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diff --git a/13930-0.txt b/13930-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..783a808 --- /dev/null +++ b/13930-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5239 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13930 *** + +AFRICAN AND EUROPEAN ADDRESSES + +by + +THEODORE ROOSEVELT + + +With an Introduction presenting a Description of the Conditions under +which the Addresses were given during Mr. Roosevelt's Journey in 1910 +from Khartum through Europe to New York + +by LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT + +1910 + + + + + + + +FOREWORD + + +My original intention had been to return to the United States direct +from Africa, by the same route I took when going out. I altered this +intention because of receiving from the Chancellor of Oxford +University, Lord Curzon, an invitation to deliver the Romanes Lecture +at Oxford. The Romanes Foundation had always greatly interested me, +and I had been much struck by the general character of the annual +addresses, so that I was glad to accept. Immediately afterwards, I +received and accepted invitations to speak at the Sorbonne in Paris, +and at the University of Berlin. In Berlin and at Oxford, my addresses +were of a scholastic character, designed especially for the learned +bodies which I was addressing, and for men who shared their interests +in scientific and historical matters. In Paris, after consultation +with the French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, through whom the invitation +was tendered, I decided to speak more generally, as the citizen of +one republic addressing the citizens of another republic. + +When, for these reasons, I had decided to stop in Europe on my way +home, it of course became necessary that I should speak to the Nobel +Prize Committee in Christiania, in acknowledgment of the Committee's +award of the peace prize, after the Peace of Portsmouth had closed the +war between Japan and Russia. + +While in Africa, I became greatly interested in the work of the +Government officials and soldiers who were there upholding the cause +of civilization. These men appealed to me; in the first place, because +they reminded me so much of our own officials and soldiers who have +reflected such credit on the American name in the Philippines, in +Panama, in Cuba, in Porto Rico; and, in the next place, because I was +really touched by the way in which they turned to me, with the +certainty that I understood and believed in their work, and with the +eagerly expressed hope that when I got the chance I would tell the +people at home what they were doing and would urge that they be +supported in doing it. + +In my Egyptian address, my endeavor was to hold up the hands of these +men, and at the same time to champion the cause of the missionaries, +of the native Christians, and of the advanced and enlightened +Mohammedans in Egypt. To do this it was necessary emphatically to +discourage the anti-foreign movement, led, as it is, by a band of +reckless, foolish, and sometimes murderous agitators. In other words, +I spoke with the purpose of doing good to Egypt, and with the hope of +deserving well of the Egyptian people of the future, unwilling to +pursue the easy line of moral culpability which is implied in saying +pleasant things of that noisy portion of the Egyptian people of +to-day, who, if they could have their way, would irretrievably and +utterly ruin Egypt's future. In the Guildhall address, I carried out +the same idea. + +I made a number of other addresses, some of which--those, for +instance, at Budapest, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and the +University of Christiania,--I would like to present here; but +unfortunately they were made without preparation, and were not taken +down in shorthand, so that with the exception of the address made at +the dinner in Christiania and the address at the Cambridge Union these +can not be included. + + THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + SAGAMORE HILL, + July 15, 1910. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + FOREWORD + + INTRODUCTION + + Mr. Roosevelt as an Orator. + + PEACE AND JUSTICE IN THE SUDAN + + An Address at the American Mission in Khartum, March 16, 1910. + + LAW AND ORDER IN EGYPT + + An Address before the National University in Cairo, March 28, 1910. + + CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC + + An Address Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910. + + INTERNATIONAL PEACE + + An Address before the Nobel Prize Committee Delivered at Christiania, + Norway, May 5, 1910. + + THE COLONIAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES + + An Address Delivered at Christiania, Norway, on the Evening of + May 5, 1910. + + THE WORLD MOVEMENT + + An Address Delivered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910. + + THE CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS + + An Address at the Cambridge Union, May 26, 1910. + + BRITISH RULE IN AFRICA + + Address Delivered at the Guildhall, London, May 31, 1910. + + BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY[1] + + Delivered at Oxford, June 7, 1910. + + [1] The text of this lecture, which is the Romanes Lecture for + 1910, is included in the present volume under the courteous + permission of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. + + + APPENDIX + + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +Mr. Roosevelt as an Orator + + +In the tumult, on the one hand of admiration and praise and on the +other of denunciation and criticism, which Mr. Roosevelt's tour in +Africa and Europe excited throughout the civilized world, there was +one--and I am inclined to think only one--note of common agreement. +Friends and foes united in recognizing the surprising versatility of +talents and of ability which the activities of his tour displayed. +Hunters and explorers, archæologists and ethnologists, soldiers and +sailors, scientists and university doctors, statesmen and politicians, +monarchs and diplomats, essayists and historians, athletes and +horsemen, orators and occasional speakers, met him on equal terms. The +purpose of the present volume is to give to American readers, by +collecting a group of his transatlantic addresses and by relating some +incidents and effects of their delivery, some impression of one +particular phase of Mr. Roosevelt's foreign journey,--an impression of +the influence on public thought which he exerted as an orator. + +No one would assert that Mr. Roosevelt possesses that persuasive grace +of oratory which made Mr. Gladstone one of the greatest public +speakers of modern times. For oratory as a fine art, he has no use +whatever; he is neither a stylist nor an elocutionist; what he has to +say he says with conviction and in the most direct and effective +phraseology that he can find through which to bring his hearers to his +way of thinking. Three passages from the Guildhall speech afford +typical illustrations of the incisiveness of his English and of its +effect on his audience. + + Fortunately you have now in the Governor of East Africa, Sir Percy + Girouard, a man admirably fitted to deal wisely and firmly with + the many problems before him. He is on the ground and knows the + needs of the country and is zealously devoted to its interests. + All that is necessary is to follow his lead and to give him + cordial support and backing. The principle upon which I think it + is wise to act in dealing with far-away possessions is this: + choose your man, change him if you become discontented with him, + but while you keep him, back him up. + + * * * * * + + I have met people who had some doubt whether the Sudan would pay. + Personally, I think it probably will. But I may add that, in my + judgment, this does not alter the duty of England to stay there. + It is not worth while belonging to a big nation unless the big + nation is willing, when the necessity arises, to undertake a big + task. I feel about you in the Sudan just as I felt about us in + Panama. When we acquired the right to build the Panama Canal, and + entered on the task, there were worthy people who came to me and + said they wondered whether it would pay. I always answered that it + was one of the great world-works that had to be done; that it was + our business as a nation to do it, if we were ready to make good + our claim to be treated as a great World Power; and that as we + were unwilling to abandon the claim, no American worth his salt + ought to hesitate about performing the task. I feel just the same + way about you in the Sudan. + + * * * * * + + It was with this primary object of establishing order that you + went into Egypt twenty-eight years ago; and the chief and ample + justification for your presence in Egypt was this absolute + necessity of order being established from without, coupled with + your ability and willingness to establish it. Now, either you have + the right to be in Egypt, or you have not; either it is, or it is + not your duty to establish and keep order. If you feel that you + have not the right to be in Egypt, if you do not wish to establish + and keep order there, why then by all means get out of Egypt. If, + as I hope, you feel that your duty to civilized mankind and your + fealty to your own great traditions alike bid you to stay, then + make the fact and the name agree, and show that you are ready to + meet in very deed the responsibility which is yours. + +There may be little Ciceronian grace about these passages, but there +is unmistakable verbal power. So many words of one syllable and of +Saxon derivation are used as to warrant the opinion that the speaker +possesses a distinctive style. That it is an effective style was +proved by the response of the audience, which greeted these particular +passages (although they contain by implication frank criticisms of the +British people) with cheers and cries of "Hear, hear!" It should be +remembered, too, that the audience, a distinguished one, while neither +hostile nor antipathetic, came in a distinctly critical frame of mind. +Like the man from Missouri, they were determined "to be shown" the +value of Mr. Roosevelt's personality and views before they accepted +them. That they did accept them, that the British people accepted +them, I shall endeavor to show a little later. + +There are people who entertain the notion that it is characteristic of +Mr. Roosevelt to speak on the spur of the moment, trusting to the +occasion to furnish him with both his ideas and his inspiration. +Nothing could be more contrary to the facts. It is true that in his +European journey he developed a facility in extemporaneous +after-dinner speaking or occasional addresses, that was a surprise +even to his intimate friends. At such times, what he said was full of +apt allusions, witty comment (sometimes at his own expense), and +bubbling good humor. The address to the undergraduates at the +Cambridge Union, and his remarks at the supper of the Institute of +British Journalists in Stationers' Hall, are good examples of this +kind of public speaking. But his important speeches are carefully and +painstakingly prepared. It is his habit to dictate the first draft to +a stenographer. He then takes the typewritten original and works over +it, sometimes sleeps over it, and edits it with the greatest care. In +doing this, he usually calls upon his friends, or upon experts in the +subject he is dealing with, for advice and suggestion. + +Of the addresses collected in this volume, three--the lectures at the +Sorbonne, at the University of Berlin, and at Oxford--were written +during the winter of 1909, before Mr. Roosevelt left the Presidency; a +fourth, the Nobel Prize speech, was composed during the hunting trip +in Africa, and the original copy, written with indelible pencil on +sheets of varying size and texture, and covered with interlineations +and corrections, bears all the marks of life in the wilderness. The +Cairo and Guildhall addresses were written and rewritten with great +care beforehand. The remaining three, "Peace and Justice in the +Sudan," "The Colonial Policy of the United States," and the speech at +the University of Cambridge were extemporaneous. The Cairo and +Guildhall speeches are on the same subject, and sprang from the same +sources, and although one was delivered at the beginning, and the +other at the close of a three months' journey, they should, in order +to be properly understood, be read as one would read two chapters of +one work. + +When Mr. Roosevelt reached Egypt, he found the country in one of those +periods of political unrest and religious fanaticism which have during +the last twenty-five years given all Europe many bad quarters of an +hour. Technically a part of the Ottoman Empire and a province of the +Sultan of Turkey, Egypt is practically an English protectorate. During +the quarter of a century since the tragic death of General Gordon at +Khartum, Egypt has made astonishing progress in prosperity, in the +administration of justice, and in political stability. All Europe +recognizes this progress to be the fruit of English control and +administration. At the time of Mr. Roosevelt's visit, a faction, or +party, of native Egyptians, calling themselves Nationalists, had come +into somewhat unsavory prominence; they openly urged the expulsion of +the English, giving feverish utterance to the cry "Egypt for the +Egyptians!" In Egypt, this cry means more than a political antagonism; +it means the revival of the ancient and bitter feud between +Mohammedanism and Christianity. It is in effect a cry of "Egypt for +the Moslem!" The Nationalist party had by no means succeeded in +affecting the entire Moslem population, but it had succeeded in +attracting to itself all the adventurers, and lovers of darkness and +disorder who cultivate for their own personal gain such movements of +national unrest. The non-Moslem population, European and native, whose +ability and intelligence is indicated by the fact that, while they +form less than ten per cent. of the inhabitants, they own more than +fifty per cent. of the property, were staunch supporters of the +English control which the Nationalists wished to overthrow. The +Nationalists, however, appeared to be the only people who were not +afraid to talk openly and to take definite steps. Just before Mr. +Roosevelt's arrival, Boutros Pasha, the Prime Minister, a native +Egyptian Christian, and one of the ablest administrative officers that +Egypt has ever produced, had been brutally assassinated by a +Nationalist. The murder was discussed everywhere with many shakings of +the head, but in quiet corners, and low tones of voice. Military and +civil officers complained in private that the home government was +paying little heed to the assassination and to the spirit of disorder +which brought it about. English residents, who are commonly courageous +and outspoken in great crises, gave one the impression of speaking in +whispers in the hope that if it were ignored, the agitation might die +away instead of developing into riot and bloodshed. + +Now this way of dealing with a law-breaker and political agitator is +totally foreign to Mr. Roosevelt; even his critics admit that he both +talks and fights in the open. In two speeches in Khartum, one at a +dinner given in his honor by British military and civil officers, and +one at a reception arranged by native Egyptian military men and +officials, he pointed out in vigorous language the dangers of +religious fanaticism and the kind of "Nationalism" that condones +assassination. Newspaper organs of the Nationalists attacked him for +these speeches when he arrived in Cairo. This made him all the more +determined to say the same things in Cairo when the proper opportunity +came, especially as officials, both military and civil, of high rank +and responsibility, had persistently urged him to do what he properly +could to arouse the attention of the British Government to the +Egyptian situation. The opportunity came in an invitation to address +the University of Cairo. His speech was carefully thought out and was +written with equal care; some of his friends, both Egyptian, and +English, whom he consulted, were in the uncertain frame of mind of +hoping that he would mention the assassination of Boutros, but +wondering whether he really ought to do so. Mr. Roosevelt spoke with +all his characteristic effectiveness of enunciation and gesture. He +was listened to with earnest attention and vigorous applause by a +representative audience of Egyptians and Europeans, of Moslems and +Christians. The address was delivered on the morning of March 28th; in +the afternoon the comment everywhere was, "Why haven't these things +been said in public before?" Of course the criticisms of the extreme +Nationalists were very bitter. Their newspapers, printed in Arabic, +devoted whole pages to denunciations of the speech. They protested to +the university authorities against the presentation of the honorary +degree which was conferred upon Mr. Roosevelt; they called him "a +traitor to the principles of George Washington," and "an advocate of +despotism"; an orator at a Nationalist mass meeting explained that Mr. +Roosevelt's "opposition to political liberty" was due to his Dutch +origin, "for the Dutch, as every one knows, have treated their +colonies more cruelly than any other civilized nation"; one paper +announced that the United States Senate had recorded its disapproval +of the speech by taking away Mr. Roosevelt's pension of five thousand +dollars, in amusing ignorance of the fact that Mr. Roosevelt never had +any pension of any kind whatsoever. On the other hand, government +officers of authority united with private citizens of distinction +(including missionaries, native Christians, and many progressive +Moslems) in expressing, personally and by letter, approval of the +speech as one that would have a wide influence in Egypt in supporting +the efforts of those who are working for the development of a stable, +just, and enlightened form of government. In connection with the more +widely-known Guildhall address on the same subject it unquestionably +has such an influence. + +Between the delivery of the Cairo speech and that of the next fixed +address, the lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23d, there were +a number of extemporaneous and occasional addresses of which no +permanent record has been, or can be made. Some of these were +responses to speeches of welcome made by municipal officials on +railway platforms, or were replies to toasts at luncheons and dinners. +In Rome, Mayor Nathan gave a dinner in his honor in the Campidoglio, +or City Hall, which was attended by a group of about fifty men +prominent in Italian official or private life. On this occasion the +Mayor read an address of welcome in French, to which Mr. Roosevelt +made a reply touching upon the history of Italy and some of the +social problems with which the Italian people have to deal in common +with the other civilized nations of the earth. He began his reply in +French, but soon broke off, and continued in English, asking the Mayor +to translate it, sentence by sentence, into Italian for the assembled +guests, most of whom did not speak English. Both the speech itself and +the personality of the speaker made a marked impression upon his +hearers; and after his retirement from the hall in which the dinner +was held, what he said furnished almost the sole subject of animated +conversation, until the party separated. In Budapest, under the dome +of the beautiful House of Parliament, Count Apponyi, one of the great +political leaders of modern Hungary, on behalf of the Hungarian +delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union presented to Mr. Roosevelt +an illuminated address in which was recorded the latter's achievements +in behalf of human rights, human liberty, and international justice. +Mr. Roosevelt in his reply showed an intimate familiarity with the +Hungarian history such as, Count Apponyi afterwards said, he had never +met in any other public man outside of Hungary. Although entirely +extemporaneous, this reply may be taken as a fair exemplification of +the spirit of all his speeches during his foreign journey. Briefly, in +referring to some allusions in Count Apponyi's speech to the great +leaders of liberty in the United States and in Hungary, he asserted +that the principles for which he had endeavored to struggle during his +political career were principles older than those of George Washington +or Abraham Lincoln; older, indeed, than the principles of Kossuth, the +great Hungarian leader; they were the principles enunciated in the +Decalogue and the Golden Rule. One of the significant things about +these sermons by Mr. Roosevelt--I call them sermons because he +frequently himself uses the phrase, "I preach"--is that nobody spoke, +or apparently thought the word cant in connection with them. They were +accepted as the genuine and spontaneous expression of a man who +believes that the highest moral principles are quite compatible with +all the best social joys of life, and with dealing knockout blows when +it is necessary to fight in order to redress wrongs or to maintain +justice. + +The people of Paris are perhaps as quick to detect and to laugh at +cant or moral platitudes as anybody of the modern world. And yet the +Sorbonne lecture, delivered by invitation of the officials of the +University of Paris, on April 23d, saturated as it was with moral +ideas and moral exhortation, was a complete success. The occasion +furnished an illustration of the power of moral ideas to interest and +to inspire. The streets surrounding the hall were filled with an +enormous crowd long before the hour announced for the opening of the +doors; and even ticket-holders had great difficulty in gaining +admission. The spacious amphitheatre of the Sorbonne was filled with a +representative audience, numbering probably three thousand people. +Around the hall, were statues of the great masters of French +intellectual life--Pascal, Descartes, Lavoisier, and others. On the +wall was one of the Puvis de Chavannes's most beautiful mural +paintings. The group of university officials and academicians on the +dais, from which Mr. Roosevelt spoke, lent to the occasion an +appropriate university atmosphere. The simple but perfect arrangement +of the French and American flags back of the speaker suggested its +international character. + +The speech was an appeal for moral rather than for intellectual or +material greatness. It was received with marked interest and approval; +the passage ending with a reference to "cold and timid souls who know +neither victory nor defeat," was delivered with real eloquence, and +aroused a long-continued storm of applause. With characteristic +courage, Mr. Roosevelt attacked race suicide when speaking to a race +whose population is diminishing, and was loudly applauded. +Occasionally with quizzical humor he interjected an extemporaneous +sentence in French, to the great satisfaction of his audience. A +passage of peculiar interest was the statement of his creed regarding +the relation of property-rights to human rights; it was not in his +original manuscript but was written on the morning of the lecture as +the result of a discussion of the subject of vested interests with one +or two distinguished French publicists. He first pronounced this +passage in English, and then repeated it in French, enforced by +gestures which so clearly indicated his desire to have his hearers +unmistakably understand him in spite of defective pronunciation of a +foreign tongue that the manifest approval of the audience was +expressed in a curious mingling of sympathetic laughter and prolonged +and serious applause. + +A fortnight after the Sorbonne address, I received from a friend, an +American military officer living in Paris who knows well its general +habit of mind, a letter from which I venture to quote here, because it +so strikingly portrays the influence that Mr. Roosevelt exerted as an +orator during his European journey: + + I find that Paris is still everywhere talking of Mr. Roosevelt. It + was a thing almost without precedent that this _blasé_ city kept + up its interest in him without abatement for eight days; but that + a week after his departure should still find him the main topic of + conversation is a fact which has undoubtedly entered into Paris + history. The _Temps_ [one of the foremost daily newspapers of + Paris] has had fifty-seven thousand copies of his Sorbonne + address printed and distributed free to every schoolteacher in + France and to many other persons. The Socialist or revolutionary + groups and press had made preparations for a monster demonstration + on May first. Walls were placarded with incendiary appeals and + their press was full of calls to arms. Monsieur Briand [the Prime + Minister] flatly refused to allow the demonstration, and gave + orders accordingly to Monsieur Lépine [the Chief of Police]. For + the first time since present influences have governed France, + certainly in fifteen years, the police and the troops were + authorized to _use their arms in self-defence_. The result of this + firmness was that the leaders countermanded the demonstration, and + there can be no doubt that many lives were saved and a new point + gained in the possibility of governing Paris as a free city, yet + one where order must be preserved, votes or no votes. Now this + stiff attitude of M. Briand and the Conseil is freely attributed + in intelligent quarters to Mr. Roosevelt. French people say it is + a repercussion of his visit, of his Sorbonne lecture, and that + going away he left in the minds of these people some of that + intangible spirit of his--in other words, they felt what he would + have felt in a similar emergency, and for the first time in their + lives showed a disregard of voters when they were bent upon + mischief. It is rather an extraordinary verdict, but it has seized + the Parisian imagination, and I, for one, believe it is correct. + +Some of the English newspapers, while generally approving of the +Sorbonne address, expressed the feeling that it contained some +platitudes. Of course it did; for the laws of social and moral health, +like the laws of hygiene, are platitudes. It was interesting to have a +French engineer and mathematician of distinguished achievements, who +discussed with me the character and effect of the Sorbonne address, +rather hotly denounce those who affected to regard Mr. Roosevelt's +restatement of obvious, but too often forgotten truth, as +platitudinous. "The finest and most beautiful things in life," said +this scientist, "the most abstruse scientific discoveries, are based +upon platitudes. It is a platitude to say that the whole is greater +than a part, or that the shortest distance between two points is a +straight line, and yet it is upon such platitudes that astronomy, by +aid of which we have penetrated some of the far-off mysteries of the +universe, is based. The greatest cathedrals are built of single blocks +of stone, and a single block of stone is a platitude. Tear the +architectural structure to pieces, and you have nothing left but the +single, common, platitudinous brick; but for that reason do you say +that your architectural structure is platitudinous? The effect of Mr. +Roosevelt's career and personality, which rest upon the secure +foundation of simple and obvious truths, is like that of a fine +architectural structure, and if a man can see only the single bricks +or stones of which it is composed, so much the worse for him." + +Of the addresses included in this volume the next in chronological +order was that on "International Peace," officially delivered before +the Nobel Prize Committee, but actually a public oration spoken in the +National Theatre of Christiania, before an audience of two or three +thousand people. The Norwegians did everything to make the occasion a +notable one. The streets were almost impassable from the crowds of +people who assembled about the theatre, but who were unable to gain +admission. An excellent orchestra played an overture, especially +composed for the occasion by a distinguished Norwegian composer, in +which themes from the _Star-Spangled Banner_ and from Norwegian +national airs and folk-songs were ingeniously intertwined. The day was +observed as a holiday in Christiania, and the entire city was +decorated with evergreens and flags. On the evening of the same day, +the Nobel Prize Committee gave a dinner in honor of Mr. Roosevelt +which was attended by two or three hundred guests,--both men and +women. General Bratlie, at one time Norwegian Minister of War, made an +address of welcome, reviewing with appreciation Mr. Roosevelt's +qualities both as a man of war and as a man of peace. The address in +this volume, entitled, "Colonial Policy of the United States" was Mr. +Roosevelt's reply to General Bratlie's personal tribute. It was wholly +extemporaneous, but was taken down stenographically; and it adds to +its interest to note the fact that on the evening of its delivery it +was the first public utterance on any question of American politics +which Mr. Roosevelt had made since he left America a year previous. +The Nobel Prize speech and this address taken together form a pretty +complete exposition of what may perhaps be called, for want of a +better term, Mr. Roosevelt's "peace with action" doctrine. + +"The World Movement," the address at the University of Berlin, was the +first of two distinctively academic, or scholastic utterances, the +other, of course, being the Romanes lecture. The Sorbonne speech was +almost purely sociological and ethical. There are, to be sure, social +and moral applications made of the theories laid down at Berlin and at +Oxford; but these two university addresses are distinctly for a +university audience. My own judgment is that the Sorbonne and +Guildhall addresses were more effective in their human interest and +their immediate political influence. But at both Berlin and Oxford, +Mr. Roosevelt showed that he could deal with scholarly subjects in a +scholarly fashion. It may be that he desired on these two occasions to +give some indication that, although universally regarded as a man of +action, he is entitled also to be considered as a man of thought. The +lecture at the University of Berlin was a brilliant and picturesque +academic celebration in which doctors' gowns, military uniforms, and +the somewhat bizarre dress of the representatives of the undergraduate +student corps, mingled in kaleidoscopic effect. One interesting +feature of the ceremony was the singing by a finely trained student +chorus without instrumental accompaniment, of _Hail Columbia_ and _The +Star-Spangled Banner_, harmonized as only the Germans can harmonize +choral music. The Emperor and the Empress, with several members of the +Imperial family, attended the lecture. Those who sat near the Emperor +could see that he followed the address with genuine interest, nodding +his head, or smiling now and then with approval at some incisively +expressed idea, or some phrase of interjected humor, or a +characteristic gesture on the part of the speaker. In one respect the +lecture was a _tour de force_. On account of a sharp attack of +bronchitis, from which he was then recovering, it was not decided by +the physicians in charge until the morning of the lecture that Mr. +Roosevelt could use his voice for one hour in safety. Arrangements had +been made to have some one else read the lecture if at the last moment +it should be necessary; and the fact that Mr. Roosevelt was able to +do it himself effectively under these circumstances indicates that he +has some of the physical as well as the intellectual attributes of the +practised orator. + +Mr. Roosevelt's first public speech in England was made at the +University of Cambridge on May 26th when he received the honorary +degree of LL.D. His address on this occasion was not, like the Romanes +lecture at Oxford, a part of the academic ceremony connected with the +conferring of the honorary degree. It was spoken to an audience of +undergraduates when, after the academic exercises in the Senate House, +he was elected to honorary membership in the Union Society, the +well-known Cambridge debating club which has trained some of the best +public speakers of England. At Oxford the doctors and dignitaries +cracked the jokes--in Latin--while the undergraduates were highly +decorous. At Cambridge, on the other hand, the students indulged in +the traditional pranks which often lend a color of gaiety to +University ceremonies at both Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. Roosevelt +entered heartily into the spirit of the undergraduates, and it was +evident that they, quite as heartily, liked his understanding of the +fact that the best university and college life consists in a judicious +mixture of the grave and the gay. The honor which these undergraduates +paid to their guest was seriously intended, was admirably planned, +and its genuineness was all the more apparent because it had a note of +pleasantry. Mr. Roosevelt spoke as a university student to university +students and what he said, although brief, extemporaneous, and even +unpremeditated, deserves to be included with his more important +addresses, because it affords an excellent example of his +characteristic habit of making an occasion of social gaiety also an +occasion of expressing his belief in the fundamental moral principles +of social and political life. The speech was frequently interrupted by +the laughter and applause of the audience, and the theory which Mr. +Roosevelt propounded, that any man in any walk of life may achieve +genuine success simply by developing ordinary qualities to a more than +ordinary degree, was widely quoted and discussed by the press of Great +Britain. + +Next in chronological order comes the Guildhall speech. In the +picturesqueness of its setting, in the occasion which gave rise to it, +in the extraordinary effect it had upon public opinion in Great +Britain, the continent of Europe, and America, and in the courage +which it evinced on the part of the speaker, it is in my judgment the +most striking of all Mr. Roosevelt's foreign addresses. + +The occasion was a brilliant and notable one. The ancient and splendid +Guildhall--one of the most perfect Gothic interiors in England, which +has historical associations of more than five centuries--was filled +with a representative gathering of English men and women. On the dais, +or stage, at one end of the hall, sat the Lord Mayor and the Lady +Mayoress, and the special guests of the occasion were conducted by +ushers, in robes and carrying maces, down a long aisle flanked with +spectators on either side and up the steps of the dais, where they +were presented. Their names were called out at the beginning of the +aisle, and as the ushers and the guest moved along, the audience +applauded, little or much, according to the popularity of the +newcomer. Thus John Burns and Mr. Balfour were greeted with +enthusiastic hand-clapping and cheers, although they belong, of +course, to opposite parties. The Bishop of London, Lord Cromer, the +maker of modern Egypt, Sargent, the painter, and Sir Edward Grey, the +Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, were among those greeted in +this way. In the front row on one side of the dais were seated the +aldermen of the city in their red robes, and various officials in wigs +and gowns lent to the scene a curiously antique aspect to the American +eye. Happily, the City of London has carefully preserved the +historical traditions connected with it and with the Guilds, or groups +of merchants, which in the past had so much to do with the management +of its affairs. Among the invited guests, for example, were the +Master of the Mercers' Company, the Master of the Grocers' Company, +the Master of the Drapers' Company, the Master of the Skinners' +Company, the Master of the Haberdashers' Company, the Master of the +Salters' Company, the Master of the Ironmongers' Company, the Master +of the Vintners' Company, and the Master of the Clothworkers' Company. +These various trades, of course, are no longer carried on by Guilds, +but by private firms or corporations, and yet the Guild organization +is still maintained as a sort of social or semi-social recognition of +the days when the Guildhall was not merely a great assembly-room, but +the place in which the Guilds actually managed the affairs of their +city. It was in such a place and amid such surroundings that Mr. +Roosevelt was formally nominated and elected a Freeman of the ancient +City of London. + +Mr. Roosevelt's speech was far from being extemporaneous; it had been +carefully thought out beforehand, and was based upon his experiences +during the previous March, in Egypt; it was really the desire of +influential Englishmen in Africa to have him say something about +Egyptian affairs that led him to make a speech at all. He had had +ample time to think, and he had thought a good deal, yet it was +plainly to be seen that the frankness of his utterance, his +characteristic attitude and gestures, and the pungent quality of his +oratory at first startled his audience, accustomed to more +conventional methods of public speaking. But he soon captured and +carried his hearers with him, as is indicated by the exclamations of +approval on the part of the audience which were incorporated in the +verbatim report of the speech in the London _Times_. It is no +exaggeration to say that his speech became the talk of England--in +clubs, in private homes, and in the newspapers. Of course there was +some criticism, but, on the whole, it was received with commendation. +The extreme wing of the Liberal party, whom we should call +Anti-Imperialists, but who are in Great Britain colloquially spoken of +as "Little Englanders," took exception to it, but even their +disapproval, save in a few instances of bitter personal attack, was +mild. The London _Chronicle_, which is perhaps the most influential of +the morning newspapers representing the Anti-Imperialist view, was of +the opinion that the speech was hardly necessary, because it asserted +that the Government and the British nation have long been of Mr. +Roosevelt's own opinion. The _Westminster Gazette_, the leading +evening Liberal paper, also asserted that "none of the broad +considerations advanced by Mr. Roosevelt have been