pointed out
the path along which the thirteen united colonies trod but a few months
later. As I got off the train here I was greeted by one citizen of
North Carolina (and I know that neither the Governor, the Mayor, nor
the Senators will blame me for what I am going to say) whose greeting
pleased and touched me more than the greeting of any man could have
touched me. I was greeted by the widow of Stonewall Jackson. We, of
this united country, have a right to challenge, as part of the heritage
of honor and glory of each American, the renown bought by all Americans
who fought in the Civil War, whether they wore the blue or whether they
wore the gray. The valor shown alike by the men of the North and by
the men of the South, as they battled for the right as God gave them
to see the right, is now part of what we all of us keep with pride. It
was my good fortune to appoint to West Point the grandson of Stonewall
Jackson. As I came up your streets I saw a monument raised to a
fellow-soldier of mine who fell in the Spanish War at Santiago—Shipp,
of North Carolina. We, who went to war in ’98, had the opportunity only
to fight in a small war, and all that we would claim is that we hope we
showed a spirit not entirely unworthy of the men who faced the mighty
and terrible days from ’61 to ’65. If there again comes a war I know I
can count on the men of the National Guard, like my escort, because the
memory of what your fathers did will make you ashamed not to rise level
to the demands of the new time as they rose level to the demands of
their time.
In civil life each generation has its problems. The tremendous
industrial development of the past half century, the very development
which has produced cities such as this, has brought great problems
with it; problems connected with corporations; problems connected
with labor; problems connected with both the accumulation and the
distribution of wealth. The problems are new, but the spirit in which
we must approach their solution is old. We must face the work we have
to do as our fathers faced their work, if we wish to be successful.
This is an age of organization, the organization of capital, the
organization of labor. Each type of organization should be welcomed
when it does good, and fearlessly opposed when it does evil. Our aim
should be to strive to keep the reign of justice alive in this country
so that we shall above all things avoid the chance of ever dividing on
the lines that separate one class from another, one occupation from
another. The man who would preach to either wage-worker or capitalist
that the other was his foe is a bad citizen and faithless American.
We can afford to divide along lines that represent honest difference
of opinion, but we can not afford to divide on the fundamental lines
of cleavage that separate good citizens from bad citizens. We must
remember, if we intend to keep this Republic in its position of
headship among the nations of mankind, that we can never afford to
deviate from the old American doctrine of treating each man on his
worth as a man, of paying heed, not to whether he is rich or poor, but
only to whether he acts as a decent citizen.