absent from the +minds of Ministers, and of Sir Edward Grey in particular. We regret +that Mr. Roosevelt should have thought it necessary to speak out +yesterday, not on the narrow ground of etiquette or precedent, but +because we cannot bring ourselves to believe that his words are +calculated to make it any easier to deal with an exceedingly difficult +problem." + +The views of these two newspapers fairly express the rather mild +opposition excited by the speech among those who regard British +control in Egypt as a question of partisan politics. On the other +hand, the best and most influential public opinion, while recognizing +the unconventionality of Mr. Roosevelt's course, heartily approved of +both the matter and the manner of the speech. The London _Times_ said: +"Mr. Roosevelt has reminded us in the most friendly way of what we are +at least in danger of forgetting, and no impatience of outside +criticism ought to be allowed to divert us from considering the +substantial truth of his words. His own conduct of great affairs and +the salutary influence of his policy upon American public life ... at +least give him a right, which all international critics do not +possess, to utter a useful, even if not wholly palatable, warning." +The _Daily Telegraph_, after referring to Mr. Roosevelt as "a +practical statesman who combines with all his serious force a famous +sense of humor," expressed the opinion that his "candor is a tonic, +which not only makes plain our immediate duty but helps us to do it. +In Egypt, as in India, there is no doubt as to the alternative he has +stated so vigorously: we must govern or go; and we have no intention +of going." The _Pall Mall Gazette's_ opinion was that Mr. Roosevelt +"delivered a great and memorable speech--a speech that will be read +and pondered over throughout the world." + +The London _Spectator_, which is one of the ablest and most thoughtful +journals published in the English language, and which reflects the +most intelligent, broad-minded, and influential public opinion in the +British Empire, devoted a large amount of space to a consideration of +the speech. The _Spectator's_ position in English journalism is such +that I make no apology for a somewhat long quotation from its comment: + + Perhaps the chief event of the week has been Mr. Roosevelt's + speech at the Guildhall. Timid, fussy, and pedantic people have + charged Mr. Roosevelt with all sorts of crimes because he had the + courage to speak out, and have even accused him of unfriendliness + to this country because of his criticisms. Happily the British + people as a whole are not so foolish. Instinctively they have + recognized and thoroughly appreciated the good feeling of Mr. + Roosevelt's speech. Only true friends speak as he spoke.... The + barrel-organs, of course, grind out the old tune about Mr. + Roosevelt's tactlessness. In reality he is a very tactful as well + as a very shrewd man. It is surely the height of tactfulness to + recognize that the British people are sane enough and sincere + enough to like being told the truth. His speech is one of the + greatest compliments ever paid to a people by a statesman of + another country.... Mr. Roosevelt has made exactly the kind of + speech we expected him to make--a speech strong, clear, fearless. + He has told us something useful and practical, and has not lost + himself in abstractions and platitudes.... The business of a + trustee is not to do what the subject of the trust likes or thinks + he likes, but to do, however much he may grumble, what is in his + truest and best interests. Unless a trustee is willing to do that, + and does not trouble about abuse, ingratitude, and accusations of + selfishness, he had better give up his trust altogether.... We + thank Mr. Roosevelt once again for giving us so useful a reminder + of our duty in this respect. + +These notes of approval were repeated in a great number of letters +which Mr. Roosevelt received from men and women in all walks of life, +men in distinguished official position and "men in the street." There +were some abusive letters, chiefly anonymous, but the general tone of +this correspondence is fairly illustrated by the following: + + Allow me, an old colonist in his eighty-fourth year, to thank you + most heartily for your manly address at the Guildhall and for your + life-work in the cause of humanity. If I ever come to the great + Republic, I shall do myself the honor of seeking an audience of + your Excellency. I may do so on my one hundredth birthday! With + best wishes and profound respect. + +The envelope of this letter was addressed to "His Excellency +'Govern-or-go' Roosevelt." That the _Daily Telegraph_ and that the +"man in the street" should independently seize upon this salient point +of the address--the "govern-or-go" theory--is significant. + +American readers are sufficiently familiar with Mr. Roosevelt's +principles regarding protectorate or colonial government; any +elaborate explanation or exposition of his views is unnecessary. But +it may be well to repeat that he has over and over again said that all +subject peoples, whether in colonies, protectorates, or insular +possessions like the Philippines and Porto Rico, should be governed +for their own benefit and development and should never be exploited +for the mere profit of the controlling powers. It may be well, too, to +add Mr. Roosevelt's own explanation of his criticism of +sentimentality. "Weakness, timidity, and sentimentality," he said in +the Guildhall address, "many cause even more far-reaching harm than +violence and injustice. Of all broken reeds sentimentality is the most +broken reed on which righteousness can lean." Referring to these +phrases, a correspondent a day or two after the speech asked +if the word "sentiment" might not be substituted for the word +"sentimentality." Mr. Roosevelt wrote the following letter in reply: + + DEAR SIR: I regard sentiment as the exact antithesis of + sentimentality, and to substitute "sentiment" for "sentimentality" + in my speech would directly invert its meaning. I abhor + sentimentality, and, on the other hand, I think no man is worth + his salt who is not profoundly influenced by sentiment, and who + does not shape his life in accordance with a high ideal. + + Faithfully yours, + + THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + +The Romanes lecture at Oxford University was the last of Mr. +Roosevelt's transatlantic speeches. I can think of no greater +intellectual honor that an English-speaking man can receive than to +have conferred upon him by the queen of all universities, the highest +honorary degree in her power to give, and in addition, to be invited +to address the dignitaries and dons and doctors of that university as +a scholar speaking to scholars. There is no American university man +who may not feel entirely satisfied with the way in which the American +university graduate stood the Oxford test on that occasion. He took in +good part the jokes and pleasantries pronounced in Latin by the +Chancellor, Lord Curzon; but after the ceremonies of initiation were +finished, after the beadles had, in response to the order of the +Chancellor, conducted "_Doctorem Honorabilem ad Pulpitum_," and after +the Chancellor had, this time in very direct and beautiful English, +welcomed him to membership in the University, he delivered an address, +the serious scholarship of which held the attention of those who heard +it and arrested the attention of many thousands of others who received +the lecture through the printed page. + +The foregoing review of the chief public addresses which Mr. Roosevelt +made during his foreign journey, I think justifies the assertion that, +for variety of subject, variety of occasion, and variety of the fields +of thought and action upon which his speeches had a direct and +manifest influence, he is entitled to be regarded as a public orator +of remarkable distinction and power. + +By way of explanation it may perhaps be permissible to add that I met +Mr. Roosevelt in Khartum on March 14, 1910, and travelled with him +through the Sudan, Egypt, the continent of Europe and England, to New +York; I heard all his important speeches, and most of the occasional +addresses; much of the voluminous correspondence which the speeches +gave rise to passed through my hands; and I talked with many men, both +in public and private life, in the various countries through which +the journey was taken about the addresses themselves and their effect +upon world-politics. If there is a failure in these pages to give an +intelligent or an adequate impression of the oratorial features of Mr. +Roosevelt's African and European journey, it is not because there was +any lack of opportunity to observe or learn the facts. + +LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT. + + * * * * * + + + + +PEACE AND JUSTICE IN THE SUDAN + +An Address at the American Mission[2] in Khartum, March 16, 1910 + + [2] The American Mission at Khartum is under the auspices of the + United Presbyterian Church of America. The Rev. Dr. John Giffen + introduced Mr. Roosevelt to the assembly.--L.F.A. + + +I have long wished to visit the Sudan. I doubt whether in any other +region of the earth there is to be seen a more striking instance of +the progress, the genuine progress, made by the substitution of +civilization for savagery than what we have seen in the Sudan for the +past twelve years. I feel that you here owe a peculiar duty to the +Government under which you live--a peculiar duty in the direction of +doing your full worth to make the present conditions perpetual. It is +incumbent on every decent citizen of the Sudan to uphold the present +order of things; to see that there is no relapse; to see that the +reign of peace and justice continues. But you here have that duty +resting upon you to a peculiar degree, and your best efforts must be +given in all honor, and as a matter, not merely of obligation, but as +a matter of pride on your part, towards the perpetuation of the +condition of things that has made this progress possible, of the +Government as it now stands--as you represent it, Slatin Pasha.[3] + + [3] One of the most distinguished officers of the Anglo-Egyptian + Army whose well-known book, _Fire and Sword in the Sudan_, gives a + graphic picture of the conditions England has had to deal with in + the Sudan.--L.F.A. + +I am exceedingly pleased to see here officers of the army, and you +have, of course, your oath. You are bound by every tie of loyalty, +military and civil, to work to the end I have named. But, after all, +you are not bound any more than are you, you civilians. And, another +thing, do not think for a moment that when I say that you are bound to +uphold the Government I mean that you are bound to try to get an +office under it. On the contrary, I trust, Dr. Giffen, that the work +done here by you, done by the different educational institutions with +which you are connected or with which you are affiliated, will always +be done, bearing in mind the fact that the most useful citizen to the +Government may be a man who under no consideration would hold any +position connected with the Government. I do not want to see any +missionary college carry on its educational scheme primarily with a +view of turning out Government officials. On the contrary, I want to +see the average graduate prepared to do his work in some capacity in +civil life, without any regard to any aid whatever received from or +any salary drawn from the Government. If a man is a good engineer, a +good mechanic, a good agriculturist, if he is trained so that he +becomes a really good merchant, he is, in his place, the best type of +citizen. It is a misfortune in any country, American, European, or +African, to have the idea grow that the average educated man must find +his career only in the Government service. I hope to see good and +valuable servants of the Government in the military branch and in the +civil branch turned out by this and similar educational institutions; +but, if the conditions are healthy, those Government servants, civil +or military, will never be more than a small fraction of the +graduates, and the prime end and prime object of an educational +institution should be to turn out men who will be able to shift for +themselves, to help themselves, and to help others, fully independent +of all matters connected with the Government. I feel very strongly on +this subject, and I feel it just as strongly in America as I do here. + +Another thing, gentlemen, and now I want to speak to you for a moment +from the religious standpoint, to speak to you in connection with the +work of this mission. I wish I could make every member of a Christian +church feel that just in so far as he spends his time in quarrelling +with other Christians of other churches he is helping to discredit +Christianity in the eyes of the world. Avoid as you would the plague +those who seek to embroil you in conflict, one Christian sect with +another. Not only does what I am about to say apply to the behavior of +Christians towards one another, but of all Christians towards their +non-Christian brethren, towards their fellow-citizens of another +creed. You can do most for the colleges from which you come, you can +do most for the creed which you profess, by doing your work in the +position to which you have been called in a way that brings the +respect of your fellow-men to you, and therefore to those for whom you +stand. Let it be a matter of pride with the Christian in the army +that in the time of danger no man is nearer that danger than he is. +Let it be a matter of pride to the officer whose duty it is to fight +that no man, when the country calls on him to fight, fights better +than he does. That is how you can do more for Christianity, for the +name of Christians, you who are in the army. Let the man in a civil +governmental position so bear himself that it shall be acceptable as +axiomatic that when you have a Christian, a graduate of a missionary +school, in a public office, the efficiency and honesty of that office +are guaranteed. That is the kind of Christianity that counts in a +public official, that counts in the military official--the +Christianity that makes him do his duty in war, or makes him do his +duty in peace. And you--who I hope will be the great majority--who are +not in Government service, can conduct yourselves so that your +neighbors shall have every respect for your courage, your honesty, +your good faith, shall have implicit trust that you will deal +religiously with your brother as man to man, whether it be in business +or whether it be in connection with your relations to the community as +a whole. The kind of graduate of a Christian school really worth +calling a Christian is the man who shows his creed practically by the +way he behaves towards his wife and towards his children, towards his +neighbor, towards those with whom he deals in the business world, and +towards the city and Government. In no way can he do as much for the +institution that trains him, in no way can he do as much to bring +respect and regard to the creed that he professes. And, remember, you +need more than one quality. I have spoken of courage; it is, of +course, the first virtue of the soldier, but every one of you who is +worth his salt must have it in him too. Do not forget that the good +man who is afraid is only a handicap to his fellows who are striving +for what is best. I want to see each Christian cultivate the manly +virtues; each to be able to hold his own in the country, but in a +broil not thrusting himself forward. Avoid quarrelling wherever you +can. Make it evident that the other man wants to avoid quarrelling +with you too. + +One closing word. Do not make the mistake, those of you who are young +men, of thinking that when you get out of school or college your +education stops. On the contrary, it is only about half begun. Now, I +am fifty years old, and if I had stopped learning, if I felt now that +I had stopped learning, had stopped trying to better myself, I feel +that my usefulness to the community would be pretty nearly at an end. +And I want each of you, as he leaves college, not to feel, "Now I have +had my education, I can afford to vegetate." I want you to feel, "I +have been given a great opportunity of laying deep the foundations for +a ripe education, and while going on with my work I am going to keep +training myself, educating myself, so that year by year, decade by +decade, instead of standing still I shall go forward, and grow +constantly fitter, and do good work and better work." + +I visited, many years ago, the college at Beirut. I have known at +first hand what excellent work was being done there. Unfortunately, +owing to my very limited time, it is not going to be possible for me +to stop at the college at Assiut, which has done such admirable work +in Egypt and here in the Sudan, whose graduates I meet in all kinds of +occupations wherever I stop. I am proud, as an American, Dr. Giffen, +of what has been done by men like you, like Mr. Young, like the other +Americans who have been here, and, I want to say still further, by the +women who have come with them. I always thought that the American was +a pretty good fellow. I think his wife is still better, and, great +though my respect for the man from America has been, my respect for +the woman has been greater. + +I stopped a few days ago at the little mission at the Sobat. One of +the things that struck me there was what was being accomplished by the +medical side of that mission. From one hundred and twenty-five miles +around there were patients who had come in to be attended to by the +doctors in the mission. There were about thirty patients who were +under the charge of the surgeon, the doctor, at that mission. I do not +know a better type of missionary than the doctor who comes out here +and does his work well and gives his whole heart to it. He is doing +practical work of the most valuable type for civilization, and for +bringing the people of the country up to a realization of the +standards that you are trying to set. If you make it evident to a man +that you are sincerely concerned in bettering his body, he will be +much more ready to believe that you are trying to better his soul. + +Now, gentlemen, it has been a great pleasure to see you. When I get +back to the United States, this meeting is one of the things I shall +have to tell to my people at home, so that I may give them an idea of +what is being done in this country. I wish you well with all my heart, +and I thank you for having received me to-day. + + * * * * * + + + + +LAW AND ORDER IN EGYPT + +An Address before the National University in Cairo, March 28, 1910 + +It is to me a peculiar pleasure to speak to-day under such +distinguished auspices as yours, Prince Fouad,[4] before this National +University, and it is of good augury for the great cause of higher +education in Egypt that it should have enlisted the special interest +of so distinguished and eminent a man. The Arabic-speaking world +produced the great University of Cordova, which flourished a thousand +years ago, and was a source of light and learning when the rest of +Europe was either in twilight or darkness; in the centuries following +the creation of that Spanish Moslem university, Arabic men of science, +travellers, and geographers--such as the noteworthy African traveller +Ibn Batutu, a copy of whose book, by the way, I saw yesterday in the +library of the Alhazar[5]--were teachers whose works are still to be +eagerly studied; and I trust that here we shall see the revival, and +more than the revival, of the conditions that made possible such +contributions to the growth of civilization. + + [4] Prince Fouad is the uncle of the Khedive, a Mohammedan + gentleman of education and enlightened views.--L.F.A. + + [5] The great Moslem University of Cairo, in which 9000 students + study chiefly the Koran in mediæval fashion.--L.F.A. + +This scheme of a National University is fraught with literally untold +possibilities for good to your country. You have many rocks ahead of +which you must steer clear; and because I am your earnest friend and +well-wisher, I desire to point out one or two of these which it is +necessary especially to avoid. In the first place, there is one point +upon which I always lay stress in my own country, in your country, in +all countries--the need of entire honesty as the only foundation on +which it is safe to build. It is a prime essential that all who are in +any way responsible for the beginnings of the University shall make it +evident to every one that the management of the University, financial +and otherwise, will be conducted with absolute honesty. Very much +money will have to be raised and expended for this University in order +to make it what it can and ought to be made; for, if properly managed, +I firmly believe that it will become one of the greatest influences, +and perhaps the very greatest influence, for good in all that part of +the world where Mohammedanism is the leading religion; that is, in all +those regions of the Orient, including North Africa and Southwestern +Asia, which stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the farther confines of +India and to the hither provinces of China. This University should +have a profound influence in all things educational, social, economic, +industrial, throughout this whole region, because of the very fact of +Egypt's immense strategic importance, so to speak, in the world of the +Orient; an importance due partly to her geographical position, partly +to other causes. Moreover, it is most fortunate that Egypt's present +position is such that this University will enjoy a freedom hitherto +unparalleled in the investigation and testing out of all problems +vital to the future of the peoples of the Orient. + +Nor will the importance of this University be confined to the Orient. +Egypt must necessarily from now on always occupy a similar strategic +position as regards the peoples of the Occident, for she sits on one +of the highways of the commerce that will flow in ever-increasing +volume from Europe to the East. Those responsible for the management +of this University should set before themselves a very high ideal. Not +merely should it stand for the uplifting of all Mohammedan peoples and +of all Christians and peoples of other religions who live in +Mohammedan lands, but it should also carry its teaching and practice +to such perfection as in the end to make it a factor in instructing +the Occident. When a scholar is sufficiently apt, sufficiently sincere +and intelligent, he always has before him the opportunity of +eventually himself giving aid to the teachers from whom he has +received aid. + +Now, to make a good beginning towards the definite achievement of +these high ends, it is essential that you should command respect and +should be absolutely trusted. Make it felt that you will not tolerate +the least little particle of financial crookedness in the raising or +expenditure of any money, so that those who wish to give money to this +deserving cause may feel entire confidence that their piasters will be +well and honestly applied. + +In the next place, show the same good faith, wisdom, and sincerity in +your educational plans that you do in the financial management of the +institution. Avoid sham and hollow pretence just as you avoid +religious, racial, or political bigotry. You have much to learn from +the universities of Europe and of my own land, but there is also in +them not a little which it is well to avoid. Copy what is good in +them, but test in a critical spirit whatever you take, so as to be +sure that you take only what is wisest and best for yourselves. More +important even than avoiding any mere educational shortcoming is the +avoidance of moral shortcoming. Students are already being sent to +Europe to prepare themselves to return as professors. Such preparation +is now essential, for it is of prime importance that the University +should be familiar with what is being done in the best universities of +Europe and America. But let the men who are sent be careful to bring +back what is fine and good, what is essential to the highest kind of +modern progress, and let them avoid what are the mere non-essentials +of the present-day civilization, and, above all, the vices of modern +civilized nations. Let these men keep open minds. It would be a +capital blunder to refuse to copy, and thereafter to adapt to your own +needs, what has raised the Occident in the scale of power and justice +and clean living. But it would be a no less capital blunder to copy +what is cheap or trivial or vicious, or even what is merely +wrongheaded. Let the men who go to Europe feel that they have much to +learn and much also to avoid and reject; let them bring back the good +and leave behind the discarded evil. + +Remember that character is far more important than intellect, and that +a really great university should strive to develop the qualities that +go to make up character even more than the qualities that go to make +up a highly trained mind. No man can reach the front rank if he is not +intelligent and if he is not trained with intelligence; but mere +intelligence by itself is worse than useless unless it is guided +by an upright heart, unless there are also strength and courage +behind it. Morality, decency, clean living, courage, manliness, +self-respect--these qualities are more important in the make-up of a +people than any mental subtlety. Shape this University's course so +that it shall help in the production of a constantly upward trend for +all your people. + +You should be always on your guard against one defect in Western +education. There has been altogether too great a tendency in the +higher schools of learning in the West to train men merely for +literary, professional, and official positions; altogether too great a +tendency to act as if a literary education were the only real +education. I am exceedingly glad that you have already started +industrial and agricultural schools in Egypt. A literary education is +simply one of many different kinds of education, and it is not wise +that more than a small percentage of the people of any country should +have an exclusively literary education. The average man must either +supplement it by another education, or else as soon as he has left an +institution of learning, even though he has benefited by it, he must +at once begin to train himself to do work along totally different +lines. His Highness the Khedive, in the midst of his activities +touching many phases of Egyptian life, has shown conspicuous wisdom, +great foresight, and keen understanding of the needs of the country in +the way in which he has devoted himself to its agricultural +betterment, in the interest which he has taken in the improvement of +cattle, crops, etc. You need in this country, as is the case in every +other country, a certain number of men whose education shall fit them +for the life of scholarship, or to become teachers or public +officials. But it is a very unhealthy thing for any country for more +than a small proportion of the strongest and best minds of the country +to turn into such channels. It is essential also to develop +industrialism, to train people so that they can be cultivators of the +soil in the largest sense on as successful a scale as the most +successful lawyer or public man, to train them so that they shall be +engineers, merchants--in short, men able to take the lead in all the +various functions indispensable in a great modern civilized state. An +honest, courageous, and far-sighted politician is a good thing in any +country. But his usefulness will depend chiefly upon his being able to +express the wishes of a population wherein the politician forms but a +fragment of the leadership, where the business man and the landowner, +the engineer and the man of technical knowledge, the men of a hundred +different pursuits, represent the average type of leadership. No +people has ever permanently amounted to anything if its only public +leaders were clerks, politicians, and lawyers. The base, the +foundation, of healthy life in any country, in any society, is +necessarily composed of the men who do the actual productive work of +the country, whether in tilling the soil, in the handicrafts, or in +business; and it matters little whether they work with hands or head, +although more and more we are growing to realize that it is a good +thing to have the same man work with both head and hands. These men, +in many different careers, do the work which is most important to the +community's life; although, of course, it must be supplemented by the +work of the other men whose education and activities are literary and +scholastic, of the men who work in politics or law, or in literary and +clerical positions. + +Never forget that in any country the most important activities are the +activities of the man who works with head or hands in the ordinary +life of the community, whether he be handicraftsman, farmer, or +business man--no matter what his occupation, so long as it is useful +and no matter what his position, from the guiding intelligence at the +top down all the way through, just as long as his work is good. I +preach this to you here by the banks of the Nile, and it is the +identical doctrine I preach no less earnestly by the banks of the +Hudson, the Mississippi, and the Columbia. + +Remember always that the securing of a substantial education, whether +by the individual or by a people, is attained only by a process, not +by an act. You can no more make a man really educated by giving him a +certain curriculum of studies than you can make a people fit for +self-government by giving it a paper constitution. The training of an +individual so as to fit him to do good work in the world is a matter +of years; just as the training of a nation to fit it successfully to +fulfil the duties of self-government is a matter, not of a decade or +two, but of generations. There are foolish empiricists who believe +that the granting of a paper constitution, prefaced by some +high-sounding declaration, of itself confers the power of +self-government upon a people. This is never so. Nobody can "give" a +people "self-government," any more than it is possible to "give" an +individual "self-help." You know that the Arab proverb runs, "God +helps those who help themselves." In the long run, the only permanent +way by which an individual can be helped is to help him to help +himself, and this is one of the things your University should +inculcate. But it must be his own slow growth in character that is +the final and determining factor in the problem. So it is with a +people. In the two Americas we have seen certain commonwealths rise +and prosper greatly. We have also seen other commonwealths start under +identically the same conditions, with the same freedom and the same +rights, the same guarantees, and yet have seen them fail miserably and +lamentably, and sink into corruption and anarchy and tyranny, simply +because the people for whom the constitution was made did not develop +the qualities which alone would enable them to take advantage of it. +With any people the essential quality to show is, not haste in +grasping after a power which it is only too easy to misuse, but a +slow, steady, resolute development of those substantial qualities, +such as the love of justice, the love of fair play, the spirit of +self-reliance, of moderation, which alone enable a people to govern +themselves. In this long and even tedious but absolutely essential +process, I believe your University will take an important part. When I +was recently in the Sudan I heard a vernacular proverb, based on a +text in the Koran, which is so apt that, although not an Arabic +scholar, I shall attempt to repeat it in Arabic: "_Allah ma el +saberin, izza sabaru_"--God is with the patient, _if they know how to +wait_.[6] + + [6] This bit of Arabic, admirably pronounced by Mr. Roosevelt, + surprised and pleased the audience as much as his acquaintance + with the life and works of Ibn Batutu surprised and pleased the + sheiks at the Moslem University two days before. Both Mr. + Roosevelt's use of the Arabic tongue and his application of the + proverb were greeted with prolonged applause.--L.F.A. + +One essential feature of this process must be a spirit which will +condemn every form of lawless evil, every form of envy and hatred, +and, above all, hatred based upon religion or race. All good men, all +the men of every nation whose respect is worth having, have been +inexpressibly shocked by the recent assassination of Boutros Pasha. It +was an even greater calamity for Egypt than it was a wrong to the +individual himself. The type of man which turns out an assassin is a +type possessing all the qualities most alien to good citizenship; the +type which produces poor soldiers in time of war and worse citizens in +time of peace. Such a man stands on a pinnacle of evil infamy; and +those who apologize for or condone his act, those who, by word or +deed, directly or indirectly, encourage such an act in advance, or +defend it afterwards, occupy the same bad eminence. It is of no +consequence whether the assassin be a Moslem or a Christian or a man +of no creed; whether the crime be committed in political strife or +industrial warfare; whether it be an act hired by a rich man or +performed by a poor man; whether it be committed under the pretence of +preserving order or the pretence of obtaining liberty. It is equally +abhorrent in the eyes of all decent men, and, in the long run, equally +damaging to the very cause to which the assassin professes to be +devoted. + +Your University is a National University, and as such knows no creed. +This is as it should be. When I speak of equality between Moslem and +Christian, I speak as one who believes that where the Christian is +more powerful he should be scrupulous in doing justice to the Moslem, +exactly as under reverse conditions justice should be done by the +Moslem to the Christian. In my own country we have in the Philippines +Moslems as well as Christians. We do not tolerate for one moment any +oppression by the one or by the other, any discrimination by the +Government between them or failure to mete out the same justice to +each, treating each man on his worth as a man, and behaving towards +him as his conduct demands and deserves. + +In short, gentlemen, I earnestly hope that all responsible for the +beginnings of the University, which I trust will become one of the +greatest and most powerful educational influences throughout the whole +world, will feel it incumbent upon themselves to frown on every form +of wrong-doing, whether in the shape of injustice or corruption or +lawlessness, and to stand with firmness, with good sense, and with +courage, for those immutable principles of justice and merciful +dealing as between man and man, without which there can never be the +slightest growth towards a really fine and high civilization. + + * * * * * + + + + +CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC + +An Address Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910 + + +Strange and impressive associations rise in the mind of a man from the +New World who speaks before this august body in this ancient +institution of learning. Before his eyes pass the shadows of mighty +kings and warlike nobles, of great masters of law and theology; +through the shining dust of the dead centuries he sees crowded figures +that tell of the power and learning and splendor of times gone by; and +he sees also the innumerable host of humble students to whom clerkship +meant emancipation, to whom it was well-nigh the only outlet from the +dark thraldom of the Middle Ages. + +This was the most famous university of mediæval Europe at a time when +no one dreamed that there was a New World to discover. Its services to +the cause of human knowledge already stretched far back into the +remote past at the time when my forefathers, three centuries ago, +were among the sparse bands of traders, plowmen, woodchoppers, and +fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of the +Indian-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what has now +become the giant republic of the West. To conquer a continent, to tame +the shaggy roughness of wild nature, means grim warfare; and the +generations engaged in it cannot keep, still less add to, the stores +of garnered wisdom which once were theirs, and which are still in the +hands of their brethren who dwell in the old land. To conquer the +wilderness means to wrest victory from the same hostile forces with +which mankind struggled in the immemorial infancy of our race. The +primeval conditions must be met by primeval qualities which are +incompatible with the retention of much that has been painfully +acquired by humanity as through the ages it has striven upward toward +civilization. In conditions so primitive there can be but a primitive +culture. At first only the rudest schools can be established, for no +others would meet the needs of the hard-driven, sinewy folk who thrust +forward the frontier in the teeth of savage man and savage nature; and +many years elapse before any of these schools can develop into seats +of higher learning and broader culture. + +The pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings expand into vast +stretches of fertile farm land; the stockaded clusters of log cabins +change into towns; the hunters of game, the fellers of trees, the rude +frontier traders and tillers of the soil, the men who wander all their +lives long through the wilderness as the heralds and harbingers of an +oncoming civilization, themselves vanish before the civilization for +which they have prepared the way. The children of their successors and +supplanters, and then their children and children's children, change +and develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate +vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities and +all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant, +self-centred, far more conscious of its rights than of its duties, and +blind to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of the frontier +days succeeds the hard materialism of an industrialism even more +intense and absorbing than that of the older nations; although these +themselves have likewise already entered on the age of a complex and +predominantly industrial civilization. + +As the country grows, its people, who have won success in so many +lines, turn back to try to recover the possessions of the mind and the +spirit, which perforce their fathers threw aside in order better to +wage the first rough battles for the continent their children inherit. +The leaders of thought and of action grope their way forward to a new +life, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly, that the +life of material gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of +value only as a foundation, only as there is added to it the uplift +that comes from devotion to loftier ideals. The new life thus sought +can in part be developed afresh from what is round about in the New +World; but it can be developed in full only by freely drawing upon the +treasure-houses of the Old World, upon the treasures stored in the +ancient abodes of wisdom and learning, such as this where I speak +to-day. It is a mistake for any nation merely to copy another; but it +is an even greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any nation, +not to be anxious to learn from another, and willing and able to adapt +that learning to the new national conditions and make it fruitful and +productive therein. It is for us of the New World to sit at the feet +of the Gamaliel of the Old; then, if we have the right stuff in us, +we can show that, Paul in his turn can become a teacher as well as a +scholar. + +To-day I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, +the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and +my countrymen, because you and we are citizens of great democratic +republics. A democratic republic such as each of ours--an effort to +realize in its full sense government by, of, and for the +people--represents the most gigantic of all possible social +experiments, the one fraught with greatest possibilities alike for +good and for evil. The success of republics like yours and like ours +means the glory, and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you +and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is +supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or +of a very few men, the quality of the rulers is all-important. If, +under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then +the nation may for generations lead a brilliant career, and add +substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the +quality of the average citizen; because the average citizen is an +almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that +type of national greatness. + +But with you and with us the case is different. With you here, and +with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be +conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, +does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of +life, and next in those great occasional crises which call for the +heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our +republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher +than the main source; and the main source of national power and +national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. +Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of +the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high +unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. + +It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any republic, in +any democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the classes +represented in this audience to-day; but only provided that those +classes possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of +devotion to great ideals. You and those like you have received special +advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental +training; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance +for the enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of +your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you +much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings against which +it is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated +intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position, should especially +guard themselves, because to these failings they are especially +liable; and if yielded to, their--your--chances of useful service are +at an end. + +Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that +queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as the +cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to +whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face +it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride +in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the +way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no +more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who +either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering +disbelief towards all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement +or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to +achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to +criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an +intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's +realities--all these are marks, not, as the possessor would fain +think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to +bear their part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in +the affectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide +from others and from themselves their own weakness. The role is easy; +there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike +at both criticism and performance. + +It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the +strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them +better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, +whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives +valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is +no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive +to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; +who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the +end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he +fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall +never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor +defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to +develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work +of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves +there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of +cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less +room is there for those who deride or slight what is done by those who +actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who +always profess that they would like to take action, if only the +conditions of life were not what they actually are. The man who does +nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether +he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being +whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of +the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who +quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they +succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that +they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and +strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the +many errors and the valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, +not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would +have been a soldier." + +France has taught many lessons to other nations; surely one of the +most important is the lesson her whole history teaches, that a high +artistic and literary development is compatible with notable +leadership in arms and statecraft. The brilliant gallantry of the +French soldier has for many centuries been proverbial; and during +these same centuries at every court in Europe the "freemasons of +fashion" have treated the French tongue as their common speech; while +every artist and man of letters, and every man of science able to +appreciate that marvellous instrument of precision, French prose, has +turned towards France for aid and inspiration. How long the leadership +in arms and letters has lasted is curiously illustrated by the fact +that the earliest masterpiece in a modern tongue is the splendid +French epic which tells of Roland's doom and the vengeance of +Charlemagne when the lords of the Frankish host were stricken at +Roncesvalles. + +Let those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive to attain, a +high standard of cultivation and scholarship. Yet let us remember that +these stand second to certain other things. There is need of a sound +body, and even more need of a sound mind. But above mind and above +body stands character--the sum of those qualities which we mean when +we speak of a man's force and courage, of his good faith and sense of +honor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided that we +keep in mind that physical development is a means and not an end. I +believe, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. But +the education must contain much besides book-learning in order to be +really good. We must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness of +intellect, no polish, no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack +of the great solid qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, +common-sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet +of acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution--these +are the qualities which mark a masterful people. Without them no +people can control itself, or save itself from being controlled from +the outside. I speak to a brilliant assemblage; I speak in a great +university which represents the flower of the highest intellectual +development; I pay all homage to intellect, and to elaborate and +specialized training of the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the +assent of all of you present when I add that more important still are +the commonplace, every-day qualities and virtues. + +Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the power to +work, to fight at need, and to have plenty of healthy children. The +need that the average man shall work is so obvious as hardly to +warrant insistence. There are a few people in every country so born +that they can lead lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if +they make it evident that leisure does not mean idleness; for some of +the most valuable work needed by civilization is essentially +non-remunerative in its character, and of course the people who do +this work should in large part be drawn from those to whom +remuneration is an object of indifference. But the average man must +earn his own livelihood. He should be trained to do so, and he should +be trained to feel that he occupies a contemptible position if he does +not do so; that he is not an object of envy if he is idle, at +whichever end of the social scale he stands, but an object of +contempt, an object of derision. + +In the next place, the good man should be both a strong and a brave +man; that is, he should be able to fight, he should be able to serve +his country as a soldier, if the need arises. There are well-meaning +philosophers who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They are +right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness. +War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. +But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is war. +The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this whether +the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The +question must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? The question +must be, Is the right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness +once more to be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and virile +people must be, "Yes," whatever the cost. Every honorable effort +should always be made to avoid war; just as every honorable effort +should always be made by the individual in private life to keep out of +a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, +no self-respecting nation, can or ought to submit to wrong. + +Finally, even more important than ability to work, even more important +than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that the chief of +blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit +the land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times; and it is +the crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of +sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that +visited upon wilful sterility. The first essential in any civilization +is that the man and the woman shall be father and mother of healthy +children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease. If this is +not so, if through no fault of the society there is failure to +increase, it is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to +deliberate and wilful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is +one of those crimes of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from +pain and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature punishes more +heavily than any other. If we of the great republics, if we, the free +people who claim to have emancipated ourselves from the thraldom of +wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon +the wilfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to +prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have done. No +refinement of life, no delicacy of taste, no material progress, no +sordid heaping up of riches, no sensuous development of art and +literature, can in any way compensate for the loss of the great +fundamental virtues; and of these great fundamental virtues, the +greatest is the race's power to perpetuate the race. Character must +show itself in the man's performance both of the duty he owes himself +and of the duty he owes the State. The man's foremost duty is owed to +himself and his family; and he can do this duty only by earning money, +by providing what is essential to material well-being; it is only +after this has been done that he can hope to build a higher +superstructure on the solid material foundation; it is only after this +has been done that he can help in movements for the general +well-being. He must pull his own weight first, and only after this can +his surplus strength be of use to the general public. It is not good +to excite that bitter laughter which expresses contempt; and contempt +is what we feel for the being whose enthusiasm to benefit mankind is +such that he is a burden to those nearest him; who wishes to do great +things for humanity in the abstract, but who cannot keep his wife in +comfort or educate his children. + +Neverthless, while laying all stress on this point, while not merely +acknowledging but insisting upon the fact that there must be a basis +of material well-being for the individual as for the nation, let us +with equal emphasis insist that this material well-being represents +nothing but the foundation, and that the foundation, though +indispensable, is worthless unless upon it is raised the +superstructure of a higher life. That is why I decline to recognize +the mere multi-millionaire, the man of mere wealth, as an asset of +value to any country; and especially as not an asset to my own +country. If he has earned or uses his wealth in a way that makes him +of real benefit, of real use,--and such is often the case,--why, then +he does become an asset of worth. But it is the way in which it has +been earned or used, and not the mere fact of wealth, that entitles +him to the credit. There is need in business, as in most other forms +of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences. Their places +cannot be supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good +thing that they should have ample recognition, ample reward. But we +must not transfer our admiration to the reward instead of to the deed +rewarded; and if what should be the reward exists without the service +having been rendered, then admiration will come only from those who +are mean of soul. The truth is that, after a certain measure of +tangible material success or reward has been achieved, the question of +increasing it becomes of constantly less importance compared to other +things that can be done in life. It is a bad thing for a nation to +raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no +falser standard than that set by the deification of material +well-being in and for itself. The man who, for any cause for which he +is himself accountable, has failed to support himself and those for +whom he is responsible, ought to feel that he has fallen lamentably +short in his prime duty. But the man who, having far surpassed the +limit of providing for the wants, both of body and mind, of himself +and of those depending upon him, then piles up a great fortune, for +the acquisition or retention of which he returns no corresponding +benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be made to feel that, +so far from being a desirable, he is an unworthy, citizen of the +community; that he is to be neither admired nor envied; that his +right-thinking fellow-countrymen put him low in the scale of +citizenship, and leave him to be consoled by the admiration of those +whose level of purpose is even lower than his own. + +My position as regards the moneyed interests can be put in a few +words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully +safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human +rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run +identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict +between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property +belongs to man and not man to property. + +In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to understand +that there are certain qualities which we in a democracy are prone to +admire in and of themselves, which ought by rights to be judged +admirable or the reverse solely from the standpoint of the use made of +them. Foremost among these I should include two very distinct +gifts--the gift of money-making and the gift of oratory. Money-making, +the money touch, I have spoken of above. It is a quality which in a +moderate degree is essential. It may be useful when developed to a +very great degree, but only if accompanied and controlled by other +qualities; and without such control the possessor tends to develop +into one of the least attractive types produced by a modern industrial +democracy. So it is with the orator. It is highly desirable that a +leader of opinion in a democracy should be able to state his views +clearly and convincingly. But all that the oratory can do of value to +the community is to enable the man thus to explain himself; if it +enables the orator to persuade his hearers to put false values on +things, it merely makes him a power for mischief. Some excellent +public servants have not the gift at all, and must rely upon their +deeds to speak for them; and unless the oratory does represent genuine +conviction, based on good common-sense and able to be translated into +efficient performance, then the better the oratory the greater the +damage to the public it deceives. Indeed, it is a sign of marked +political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be +carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for +themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to +stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however +great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and +right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, +and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them. To +admire the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality behind +the gift is to do wrong to the republic. + +Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater force +to the orator's latter-day and more influential brother, the +journalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled +neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is +used aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can do, and +he often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for +the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their +profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit +it. Offenses against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a +private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for +debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, +sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for +the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced +for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand +must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by +the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations. + +In short, the good citizen in a republic must realize that he ought to +possess two sets of qualities, and that neither avails without the +other. He must have those qualities which make for efficiency; and he +must also have those qualities which direct the efficiency into +channels for the public good. He is useless if he is inefficient. +There is nothing to be done with that type of citizen of whom all that +can be said is that he is harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a +sluggish circulation is not impressive. There is little place in +active life for the timid good man. The man who is saved by weakness +from robust wickedness is likewise rendered immune from the robuster +virtues. The good citizen in a republic must first of all be able to +hold his own. He is no good citizen unless he has the ability which +will make him work hard and which at need will make him fight hard. +The good citizen is not a good citizen unless he is an efficient +citizen. + +But if a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral +sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more +dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful +qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are used merely +for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights +of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships +these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of +whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no +difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is +shown. It makes no difference whether such a man's force and ability +betray themselves in the career of money-maker or politician, soldier +or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man works for evil, +then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and +condemned by all upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by +success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually +so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked +man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last +analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and +that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for +liberty. + +The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday virtues +which make the woman a good housewife and house-mother, which make the +man a hard worker, a good husband and father, a good soldier at need, +stand at the bottom of character. But of course many others must be +added thereto if a State is to be not only free but great. Good +citizenship is not good citizenship if exhibited only in the home. +There remain the duties of the individual in relation to the State, +and these duties are none too easy under the conditions which exist +where the effort is made to carry on free government in a complex, +industrial civilization. Perhaps the most important thing the ordinary +citizen, and, above all, the leader of ordinary citizens, has to +remember in political life is that he must not be a sheer doctrinaire. +The closet philosopher, the refined and cultured individual who from +his library tells how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, +is of no use in actual governmental work; and the one-sided fanatic, +and still more the mob leader, and the insincere man who to achieve +power promises what by no possibility can be performed, are not +merely useless but noxious. + +The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve +them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so +lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and +indeed undesirable to realize. The impracticable visionary is far less +often the guide and precursor than he is the embittered foe of the +real reformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcomings, yet +does in some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the hopes and +desires of those who strive for better things. Woe to the empty +phrase-maker, to the empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the +ground for the man of action, turns against him when he appears and +hampers him as he does the work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must +remember how sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, +how great the damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his +own life, strive measurably to realize the ideals that he preaches for +others. Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal must be +largely determined by the success with which it can in practice be +realized. We should abhor the so-called "practical" men whose +practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar baseness which finds +its expression in disbelief in morality and decency, in disregard of +high standards of living and conduct. Such a creature is the worst +enemy of the body politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his +nominal opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic vision who makes +the impossible better forever the enemy of the possible good. + +We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme +individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual +initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and +yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more +complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable +to leave to individual initiative can, under the changed conditions, +be performed with better results by common effort. It is quite +impossible, and equally undesirable, to draw in theory a hard and fast +line which shall always divide the two sets of cases. This every one +who is not cursed with the pride of the closet philosopher will see, +if he will only take the trouble to think about some of our commonest +phenomena. For instance, when people live on isolated farms or in +little hamlets, each house can be left to attend to its own drainage +and water supply; but the mere multiplication of families in a given +area produces new problems which, because they differ in size, are +found to differ not only in degree but in kind from the old; and the +questions of drainage and water supply have to be considered from the +common standpoint. It is not a matter for abstract dogmatizing to +decide when this point is reached; it is a matter to be tested by +practical experiment. Much of the discussion about socialism and +individualism is entirely pointless, because of failure to agree on +terminology. It is not good to be the slave of names. I am a strong +individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it +is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the +community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things +better than if they were left to individual action. The individualism +which finds its expression in the abuse of physical force is checked +very early in the growth of civilization, and we of to-day should in +our turn strive to shackle or destroy that individualism which +triumphs by greed and cunning, which exploits the weak by craft +instead of ruling them by brutality. We ought to go with any man in +the effort to bring about justice and the equality of opportunity, to +turn the tool user more and more into the tool owner, to shift burdens +so that they can be more equitably borne. The deadening effect on any +race of the adoption of a logical and extreme socialistic system could +not be overstated; it would spell sheer destruction; it would produce +grosser wrong and outrage, fouler immorality, than any existing +system. But this does not mean that we may not with great advantage +adopt certain of the principles professed by some given set of men who +happen to call themselves Socialists; to be afraid to do so would be +to make a mark of weakness on our part. + +But we should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a +lie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, +nor proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it +does not exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable +equality, at least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is +due to force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, +blood of their blood and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled +and wrought and suffered for them, and at the end died for them, who +always strove to represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or +for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of +idealism and sound common-sense. He said (I omit what was of merely +local significance): + + I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to + include all men, but that they did not mean to declare all men + equal _in all respects_. They did not mean to say all men were + equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social + capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they + did consider all men created equal--equal in certain inalienable + rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of + happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean + to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying + that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it + immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard maxim for + free society which should be familiar to all--constantly looked + to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly + attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly + spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the + happiness and value of life to all people, everywhere. + +We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men who would make +us desist from the effort to do away with the inequality which means +injustice; the inequality of right, of opportunity, of privilege. We +are bound in honor to strive to bring ever nearer the day when, as far +as is humanly possible, we shall be able to realize the ideal that +each man shall have an equal opportunity to show the stuff that is in +him by the way in which he renders service. There should, so far as +possible, be equality of opportunity to render service; but just so +long as there is inequality of service there should and must be +inequality of reward. We may be sorry for the general, the painter, +the artist, the worker in any profession or of any kind, whose +misfortune rather than whose fault it is that he does his work ill. +But the reward must go to the man who does his work well; for any +other course is to create a new kind of privilege, the privilege of +folly and weakness; and special privilege is injustice, whatever form +it takes. + +To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable, +ought to have the reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable, +and upright, is to say what is not true and cannot be true. Let us try +to level up, but let us beware of the evil of levelling down. If a man +stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us +needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is a +waste of time to try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for +every one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those +who shirk their work and to those who do it. + +Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and not be +misled into following any proposal for achieving the millennium, for +re-creating the golden age, until we have subjected it to hard-headed +examination. On the other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal +merely because it is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is +proposed, look at it on its merits, and, in considering it, disregard +formulas. It does not matter in the least who proposes it, or why. If +it seems good, try it. If it proves good, accept it; otherwise reject +it. There are plenty of men calling themselves Socialists with whom, +up to a certain point, it is quite possible to work. If the next step +is one which both we and they wish to take, why of course take it, +without any regard to the fact that our views as to the tenth step may +differ. But, on the other hand, keep clearly in mind that, though it +has been worth while to take one step, this does not in the least +mean that it may not be highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is +just as foolish to refuse all progress because people demanding it +desire at some points to go to absurd extremes, as it would be to go +to these absurd extremes simply because some of the measures advocated +by the extremists were wise. + +The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of +pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus +claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in +any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that +country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of +religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his +life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong +his neighbor. Persecution is bad because it is persecution, and +without reference to which side happens at the moment to be the +persecutor and which the persecuted. Class hatred is bad in just the +same way, and without any regard to the individual who, at a given +time, substitutes loyalty to a class for loyalty to the nation, or +substitutes hatred of men because they happen to come in a certain +social category, for judgment awarded them according to their +conduct. Remember always that the same measure of condemnation should +be extended to the arrogance which would look down upon or crush any +man because he is poor, and to the envy and hatred which would destroy +a man because he is wealthy. The overbearing brutality of the man of +wealth or power, and the envious and hateful malice directed against +wealth or power, are really at root merely different manifestations of +the same quality, merely the two sides of the same shield. The man +who, if born to wealth and power, exploits and ruins his less +fortunate brethren, is at heart the same as the greedy and violent +demagogue who excites those who have not property to plunder those who +have. The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted by that man, +whatever his station, who seeks to make his countrymen divide +primarily on the line that separates class from class, occupation from +occupation, men of more wealth from men of less wealth, instead of +remembering that the only safe standard is that which judges each man +on his worth as a man, whether he be rich or poor, without regard to +his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only true +democratic test, the only test that can with propriety be applied in +a republic. There have been many republics in the past, both in what +we call antiquity and in what we call the Middle Ages. They fell, and +the prime factor in their fall was the fact that the parties tended to +divide along the line that separates wealth from poverty. It made no +difference which side was successful; it made no difference whether +the republic fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob. +In either case, when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for +loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand. There is +no greater need to-day than the need to keep ever in mind the fact +that the cleavage between right and wrong, between good citizenship +and bad citizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel with, +the lines of cleavage between class and class, between occupation and +occupation. Ruin looks us in the face if we judge a man by his +position instead of judging him by his conduct in that position. + +In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity of +conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction. Wide +differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social +belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be +stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine +hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of earnestness of +belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or +anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a +manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in +the downfall of so many, many nations. + +Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a +republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to +support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the +republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or +another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It +makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class +interest, to religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes +such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of +furthering his own interest. The very last thing that an intelligent +and self-respecting member of a democratic community should do is to +reward any public man because that public man says he will get the +private citizen something to which this private citizen is not +entitled, or will gratify some emotion or animosity which this +private citizen ought not to possess. Let me illustrate this by one +anecdote from my own experience. A number of years ago I was engaged +in cattle-ranching on the great plains of the western United States. +There were no fences. The cattle wandered free, the ownership of each +being determined by the brand; the calves were branded with the brand +of the cows they followed. If on the round-up an animal was passed by, +the following year it would appear as an unbranded yearling, and was +then called a maverick. By the custom of the country these mavericks +were branded with the brand of the man on whose range they were found. +One day I was riding the range with a newly hired cowboy, and we came +upon a maverick. We roped and threw it; then we built a little fire, +took out a cinch-ring, heated it at the fire; and the cowboy started +to put on the brand. I said to him, "It is So-and-so's brand," naming +the man on whose range we happened to be. He answered: "That's all +right, boss; I know my business." In another moment I said to him, +"Hold on, you are putting on my brand!" To which he answered, "That's +all right; I always put on the boss's brand." I answered, "Oh, very +well. Now you go straight back to the ranch and get what is owing to +you; I don't need you any longer." He jumped up and said: "Why, what's +the matter? I was putting on your brand." And I answered: "Yes, my +friend, and if you will steal _for_ me you will steal _from_ me." + +Now, the same principle which applies in private life applies also in +public life. If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that he +will do something wrong _in_ your interest, you can be absolutely +certain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something +wrong _against_ your interest. + +So much for the citizenship of the individual in his relations to his +family, to his neighbor, to the State. There remain duties of +citizenship which the State, the aggregation of all the individuals, +owes in connection with other states, with other nations. Let me say +at once that I am no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe +that a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only +possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches +us that the average man who protests that his international feeling +swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country +because he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves +himself the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not +care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is a citizen of +the world, is in very fact usually an exceedingly undesirable citizen +of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. In +the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at +present, if a man can view his own country and all other countries +from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust +him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same +dispassionate view of his wife and his mother. However broad and deep +a man's sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no +fear that they will be cramped by love of his native land. + +Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do +good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that +the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than +the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the +family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from +patriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of +other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of the +national honor as a gentleman is of his own honor, will be careful to +see that the nation neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a +gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong +him. I do not for one moment admit that political morality is +different from private morality, that a promise made on the stump +differs from a promise made in private life. I do not for one moment +admit that a man should act deceitfully as a public servant in his +dealings with other nations, any more than that he should act +deceitfully in his dealings as a private citizen with other private +citizens. I do not for one moment admit that a nation should treat +other nations in a different spirit from that in which an honorable +man would treat other men. + +In practically applying this principle to the two sets of cases there +is, of course, a great practical difference to be taken into account. +We speak of international law; but international law is something +wholly different from private or municipal law, and the capital +difference is that there is a sanction for the one and no sanction for +the other; that there is an outside force which compels individuals to +obey the one, while there is no such outside force to compel +obedience as regards the other. International law will, I believe, as +the generations pass, grow stronger and stronger until in some way or +other there develops the power to make it respected. But as yet it is +only in the first formative period. As yet, as a rule, each nation is +of necessity obliged to judge for itself in matters of vital +importance between it and its neighbors, and actions must of +necessity, where this is the case, be different from what they are +where, as among private citizens, there is an outside force whose +action is all-powerful and must be invoked in any crisis of +importance. It is the duty of wise statesmen, gifted with the power of +looking ahead, to try to encourage and build up every movement which +will substitute or tend to substitute some other agency for force in +the settlement of international disputes. It is the duty of every +honest statesman to try to guide the nation so that it shall not wrong +any other nation. But as yet the great civilized peoples, if they are +to be true to themselves and to the cause of humanity and +civilization, must keep ever in mind that in the last resort they must +possess both the will and the power to resent wrong-doing from others. +The men who sanely believe in a lofty morality preach righteousness; +but they do not preach weakness, whether among private citizens or +among nations. We believe that our ideals should be high, but not so +high as to make it impossible measurably to realize them. We sincerely +and earnestly believe in peace; but if peace and justice conflict, we +scorn the man who would not stand for justice though the whole world +came in arms against him. + +And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and I belong to the only two +Republics among the great powers of the world. The ancient friendship +between France and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere +and disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow to +us. But it would be more than that. In the seething turmoil of the +history of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar +power or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom or strength, +which puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank forever +with the leaders of mankind. France is one of these nations. For her +to sink would be a loss to all the world. There are certain lessons of +brilliance and of generous gallantry that she can teach better than +any of her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of +Malbrook, it was to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight +upward through the laurels he had won. Nearly seven centuries ago, +Froissart, writing of a time of dire disaster, said that the realm of +France was never so stricken that there were not left men who would +valiantly fight for it. You have had a great past. I believe that you +will have a great future. Long may you carry yourselves proudly as +citizens of a nation which bears a leading part in the teaching and +uplifting of mankind. + + * * * * * + + + + +INTERNATIONAL PEACE + +An Address before the Nobel Prize Committee Delivered at Christiania, +Norway, May 5, 1910 + + +It is with peculiar pleasure that I stand here to-day to express the +deep appreciation I feel of the high honor conferred upon me by the +presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize.[7] The gold medal which formed +part of the prize I shall always keep, and I shall hand it on to my +children as a precious heirloom. The sum of money provided as part of +the prize by the wise generosity of the illustrious founder of this +world-famous prize system I did not, under the peculiar circumstances +of the case, feel at liberty to keep. I think it eminently just and +proper that in most cases the recipient of the prize should keep for +his own use the prize in its entirety. But in this case, while I did +not act officially as President of the United States, it was +nevertheless only because I was President that I was enabled to act at +all; and I felt that the money must be considered as having been given +me in trust for the United States. I therefore used it as a nucleus +for a foundation to forward the cause of industrial peace, as being +well within the general purpose of your Committee; for in our complex +industrial civilization of to-day the peace of righteousness and +justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary +in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as +much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world +of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world +of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in +international relationships. + + [7] Awarded to Mr. Roosevelt for his acts as mediator between + Russia and Japan which resulted in the Treaty of Portsmouth and + the ending of the Russo-Japanese war.--L.F.A. + +We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, +justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead +our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of +brotherly good-will one for another. Peace is generally good in +itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the +handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it +serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument +to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the +bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life; +but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth +calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see +those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist +if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this +without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless +and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and +soft effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted +sentimentality. + +Moreover, and above all, let us remember that words count only when +they give expression to deeds or are to be translated into them. The +leaders of the Red Terror prattled of peace while they steeped their +hands in the blood of the innocent; and many a tyrant has called it +peace when he has scourged honest protest into silence. Our words must +be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use +practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must +advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do +actually make some progress in the right direction. + +Now, having freely admitted the limitations to our work, and the +qualifications to be borne in mind, I feel that I have the right to +have my words taken seriously when I point out where, in my judgment, +great advance can be made in the cause of international peace. I speak +as a practical man, and whatever I now advocate I actually tried to do +when I was for the time being the head of a great nation, and keenly +jealous of its honor and interest. I ask other nations to do only what +I should be glad to see my own nation do. + +The advance can be made along several lines. First of all, there can +be treaties of arbitration. There are, of course, states so backward +that a civilized community ought not to enter into an arbitration +treaty with them, at least until we have gone much further than at +present in securing some kind of international police action. But all +really civilized communities should have effective arbitration +treaties among themselves. I believe that these treaties can cover +almost all questions liable to arise between such nations, if they are +drawn with the explicit agreement that each contracting party will +respect the other's territory and its absolute sovereignty within +that territory, and the equally explicit agreement that (aside from +the very rare cases where the nation's honor is vitally concerned) all +other possible subjects of controversy will be submitted to +arbitration. Such a treaty would insure peace unless one party +deliberately violated it. Of course, as yet there is no adequate +safeguard against such deliberate violation, but the establishment of +a sufficient number of these treaties would go a long way towards +creating a world opinion which would finally find expression in the +provision of methods to forbid or punish any such violation. + +Secondly, there is the further development of The Hague Tribunal, of +the work of the conferences and courts at The Hague. It has been well +said that the first Hague Conference framed a Magna Charta for the +nations; it set before us an ideal which has already to some extent +been realized, and towards the full realization of which we can all +steadily strive. The second Conference made further progress; the +third should do yet more. Meanwhile the American Government has more +than once tentatively suggested methods for completing the Court of +Arbitral Justice, constituted at the second Hague Conference, and for +rendering it effective. It is earnestly to be hoped that the various +Governments of Europe, working with those of America and of Asia, +shall set themselves seriously to the task of devising some method +which shall accomplish this result. If I may venture the suggestion, +it would be well for the statesmen of the world in planning for the +erection of this world court, to study what has been done in the +United States by the Supreme Court. I cannot help thinking that the +Constitution of the United States, notably in the establishment of the +Supreme Court and in the methods adopted for securing peace and good +relations among and between the different States, offers certain +valuable analogies to what should be striven for in order to secure, +through The Hague courts and conferences, a species of world +federation for international peace and justice. There are, of course, +fundamental differences between what the United States Constitution +does and what we should even attempt at this time to secure at The +Hague; but the methods adopted in the American Constitution to prevent +hostilities between the States, and to secure the supremacy of the +Federal Court in certain classes of cases, are well worth the study +of those who seek at The Hague to obtain the same results on a world +scale. + +In the third place, something should be done as soon as possible to +check the growth of armaments, especially naval armaments, by +international agreement. No one Power could or should act by itself; +for it is eminently undesirable, from the standpoint of the peace of +righteousness, that a Power which really does believe in peace should +place itself at the mercy of some rival which may at bottom have no +such belief and no intention of acting on it. But, granted sincerity +of purpose, the great Powers of the world should find no +insurmountable difficulty in reaching an agreement which would put an +end to the present costly and growing extravagance of expenditure on +naval armaments. An agreement merely to limit the size of ships would +have been very useful a few years ago, and would still be of use; but +the agreement should go much further. + +Finally, it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly +bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace +among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being +broken by others. The supreme difficulty in connection with developing +the peace work of The Hague arises from the lack of any executive +power, of any police power, to enforce the decrees of the court. In +any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon +actual or potential force; on the existence of a police, or on the +knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and +willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are +put into effect. In new and wild communities where there is violence, +an honest man must protect himself; and until other means of securing +his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him +to surrender his arms while the men who are dangerous to the community +retain theirs. He should not renounce the right to protect himself by +his own efforts until the community is so organized that it can +effectively relieve the individual of the duty of putting down +violence. So it is with nations. Each nation must keep well prepared +to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international +police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between +nations. As things are now, such power to command peace throughout the +world could best be assured by some combination between those great +nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves +of committing aggressions. The combination might at first be only to +secure peace within certain definite limits and certain definite +conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a +combination would have earned his place in history for all time and +his title to the gratitude of all mankind. + + * * * * * + + + +THE COLONIAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES + +An Address Delivered at Christiania, Norway, on the Evening of May 5, +1910 + + +When I first heard that I was to speak again this evening, my heart +failed me. But directly after hearing Mr. Bratlie[8] I feel that it is +a pleasure to say one or two things; and before saying them, let me +express my profound acknowledgment for your words. You have been not +only more than just but more than generous. Because I have been so +kindly treated, I am going to trespass on your kindness still further, +and say a word or two about my own actions while I was President. I do +not speak of them, my friends, save to illustrate the thesis that I +especially uphold, that the man who has the power to act is to be +judged not by his words but by his acts--by his words in so far as +they agree with his acts. All that I say about peace I wish to have +judged and measured by what I actually did as President. + + [8] See the Introduction.--L.F.A. + +I was particularly pleased by what you said about our course, the +course of the American people, in connection with the Philippines and +Cuba. I believe that we have the Cuban Minister here with us to-night? +[A voice: "Yes."] Well, then, we have a friend who can check off what +I am going to say. At the close of the war of '98 we found our army in +possession of Cuba, and man after man among the European diplomats of +the old school said to me: "Oh, you will never go out of Cuba. You +said you would, of course, but that is quite understood; nations don't +expect promises like that to be kept." As soon as I became President, +I said, "Now you will see that the promise will be kept." We appointed +a day when we would leave Cuba. On that day Cuba began its existence +as an independent republic. Later there came a disaster, there came a +revolution, and we were obliged to land troops again, while I was +President, and then the same gentlemen with whom I had conversed +before said: "Now you are relieved from your promise; your promise has +been kept, and now you will stay in Cuba." I answered: "No, we shall +not. We will keep the promise not only in the letter but in the +spirit. We will stay in Cuba to help it on its feet, and then we will +leave the island in better shape to maintain its permanent independent +existence." And before I left the Presidency Cuba resumed its career +as a separate republic, holding its head erect as a sovereign state +among the other nations of the earth. All that our people want is just +exactly what the Cuban people themselves want--that is, a continuance +of order within the island, and peace and prosperity, so that there +shall be no shadow of an excuse for any outside intervention. + +We acted along the same general lines in the case of San Domingo. We +intervened only so far as to prevent the need of taking possession of +the island. None of you will know of this, so I will just tell you +briefly what it was that we did. The Republic of San Domingo, in the +West Indies, had suffered from a good many revolutions. In one +particular period when I had to deal with the island, while I was +President, it was a little difficult to know what to do, because there +were two separate governments in the island, and a revolution going on +against each. A number of dictators, under the title of President, had +seized power at different times, had borrowed money at exorbitant +rates of interest from Europeans and Americans, and had pledged the +custom-houses of the different towns to different countries; and the +chief object of each revolutionary was to get hold of the +custom-houses. Things got to such a pass that it became evident that +certain European Powers would land and take possession of parts of the +island. We then began negotiations with the Government of the island. +We sent down ships to keep within limits various preposterous little +manifestations of the revolutionary habit, and, after some +negotiations, we concluded an agreement. It was agreed that we should +put a man in as head of the custom-houses, that the collection of +customs should be entirely under the management of that man, and that +no one should be allowed to interfere with the custom-houses. +Revolutions could go on outside them without interference from us; but +the custom-houses were not to be touched. We agreed to turn over to +the San Domingo Government forty-five per cent. of the revenue, +keeping fifty-five per cent. as a fund to be applied to a settlement +with the creditors. The creditors also acquiesced in what we had done, +and we started the new arrangement. I found considerable difficulty +in getting the United States Senate to ratify the treaty, but I went +ahead anyhow and executed it until it was ratified. Finally it was +ratified, for the opposition was a purely factious opposition, +representing the smallest kind of politics with a leaven of even baser +motive. Under the treaty we have turned over to the San Domingo +Government forty-five per cent. of the revenues collected, and yet we +have turned over nearly double as much as they ever got when they +collected it _all_ themselves. In addition, we have collected +sufficient to make it certain that the creditors will receive every +cent to which they are entitled. It is self-evident, therefore, that +in this affair we gave a proof of our good faith. We might have taken +possession of San Domingo. Instead of thus taking possession, we put +into the custom-houses one head man and half a dozen assistants, to +see that the revenues were honestly collected, and at the same time +served notice that they should not be forcibly taken away; and the +result has been an extraordinary growth of the tranquillity and +prosperity of the islands, while at the same time the creditors are +equally satisfied, and all danger of outside interference has ceased. + +That incident illustrates two things: First, if a nation acts in good +faith, it can often bring about peace without abridging the liberties +of another nation. Second, our experience emphasizes the fact (which +every Peace Association should remember) that the hysterical +sentimentalist for peace is a mighty poor person to follow. I was +actually assailed, right and left, by the more extreme members of the +peace propaganda in the United States for what I did in San Domingo; +most of the other professional peace advocates took no interest in the +matter, or were tepidly hostile; however, I went straight ahead and +did the job. The ultra-peace people attacked me on the ground that I +had "declared war" against San Domingo, the "war" taking the shape of +the one man put in charge of the custom-houses! This will seem to you +incredible, but I am giving you an absolutely accurate account of what +occurred. I disregarded those foolish people, as I shall always +disregard sentimentalists of that type when they are guilty of folly. +At the present we have comparative peace and prosperity in the island, +in consequence of my action, and of my disregard of these self-styled +advocates of peace. + +The same reasoning applies in connection with what we did at the +Isthmus of Panama, and what we are doing in the Philippines. Our +colonial problems in the Philippines are not the same as the colonial +problems of other Powers. We have in the Philippines a people mainly +Asiatic in blood, but with a streak of European blood and with the +traditions of European culture, so that their ideals are largely the +ideals of Europe. At the moment when we entered the islands the people +were hopelessly unable to stand alone. If we had abandoned the +islands, we should have left them a prey to anarchy for some months, +and then they would have been seized by some other Power ready to +perform the task that we had not been able to perform. Now I hold that +it is not worth while being a big nation if you cannot do a big task; +I care not whether that task is digging the Panama Canal or handling +the Philippines. In the Philippines I feel that the day will +ultimately come when the Philippine people must settle for themselves +whether they wish to be entirely independent, or in some shape to keep +up a connection with us. The day has not yet come; it may not come for +a generation or two. One of the greatest friends that liberty has ever +had, the great British statesman Burke, said on one occasion that +there must always be government, and that if there is not government +from within, then it must be supplied from without. A child has to be +governed from without, because it has not yet grown to a point when it +can govern itself from within; and a people that shows itself totally +unable to govern itself from within must expect to submit to more or +less of government from without, because it cannot continue to exist +on other terms--indeed, it cannot be permitted permanently to exist as +a source of danger to other nations. Our aim in the Philippines is to +train the people so that they may govern themselves from within. Until +they have reached this point they cannot have self-government. I will +never advocate self-government for a people so long as their +self-government means crime, violence, and extortion, corruption +within, lawlessness among themselves and towards others. If that is +what self-government means to any people then they ought to be +governed by others until they can do better. + +What I have related represents a measure of practical achievement in +the way of helping forward the cause of peace and justice, and of +giving to different peoples freedom of action according to the +capacities of each. It is not possible, as the world is now +constituted, to treat every nation as one private individual can treat +all other private individuals, because as yet there is no way of +enforcing obedience to law among nations as there is among private +individuals. If in the streets of this city a man walks about with the +intent to kill somebody, if he manages his house so that it becomes a +source of infection to the neighborhood, the community, with its law +officers, deals with him forthwith. That is just what happened at +Panama, and, as nobody else was able to deal with the matter, I dealt +with it myself, on behalf of the United States Government, and now the +Canal is being dug, and the people of Panama have their independence +and a prosperity hitherto unknown in that country. + +In the end, I firmly believe that some method will be devised by which +the people of the world, as a whole, will be able to insure peace, as +it cannot now be insured. How soon that end will come I do not know; +it may be far distant; and until it does come I think that, while we +should give all the support that we can to any possible feasible +scheme for quickly bringing about such a state of affairs, yet we +should meanwhile do the more practicable, though less sensational, +things. Let us advance step by step; let us, for example, endeavor to +increase the number of arbitration treaties and enlarge the methods +for obtaining peaceful settlements. Above all, let us strive to awaken +the public international conscience, so that it shall be expected, and +expected efficiently, of the public men responsible for the management +of any nation's affairs that those affairs shall be conducted with all +proper regard for the interests and well-being of other Powers, great +or small. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE WORLD MOVEMENT + +An Address Delivered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910 + + +I very highly appreciate the chance to address the University of +Berlin in the year that closes its first centenary of existence. It is +difficult for you in the Old World fully to appreciate the feelings of +a man who comes from a nation still in the making, to a country with +an immemorial historic past; and especially is this the case when that +country, with its ancient past behind it, yet looks with proud +confidence into the future, and in the present shows all the abounding +vigor of lusty youth. Such is the case with Germany. More than a +thousand years have passed since the Roman Empire of the West became +in fact a German Empire. Throughout mediæval times the Empire and the +Papacy were the two central features in the history of the Occident. +With the Ottos and the Henrys began the slow rise of that Western +life which has shaped modern Europe, and therefore ultimately the +whole modern world. Their task was to organize society and to keep it +from crumbling to pieces. They were castle-builders, city-founders, +road-makers; they battled to bring order out of the seething +turbulence around them; and at the same time they first beat back +heathendom and then slowly wrested from it its possessions. + +After the downfall of Rome and the breaking in sunder of the Roman +Empire, the first real crystallization of the forces that were working +for a new uplift of civilization in Western Europe was round the +Karling House, and, above all, round the great Emperor, Karl the +Great, the seat of whose Empire was at Aachen. Under the Karlings the +Arab and the Moor were driven back beyond the Pyrenees; the last of +the old heathen Germans were forced into Christianity, and the Avars, +wild horsemen from the Asian steppes, who had long held tented +dominion in Middle Europe, were utterly destroyed. With the break-up +of the Karling Empire came chaos once more, and a fresh inrush of +savagery: Vikings from the frozen North, and new hordes of outlandish +riders from Asia. It was the early Emperors of Germany proper who +quelled these barbarians; in their time Dane and Norseman and Magyar +became Christians, and most of the Slav peoples as well, so that +Europe began to take on a shape which we can recognize to-day. Since +then the centuries have rolled by, with strange alternations of +fortune, now well-nigh barren, and again great with German achievement +in arms and in government, in science and the arts. The centre of +power shifted hither and thither within German lands; the great house +of Hohenzollern rose, the house which has at last seen Germany spring +into a commanding position in the very forefront among the nations of +mankind. + +To this ancient land, with its glorious past and splendid present, to +this land of many memories and of eager hopes, I come from a young +nation, which is by blood akin to, and yet different from, each of the +great nations of Middle and Western Europe; which has inherited or +acquired much from each, but is changing and developing every +inheritance and acquisition into something new and strange. The German +strain in our blood is large, for almost from the beginning there has +been a large German element among the successive waves of newcomers +whose children's children have been and are being fused into the +American nation; and I myself trace my origin to that branch of the +Low Dutch stock which raised Holland out of the North Sea. Moreover, +we have taken from you, not only much of the blood that runs through +our veins, but much of the thought that shapes our minds. For +generations American scholars have flocked to your universities, and, +thanks to the wise foresight of his Imperial Majesty the present +Emperor, the intimate and friendly connection between the two +countries is now in every way closer than it has ever been before. + +Germany is pre-eminently a country in which the world movement of +to-day in all of its multitudinous aspects is plainly visible. The +life of this University covers the period during which that movement +has spread until it is felt throughout every continent; while its +velocity has been constantly accelerating, so that the face of the +world has changed, and is now changing, as never before. It is +therefore fit and appropriate here to speak on this subject. + +When, in the slow procession of the ages, man was developed on this +planet, the change worked by his appearance was at first slight. +Further ages passed, while he groped and struggled by infinitesimal +degrees upward through the lower grades of savagery; for the general +law is that life which is advanced and complex, whatever its nature, +changes more quickly than simpler and less advanced forms. The life of +savages changes and advances with extreme slowness, and groups of +savages influence one another but little. The first rudimentary +beginnings of that complex life of communities which we call +civilization marked a period when man had already long been by far the +most important creature on the planet. The history of the living world +had become, in fact, the history of man, and therefore something +totally different in kind as well as in degree from what it had been +before. There are interesting analogies between what has gone on in +the development of life generally and what has gone on in the +development of human society, and these I shall discuss elsewhere.[9] +But the differences are profound, and go to the root of things. + + [9] In the Romanes Lecture at Oxford.--L.F.A. + +Throughout their early stages the movements of civilization--for, +properly speaking, there was no one movement--were very slow, were +local in space, and were partial in the sense that each developed +along but few lines. Of the numberless years that covered these early +stages we have no record. They were the years that saw such +extraordinary discoveries and inventions as fire, and the wheel, and +the bow, and the domestication of animals. So local were these +inventions that at the present day there yet linger savage tribes, +still fixed in the half-bestial life of an infinitely remote past, who +know none of them except fire--and the discovery and use of fire may +have marked, not the beginning of civilization, but the beginning of +the savagery which separated man from brute. + +Even after civilization and culture had achieved a relatively high +position, they were still purely local, and from this fact subject to +violent shocks. Modern research has shown the existence in prehistoric +or, at least, protohistoric times of many peoples who, in given +localities, achieved a high and peculiar culture, a culture that was +later so completely destroyed that it is difficult to say what, if +any, traces it left on the subsequent cultures out of which we have +developed our own; while it is also difficult to say exactly how much +any one of these cultures influenced any other. In many cases, as +where invaders with weapons of bronze or iron conquered the neolithic +peoples, the higher civilization completely destroyed the lower +civilization, or barbarism, with which it came in contact. In other +cases, while superiority in culture gave its possessors at the +beginning a marked military and governmental superiority over the +neighboring peoples, yet sooner or later there accompanied it a +certain softness or enervating quality which left the cultured folk at +the mercy of the stark and greedy neighboring tribes, in whose savage +souls cupidity gradually overcame terror and awe. Then the people that +had been struggling upward would be engulfed, and the levelling waves +of barbarism wash over them. But we are not yet in position to speak +definitely on these matters. It is only the researches of recent years +that have enabled us so much as to guess at the course of events in +prehistoric Greece; while as yet we can hardly even hazard a guess as +to how, for instance, the Hallstadt culture rose and fell, or as to +the history and fate of the builders of those strange ruins of which +Stonehenge is the type. + +The first civilizations which left behind them clear records rose in +that hoary historic past which geologically is part of the immediate +present--and which is but a span's length from the present, even when +compared only with the length of time that man has lived on this +planet. These first civilizations were those which rose in Mesopotamia +and the Nile valley some six or eight thousand years ago. As far as we +can see, they were well-nigh independent centres of cultural +development, and our knowledge is not such at present as to enable us +to connect either with the early cultural movements, in southwestern +Europe on the one hand, or in India on the other, or with that Chinese +civilization which has been so profoundly affected by Indian +influences. + +Compared with the civilizations with which we are best acquainted, the +striking features in the Mesopotamian and Nilotic civilizations were +the length of time they endured and their comparative changelessness. +The kings, priests, and peoples who dwelt by the Nile or Euphrates are +found thinking much the same thoughts, doing much the same deeds, +leaving at least very similar records, while time passes in tens of +centuries. Of course there was change; of course there were action and +reaction in influence between them and their neighbors; and the +movement of change, of development, material, mental, spiritual, was +much faster than anything that had occurred during the æons of mere +savagery. But in contradistinction to modern times the movement was +very slow indeed, and, moreover, in each case it was strongly +localized; while the field of endeavor was narrow. There were certain +conquests by man over nature; there were certain conquests in the +domain of pure intellect; there were certain extensions which spread +the area of civilized mankind. But it would be hard to speak of it as +a "world movement" at all; for by far the greater part of the +habitable globe was not only unknown, but its existence unguessed at, +so far as peoples with any civilization whatsoever were concerned. + +With the downfall of these ancient civilizations there sprang into +prominence those peoples with whom our own cultural history may be +said to begin. Those ideas and influences in our lives which we can +consciously trace back at all are in the great majority of instances +to be traced to the Jew, the Greek, or the Roman; and the ordinary +man, when he speaks of the nations of antiquity, has in mind +specifically these three peoples--although, judged even by the history +of which we have record, theirs is a very modern antiquity indeed. + +The case of the Jew was quite exceptional. His was a small nation, of +little more consequence than the sister nations of Moab and Damascus, +until all three, and the other petty states of the country, fell under +the yoke of the alien. Then he survived, while all his fellows died. +In the spiritual domain he contributed a religion which has been the +most potent of all factors in its effect on the subsequent history of +mankind; but none of his other contributions compare with the legacies +left us by the Greek and the Roman. + +The Græco-Roman world saw a civilization far more brilliant, far more +varied and intense, than any that had gone before it, and one that +affected a far larger share of the world's surface. For the first time +there began to be something which at least foreshadowed a "world +movement" in the sense that it affected a considerable portion of the +world's surface and that it represented what was incomparably the most +important of all that was happening in world history at the time. In +breadth and depth the field of intellectual interest had greatly +broadened at the same time that the physical area affected by the +civilization had similarly extended. Instead of a civilization +affecting only one river valley or one nook of the Mediterranean, +there was a civilization which directly or indirectly influenced +mankind from the Desert of Sahara to the Baltic, from the Atlantic +Ocean to the westernmost mountain chains that spring from the +Himalayas. Throughout most of this region there began to work certain +influences which, though with widely varying intensity, did +nevertheless tend to affect a large portion of mankind. In many of the +forms of science, in almost all the forms of art, there was great +activity. In addition to great soldiers there were great +administrators and statesmen whose concern was with the fundamental +questions of social and civil life. Nothing like the width and variety +of intellectual achievement and understanding had ever before been +known; and for the first time we come across great intellectual +leaders, great philosophers and writers, whose works are a part of all +that is highest in modern thought, whose writings are as alive to-day +as when they were first issued; and there were others of even more +daring and original temper, a philosopher like Democritus, a poet like +Lucretius, whose minds leaped ahead through the centuries and saw what +none of their contemporaries saw, but who were so hampered by their +surroundings that it was physically impossible for them to leave to +the later world much concrete addition to knowledge. The civilization +was one of comparatively rapid change, viewed by the standard of +Babylon and Memphis. There was incessant movement; and, moreover, the +whole system went down with a crash to seeming destruction after a +period short compared with that covered by the reigns of a score of +Egyptian dynasties, or with the time that elapsed between a Babylonian +defeat by Elam and a war sixteen centuries later which fully avenged +it. + +This civilization flourished with brilliant splendor. Then it fell. In +its northern seats it was overwhelmed by a wave of barbarism from +among those half-savage peoples from whom you and I, my hearers, trace +our descent. In the south and east it was destroyed later, but far +more thoroughly, by invaders of an utterly different type. Both +conquests were of great importance; but it was the northern conquest +which in its ultimate effects was of by far the greatest importance. + +With the advent of the Dark Ages the movement of course ceased, and it +did not begin anew for many centuries; while a thousand years passed +before it was once more in full swing, so far as European +civilization, so far as the world civilization of to-day, is +concerned. During all those centuries the civilized world, in our +acceptation of the term, was occupied, as its chief task, in slowly +climbing back to the position from which it had fallen after the age +of the Antonines. Of course a general statement like this must be +accepted with qualifications. There is no hard and fast line between +one age or period and another, and in no age is either progress or +retrogression universal in all things. There were many points in which +the Middle Ages, because of the simple fact that they were Christian, +surpassed the brilliant pagan civilization of the past; and there are +some points in which the civilization that succeeded them has sunk +below the level of the ages which saw such mighty masterpieces of +poetry, of architecture--especially cathedral architecture--and of +serene spiritual and forceful lay leadership. But they were centuries +of violence, rapine, and cruel injustice; and truth was so little +heeded that the noble and daring spirits who sought it, especially in +its scientific form, did so in deadly peril of the fagot and the +halter. + +During this period there were several very important extra-European +movements, one or two of which deeply affected Europe. Islam arose, +and conquered far and wide, uniting fundamentally different races into +a brotherhood of feeling which Christianity has never been able to +rival, and at the time of the Crusades profoundly influencing European +culture. It produced a civilization of its own, brilliant and here and +there useful, but hopelessly limited when compared with the +civilization of which we ourselves are the heirs. The great cultured +peoples of southeastern and eastern Asia continued their checkered +development totally unaffected by, and without knowledge of, any +European influence. + +Throughout the whole period there came against Europe, out of the +unknown wastes of central Asia, an endless succession of strange and +terrible conqueror races whose mission was mere destruction--Hun and +Avar, Mongol, Tartar, and Turk. These fierce and squalid tribes of +warrior horsemen flailed mankind with red scourges, wasted and +destroyed, and then vanished from the ground they had overrun. But in +no way worth noting did they count in the advance of mankind. + +At last, a little over four hundred years ago, the movement towards a +world civilization took up its interrupted march. The beginning of the +modern movement may roughly be taken as synchronizing with the +discovery of printing, and with that series of bold sea ventures which +culminated in the discovery of America; and after these two epochal +feats had begun to produce their full effects in material and +intellectual life, it became inevitable that civilization should +thereafter differ not only in degree but even in kind from all that +had gone before. Immediately after the voyages of Columbus and Vasco +da Gama there began a tremendous religious ferment; the awakening of +intellect went hand in hand with the moral uprising; the great names +of Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, and Galileo show that the mind of man +was breaking the fetters that had cramped it; and for the first time +experimentation was used as a check upon observation and theorization. +Since then, century by century, the changes have increased in rapidity +and complexity, and have attained their maximum in both respects +during the century just past. Instead of being directed by one or two +dominant peoples, as was the case with all similar movements of the +past, the new movement was shared by many different nations. From +every standpoint it has been of infinitely greater moment than +anything hitherto seen. Not in one but in many different peoples there +has been extraordinary growth in wealth, in population, in power of +organization, and in mastery over mechanical activity and natural +resources. All of this has been accompanied and signalized by an +immense outburst of energy and restless initiative. The result is as +varied as it is striking. + +In the first place, representatives of this civilization, by their +conquest of space, were enabled to spread into all the practically +vacant continents, while at the same time, by their triumphs in +organization and mechanical invention, they acquired an unheard-of +military superiority as compared with their former rivals. To these +two facts is primarily due the further fact that for the first time +there is really something that approaches a world civilization, a +world movement. The spread of the European peoples since the days of +Ferdinand the Catholic and Ivan the Terrible has been across every sea +and over every continent. In places the conquests have been ethnic; +that is, there has been a new wandering of the peoples, and new +commonwealths have sprung up in which the people are entirely or +mainly of European blood. This is what happened in the temperate and +sub-tropical regions of the Western Hemisphere, in Australia, in +portions of northern Asia and southern Africa. In other places the +conquest has been purely political, the Europeans representing for the +most part merely a small caste of soldiers and administrators, as in +most of tropical Asia and Africa and in much of tropical America. +Finally, here and there instances occur where there has been no +conquest at all, but where an alien people is profoundly and radically +changed by the mere impact of Western civilization. The most +extraordinary instance of this, of course, is Japan; for Japan's +growth and change during the last half-century has been in many ways +the most striking phenomenon of all history. Intensely proud of her +past history, intensely loyal to certain of her past traditions, she +has yet with a single effort wrenched herself free from all hampering +ancient ties, and with a bound has taken her place among the leading +civilized nations of mankind. + +There are of course many grades between these different types of +influence, but the net outcome of what has occurred during the last +four centuries is that civilization of the European type now exercises +a more or less profound effect over practically the entire world. +There are nooks and corners to which it has not yet penetrated; but +there is at present no large space of territory in which the general +movement of civilized activity does not make itself more or less felt. +This represents something wholly different from what has ever hitherto +been seen. In the greatest days of Roman dominion the influence of +Rome was felt over only a relatively small portion of the world's +surface. Over much the larger part of the world the process of change +and development was absolutely unaffected by anything that occurred in +the Roman Empire; and those communities the play of whose influence +was felt in action and reaction, and in inter-action, among +themselves, were grouped immediately around the Mediterranean. Now, +however, the whole world is bound together as never before; the bonds +are sometimes those of hatred rather than love, but they are bonds +nevertheless. + +Frowning or hopeful, every man of leadership in any line of thought or +effort must now look beyond the limits of his own country. The student +of sociology may live in Berlin or St. Petersburg, Rome or London, or +he may live in Melbourne or San Francisco or Buenos Aires; but in +whatever city he lives, he must pay heed to the studies of men who +live in each of the other cities. When in America we study labor +problems and attempt to deal with subjects such as life insurance for +wage-workers, we turn to see what you do here in Germany, and we also +turn to see what the far-off commonwealth of New Zealand is doing. +When a great German scientist is warring against the most dreaded +enemies of mankind, creatures of infinitesimal size which the +microscope reveals in his blood, he may spend his holidays of study in +central Africa or in eastern Asia; and he must know what is +accomplished in the laboratories of Tokyo, just as he must know the +details of that practical application of science which has changed the +Isthmus of Panama from a death-trap into what is almost a health +resort. Every progressive in China is striving to introduce Western +methods of education and administration, and hundreds of European and +American books are now translated into Chinese. The influence of +European governmental principles is strikingly illustrated by the fact +that admiration for them has broken down the iron barriers of Moslem +conservatism, so that their introduction has become a burning question +in Turkey and Persia; while the very unrest, the impatience of +European or American control, in India, Egypt, or the Philippines, +takes the form of demanding that the government be assimilated more +closely to what it is in England or the United States. The deeds and +works of any great statesman, the preachings of any great ethical, +social, or political teacher, now find echoes in both hemispheres and +in every continent. From a new discovery in science to a new method of +combating or applying Socialism, there is no movement of note which +can take place in any part of the globe without powerfully affecting +masses of people in Europe, America, and Australia, in Asia and +Africa. For weal or for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together +far closer than ever before. + +So much for the geographical side of the expansion of modern +civilization. But only a few of the many and intense activities of +modern civilization have found their expression on this side. The +movement has been just as striking in its conquest over natural +forces, in its searching inquiry into and about the soul of things. + +The conquest over Nature has included an extraordinary increase in +every form of knowledge of the world we live in, and also an +extraordinary increase in the power of utilizing the forces of +Nature. In both directions the advance has been very great during the +past four or five centuries, and in both directions it has gone on +with ever-increasing rapidity during the last century. After the great +age of Rome had passed, the boundaries of knowledge shrank, and in +many cases it was not until well-nigh our own times that her domain +was once again pushed beyond the ancient landmarks. About the year 150 +A.D., Ptolemy, the geographer, published his map of central Africa and +the sources of the Nile, and this map was more accurate than any which +we had as late as 1850 A.D. More was known of physical science, and +more of the truth about the physical world was guessed at, in the days +of Pliny, than was known or guessed until the modern movement began. +The case was the same as regards military science. At the close of the +Middle Ages the weapons were what they had always been--sword, shield, +bow, spear; and any improvement in them was more than offset by the +loss in knowledge of military organization, in the science of war, and +in military leadership since the days of Hannibal and Cæsar. A hundred +years ago, when this University was founded, the methods of +transportation did not differ in the essentials from what they had +been among the highly civilized nations of antiquity. Travellers and +merchandise went by land in wheeled vehicles or on beasts of burden, +and by sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars; and news was +conveyed as it always had been conveyed. What improvements there had +been had been in degree only and not in kind; and in some respects +there had been retrogression rather than advance. There were many +parts of Europe where the roads were certainly worse than the old +Roman post-roads; and the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, was by no +means as well policed as in the days of Trajan. Now steam and +electricity have worked a complete revolution; and the resulting +immensely increased ease of communication has in its turn completely +changed all the physical questions of human life. A voyage from Egypt +to England was nearly as serious an affair in the eighteenth century +as in the second; and the news communications between the two lands +were not materially improved. A graduate of your University to-day can +go to mid-Asia or mid-Africa with far less consciousness of performing +a feat of note than would have been the case a hundred years ago with +a student who visited Sicily and Andalusia. Moreover, the invention +and use of machinery run by steam or electricity have worked a +revolution in industry as great as the revolution in transportation; +so that here again the difference between ancient and modern +civilization is one not merely of degree but of kind. In many vital +respects the huge modern city differs more from all preceding cities +than any of these differed one from the other; and the giant factory +town is of and by itself one of the most formidable problems of modern +life. + +Steam and electricity have given the race dominion over land and water +such as it never had before; and now the conquest of the air is +directly impending. As books preserve thought through time, so the +telegraph and the telephone transmit it through the space they +annihilate, and therefore minds are swayed one by another without +regard to the limitations of space and time which formerly forced each +community to work in comparative isolation. It is the same with the +body as with the brain. The machinery of the factory and the farm +enormously multiplies bodily skill and vigor. Countless trained +intelligences are at work to teach us how to avoid or counteract the +effects of waste. Of course some of the agents in the modern +scientific development of natural resources deal with resources of +such a kind that their development means their destruction, so that +exploitation on a grand scale means an intense rapidity of development +purchased at the cost of a speedy exhaustion. The enormous and +constantly increasing output of coal and iron necessarily means the +approach of the day when our children's children, or their children's +children, shall dwell in an ironless age--and, later on, in an age +without coal--and will have to try to invent or develop new sources +for the production of heat and use of energy. But as regards many +another natural resource, scientific civilization teaches us how to +preserve it through use. The best use of field and forest will leave +them decade by decade, century by century, more fruitful; and we have +barely begun to use the indestructible power that comes from harnessed +water. The conquests of surgery, of medicine, the conquests in the +entire field of hygiene and sanitation, have been literally +marvellous; the advances in the past century or two have been over +more ground than was covered during the entire previous history of the +human race. + +The advances in the realm of pure intellect have been of equal note, +and they have been both intensive and extensive. Great virgin fields +of learning and wisdom have been discovered by the few, and at the +same time knowledge has spread among the many to a degree never +dreamed of before. Old men among us have seen in their own generation +the rise of the first rational science of the evolution of life. The +astronomer and the chemist, the psychologist and the historian, and +all their brethren in many different fields of wide endeavor, work +with a training and knowledge and method which are in effect +instruments of precision, differentiating their labors from the labors +of their predecessors as the rifle is differentiated from the bow. + +The play of new forces is as evident in the moral and spiritual world +as in the world of the mind and the body. Forces for good and forces +for evil are everywhere evident, each acting with a hundred- or a +thousand-fold the intensity with which it acted in former ages. Over +the whole earth the swing of the pendulum grows more and more rapid, +the main-spring coils and spreads at a rate constantly quickening, the +whole world movement is of constantly accelerating velocity. + +In this movement there are signs of much that bodes ill. The +machinery is so highly geared, the tension and strain are so great, +the effort and the output have alike so increased, that there is cause +to dread the ruin that would come from any great accident, from any +breakdown, and also the ruin that may come from the mere wearing out +of the machine itself. The only previous civilization with which our +modern civilization can be in any way compared is that period of +Græco-Roman civilization extending, say, from the Athens of +Themistocles to the Rome of Marcus Aurelius. Many of the forces and +tendencies which were then at work are at work now. Knowledge, luxury, +and refinement, wide material conquests, territorial administration on +a vast scale, an increase in the mastery of mechanical appliances and +in applied science--all these mark our civilization as they marked the +wonderful civilization that flourished in the Mediterranean lands +twenty centuries ago; and they preceded the downfall of the older +civilization. Yet the differences are many, and some of them are quite +as striking as the similarities. The single fact that the old +civilization was based upon slavery shows the chasm that separates the +two. Let me point out one further and very significant difference in +the development of the two civilizations, a difference so obvious that +it is astonishing that it has not been dwelt upon by men of letters. + +One of the prime dangers of civilization has always been its tendency +to cause the loss of virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge. +When men get too comfortable and lead too luxurious lives, there is +always danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their manliness +of fibre. The barbarian, because of the very conditions of his life, +is forced to keep and develop certain hardy qualities which the man of +civilization tends to lose, whether he be clerk, factory hand, +merchant, or even a certain type of farmer. Now I will not assert that +in modern civilized society these tendencies have been wholly +overcome; but there has been a much more successful effort to overcome +them than was the case in the early civilizations. This is curiously +shown by the military history of the Græco-Roman period as compared +with the history of the last four or five centuries here in Europe and +among nations of European descent. In the Grecian and Roman military +history the change was steadily from a citizen army to an army of +mercenaries. In the days of the early greatness of Athens, Thebes, +and Sparta, in the days when the Roman Republic conquered what world +it knew, the armies were filled with citizen soldiers. But gradually +the citizens refused to serve in the armies, or became unable to +render good service. The Greek states described by Polybius, with but +few exceptions, hired others to do their fighting for them. The Romans +of the days of Augustus had utterly ceased to furnish any cavalry, and +were rapidly ceasing to furnish any infantry, to the legions and +cohorts. When the civilization came to an end, there were no longer +citizens in the ranks of the soldiers. The change from the citizen +army to the army of mercenaries had been completed. + +Now, the exact reverse has been the case with us in modern times. A +few centuries ago the mercenary soldier was the principal figure in +most armies, and in great numbers of cases the mercenary soldier was +an alien. In the wars of religion in France, in the Thirty Years' War +in Germany, in the wars that immediately thereafter marked the +beginning of the break-up of the great Polish Kingdom, the regiments +and brigades of foreign soldiers formed a striking and leading feature +in every army. Too often the men of the country in which the fighting +took place played merely the ignoble part of victims, the burghers and +peasants appearing in but limited numbers in the mercenary armies by +which they were plundered. Gradually this has all changed, until now +practically every army is a citizen army, and the mercenary has almost +disappeared, while the army exists on a vaster scale than ever before +in history. This is so among the military monarchies of Europe. In our +own Civil War of the United States the same thing occurred, peaceful +people as we are. At that time more than two generations had passed +since the War of Independence. During the whole of that period the +people had been engaged in no life-and-death struggle; and yet, when +the Civil War broke out, and after some costly and bitter lessons at +the beginning, the fighting spirit of the people was shown to better +advantage than ever before. The war was peculiarly a war for a +principle, a war waged by each side for an ideal, and while faults and +shortcomings were plentiful among the combatants, there was +comparatively little sordidness of motive or conduct. In such a giant +struggle, where across the warp of so many interests is shot the woof +of so many purposes, dark strands and bright, strands sombre and +brilliant, are always intertwined; inevitably there was corruption +here and there in the Civil War; but all the leaders on both sides, +and the great majority of the enormous masses of fighting men, wholly +disregarded, and were wholly uninfluenced by, pecuniary +considerations. There were of course foreigners who came over to serve +as soldiers of fortune for money or for love of adventure; but the +foreign-born citizens served in much the same proportion, and from the +same motives, as the native-born. Taken as a whole, it was, even more +than the Revolutionary War, a true citizens' fight, and the armies of +Grant and Lee were as emphatically citizen armies as Athenian, Theban, +or Spartan armies in the great age of Greece, or as a Roman army in +the days of the Republic. + +Another striking contrast in the course of modern civilization as +compared with the later stages of the Græco-Roman or classic +civilization is to be found in the relations of wealth and politics. +In classic times, as the civilization advanced toward its zenith, +politics became a recognized means of accumulating great wealth. Cæsar +was again and again on the verge of bankruptcy; he spent an enormous +fortune; and he recouped himself by the money which he made out of +his political-military career. Augustus established Imperial Rome on +firm foundations by the use he made of the huge fortune he had +acquired by plunder. What a contrast is offered by the careers of +Washington and Lincoln! There were a few exceptions in ancient days; +but the immense majority of the Greeks and the Romans, as their +civilizations culminated, accepted money-making on a large scale as +one of the incidents of a successful public career. Now all of this is +in sharp contrast to what has happened within the last two or three +centuries. During this time there has been a steady growth away from +the theory that money-making is permissible in an honorable public +career. In this respect the standard has been constantly elevated, and +things which statesmen had no hesitation in doing three centuries or +two centuries ago, and which did not seriously hurt a public career +even a century ago, are now utterly impossible. Wealthy men still +exercise a large, and sometimes an improper, influence in politics, +but it is apt to be an indirect influence; and in the advanced states +the mere suspicion that the wealth of public men is obtained or added +to as an incident of their public careers will bar them from public +life. Speaking generally, wealth may very greatly influence modern +political life, but it is not acquired in political life. The colonial +administrators, German or American, French or English, of this +generation lead careers which, as compared with the careers of other +men of like ability, show too little rather than too much regard for +money-making; and literally a world scandal would be caused by conduct +which a Roman proconsul would have regarded as moderate, and which +would not have been especially uncommon even in the administration of +England a century and a half ago. On the whole, the great statesmen of +the last few generations have been either men of moderate means, or, +if men of wealth, men whose wealth was diminished rather than +increased by their public services. + +I have dwelt on these points merely because it is well to emphasize in +the most emphatic fashion the fact that in many respects there is a +complete lack of analogy between the civilization of to-day and the +only other civilization in any way comparable to it, that of the +ancient Græco-Roman lands. There are, of course, many points in which +the analogy is close, and in some of these points the resemblances +are as ominous as they are striking. But most striking of all is the +fact that in point of physical extent, of wide diversity of interest, +and of extreme velocity of movement, the present civilization can be +compared to nothing that has ever gone before. It is now literally a +world movement, and the movement is growing ever more rapid and is +ever reaching into new fields. Any considerable influence exerted at +one point is certain to be felt with greater or less effect at almost +every other point. Every path of activity open to the human intellect +is followed with an eagerness and success never hitherto dreamed of. +We have established complete liberty of conscience, and, in +consequence, a complete liberty for mental activity. All free and +daring souls have before them a well-nigh limitless opening for +endeavor of any kind. + +Hitherto every civilization that has arisen has been able to develop +only a comparatively few activities; that is, its field of endeavor +has been limited in kind as well as in locality. There have, of +course, been great movements, but they were of practically only one +form of activity; and although usually this set in motion other kinds +of activities, such was not always the case. The great religious +movements have been the pre-eminent examples of this type. But they +are not the only ones. Such peoples as the Mongols and the +Phoenicians, at almost opposite poles of cultivation, have represented +movements in which one element, military or commercial, so +overshadowed all other elements that the movement died out chiefly +because it was one-sided. The extraordinary outburst of activity among +the Mongols of the thirteenth century was almost purely a military +movement, without even any great administrative side; and it was +therefore well-nigh purely a movement of destruction. The individual +prowess and hardihood of the Mongols, and the perfection of their +military organization, rendered their armies incomparably superior to +those of any European, or any other Asiatic, power of that day. They +conquered from the Yellow Sea to the Persian Gulf and the Adriatic; +they seized the Imperial throne of China; they slew the Caliph in +Bagdad; they founded dynasties in India. The fanaticism of +Christianity and the fanaticism of Mohammedanism were alike powerless +against them. The valor of the bravest fighting men in Europe was +impotent to check them. They trampled Russia into bloody mire beneath +the hoofs of their horses; they drew red furrows of destruction across +Poland and Hungary; they overthrew with ease any force from western +Europe that dared encounter them. Yet they had no root of permanence; +their work was mere evil while it lasted, and it did not last long; +and when they vanished they left hardly a trace behind them. So the +extraordinary Phoenician civilization was almost purely a mercantile, +a business civilization, and though it left an impress on the life +that came after, this impress was faint indeed compared to that left, +for instance, by the Greeks with their many-sided development. Yet the +Greek civilization itself fell, because this many-sided development +became too exclusively one of intellect, at the expense of character, +at the expense of the fundamental qualities which fit men to govern +both themselves and others. When the Greek lost the sterner virtues, +when his soldiers lost the fighting edge, and his statesmen grew +corrupt, while the people became a faction-torn and pleasure-loving +rabble, then the doom of Greece was at hand, and not all their +cultivation, their intellectual brilliancy, their artistic +development, their adroitness in speculative science, could save the +Hellenic peoples as they bowed before the sword of the iron Roman. + +What is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to go the way of the older +civilizations? The immense increase in the area of civilized activity +to-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the world's surface; the +immense increase in the multitudinous variety of its activities; the +immense increase in the velocity of the world movement--are all these +to mean merely that the crash will be all the more complete and +terrible when it comes? We cannot be certain that the answer will be +in the negative; but of this we can be certain, that we shall not go +down in ruin unless we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity +for us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if only we +have the wit and the courage and the honesty. + +Personally, I do not believe that our civilization will fall. I think +that on the whole we have grown better and not worse. I think that on +the whole the future holds more for us than even the great past has +held. But, assuredly, the dreams of golden glory in the future will +not come true unless, high of heart and strong of hand, by our own +mighty deeds we make them come true. We cannot afford to develop any +one set of qualities, any one set of activities, at the cost of seeing +others, equally necessary, atrophied. Neither the military efficiency +of the Mongol, the extraordinary business ability of the Phoenician, +nor the subtle and polished intellect of the Greek availed to avert +destruction. + +We, the men of to-day and of the future, need many qualities if we are +to do our work well. We need, first of all and most important of all, +the qualities which stand at the base of individual, of family life, +the fundamental and essential qualities--the homely, every-day, +all-important virtues. If the average man will not work, if he has not +in him the will and the power to be a good husband and father; if the +average woman is not a good housewife, a good mother of many healthy +children, then the State will topple, will go down, no matter what may +be its brilliance of artistic development or material achievement. But +these homely qualities are not enough. There must, in addition, be +that power of organization, that power of working in common for a +common end, which the German people have shown in such signal fashion +during the last half-century. Moreover, the things of the spirit are +even more important than the things of the body. We can well do +without the hard intolerance and and barrenness of what was worst +in the theological systems of the past, but there has never been +greater need of a high and fine religious spirit than at the +present time. So, while we can laugh good-humoredly at some of the +pretensions of modern philosophy in its various branches, it would be +worse than folly on our part to ignore our need of intellectual +leadership. Your own great Frederick once said that if he wished to +punish a province he would leave it to be governed by philosophers; +the sneer had in it an element of justice; and yet no one better than +the great Frederick knew the value of philosophers, the value of men +of science, men of letters, men of art. It would be a bad thing indeed +to accept Tolstoy as a guide in social and moral matters; but it would +also be a bad thing not to have Tolstoy, not to profit by the lofty +side of his teachings. There are plenty of scientific men whose hard +arrogance, whose cynical materialism, whose dogmatic intolerance, put +them on a level with the bigoted mediæval ecclesiasticism which they +denounce. Yet our debt to scientific men is incalculable, and our +civilization of to-day would have reft from it all that which most +highly distinguishes it if the work of the great masters of science +during the past four centuries were now undone or forgotten. Never has +philanthropy, humanitarianism, seen such development as now; and +though we must all beware of the folly, and the viciousness no worse +than folly, which marks the believer in the perfectibility of man when +his heart runs away with his head, or when vanity usurps the place of +conscience, yet we must remember also that it is only by working along +the lines laid down by the philanthropists, by the lovers of mankind, +that we can be sure of lifting our civilization to a higher and more +permanent plane of well-being than was ever attained by any preceding +civilization. Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that +does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who +would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average +man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if +the day of need should arise! + +It is no impossible dream to build up a civilization in which +morality, ethical development, and a true feeling of brotherhood shall +all alike be divorced from false sentimentality, and from the +rancorous and evil passions which, curiously enough, so often +accompany professions of sentimental attachment to the rights of man; +in which a high material development in the things of the body shall +be achieved without subordination of the things of the soul; in which +there shall be a genuine desire for peace and justice without loss of +those virile qualities without which no love of peace or justice shall +avail any race; in which the fullest development of scientific +research, the great distinguishing feature of our present +civilization, shall yet not imply a belief that intellect can ever +take the place of character--for, from the standpoint of the nation as +of the individual, it is character that is the one vital possession. + +Finally, this world movement of civilization, this movement which is +now felt throbbing in every corner of the globe, should bind the +nations of the world together while yet leaving unimpaired that love +of country in the individual citizen which in the present stage of the +world's progress is essential to the world's well-being. You, my +hearers, and I who speak to you, belong to different nations. Under +modern conditions the books we read, the news sent by telegraph to our +newspapers, the strangers we meet, half of the things we hear and do +each day, all tend to bring us into touch with other peoples. Each +people can do justice to itself only if it does justice to others; but +each people can do its part in the world movement for all only if it +first does its duty within its own household. The good citizen must be +a good citizen of his own country first before he can with advantage +be a citizen of the world at large. I wish you well. I believe in you +and your future. I admire and wonder at the extraordinary greatness +and variety of your achievements in so many and such widely different +fields; and my admiration and regard are all the greater, and not the +less, because I am so profound a believer in the institutions and the +people of my own land. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS + +An Address at the Cambridge Union, May 26, 1910 + + +Mr. President and gentlemen, it is a very great pleasure for me to be +here to-day and to address you and to wear what the Secretary[10] has +called the gilded trappings which show that I am one of the youngest +living graduates of Cambridge. Something in the nature of a tract was +handed to me before I came up here. It was an issue of the _Gownsman_ +[holding up, amid laughter, a copy of an undergraduate publication] +with a poem portraying the poet's natural anxiety lest I should preach +at him. Allow me to interpose an anecdote taken from your own hunting +field. A one-time Master of Foxhounds strongly objected to the +presence of a rather near-sighted and very hard-riding friend who at +times insisted on riding in the middle of the pack; and on one +occasion he earnestly addressed him as follows: "Mr. So and So, would +you mind looking at those two dogs, Ploughboy and Melody. They are +very valuable, and I really wish you would not jump on them." To which +his friend replied, with great courtesy: "My dear sir, I should be +delighted to oblige you, but unfortunately I have left my glasses at +home, and I am afraid they must take their chance." I will promise to +preach as little as I can, but you must take your chance, for it is +impossible to break the bad habit of a lifetime at the bidding of a +comparative stranger. I was deeply touched by the allusion to the lion +and the coat-of-arms. Before I reached London I was given to +understand that it was expected that when I walked through Trafalgar +Square, I should look the other way as I passed the lions. + + [10] The Cambridge Union is the home of the well-known debating + society of the undergraduates of Cambridge University. To the + Vice-President, a member of Emmanuel College, the college of John + Harvard who founded Harvard University, was appropriately assigned + the duty of proposing the resolution admitting Mr. Roosevelt to + honorary membership in the Union Society. In supporting the + resolution the Vice-President referred to the peculiar relation + which unites the English Cambridge and the American Cambridge in a + common bond and touched upon Mr. Roosevelt's African exploits by + jocosely expressing anxiety for the safety of "the crest of my own + college, the Emmanuel Lion, which I see before me well within + range." There had just appeared in _Punch_, at the time of Mr. + Roosevelt's arrival in England, a full-page cartoon showing the + lions of the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square guarded by + policemen and protected by a placard announcing that "these lions + are not to be shot." The Secretary, in seconding the resolution, + humorously alluded to the doctor's gown, hood, and cap, in which + Mr. Roosevelt received his degree, as a possible example of what + America sometimes regards as the gilded trappings of a feudal and + reactionary Europe.--L.F.A. + +Now I thank you very much for having made me an honorary member. +Harvard men feel peculiarly at home when they come to Cambridge. We +feel we are in the domain of our spiritual forefathers, and I doubt if +you yourselves can appreciate what it is to walk about the courts, to +see your buildings, and your pictures and statues of the innumerable +men whose names we know so well, and who have been brought closer to +us by what we see here. That would apply not alone to men of the past. +The Bishop of Ely to you is the Bishop of to-day; but I felt like +asking him when I met him this morning, "Where is Hereward the Wake?" +It gives an American university man a peculiar feeling to come here +and see so much that tells of the ancient history of the University. + +The tie between Harvard and Cambridge has always been kept up. I +remember when you sent over Mr. Lehmann to teach us how to row. He +found us rather refractory pupils, I am afraid. In the course of the +struggle, the captain of the Harvard crew was eliminated. He +afterwards came down to Cuba and was one of the very best captains in +my regiment. At that time, however, he was still too close to his +college days--he was separated from them only by about two weeks when +he joined me--to appreciate what I endeavored to instil into him, that +while winning a boat-race was all very well, to take part in a +victorious fight, in a real battle, was a good deal better. Sport is a +fine thing as a pastime, and indeed it is more than a mere pastime; +but it is a very poor business if it is permitted to become the one +serious occupation of life. + +One of the things I wish we could learn from you is how to make the +game of football a rather less homicidal pastime. (Laughter.) I do not +wish to speak as a mere sentimentalist; but I do not think that +killing should be a normal accompaniment of the game, and while we +develop our football from Rugby, I wish we could go back and undevelop +it, and get it nearer your game. I am not qualified to speak as an +expert on the subject, but I wish we could make it more open and +eliminate some features that certainly tend to add to the danger of +the game as it is played in America now. On the Pacific slope we have +been going back to your type of Rugby football. I would not have +football abolished for anything, but I want to have it changed, just +because I want to draw the teeth of the men who always clamor for the +abolition of any manly game. I wish to deprive those whom I put in the +mollycoddle class, of any argument against good sport. I thoroughly +believe in sport, but I think it is a great mistake if it is made +anything like a profession, or carried on in a way that gives just +cause for fault-finding and complaint among people whose objection is +not really to the defects, but to the sport itself. + +Now I am going to disregard your poet and preach to you for just one +moment, but I will make it as little obnoxious as possible. +(Laughter.) The Secretary spoke of me as if I were an athlete. I am +not, and never have been one, although I have always been very fond of +outdoor amusement and exercise. There was, however, in my class at +Harvard, one real athlete who is now in public life. I made him +Secretary of State, or what you call Minister of Foreign Affairs, and +he is now Ambassador in Paris. If I catch your terminology straight, +he would correspond to your triple blue. He was captain of the +football eleven, played on the base-ball team, and rowed in the crew, +and in addition to that he was champion heavy-weight boxer and +wrestler, and won the 220-yard dash. His son was captain of the +Harvard University crew that came over here and was beaten by Oxford +two years ago. [Voices: "Cambridge."] Well, I never took a great +interest in defeats. (Loud laughter and applause.) Now, as I said +before, I never was an athlete, although I have always led an outdoor +life, and have accomplished something in it, simply because my theory +is that almost any man can do a great deal, if he will, by getting the +utmost possible service out of the qualities that he actually +possesses. + +There are two kinds of success. One is the very rare kind that comes +to the man who has the power to do what no one else has the power to +do. That is genius. I am not discussing what form that genius takes; +whether it is the genius of a man who can write a poem that no one +else can write, _The Ode on a Grecian Urn_, for example, or _Helen, +thy beauty is to me_; or of a man who can do 100 yards in nine and +three-fifths seconds. Such a man does what no one else can do. Only a +very limited amount of the success of life comes to persons possessing +genius. The average man who is successful,--the average statesman, the +average public servant, the average soldier, who wins what we call +great success--is not a genius. He is a man who has merely the +ordinary qualities that he shares with his fellows, but who has +developed those ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree. + +Take such a thing as hunting or any form of vigorous bodily exercise. +Most men can ride hard if they choose. Almost any man can kill a lion +if he will exercise a little resolution in training the qualities that +will enable him to do it. [Taking a tumbler from the table, Mr. +Roosevelt held it up.] Now it is a pretty easy thing to aim straight +at an object about that size. Almost any one, if he practises with the +rifle at all, can learn to hit that tumbler; and he can hit the lion +all right if he learns to shoot as straight at its brain or heart as +at the tumbler. He does not have to possess any extraordinary +capacity, not a bit,--all he has to do is to develop certain rather +ordinary qualities, but develop them to such a degree that he will +not get flustered, so that he will press the trigger steadily instead +of jerking it--and then he will shoot at the lion as well as he will +at that tumbler. It is a perfectly simple quality to develop. You +don't need any remarkable skill; all you need is to possess ordinary +qualities, but to develop them to a more than ordinary degree. + +It is just the same with the soldier. What is needed is that the man +as soldier should develop certain qualities that have been known for +thousands of years, but develop them to such a point that in an +emergency he does, as a matter of course, what a great multitude of +men can do but what a very large proportion of them don't do. And in +making the appeal to the soldier, if you want to get out of him the +stuff that is in him, you will have to use phrases which the +intellectual gentlemen who do not fight will say are platitudes. +(Laughter and applause.) + +It is just so in public life. It is not genius, it is not +extraordinary subtlety, or acuteness of intellect, that is important. +The things that are important are the rather commonplace, the rather +humdrum, virtues that in their sum are designated as character. If you +have in public life men of good ability, not geniuses, but men of +good abilities, with character,--and, gentlemen, you must include as +one of the most important elements of character commonsense--if you +possess such men, the Government will go on very well. + +I have spoken only of the great successes; but what I have said +applies just as much to the success that is within the reach of almost +every one of us. I think that any man who has had what is regarded in +the world as a great success must realize that the element of chance +has played a great part in it. Of course a man has to take advantage +of his opportunities; but the opportunities have to come. If there is +not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great +occasion you don't get the great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in +times of peace no one would have known his name now. The great crisis +must come, or no man has the chance to develop great qualities. + +There are exceptional cases, of course, where there is a man who can +do just one thing, such as a man who can play a dozen games of chess +or juggle with four rows of figures at once--and as a rule he can do +nothing else. A man of this type can do nothing unless in the one +crisis for which his powers fit him. But normally the man who makes +the great success when the emergency arises is the man who would have +made a fair success in any event. I believe that the man who is really +happy in a great position--in what we call a career--is the man who +would also be happy and regard his life as successful if he had never +been thrown into that position. If a man lives a decent life and does +his work fairly and squarely so that those dependent on him and +attached to him are better for his having lived, then he is a success, +and he deserves to feel that he has done his duty and he deserves to +be treated by those who have had greater success as nevertheless +having shown the fundamental qualities that entitle him to respect. We +have in the United States an organization composed of the men who +forty-five years ago fought to a finish the great Civil War. One thing +that has always appealed to me in that organization is that all of the +men admitted are on a perfect equality provided the records show that +their duty was well done. Whether a man served as a lieutenant-general +or an eighteen-year-old recruit, so long as he was able to serve for +six months and did his duty in his appointed place, then he is called +Comrade and stands on an exact equality with the other men. The same +principle should shape our associations in ordinary civil life. + +I am not speaking cant to you. I remember once sitting at a table with +six or eight other public officials, and each was explaining* how he +regarded being in public life, how only the sternest sense of duty +prevented him from resigning his office, and how the strain of working +for a thankless constituency was telling upon him, and nothing but the +fact that he felt he ought to sacrifice his comfort to the welfare of +his country kept him in the arduous life of statesmanship. It went +round the table until it came to my turn. This was during my first +term of office as President of the United States. I said: "Now, +gentlemen, I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding. I like my +job, and I want to keep it for four years longer." (Loud laughter and +applause.) I don't think any President ever enjoyed himself more than +I did. Moreover, I don't think any ex-President ever enjoyed himself +more. I have enjoyed my life and my work because I thoroughly believe +that success--the real success--does not depend upon the position you +hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position. There is no +man here to-day who has not the chance so to shape his life after he +leaves this university that he shall have the right to feel, when his +life ends, that he has made a real success of it; and his making a +real success of it does not in the least depend upon the prominence of +the position he holds. Gentlemen, I thank you, and I am glad I have +violated the poet's hope and have preached to you. + +*Transcriber's Note: Original "explaning" + + * * * * * + + + + + +BRITISH RULE IN AFRICA + +Address Delivered at the Guildhall, London, May 31, 1910[11] + + [11] The occasion of this address was the ceremony in the + Guildhall in which Mr. Roosevelt was presented by the Corporation + of the City of London (the oldest corporation in the world), with + the Freedom of the City. Sir Joseph Dimsdale, on behalf of the + Lord Mayor and the Corporation, made the address of + presentation.--L.F.A. + + +It is a peculiar pleasure to me to be here. And yet I cannot but +appreciate, as we all do, the sadness of the fact that I come here +just after the death of the Sovereign whom you so mourn, and whose +death caused such an outburst of sympathy for you throughout the +civilized world. One of the things I shall never forget is the +attitude of that great mass of people, assembled on the day of the +funeral, who in silence, in perfect order, and with uncovered heads, +saw the body of the dead King pass to its last resting-place. I had +the high honor of being deputed to come to the funeral as the +representative of America, and by my presence to express the deep and +universal feeling of sympathy which moves the entire American people +for the British people in their hour of sadness and trial. + +I need hardly say how profoundly I feel the high honor that you confer +upon me; an honor great in itself, and great because of the ancient +historic associations connected with it, with the ceremonies incident +to conferring it, and with the place in which it is conferred. I am +very deeply appreciative of all that this ceremony means, all that +this gift implies, and all the kind words which Sir Joseph Dimsdale +has used in conferring it. I thank you heartily for myself. I thank +you still more because I know that what you have done is to be taken +primarily as a sign of the respect and friendly good-will which more +and more, as time goes by, tends to knit together the English-speaking +peoples. + +I shall not try to make you any extended address of mere thanks, still +less of mere eulogy. I prefer to speak, and I know you would prefer to +have me speak, on matters of real concern to you, as to which I happen +at this moment to possess some first-hand knowledge; for recently I +traversed certain portions of the British Empire under conditions +which made me intimately cognizant of their circumstances and needs. I +have just spent nearly a year in Africa. While there I saw four +British protectorates. I grew heartily to respect the men whom I there +met, settlers and military and civil officials; and it seems to me +that the best service I can render them and you is very briefly to +tell you how I was impressed by some of the things that I saw. Your +men in Africa are doing a great work for your Empire, and they are +also doing a great work for civilization. This fact and my sympathy +for and belief in them are my reasons for speaking. The people at +home, whether in Europe or in America, who live softly, often fail +fully to realize what is being done for them by the men who are +actually engaged in the pioneer work of civilization abroad. Of +course, in any mass of men there are sure to be some who are weak or +unworthy, and even those who are good are sure to make occasional +mistakes--that is as true of pioneers as of other men. Nevertheless, +the great fact in world history during the last century has been the +spread of civilization over the world's waste spaces. The work is +still going on; and the soldiers, the settlers, and the civic +officials who are actually doing it are, as a whole, entitled to the +heartiest respect and the fullest support from their brothers who +remain at home. + +At the outset, there is one point upon which I wish to insist with all +possible emphasis. The civilized nations who are conquering for +civilization savage lands should work together in a spirit of hearty +mutual good-will. I listened with special interest to what Sir Joseph +Dimsdale said about the blessing of peace and good-will among nations. +I agree with that in the abstract. Let us show by our actions and our +words in specific cases that we agree with it also in the concrete. +Ill-will between civilized nations is bad enough anywhere, but it is +peculiarly harmful and contemptible when those actuated by it are +engaged in the same task, a task of such far-reaching importance to +the future of humanity, the task of subduing the savagery of wild man +and wild nature, and of bringing abreast of our civilization those +lands where there is an older civilization which has somehow gone +crooked. Mankind as a whole has benefited by the noteworthy success +that has attended the French occupation of Algiers and Tunis, just as +mankind as a whole has benefited by what England has done in India; +and each nation should be glad of the other nation's achievements. In +the same way, it is of interest to all civilized men that a similar +success shall attend alike the Englishman and the German as they work +in East Africa; exactly as it has been a benefit to every one that +America took possession of the Philippines. Those of you who know Lord +Cromer's excellent book in which he compares modern and ancient +imperialism need no words from me to prove that the dominion of modern +civilized nations over the dark places of the earth has been fraught +with widespread good for mankind; and my plea is that the civilized +nations engaged in doing this work shall treat one another with +respect and friendship, and shall hold it as discreditable to permit +envy and jealousy, backbiting and antagonism among themselves. I +visited four different British protectorates or possessions in +Africa--namely, East Africa, Uganda, the Sudan, and Egypt. About the +first three, I have nothing to say to you save what is pleasant, as +well as true. About the last, I wish to say a few words because they +are true, without regard to whether or not they are pleasant. + +In the highlands of East Africa you have a land which can be made a +true white man's country. While there I met many settlers on intimate +terms, and I felt for them a peculiar sympathy, because they so +strikingly reminded me of the men of our own western frontier of +America, of the pioneer farmers and ranch-men who built up the States +of the great plains and the Rocky Mountains. It is of high importance +to encourage these settlers in every way, remembering--I say that here +in the City--remembering that the prime need is not for capitalists to +exploit the land, but for settlers who shall make their permanent +homes therein. Capital is a good servant, but a mighty poor master. No +alien race should be permitted to come into competition with the +settlers. Fortunately you have now in the Governor of East Africa, Sir +Percy Girouard, a man admirably fitted to deal wisely and firmly with +the many problems before him. He is on the ground and knows the needs +of the country, and is zealously devoted to its interests. All that is +necessary is to follow his lead, and to give him cordial support and +backing. The principle upon which I think it is wise to act in dealing +with far-away possessions is this--choose your man, change him if you +become discontented with him, but while you keep him back him up. + +In Uganda the problem is totally different. Uganda cannot be made a +white man's country, and the prime need is to administer the land in +the interest of the native races, and to help forward their +development. Uganda has been the scene of an extraordinary development +of Christianity. Nowhere else of recent times has missionary effort +met with such success; the inhabitants stand far above most of the +races in the Dark Continent in their capacity for progress towards +civilization. They have made great strides, and the English officials +have shown equal judgment and disinterestedness in the work they have +done; and they have been especially wise in trying to develop the +natives along their own lines, instead of seeking to turn them into +imitation or make-believe Englishmen. In Uganda all that is necessary +is to go forward on the paths you have already marked out. + +The Sudan is peculiarly interesting because it affords the best +possible example of the wisdom--and when I say that I speak with +historical accuracy--of disregarding the well-meaning but unwise +sentimentalists who object to the spread of civilization at the +expense of savagery. I remember a quarter of a century ago when you +were engaged in the occupation of the Sudan that many of your people +at home and some of ours in America said that what was demanded in the +Sudan was the application of the principles of independence and +self-government to the Sudanese, coupled with insistence upon complete +religious toleration and the abolition of the slave trade. +Unfortunately, the chief reason why the Mahdists wanted independence +and self-government was that they could put down all religions but +their own and carry on the slave trade. I do not believe that in the +whole world there is to be found any nook of territory which has shown +such astonishing progress from the most hideous misery to well-being +and prosperity as the Sudan has shown during the last twelve years +while it has been under British rule. Up to that time it was +independent, and it governed itself; and independence and +self-government in the hands of the Sudanese proved to be much what +independence and self-government would have been in a wolf pack. Great +crimes were committed there, crimes so dark that their very +hideousness protects them from exposure. During a decade and a half, +while Mahdism controlled the country, there flourished a tyranny which +for cruelty, blood-thirstiness, unintelligence, and wanton +destructiveness surpassed anything which a civilized people can even +imagine. The keystones of the Mahdist party were religious intolerance +and slavery, with murder and the most abominable cruelty as the method +of obtaining each. + +During those fifteen years at least two-thirds of the population, +probably seven or eight millions of people, died by violence or by +starvation. Then the English came in; put an end to the independence +and self-government which had wrought this hideous evil; restored +order, kept the peace, and gave to each individual a liberty which, +during the evil days of their own self-government, not one human being +possessed, save only the blood-stained tyrant who at the moment was +ruler. I stopped at village after village in the Sudan, and in many of +them I was struck by the fact that, while there were plenty of +children, they were all under twelve years old; and inquiry always +developed that these children were known as "Government children," +because in the days of Mahdism it was the literal truth that in a very +large proportion of the communities every child was either killed or +died of starvation and hardship, whereas under the peace brought by +English rule families are flourishing, men and women are no longer +hunted to death, and the children are brought up under more favorable +circumstances, for soul and body, than have ever previously obtained +in the entire history of the Sudan. In administration, in education, +in police work, the Sirdar[12] and his lieutenants, great and small, +have performed to perfection a task equally important and difficult. +The Government officials, civil and military, who are responsible for +this task, and the Egyptian and Sudanese who have worked with and +under them, and as directed by them, have a claim upon all civilized +mankind which should be heartily admitted. It would be a crime not to +go on with the work, a work which the inhabitants themselves are +helpless to perform, unless under firm and wise guidance from outside. +I have met people who had some doubt as to whether the Sudan would +pay. Personally, I think it probably will. But I may add that, in my +judgment, this fact does not alter the duty of England to stay there. +It is not worth while belonging to a big nation unless the big nation +is willing when the necessity arises to undertake a big task. I feel +about you in the Sudan just as I felt about us in Panama. When we +acquired the right to build the Panama Canal, and entered on the task, +there were worthy people who came to me and said they wondered whether +it would pay. I always answered that it was one of the great world +works which had to be done; that it was our business as a nation to do +it, if we were ready to make good our claim to be treated as a great +world Power; and that as we were unwilling to abandon the claim, no +American worth his salt ought to hesitate about performing the task. I +feel just the same way about you in the Sudan. + + [12] Sir Reginald Wingate, who at the time of this address was + both Sirdar of the Anglo-Egyptian Army and Governor-General of the + Sudan.--L.F.A. + +Now as to Egypt. It would not be worth my while to speak to you at +all, nor would it be worth your while to listen, unless on condition +that I say what I deeply feel ought to be said. I speak as an +outsider, but in one way this is an advantage, for I speak without +national prejudice. I would not talk to you about your own internal +affairs here at home; but you are so very busy at home that I am not +sure whether you realize just how things are, in some places at least, +abroad. At any rate, it can do you no harm to hear the view of one who +has actually been on the ground, and has information at first hand; of +one, moreover, who, it is true, is a sincere well-wisher of the +British Empire, but who is not English by blood, and who is impelled +to speak mainly because of his deep concern in the welfare of mankind +and in the future of civilization. Remember also that I who address +you am not only an American, but a Radical, a real--not a +mock--democrat, and that what I have to say is spoken chiefly because +I am a democrat, a man who feels that his first thought is bound to be +the welfare of the masses of mankind, and his first duty to war +against violence and injustice and wrong-doing, wherever found; and I +advise you only in accordance with the principles on which I have +myself acted as American President in dealing with the Philippines. + +In Egypt you are not only the guardians of your own interests; you are +also the guardians of the interests of civilization; and the present +condition of affairs in Egypt is a grave menace to both your Empire +and the entire civilized world. You have given Egypt the best +government it has had for at least two thousand years--probably a +better government than it has ever had before; for never in history +has the poor man in Egypt, the tiller of the soil, the ordinary +laborer, been treated with as much justice and mercy, under a rule as +free from corruption and brutality, as during the last twenty-eight +years. Yet recent events, and especially what has happened in +connection with and following on the assassination of Boutros Pasha +three months ago, have shown that, in certain vital points, you have +erred; and it is for you to make good your error. It has been an error +proceeding from the effort to do too much and not too little in the +interests of the Egyptians themselves; but unfortunately it is +necessary for all of us who have to do with uncivilized peoples, and +especially with fanatical peoples, to remember that in such a +situation as yours in Egypt weakness, timidity, and sentimentality may +cause even more far-reaching harm than violence and injustice. Of all +broken reeds, sentimentality[13] is the most broken reed on which +righteousness can lean. + + [13] In the Introduction will be found Mr. Roosevelt's + differentiation of sentimentality from sentiment.--L.F.A. + +In Egypt you have been treating all religions with studied fairness +and impartiality; and instead of gratefully acknowledging this, a +noisy section of the native population takes advantage of what your +good treatment has done to bring about an anti-foreign movement, a +movement in which, as events have shown, murder on a large or a small +scale is expected to play a leading part. Boutros Pasha[14] was the +best and most competent Egyptian official, a steadfast upholder of +English rule, and an earnest worker for the welfare of his countrymen; +and he was murdered simply and solely because of these facts, and +because he did his duty wisely, fearlessly, and uprightly. The +attitude of the so-called Egyptian Nationalist Party in connection +with this murder has shown that they were neither desirous nor capable +of guaranteeing even that primary justice the failure to supply which +makes self-government not merely an empty but a noxious farce. Such +are the conditions; and where the effort made by your officials to +help the Egyptians towards self-government is taken advantage of by +them, not to make things better, not to help their country, but to try +to bring murderous chaos upon the land, then it becomes the primary +duty of whoever is responsible for the government in Egypt to +establish order, and to take whatever measures are necessary to that +end. + + [14] Compare the address at the University of Cairo.--L.F.A. + +It was with this primary object of establishing order that you went +into Egypt twenty-eight years ago; and the chief and ample +justification for your presence in Egypt was this absolute necessity +of order being established from without, coupled with your ability and +willingness to establish it. Now, either you have the right to be in +Egypt or you have not; either it is or it is not your duty to +establish and keep order. If you feel that you have not the right to +be in Egypt, if you do not wish to establish and to keep order there, +why, then, by all means get out of Egypt. If, as I hope, you feel that +your duty to civilized mankind and your fealty to your own great +traditions alike bid you to stay, then make the fact and the name +agree and show that you are ready to meet in very deed the +responsibility which is yours. It is the thing, not the form, which is +vital; if the present forms of government in Egypt, established by you +in the hope that they would help the Egyptians upward, merely serve to +provoke and permit disorder, then it is for you to alter the forms; +for if you stay in Egypt it is your first duty to keep order, and +above all things also to punish murder and to bring to justice all who +directly or indirectly incite others to commit murder or condone the +crime when it is committed. When a people treats assassination as the +corner-stone of self-government, it forfeits all right to be treated +as worthy of self-government. You are in Egypt for several purposes, +and among them one of the greatest is the benefit of the Egyptian +people. You saved them from ruin by coming in, and at the present +moment, if they are not governed from outside, they will again sink +into a welter of chaos. Some nation must govern Egypt. I hope and +believe that you will decide that it is your duty to be that nation. + + + * * * * * + + + + +BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY[15] + + [15] The text of this Lecture, which is the Romanes Lecture for + 1910, is included in the present volume under the courteous + permission of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of + Oxford.--L.F.A. + +Delivered at Oxford, June 7, 1910 + + +An American who in response to such an invitation as I have received +speaks in this University of ancient renown, cannot but feel with +peculiar vividness the interest and charm of his surroundings, fraught +as they are with a thousand associations. Your great universities, and +all the memories that make them great, are living realities in the +minds of scores of thousands of men who have never seen them and who +dwell across the seas in other lands. Moreover, these associations are +no stronger in the men of English stock than in those who are not. My +people have been for eight generations in America; but in one thing I +am like the Americans of to-morrow, rather than like many of the +Americans of to-day; for I have in my veins the blood of men who came +from many different European races. The ethnic make-up of our people +is slowly changing, so that constantly the race tends to become more +and more akin to that of those Americans who like myself are of the +old stock but not mainly of English stock. Yet I think that as time +goes by, mutual respect, understanding, and sympathy among the +English-speaking peoples grow greater and not less. Any of my +ancestors, Hollander or Huguenot, Scotchman or Irishman, who had come +to Oxford in "the spacious days of great Elizabeth," would have felt +far more alien than I, their descendant, now feel. Common heirship in +the things of the spirit makes a closer bond than common heirship in +the things of the body. + +More than ever before in the world's history we of to-day seek to +penetrate the causes of the mysteries that surround not only mankind +but all life, both in the present and the past. We search, we peer, we +see things dimly; here and there we get a ray of clear vision, as we +look before and after. We study the tremendous procession of the ages, +from the immemorial past when in "cramp elf and saurian forms" the +creative forces "swathed their too-much power," down to the yesterday, +a few score thousand years distant only, when the history of man +became the overwhelming fact in the history of life on this planet; +and studying, we see strange analogies in the phenomena of life and +death, of birth, growth, and change, between those physical groups of +animal life which we designate as species, forms, races, and the +highly complex and composite entities which rise before our minds when +we speak of nations and civilizations. + +It is this study which has given science its present-day prominence. +In the world of intellect, doubtless, the most marked features in the +history of the past century have been the extraordinary advances in +scientific knowledge and investigation, and in the position held by +the men of science with reference to those engaged in other pursuits. +I am not now speaking of applied science; of the science, for +instance, which, having revolutionized transportation on the earth and +the water, is now on the brink of carrying it into the air; of the +science that finds its expression in such extraordinary achievements +as the telephone and the telegraph; of the sciences which have so +accelerated the velocity of movement in social and industrial +conditions--for the changes in the mechanical appliances of ordinary +life during the last three generations have been greater than in all +the preceding generations since history dawned. I speak of the science +which has no more direct bearing upon the affairs of our everyday life +than literature or music, painting or sculpture, poetry or history. A +hundred years ago the ordinary man of cultivation had to know +something of these last subjects; but the probabilities were rather +against his having any but the most superficial scientific knowledge. +At present all this has changed, thanks to the interest taken in +scientific discoveries, the large circulation of scientific books, and +the rapidity with which ideas originating among students of the most +advanced and abstruse sciences become, at least partially, domiciled +in the popular mind. + +Another feature of the change, of the growth in the position of +science in the eyes of every one, and of the greatly increased respect +naturally resulting for scientific methods, has been a certain +tendency for scientific students to encroach on other fields. This is +particularly true of the field of historical study. Not only have +scientific men insisted upon the necessity of considering the history +of man, especially in its early stages, in connection with what +biology shows to be the history of life, but furthermore there has +arisen a demand that history shall itself be treated as a science. +Both positions are in their essence right; but as regards each +position the more arrogant among the invaders of the new realm of +knowledge take an attitude to which it is not necessary to assent. As +regards the latter of the two positions, that which would treat +history henceforth merely as one branch of scientific study, we must +of course cordially agree that accuracy in recording facts and +appreciation of their relative worth and inter-relationship are just +as necessary in historical study as in any other kind of study. The +fact that a book, though interesting, is untrue, of course removes it +at once from the category of history, however much it may still +deserve to retain a place in the always desirable group of volumes +which deal with entertaining fiction. But the converse also holds, at +least to the extent of permitting us to insist upon what would seem to +be the elementary fact that a book which is written to be read should +be readable. This rather obvious truth seems to have been forgotten by +some of the more zealous scientific historians, who apparently hold +that the worth of a historical book is directly in proportion to the +impossibility of reading it, save as a painful duty. Now I am willing +that history shall be treated as a branch of science, but only on +condition that it also remains a branch of literature; and, +furthermore, I believe that as the field of science encroaches on the +field of literature there should be a corresponding encroachment of +literature upon science; and I hold that one of the great needs, which +can only be met by very able men whose culture is broad enough to +include literature as well as science, is the need of books for +scientific laymen. We need a literature of science which shall be +readable. So far from doing away with the school of great historians, +the school of Polybius and Tacitus, Gibbon and Macaulay, we need +merely that the future writers of history, without losing the +qualities which have made these men great, shall also utilize the new +facts and new methods which science has put at their disposal. Dryness +is not in itself a measure of value. No "scientific" treatise about +St. Louis will displace Joinville, for the very reason that +Joinville's place is in both history and literature; no minute study +of the Napoleonic wars will teach us more than Marbot--and Marbot is +as interesting as Walter Scott. Moreover, certain at least of the +branches of science should likewise be treated by masters in the art +of presentment, so that the layman interested in science, no less than +the layman interested in history, shall have on his shelves classics +which can be read. Whether this wish be or be not capable of +realization, it assuredly remains true that the great historian of the +future must essentially represent the ideal striven after by the great +historians of the past. The industrious collector of facts occupies an +honorable, but not an exalted, position, and the scientific historian +who produces books which are not literature must rest content with the +honor, substantial, but not of the highest type, that belongs to him +who gathers material which some time some great master shall arise to +use. + +Yet, while freely conceding all that can be said of the masters of +literature, we must insist upon the historian of mankind working in +the scientific spirit, and using the treasure-houses of science. He +who would fully treat of man must know at least something of biology, +of the science that treats of living, breathing things; and +especially of that science of evolution which is inseparably connected +with the great name of Darwin. Of course there is no exact parallelism +between the birth, growth, and death of species in the animal world, +and the birth, growth, and death of societies in the world of man. Yet +there is a certain parallelism. There are strange analogies; it may be +that there are homologies. + +How far the resemblances between the two sets of phenomena are more +than accidental, how far biology can be used as an aid in the +interpretation of human history, we cannot at present say. The +historian should never forget, what the highest type of scientific man +is always teaching us to remember, that willingness to admit ignorance +is a prime factor in developing wisdom out of knowledge. Wisdom is +advanced by research which enables us to add to knowledge; and, +moreover, the way for wisdom is made ready when men who record facts +of vast but unknown import, if asked to explain their full +significance, are willing frankly to answer that they do not know. The +research which enables us to add to the sum of complete knowledge +stands first; but second only stands the research which, while +enabling us clearly to pose the problem, also requires us to say that +with our present knowledge we can offer no complete solution. + +Let me illustrate what I mean by an instance or two taken from one of +the most fascinating branches of world-history, the history of the +higher forms of life, of mammalian life, on this globe. + +Geologists and astronomers are not agreed as to the length of time +necessary for the changes that have taken place. At any rate, many +hundreds of thousands of years, some millions of years, have passed by +since in the eocene, at the beginning of the tertiary period, we find +the traces of an abundant, varied, and highly developed mammalian life +on the land masses out of which have grown the continents as we see +them to-day. The ages swept by, until, with the advent of man +substantially in the physical shape in which we now know him, we also +find a mammalian fauna not essentially different in kind, though +widely differing in distribution, from that of the present day. +Throughout this immense period form succeeds form, type succeeds type, +in obedience to laws of evolution, of progress and retrogression, of +development and death, which we as yet understand only in the most +imperfect manner. As knowledge increases our wisdom is often turned +into foolishness, and many of the phenomena of evolution which seemed +clearly explicable to the learned master of science who founded these +lectures, to us nowadays seem far less satisfactorily explained. The +scientific men of most note now differ widely in their estimates of +the relative parts played in evolution by natural selection, by +mutation, by the inheritance of acquired characteristics; and we study +their writings with a growing impression that there are forces at work +which our blinded eyes wholly fail to apprehend; and where this is the +case the part of wisdom is to say that we believe we have such and +such partial explanations, but that we are not warranted in saying +that we have the whole explanation. In tracing the history of the +development of faunal life during this period, the age of mammals, +there are some facts which are clearly established, some great and +sweeping changes for which we can with certainty ascribe reasons. +There are other facts as to which we grope in the dark, and vast +changes, vast catastrophes, of which we can give no adequate +explanation. + +Before illustrating these types, let us settle one or two matters of +terminology. In the changes, the development and extinction, of species +we must remember that such expressions as "a new species," or as "a +species becoming extinct," are each commonly and indiscriminately +used to express totally different and opposite meanings. Of course +the "new" species is not new in the sense that its ancestors +appeared later on the globe's surface than those of any old +species tottering to extinction. Phylogenetically, each animal now +living must necessarily trace its ancestral descent back through +countless generations, through æons of time, to the early stages of +the appearance of life on the globe. All that we mean by a "new" +species is that from some cause, or set of causes, one of these +ancestral stems slowly or suddenly develops into a form unlike any +that has preceded it; so that while in one form of life the ancestral +type is continuously repeated and the old species continues to exist, +in another form of life there is a deviation from the ancestral type +and a new species appears. + +Similarly, "extinction of species" is a term which has two entirely +different meanings. The type may become extinct by dying out and +leaving no descendants. Or it may die out because as the generations +go by there is change, slow or swift, until a new form is produced. +Thus in one case the line of life comes to an end. In the other case +it changes into something different. The huge titanothere, and the +small three-toed horse, both existed at what may roughly be called the +same period of the world's history, back in the middle of the +mammalian age. Both are extinct in the sense that each has completely +disappeared and that nothing like either is to be found in the world +to-day. But whereas all the individual titanotheres finally died out, +leaving no descendants, a number of the three-toed horses did leave +descendants, and these descendants, constantly changing as the ages +went by, finally developed into the highly specialized one-toed +horses, asses, and zebras of to-day. + +The analogy between the facts thus indicated and certain facts in the +development of human societies is striking. A further analogy is +supplied by a very curious tendency often visible in cases of intense +and extreme specialization. When an animal form becomes highly +specialized, the type at first, because of its specialization, +triumphs over its allied rivals and its enemies, and attains a great +development; until in many cases the specialization becomes so +extreme that from some cause unknown to us, or at which we merely +guess, it disappears. The new species which mark a new era commonly +come from the less specialized types, the less distinctive, dominant, +and striking types, of the preceding era. + +When dealing with the changes, cataclysmic or gradual, which divide +one period of palæontological history from another, we can sometimes +assign causes, and again we cannot even guess at them. In the case of +single species, or of faunas of very restricted localities, the +explanation is often self-evident. A comparatively slight change in +the amount of moisture in the climate, with the attendant change in +vegetation, might readily mean the destruction of a group of huge +herbivores with a bodily size such that they needed a vast quantity of +food, and with teeth so weak or so peculiar that but one or two kinds +of plants could furnish this food. Again, we now know that the most +deadly foes of the higher forms of life are various lower forms of +life, such as insects, or microscopic creatures conveyed into the +blood by insects. There are districts in South America where many +large animals, wild and domestic, cannot live because of the presence +either of certain ticks or of certain baleful flies. In Africa there +is a terrible genus of poison fly, each species acting as the host of +microscopic creatures which are deadly to certain of the higher +vertebrates. One of these species, though harmless to man, is fatal to +all domestic animals, and this although harmless to the +closely-related wild kinsfolk of these animals. Another is fatal to +man himself, being the cause of the "sleeping sickness" which in many +large districts has killed out the entire population. Of course the +development or the extension of the range of any such insects, and any +one of many other causes which we see actually at work around us, +would readily account for the destruction of some given species or +even for the destruction of several species in a limited area of +country. + +When whole faunal groups die out over large areas, the question is +different, and may or may not be susceptible of explanation with the +knowledge we actually possess. In the old arctogæal continent, for +instance, in what is now Europe, Asia, and North America, the glacial +period made a complete, but of course explicable, change in the faunal +life of the region. At one time the continent held a rich and varied +fauna. Then a period of great cold supervened, and a different fauna +succeeded the first. The explanation of the change is obvious. + +But in many other cases we cannot so much as hazard a guess at why a +given change occurred. One of the most striking instances of these +inexplicable changes is that afforded by the history of South America +towards the close of the tertiary period. For ages South America had +been an island by itself, cut off from North America at the very time +that the latter was at least occasionally in land communication with +Asia. During this time a very peculiar fauna grew up in South America, +some of the types resembling nothing now existing, while others are +recognizable as ancestral forms of the ant-eaters, sloths, and +armadillos of to-day. It was a peculiar and diversified mammalian +fauna, of, on the whole, rather small species, and without any +representatives of the animals with which man has been most familiar +during his career on this earth. + +Towards the end of the tertiary period there was an upheaval of land +between this old South American island and North America, near what is +now the Isthmus of Panama, thereby making a bridge across which the +teeming animal life of the northern continent had access to this queer +southern continent. There followed an inrush of huge, or swift, or +formidable creatures which had attained their development in the +fierce competition of the arctogæal realm. Elephants, camels, horses, +tapirs, swine, sabre-toothed tigers, big cats, wolves, bears, deer, +crowded into South America, warring each against the other incomers +and against the old long-existing forms. A riot of life followed. Not +only was the character of the South American fauna totally changed by +the invasion of these creatures from the north, which soon swarmed +over the continent, but it was also changed through the development +wrought in the old inhabitants by the severe competition to which they +were exposed. Many of the smaller or less capable types died out. +Others developed enormous bulk or complete armor protection, and +thereby saved themselves from the new beasts. In consequence, South +America soon became populated with various new species of mastodons, +sabre-toothed tigers, camels, horses, deer, cats, wolves, hooved +creatures of strange shapes and some of them of giant size, all of +these being descended from the immigrant types; and side by side with +them there grew up large autochthonous [TR: original autochthonus] +ungulates, giant ground sloths well-nigh as large as elephants, and +armored creatures as bulky as an ox but structurally of the armadillo +or ant-eater type; and some of these latter not only held their own, +but actually in their turn wandered north over the isthmus and invaded +North America. A fauna as varied as that of Africa to-day, as abundant +in species and individuals, even more noteworthy, because of its huge +size or odd type, and because of the terrific prowess of the more +formidable flesh-eaters, was thus developed in South America, and +flourished for a period which human history would call very long +indeed, but which geologically was short. + +Then, for no reason that we can assign, destruction fell on this +fauna. All the great and terrible creatures died out, the same fate +befalling the changed representatives of the old autochthonous fauna +and the descendants of the migrants that had come down from the north. +Ground sloth and glyptodon, sabre-tooth, horse and mastodon, and all +the associated animals of large size, vanished, and South America, +though still retaining its connection with North America, once again +became a land with a mammalian life small and weak compared to that +of North America and the Old World. Its fauna is now marked, for +instance, by the presence of medium-sized deer and cats, fox-like +wolves, and small camel-like creatures, as well as by the presence of +small armadillos, sloths, and ant-eaters. In other words, it includes +diminutive representatives of the giants of the preceding era, both of +the giants among the older forms of mammalia, and of the giants among +the new and intrusive kinds. The change was widespread and +extraordinary, and with our present means of information it is wholly +inexplicable. There was no ice age, and it is hard to imagine any +cause which would account for the extinction of so many species of +huge or moderate size, while smaller representatives, and here and +there medium-sized representatives, of many of them were left. + +Now as to all of these phenomena in the evolution of species, there +are, if not homologies, at least certain analogies, in the history of +human societies, in the history of the rise to prominence, of the +development and change, of the temporary dominance, and death or +transformation, of the groups of varying kind which form races or +nations. Here, as in biology, it is necessary to keep in mind that we +use each of the words "birth" and "death," "youth" and "age," often +very loosely, and sometimes as denoting either one of two totally +different conceptions. Of course, in one sense there is no such thing +as an "old" or a "young" nation, any more than there is an "old" or +"young" family. Phylogenetically, the line of ancestral descent must +be of exactly the same length for every existing individual, and for +every group of individuals, whether forming a family or a nation. All +that can properly be meant by the terms "new" and "young" is that in a +given line of descent there has suddenly come a period of rapid +change. This change may arise either from a new development or +transformation of the old elements, or else from a new grouping of +these elements with other and varied elements; so that the words "new" +nation or "young" nation may have a real difference of significance in +one case from what they have in another. + +As in biology, so in human history, a new form may result from the +specialization of a long-existing, and hitherto very slowly changing, +generalized or non-specialized form; as, for instance, occurs when a +barbaric race from a variety of causes suddenly develops a more +complex cultivation and civilization. This is what occurred, for +instance, in Western Europe during the centuries of the Teutonic and, +later, the Scandinavian ethnic overflows from the north. All the +modern countries of Western Europe are descended from the states +created by these northern invaders. When first created they would be +called "new" or "young" states in the sense that part or all of the +people composing them were descended from races that hitherto had not +been civilized, and that therefore, for the first time, entered on the +career of civilized communities. In the southern part of Western +Europe the new states thus formed consisted in bulk of the inhabitants +already in the land under the Roman Empire; and it was here that the +new kingdoms first took shape. Through a reflex action their influence +then extended back into the cold forests from which the invaders had +come, and Germany and Scandinavia witnessed the rise of communities +with essentially the same civilization as their southern neighbors; +though in those communities, unlike the southern communities, there +was no infusion of new blood, so that the new civilized nations which +gradually developed were composed entirely of members of the same +races which in the same regions had for ages lived the life of a +slowly changing barbarism. The same was true of the Slavs and the +slavonized Finns of Eastern Europe, when an infiltration of +Scandinavian leaders from the north, and an infiltration of Byzantine +culture from the south, joined to produce the changes which have +gradually, out of the little Slav communities of the forest and the +steppe, formed the mighty Russian Empire of to-day. + +Again, the new form may represent merely a splitting off from a long +established, highly developed, and specialized nation. In this case +the nation is usually spoken of as a "young," and is correctly spoken +of as a "new," nation; but the term should always be used with a clear +sense of the difference between what is described in such case, and +what is described by the same term in speaking of a civilized nation +just developed from barbarism. Carthage and Syracuse were new cities +compared to Tyre and Corinth; but the Greek or Phoenician race was in +every sense of the word as old in the new city as in the old city. So, +nowadays, Victoria or Manitoba is a new community compared with +England or Scotland; but the ancestral type of civilization and +culture is as old in one case as in the other. I of course do not mean +for a moment that great changes are not produced by the mere fact that +the old civilized race is suddenly placed in surroundings where it has +again to go through the work of taming the wilderness, a work finished +many centuries before in the original home of the race; I merely mean +that the ancestral history is the same in each case. We can rightly +use the phrase "a new people," in speaking of Canadians or +Australians, Americans or Afrikanders. But we use it in an entirely +different sense from that in which we use it when speaking of such +communities as those founded by the Northmen and their descendants +during that period of astonishing growth which saw the descendants of +the Norse sea-thieves conquer and transform Normandy, Sicily, and the +British Islands; we use it in an entirely different sense from that in +which we use it when speaking of the new states that grew up around +Warsaw, Kief, Novgorod, and Moscow, as the wild savages of the steppes +and the marshy forests struggled haltingly and stumblingly upward to +become builders of cities and to form stable governments. The kingdoms +of Charlemagne and Alfred were "new," compared to the empire on the +Bosphorus; they were also in every way different; their lines of +ancestral descent had nothing in common with that of the polyglot +realm which paid tribute to the Cæsars of Byzantium; their social +problems and after-time history were totally different. This is not +true of those "new" nations which spring direct from old nations. +Brazil, the Argentine, the United States, are all "new" nations, +compared with the nations of Europe; but, with whatever changes in +detail, their civilization is nevertheless of the general European +type, as shown in Portugal, Spain, and England. The differences +between these "new" American and these "old" European nations are not +as great as those which separate the "new" nations one from another, +and the "old" nations one from another. There are in each case very +real differences between the new and the old nation; differences both +for good and for evil; but in each case there is the same ancestral +history to reckon with, the same type of civilization, with its +attendant benefits and shortcomings; and, after the pioneer stages are +passed, the problems to be solved, in spite of superficial +differences, are in their essence the same; they are those that +confront all civilized peoples, not those that confront only peoples +struggling from barbarism into civilization. + +So, when we speak of the "death" of a tribe, a nation, or a +civilization, the term may be used for either one of two totally +different processes, the analogy with what occurs in biological +history being complete. Certain tribes of savages--the Tasmanians, for +instance, and various little clans of American Indians--have within +the last century or two completely died out; all of the individuals +have perished, leaving no descendants, and the blood has disappeared. +Certain other tribes of Indians have as tribes disappeared or are now +disappearing; but their blood remains, being absorbed into the veins +of the white intruders, or of the black men introduced by those white +intruders; so that in reality they are merely being transformed into +something absolutely different from what they were. In the United +States, in the new State of Oklahoma, the Creeks, Cherokees, +Chickasaws, Delawares, and other tribes, are in process of absorption +into the mass of the white population; when the State was admitted a +couple of years ago, one of the two Senators, and three of the five +Representatives in Congress, were partly of Indian blood. In but a +few years these Indian tribes will have disappeared as completely as +those that have actually died out; but the disappearance will be by +absorption and transformation into the mass of the American +population. + +A like wide diversity in fact may be covered in the statement that a +civilization has "died out." The nationality and culture of the +wonderful city-builders of the lower Mesopotamian Plain have +completely disappeared, and, though doubtless certain influences +dating therefrom are still at work, they are in such changed and +hidden form as to be unrecognizable. But the disappearance of the +Roman Empire was of no such character. There was complete change, +far-reaching transformation, and at one period a violent dislocation; +but it would not be correct to speak either of the blood or the +culture of Old Rome as extinct. We are not yet in a position to +dogmatize as to the permanence or evanescence of the various strains +of blood that go to make up every civilized nationality; but it is +reasonably certain that the blood of the old Roman still flows through +the veins of the modern Italian; and though there has been much +intermixture, from many different foreign sources--from foreign +conquerors and from foreign slaves--yet it is probable that the +Italian type of to-day finds its dominant ancestral type in the +ancient Latin. As for the culture, the civilization of Rome, this is +even more true. It has suffered a complete transformation, partly by +natural growth, partly by absorption of totally alien elements, such +as a Semitic religion, and certain Teutonic governmental and social +customs; but the process was not one of extinction, but one of growth +and transformation, both from within and by the accretion of outside +elements. In France and Spain the inheritance of Latin blood is small; +but the Roman culture which was forced on those countries has been +tenaciously retained by them, throughout all their subsequent ethnical +and political changes, as the basis on which their civilizations have +been built. Moreover, the permanent spreading of Roman influence was +not limited to Europe. It has extended to and over half of that New +World which was not even dreamed of during the thousand years of +brilliant life between the birth and the death of Pagan Rome. This New +World was discovered by one Italian, and its mainland first reached +and named by another; and in it, over a territory many times the size +of Trajan's empire, the Spanish, French, and Portuguese adventurers +founded, beside the St. Lawrence and the Amazon, along the flanks of +the Andes and in the shadow of the snow-capped volcanoes of Mexico, +from the Rio Grande to the Straits of Magellan, communities, now +flourishing and growing apace, which in speech and culture, and even +as regards one strain in their blood, are the lineal heirs of the +ancient Latin civilization. When we speak of the disappearance, the +passing away, of ancient Babylon or Nineveh, and of ancient Rome, we +are using the same terms to describe totally different phenomena. + +The anthropologist and historian of to-day realize much more clearly +than their predecessors of a couple of generations back how artificial +most great nationalities are, and how loose is the terminology usually +employed to describe them. There is an element of unconscious and +rather pathetic humor in the simplicity of half a century ago which +spoke of the Aryan and the Teuton with reverential admiration, as if +the words denoted, not merely something definite, but something +ethnologically sacred; the writers having much the same pride and +faith in their own and their fellow-countrymen's purity of descent +from these imaginary Aryan or Teutonic ancestors that was felt a few +generations earlier by the various noble families who traced their +lineage direct to Odin, Æneas, or Noah. Nowadays, of course, all +students recognize that there may not be, and often is not, the +slightest connection between kinship in blood and kinship in tongue. +In America we find three races, white, red, and black, and three +tongues, English, French, and Spanish, mingled in such a way that the +lines of cleavage of race continually run at right angles to the lines +of cleavage of speech; there being communities practically of pure +blood of each race found speaking each language. Aryan and Teutonic +are terms having very distinct linguistic meanings; but whether they +have any such ethnical meanings as were formerly attributed to them is +so doubtful, that we cannot even be sure whether the ancestors of most +of those we call Teutons originally spoke an Aryan tongue at all. The +term Celtic, again, is perfectly clear when used linguistically; but +when used to describe a race it means almost nothing until we find out +which one of several totally different terminologies the writer or +speaker is adopting. If, for instance, the term is used to designate +the short-headed, medium-sized type common throughout middle Europe, +from east to west, it denotes something entirely different from what +is meant when the name is applied to the tall, yellow-haired opponents +of the Romans and the later Greeks; while if used to designate any +modern nationality, it becomes about as loose and meaningless as the +term Anglo-Saxon itself. + +Most of the great societies which have developed a high civilization +and have played a dominant part in the world have been--and +are--artificial; not merely in social structure, but in the sense of +including totally different race types. A great nation rarely belongs +to any one race, though its citizens generally have one essentially +national speech. Yet the curious fact remains that these great +artificial societies acquire such unity that in each one all the parts +feel a subtle sympathy, and move or cease to move, go forward or go +back, all together, in response to some stir or throbbing, very +powerful, and yet not to be discerned by our senses. National unity is +far more apt than race unity to be a fact to reckon with; until indeed +we come to race differences as fundamental as those which divide from +one another the half-dozen great ethnic divisions of mankind, when +they become so important that differences of nationality, speech, and +creed sink into littleness. + +An ethnological map of Europe in which the peoples were divided +according to their physical and racial characteristics, such as +stature, coloration, and shape of head, would bear no resemblance +whatever to a map giving the political divisions, the nationalities, +of Europe; while on the contrary a linguistic map would show a general +correspondence between speech and nationality. The northern Frenchman +is in blood and physical type more nearly allied to his +German-speaking neighbor than to the Frenchman of the Mediterranean +seaboard; and the latter, in his turn, is nearer to the Catalan than +to the man who dwells beside the Channel or along the tributaries of +the Rhine. But in essential characteristics, in the qualities that +tell in the make-up of a nationality, all these kinds of Frenchmen +feel keenly that they are one, and are different from all outsiders, +their differences dwindling into insignificance, compared with the +extraordinary, artificially produced, resemblances which bring them +together and wall them off from the outside world. The same is true +when we compare the German who dwells where the Alpine springs of the +Danube and the Rhine interlace, with the physically different German +of the Baltic lands. The same is true of Kentishman, Cornishman, and +Yorkshireman in England. + +In dealing, not with groups of human beings in simple and primitive +relations, but with highly complex, highly specialized, civilized, or +semi-civilized societies, there is need of great caution in drawing +analogies with what has occurred in the development of the animal +world. Yet even in these cases it is curious to see how some of the +phenomena in the growth and disappearance of these complex, artificial +groups of human beings resemble what has happened in myriads of +instances in the history of life on this planet. + +Why do great artificial empires, whose citizens are knit by a bond of +speech and culture much more than by a bond of blood, show periods of +extraordinary growth, and again of sudden or lingering decay? In some +cases we can answer readily enough; in other cases we cannot as yet +even guess what the proper answer should be. If in any such case the +centrifugal forces overcome the centripetal, the nation will of course +fly to pieces, and the reason for its failure to become a dominant +force is patent to every one. The minute that the spirit which finds +its healthy development in local self-government, and is the antidote +to the dangers of an extreme centralization, develops into mere +particularism, into inability to combine effectively for achievement +of a common end, then it is hopeless to expect great results. Poland +and certain republics of the Western Hemisphere are the standard +examples of failure of this kind; and the United States would have +ranked with them, and her name would have become a byword of derision, +if the forces of union had not triumphed in the Civil War. So, the +growth of soft luxury after it has reached a certain point becomes a +national danger patent to all. Again, it needs but little of the +vision of a seer to foretell what must happen in any community if the +average woman ceases to become the mother of a family of healthy +children, if the average man loses the will and the power to work up +to old age and to fight whenever the need arises. If the homely +commonplace virtues die out, if strength of character vanishes in +graceful self-indulgence, if the virile qualities atrophy, then the +nation has lost what no material prosperity can offset. + +But there are plenty of other phenomena wholly or partially +inexplicable. It is easy to see why Rome trended downward when great +slave-tilled farms spread over what had once been a country-side of +peasant proprietors, when greed and luxury and sensuality ate like +acids into the fibre of the upper classes, while the mass of the +citizens grew to depend not upon their own exertions, but upon the +State, for their pleasures and their very livelihood. But this does +not explain why the forward movement stopped at different times, so +far as different matters were concerned; at one time as regards +literature, at another time as regards architecture, at another time +as regards city-building. There is nothing mysterious about Rome's +dissolution at the time of the barbarian invasions; apart from the +impoverishment and depopulation of the Empire, its fall would be quite +sufficiently explained by the mere fact that the average citizen had +lost the fighting edge--an essential even under a despotism, and +therefore far more essential in free, self-governing communities, such +as those of the English-speaking peoples of to-day. The mystery is +rather that out of the chaos and corruption of Roman society during +the last days of the oligarchic republic, there should have sprung an +Empire able to hold things with reasonable steadiness for three or +four centuries. But why, for instance, should the higher kinds of +literary productiveness have ceased about the beginning of the second +century, whereas the following centuries witnessed a great outbreak of +energy in the shape of city-building in the provinces, not only in +Western Europe, but in Africa? We cannot even guess why the springs of +one kind of energy dried up, while there was yet no cessation of +another kind. + +Take another and smaller instance, that of Holland. For a period +covering a little more than the seventeenth century, Holland, like +some of the Italian city-states at an earlier period, stood on the +dangerous heights of greatness, beside nations so vastly her superior +in territory and population as to make it inevitable that sooner or +later she must fall from the glorious and perilous eminence to which +she had been raised by her own indomitable soul. Her fall came; it +could not have been indefinitely postponed; but it came far quicker +than it needed to come, because of shortcomings on her part to which +both Great Britain and the United States would be wise to pay heed. +Her government was singularly ineffective, the decentralization being +such as often to permit the separatist, the particularist, spirit of +the provinces to rob the central authority of all efficiency. This was +bad enough. But the fatal weakness was that so common in rich, +peace-loving societies, where men hate to think of war as possible, +and try to justify their own reluctance to face it either by +high-sounding moral platitudes, or else by a philosophy of +short-sighted materialism. The Dutch were very wealthy. They grew to +believe that they could hire others to do their fighting for them on +land; and on sea, where they did their own fighting, and fought very +well, they refused in time of peace to make ready fleets so efficient, +as either to insure them against the peace being broken, or else to +give them the victory when war came. To be opulent and unarmed is to +secure ease in the present at the almost certain cost of disaster in +the future. + +It is therefore easy to see why Holland lost when she did her position +among the powers; but it is far more difficult to explain why at the +same time there should have come at least a partial loss of position +in the world of art and letters. Some spark of divine fire burned +itself out in the national soul. As the line of great statesmen, of +great warriors, by land and sea, came to an end, so the line of the +great Dutch painters ended. The loss of pre-eminence in the schools +followed the loss of pre-eminence in camp and in council chamber. + +In the little republic of Holland, as in the great empire of Rome, it +was not death which came, but transformation. Both Holland and Italy +teach us that races that fall may rise again. In Holland, as in the +Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, there was in a sense no +decadence at all. There was nothing analogous to what has befallen so +many countries; no lowering of the general standard of well-being, no +general loss of vitality, no depopulation. What happened was, first a +flowering time, in which the country's men of action and men of +thought gave it a commanding position among the nations of the day; +then this period of command passed, and the State revolved in an eddy, +aside from the sweep of the mighty current of world life; and yet the +people themselves in their internal relations remained substantially +unchanged, and in many fields of endeavor have now recovered +themselves, and play again a leading part. + +In Italy, where history is recorded for a far longer time, the course +of affairs was different. When the Roman Empire that was really Roman +went down in ruin, there followed an interval of centuries when the +gloom was almost unrelieved. Every form of luxury and frivolity, of +contemptuous repugnance for serious work, of enervating +self-indulgence, every form of vice and weakness which we regard as +most ominous in the civilization of to-day, had been at work +throughout Italy for generations. The nation had lost all patriotism. +It had ceased to bring forth fighters or workers, had ceased to bring +forth men of mark of any kind; and the remnant of the Italian people +cowered in helpless misery among the horse-hoofs of the barbarians, as +the wild northern bands rode in to take the land for a prey and the +cities for a spoil. It was one of the great cataclysms of history; but +in the end it was seen that what came had been in part change and +growth. It was not all mere destruction. Not only did Rome leave a +vast heritage of language, culture, law, ideas, to all the modern +world; but the people of Italy kept the old blood as the chief strain +in their veins. In a few centuries came a wonderful new birth for +Italy. Then for four or five hundred years there was a growth of many +little city-states which, in their energy both in peace and war, in +their fierce, fervent life, in the high quality of their men of arts +and letters, and in their utter inability to combine so as to preserve +order among themselves or to repel outside invasion, cannot unfairly +be compared with classic Greece. Again Italy fell, and the land was +ruled by Spaniard or Frenchman or Austrian; and again, in the +nineteenth century, there came for the third time a wonderful new +birth. + +Contrast this persistence of the old type in its old home, and in +certain lands which it had conquered, with its utter disappearance in +certain other lands where it was intrusive, but where it at one time +seemed as firmly established as in Italy--certainly as in Spain or +Gaul. No more curious example of the growth and disappearance of a +national type can be found than in the case of the Græco-Roman +dominion in Western Asia and North Africa. All told it extended over +nearly a thousand years, from the days of Alexander till after the +time of Heraclius. Throughout these lands there yet remain the ruins +of innumerable cities which tell how firmly rooted that dominion must +once have been. The over-shadowing and far-reaching importance of what +occurred is sufficiently shown by the familiar fact that the New +Testament was written in Greek; while to the early Christians, North +Africa seemed as much a Latin land as Sicily or the Valley of the Po. +The intrusive peoples and their culture flourished in the lands for a +period twice as long as that which has elapsed since, with the voyage +of Columbus, modern history may fairly be said to have begun; and then +they withered like dry grass before the flame of the Arab invasion, +and their place knew them no more. They overshadowed the ground; they +vanished; and the old types reappeared in their old homes, with beside +them a new type, the Arab. + +Now, as to all these changes we can at least be sure of the main +facts. We know that the Hollander remains in Holland, though the +greatness of Holland has passed; we know that the Latin blood remains +in Italy, whether to a greater or less extent; and that the Latin +culture has died out in the African realm it once won, while it has +lasted in Spain and France, and thence has extended itself to +continents beyond the ocean. We may not know the causes of the facts, +save partially; but the facts themselves we do know. But there are +other cases in which we are at present ignorant even of the facts; we +do not know what the changes really were, still less the hidden +causes and meaning of these changes. Much remains to be found out +before we can speak with any certainty as to whether some changes mean +the actual dying out or the mere transformation of types. It is, for +instance, astonishing how little permanent change in the physical +make-up of the people seems to have been worked in Europe by the +migrations of the races in historic times. A tall, fair-haired, +long-skulled race penetrates to some southern country and establishes +a commonwealth. The generations pass. There is no violent revolution, +no break in continuity of history, nothing in the written records to +indicate an epoch-making change at any given moment; and yet after a +time we find that the old type has reappeared and that the people of +the locality do not substantially differ in physical form from the +people of other localities that did not suffer such an invasion. Does +this mean that gradually the children of the invaders have dwindled +and died out; or, as the blood is mixed with the ancient blood, has +there been a change, part reversion and part assimilation, to the +ancient type in its old surroundings? Do tint of skin, eyes and hair, +shape of skull, and stature, change in the new environment, so as to +be like those of the older people who dwelt in this environment? Do +the intrusive races, without change of blood, tend under the pressure +of their new surroundings to change in type so as to resemble the +ancient peoples of the land? Or, as the strains mingled, has the new +strain dwindled and vanished, from causes as yet obscure? Has the +blood of the Lombard practically disappeared from Italy, and of the +Visigoth from Spain, or does it still flow in large populations where +the old physical type has once more become dominant? Here in England, +the long-skulled men of the long barrows, the short-skulled men of the +round barrows, have they blended, or has one or the other type +actually died out; or are they merged in some older race which they +seemingly supplanted, or have they adopted the tongue and civilization +of some later race which seemingly destroyed them? We cannot say. We +do not know which of the widely different stocks now speaking Aryan +tongues represents in physical characteristics the ancient Aryan type, +nor where the type originated, nor how or why it imposed its language +on other types, nor how much or how little mixture of blood +accompanied the change of tongue. + +The phenomena of national growth and decay, both of those which can +and those which cannot be explained, have been peculiarly in evidence +during the four centuries that have gone by since the discovery of +America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These have been the +four centuries of by far the most intense and constantly accelerating +rapidity of movement and development that the world has yet seen. The +movement has covered all the fields of human activity. It has +witnessed an altogether unexampled spread of civilized mankind over +the world, as well as an altogether unexampled advance in man's +dominion over nature; and this together with a literary and artistic +activity to be matched in but one previous epoch. This period of +extension and development has been that of one race, the so-called +white race, or, to speak more accurately, the group of peoples living +in Europe, who undoubtedly have a certain kinship of blood, who +profess the Christian religion, and trace back their culture to Greece +and Rome. + +The memories of men are short, and it is easy to forget how brief is +this period of unquestioned supremacy of the so-called white race. It +is but a thing of yesterday. During the thousand years which went +before the opening of this era of European supremacy, the attitude of +Asia and Africa, of Hun and Mongol, Turk and Tartar, Arab and Moor, +had on the whole been that of successful aggression against Europe. +More than a century went by after the voyages of Columbus before the +mastery in war began to pass from the Asiatic to the European. During +that time Europe produced no generals or conquerors able to stand +comparison with Selim and Solyman, Baber and Akbar. Then the European +advance gathered momentum; until at the present time peoples of +European blood hold dominion over all America and Australia and the +islands of the sea, over most of Africa, and the major half of Asia. +Much of this world conquest is merely political, and such a conquest +is always likely in the long run to vanish. But very much of it +represents not a merely political, but an ethnic conquest; the +intrusive people having either exterminated or driven out the +conquered peoples, or else having imposed upon them its tongue, law, +culture, and religion, together with a strain of its blood. During +this period substantially all of the world achievements worth +remembering are to be credited to the people of European descent. The +first exception of any consequence is the wonderful rise of Japan +within the last generation--a phenomenon unexampled in history; for +both in blood and in culture the Japanese line of ancestral descent is +as remote as possible from ours, and yet Japan, while hitherto keeping +most of what was strongest in her ancient character and traditions, +has assimilated with curious completeness most of the characteristics +that have given power and leadership to the West. + +During this period of intense and feverish activity among the peoples +of European stock, first one and then another has taken the lead. The +movement began with Spain and Portugal. Their flowering time was as +brief as it was wonderful. The gorgeous pages of their annals are +illumined by the figures of warriors, explorers, statesmen, poets, and +painters. Then their days of greatness ceased. Many partial +explanations can be given, but something remains behind, some hidden +force for evil, some hidden source of weakness upon which we cannot +lay our hands. Yet there are many signs that in the New World, after +centuries of arrested growth, the peoples of Spanish and Portuguese +stock are entering upon another era of development, and there are +other signs that this is true also in the Iberian peninsula itself. + +About the time that the first brilliant period of the leadership of +the Iberian peoples was drawing to a close, at the other end of +Europe, in the land of melancholy steppe and melancholy forest, the +Slav turned in his troubled sleep and stretched out his hand to grasp +leadership and dominion. Since then almost every nation of Europe has +at one time or another sought a place in the movement of expansion; +but for the last three centuries the great phenomenon of mankind has +been the growth of the English-speaking peoples and their spread over +the world's waste spaces. + +Comparison is often made between the Empire of Britain and the Empire +of Rome. When judged relatively to the effect on all modern +civilization, the Empire of Rome is of course the more important, +simply because all the nations of Europe and their offshoots in other +continents trace back their culture either to the earlier Rome by the +Tiber, or the later Rome by the Bosphorus. The Empire of Rome is the +most stupendous fact in lay history; no empire later in time can be +compared with it. But this is merely another way of saying that the +nearer the source the more important becomes any deflection of the +stream's current. Absolutely, comparing the two empires one with the +other in point of actual achievement, and disregarding the immensely +increased effect on other civilizations which inhered in the older +empire because it antedated the younger by a couple of thousand years, +there is little to choose between them as regards the wide and +abounding interest and importance of their careers. + +In the world of antiquity each great empire rose when its predecessor +had already crumbled. By the time that Rome loomed large over the +horizon of history, there were left for her to contend with only +decaying civilizations and raw barbarism. When she conquered Pyrrhus, +she strove against the strength of but one of the many fragments into +which Alexander's kingdom had fallen. When she conquered Carthage, she +overthrew a foe against whom for two centuries the single Greek city +of Syracuse had contended on equal terms; it was not the Sepoy armies +of the Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius of the House +of Barca, which rendered the struggle for ever memorable. It was the +distance and the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen, that +set bounds to Rome in the east; and on the north her advance was +curbed by the vast reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the tall +barbarians who dwelt therein. During the long generations of her +greatness, and until the sword dropped from her withered hand, the +Parthian was never a menace of aggression, and the German threatened +her but to die. + +On the contrary, the great expansion of England has occurred, the +great Empire of Britain has been achieved, during the centuries that +have also seen mighty military nations rise and flourish on the +continent of Europe. It is as if Rome, while creating and keeping the +empire she won between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had +at the same time held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath, +the Egypt of Thothmes and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and +Macedon in the red flush of their warrior-dawn. The Empire of Britain +is vaster in space, in population, in wealth, in wide variety of +possession, in a history of multiplied and manifold achievement of +every kind, than even the glorious Empire of Rome. Yet, unlike Rome, +Britain has won dominion in every clime, has carried her flag by +conquest and settlement to the uttermost ends of the earth, at the +very time that haughty and powerful rivals, in their abounding youth +or strong maturity, were eager to set bounds to her greatness, and to +tear from her what she had won afar. England has peopled continents +with her children, has swayed the destinies of teeming myriads of +alien race, has ruled ancient monarchies, and wrested from all comers +the right to the world's waste spaces, while at home she has held her +own before nations, each of military power comparable to Rome's at her +zenith. + +Rome fell by attack from without only because the ills within her own +borders had grown incurable. What is true of your country, my hearers, +is true of my own; while we should be vigilant against foes from +without, yet we need never really fear them so long as we safeguard +ourselves against the enemies within our own households; and these +enemies are our own passions and follies. Free peoples can escape +being mastered by others only by being able to master themselves. We +Americans and you people of the British Isles alike need ever to keep +in mind that, among the many qualities indispensable to the success of +a great democracy, and second only to a high and stern sense of duty, +of moral obligation, are self-knowledge and self-mastery. You, my +hosts, and I may not agree in all our views; some of you would think +me a very radical democrat--as, for the matter of that, I am--and my +theory of imperialism would probably suit the anti-imperialists as +little as it would suit a certain type of forcible-feeble imperialist. +But there are some points on which we must all agree if we think +soundly. The precise form of government, democratic or otherwise, is +the instrument, the tool, with which we work. It is important to have +a good tool. But, even if it is the best possible, it is only a tool. +No implement can ever take the place of the guiding intelligence that +wields it. A very bad tool will ruin the work of the best craftsman; +but a good tool in bad hands is no better. In the last analysis the +all-important factor in national greatness is national character. + +There are questions which we of the great civilized nations are ever +tempted to ask of the future. Is our time of growth drawing to an end? +Are we as nations soon to come under the rule of that great law of +death which is itself but part of the great law of life? None can +tell. Forces that we can see, and other forces that are hidden or that +can but dimly be apprehended, are at work all around us, both for +good and for evil. The growth in luxury, in love of ease, in taste for +vapid and frivolous excitement, is both evident and unhealthy. The +most ominous sign is the diminution in the birth-rate, in the rate of +natural increase, now to a larger or lesser degree shared by most of +the civilized nations of Central and Western Europe, of America and +Australia; a diminution so great that if it continues for the next +century at the rate which has obtained for the last twenty-five years, +all the more highly civilized peoples will be stationary or else have +begun to go backward in population, while many of them will have +already gone very far backward. + +There is much that should give us concern for the future. But there is +much also which should give us hope. No man is more apt to be mistaken +than the prophet of evil. After the French Revolution in 1830 Niebuhr +hazarded the guess that all civilization was about to go down with a +crash, that we were all about to share the fall of third-and +fourth-century Rome--a respectable, but painfully overworked, +comparison. The fears once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to +the future of the world have proved groundless as regards the +civilized portion of the world; it is strange indeed to look back at +Carlyle's prophecies of some seventy years ago, and then think of the +teeming life of achievement, the life of conquest of every kind, and +of noble effort crowned by success, which has been ours for the two +generations since he complained to High Heaven that all the tales had +been told and all the songs sung, and that all the deeds really worth +doing had been done. I believe with all my heart that a great future +remains for us; but whether it does or does not, our duty is not +altered. However the battle may go, the soldier worthy of the name +will with utmost vigor do his allotted task, and bear himself as +valiantly in defeat as in victory. Come what will, we belong to +peoples who have not yielded to the craven fear of being great. In the +ages that have gone by, the great nations, the nations that have +expanded and that have played a mighty part in the world, have in the +end grown old and weakened and vanished; but so have the nations whose +only thought was to avoid all danger, all effort, who would risk +nothing, and who therefore gained nothing. In the end, the same fate +may overwhelm all alike; but the memory of the one type perishes with +it, while the other leaves its mark deep on the history of all the +future of mankind. + +A nation that seemingly dies may be born again; and even though in the +physical sense it die utterly, it may yet hand down a history of +heroic achievement, and for all time to come may profoundly influence +the nations that arise in its place by the impress of what it has +done. Best of all is it to do our part well, and at the same time to +see our blood live young and vital in men and women fit to take up the +task as we lay it down; for so shall our seed inherit the earth. But +if this, which is best, is denied us, then at least it is ours to +remember that if we choose we can be torch-bearers, as our fathers +were before us. The torch has been handed on from nation to nation, +from civilization to civilization, throughout all recorded time, from +the dim years before history dawned down to the blazing splendor of +this teeming century of ours. It dropped from the hands of the coward +and the sluggard, of the man wrapped in luxury or love of ease, the +man whose soul was eaten away by self-indulgence; it has been kept +alight only by those who were mighty of heart and cunning of hand. +What they worked at, provided it was worth doing at all, was of less +matter than how they worked, whether in the realm of the mind or the +realm of the body. If their work was good, if what they achieved was +of substance, then high success was really theirs. + +In the first part of this lecture I drew certain analogies between +what has occurred to forms of animal life through the procession of +the ages on this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring to the +great artificial civilizations which have gradually spread over the +world's surface, during the thousands of years that have elapsed since +cities of temples and palaces first rose beside the Nile and the +Euphrates, and the harbors of Minoan Crete bristled with the masts of +the Ægean craft. But of course the parallel is true only in the +roughest and most general way. Moreover, even between the +civilizations of to-day and the civilizations of ancient times, there +are differences so profound that we must be cautious in drawing any +conclusions for the present based on what has happened in the past. +While freely admitting all of our follies and weaknesses of to-day, it +is yet mere perversity to refuse to realize the incredible advance +that has been made in ethical standards. I do not believe that there +is the slightest necessary connection between any weakening of virile +force and this advance in the moral standard, this growth of the sense +of obligation to one's neighbor and of reluctance to do that neighbor +wrong. We need have scant patience with that silly cynicism which +insists that kindliness of character only accompanies weakness of +character. On the contrary, just as in private life many of the men of +strongest character are the very men of loftiest and most exalted +morality, so I believe that in national life, as the ages go by, we +shall find that the permanent national types will more and more tend +to become those in which, though intellect stands high, character +stands higher; in which rugged strength and courage, rugged capacity +to resist wrongful aggression by others, will go hand in hand with a +lofty scorn of doing wrong to others. This is the type of Timoleon, of +Hampden, of Washington, and Lincoln. These were as good men, as +disinterested and unselfish men, as ever served a State; and they were +also as strong men as ever founded or saved a State. Surely such +examples prove that there is nothing Utopian in our effort to combine +justice and strength in the same nation. The really high civilizations +must themselves supply the antidote to the self-indulgence and love +of ease which they tend to produce. + +Every modern civilized nation has many and terrible problems to solve +within its own borders, problems that arise not merely from +juxtaposition of poverty and riches, but especially from the +self-consciousness of both poverty and riches. Each nation must deal +with these matters in its own fashion, and yet the spirit in which the +problem is approached must ever be fundamentally the same. It must be +a spirit of broad humanity; of brotherly kindness; of acceptance of +responsibility, one for each and each for all; and at the same time a +spirit as remote as the poles from every form of weakness and +sentimentality. As in war to pardon the coward is to do cruel wrong to +the brave man whose life his cowardice jeopardizes, so in civil +affairs it is revolting to every principle of justice to give to the +lazy, the vicious, or even the feeble or dull-witted, a reward which +is really the robbery of what braver, wiser, abler men have earned. +The only effective way to help any man is to help him to help himself; +and the worst lesson to teach him is that he can be permanently helped +at the expense of some one else. True liberty shows itself to best +advantage in protecting the rights of others, and especially of +minorities. Privilege should not be tolerated because it is to the +advantage of a minority; nor yet because it is to the advantage of a +majority. No doctrinaire theories of vested rights or freedom of +contract can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses from the body +politic. Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires of an +impossible--and incidentally of a highly undesirable--social +revolution, which in destroying individual rights--including property +rights--and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the +advance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance +or the preservation of mankind is worth while. It is an evil and a +dreadful thing to be callous to sorrow and suffering and blind to our +duty to do all things possible for the betterment of social +conditions. But it is an unspeakably foolish thing to strive for this +betterment by means so destructive that they would leave no social +conditions to better. In dealing with all these social problems, with +the intimate relations of the family, with wealth in private use and +business use, with labor, with poverty, the one prime necessity is to +remember that though hardness of heart is a great evil it is no +greater an evil than softness of head. + +But in addition to these problems, the most intimate and important of +all, and which to a larger or less degree affect all the modern +nations somewhat alike, we of the great nations that have expanded, +that are now in complicated relations with one another and with alien +races, have special problems and special duties of our own. You belong +to a nation which possesses the greatest empire upon which the sun has +ever shone. I belong to a nation which is trying on a scale hitherto +unexampled to work out the problems of government for, of, and by the +people, while at the same time doing the international duty of a great +Power. But there are certain problems which both of us have to solve, +and as to which our standards should be the same. The Englishman, the +man of the British Isles, in his various homes across the seas, and +the American, both at home and abroad, are brought into contact with +utterly alien peoples, some with a civilization more ancient than our +own, others still in, or having but recently arisen from, the +barbarism which our people left behind ages ago. The problems that +arise are of well-nigh inconceivable difficulty. They cannot be solved +by the foolish sentimentality of stay-at-home people, with little +patent recipes, and those cut-and-dried theories of the political +nursery which have such limited applicability amid the crash of +elemental forces. Neither can they be solved by the raw brutality of +the men who, whether at home or on the rough frontier of civilization, +adopt might as the only standard of right in dealing with other men, +and treat alien races only as subjects for exploitation. + +No hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying to all alien races, +because they differ from one another far more widely than some of them +differ from us. But there are one or two rules which must not be +forgotten. In the long run there can be no justification for one race +managing or controlling another unless the management and control are +exercised in the interest and for the benefit of that other race. This +is what our peoples have in the main done, and must continue in the +future in even greater degree to do, in India, Egypt, and the +Philippines alike. In the next place, as regards every race, +everywhere, at home or abroad, we cannot afford to deviate from the +great rule of righteousness which bids us treat each man on his worth +as a man. He must not be sentimentally favored because he belongs to a +given race; he must not be given immunity in wrong-doing or permitted +to cumber the ground, or given other privileges which would be denied +to the vicious and unfit among ourselves. On the other hand, where he +acts in a way which would entitle him to respect and reward if he was +one of our own stock, he is just as entitled to that respect and +reward if he comes of another stock, even though that other stock +produces a much smaller proportion of men of his type than does our +own. This has nothing to do with social intermingling, with what is +called social equality. It has to do merely with the question of doing +to each man and each woman that elementary justice which will permit +him or her to gain from life the reward which should always accompany +thrift, sobriety, self-control, respect for the rights of others, and +hard and intelligent work to a given end. To more than such just +treatment no man is entitled, and less than such just treatment no man +should receive. + +The other type of duty is the international duty, the duty owed by one +nation to another. I hold that the laws of morality which should +govern individuals in their dealings one with the other, are just as +binding concerning nations in their dealings one with the other. The +application of the moral law must be different in the two cases, +because in one case it has, and in the other it has not, the sanction +of a civil law with force behind it. The individual can depend for his +rights upon the courts, which themselves derive their force from the +police power of the State. The nation can depend upon nothing of the +kind; and therefore, as things are now, it is the highest duty of the +most advanced and freest peoples to keep themselves in such a state of +readiness as to forbid to any barbarism or despotism the hope of +arresting the progress of the world by striking down the nations that +lead in that progress. It would be foolish indeed to pay heed to the +unwise persons who desire disarmament to be begun by the very peoples +who, of all others, should not be left helpless before any possible +foe. But we must reprobate quite as strongly both the leaders and the +peoples who practise, or encourage, or condone, aggression and +iniquity by the strong at the expense of the weak. We should tolerate +lawlessness and wickedness neither by the weak nor by the strong; and +both weak and strong we should in return treat with scrupulous +fairness. The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting country +should be conducted on exactly the same plane of honor, for insistence +upon one's own rights and of respect for the rights of others, that +marks the conduct of a brave and honorable man when dealing with his +fellows. Permit me to support this statement out of my own experience. +For nearly eight years I was the head of a great nation, and charged +especially with the conduct of its foreign policy; and during those +years I took no action with reference to any other people on the face +of the earth that I would not have felt justified in taking as an +individual in dealing with other individuals. + +I believe that we of the great civilized nations of to-day have a +right to feel that long careers of achievement lie before our several +countries. To each of us is vouchsafed the honorable privilege of +doing his part, however small, in that work. Let us strive hardily for +success even if by so doing we risk failure, spurning the poorer souls +of small endeavor who know neither failure nor success. Let us hope +that our own blood shall continue in the land, that our children and +children's children to endless generations shall arise to take our +places and play a mighty and dominant part in the world. But whether +this be denied or granted by the years we shall not see, let at least +the satisfaction be ours that we have carried onward the lighted torch +in our own day and generation. If we do this, then, as our eyes close, +and we go out into the darkness, and others' hands grasp the torch, at +least we can say that our part has been borne well and valiantly. + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDIX + + + CONVOCATION + + JUNE 7, 1910 + + FOLLOWED BY THE DELIVERY OF + + THE ROMANES LECTURE + + BY + + THE HON'BLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT + + + HON. D.C.L. + + THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + + LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON + + CHANCELLOR + + PRESIDING + + + * * * * * + + + + +Convocation and the Romanes Lecture, June 7, 1910[16] + + [16] An artistically printed pamphlet, containing, with text in + Latin and in English, the programme and ritual here given, was + placed by the University authorities in the hands of each member + of the audience.--L.F.A. + + +THE CHANCELLOR. + +Causa huius Convocationis est, Academici, ut, si vobis placuerit, in +virum Honorabilem Theodorum Roosevelt, Civitatum Foederatarum Americae +Borealis olim Praesidentem, Gradus Doctoris in Iure Civili conferatur +honoris causa; ut Praelectio exspectatissima ab eodem, Doctore in +Universitate facto novissimo, coram vobis pronuncietur; necnon ut alia +peragantur, quae ad Venerabilem hanc Domum spectant. + +Placetne igitur Venerabili huic Convocationi ut in virum Honorabilem +Theodorum Roosevelt Gradus Doctoris in Iure Civili conferatur honoris +causa? + +Placetne vobis, Domini Doctores? Placetne vobis, Magistri? + + * * * * * + + +To the Bedels. + +Ite, Bedelli! Petite Virum Honorabilem! + + * * * * * + + +The Chancellor to the Vice-Chancellor, as Mr. Roosevelt takes his +place for presentation. + + Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, + Cuius in adventum pavidi cessere cometae + Et septemgemini turbant trepida ostia Nili! + + * * * * * + + +PRESENTATION SPEECH by DR. HENRY GOUDY, Regius Professor of Civil Law, +Fellow of All Souls College. + +Insignissime Cancellarie! + +Vosque Egregii Procuratores! + +Saepenumero mihi et antea contigit plurimos e Republica illa illustri +oriundos, affines nostros, vobis praesentare gradum honorarium +Doctoris in Iure Civili accepturos, inter quos vel nomina +praestantissimorum hominum citare in promptu esset. Neque tamen +quemquam vel suis ipsius meritis vel fama digniorem, qui hoc titulo +donaretur, salutavi quam hunc virum quem ad vos duco. + +Batavorum antiqua stirpe ortus, sicut et nomen ipsius inclitum +indicat, Americanae patriae germanum civem sese praestitit; in qua +nemo sane laudem maiorem Reipublicae suae suorum iudicio contulisse +creditur. + +Tardius quidem ad Britannos fama nominis inclaruit, imprimis tum quum +certamine inter Hispanos atque suos orto alae Equitum praefectus rei +militaris sese peritissimum ostentabat. Huic autem, omnia scire +ardenti, nulla pars humanitatis supervacua aut negligenda videbatur. +Manifesto quippe declaravit, ut cum poeta loquar: + + "Non sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo," + +atque exinde annales non tantum patriae suae sed totius terrarum orbis +exemplo virtutis implere. + +Quippe bis Hercule! in locum amplissimum Praesulis Reipublicae suae +electus egregio illo in statu ita se gerebat ut laudes et nomen magni +illius antecessoris, Abraham Lincoln, vel aequipararet--quorum alter +servitudinem, alter corruptionem vicit. Unde et spem licet concipere +ut viro bis summum civitatis honorem adepto accedat et denuo idem ille +honor terna vice, numero auspicatissimo, numerandus. + +Fortem hospitis nostri animum et tenacem propositi novimus; felicitati +et otio non modo suorum sed etiam gentium exterarum consuluit: +bellator ipse atque idem pacis omnibus terrae gentibus firmandae +auctor indefessus, sicut et exemplum illustre praebuit nuper foedere +icto post bellum inter Iapones et Scytharum populos gestuni. Neque +idem pacem veram esse iudicavit, nisi quae iustitiae et ipsa +inniteretur; quippe civitates laude dignas negavit quibus nee in se +ipsis constaret fides et animi magnitudo. + +Venatoriam artem exercuit, historiae naturalis amator; post dimissum +opus civicum requiem in Africae solitudinibus nuper quaesivit ubi in +feras terrae non minore animo, successu haud minore, ferrum exacuit +quam in malos saeculi mores saevire solitus est. + +Iam tandem, laboribus functus, patriam suam repetiturus nobiscum +paulum temporis commoratur Ulysses ille alter, viarum pariter expertus +et consiliorum largitor. + +Neque praetermittendum est hospitem nostrum, dum varias artes colit, +Musarum opus non neglexisse, stilo non minus quam lingua facundus; +quem nos, Academici, magnis de rebus loquentem hodie audituri sumus. + +Hunc igitur praesento + +Theodorum Roosevelt, + +ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Iure Civili honoris causa. + + * * * * * + + +The Chancellor to Mr. Roosevelt in admitting him to the Degree. + +Strenuissime, insignissime, civium toto orbe terrae hodie agentium, +summum ingentis rei publicae magistratum bis incorrupte gestum, ter +forsitan gesture, augustissimis regibus par, hominum domitor, beluarum +ubique vastator, homo omnium humanissime, nihil a te alienum, ne +nigerrimum quidem, putans, ego auctoritate Mea et totius Universitatis +admitto te ad Gradum Doctoris in Iure Civili _honoris causa_. + +The Chancellor to the Bedels. + +Ite, Bedelli! Ducite Doctorem Honorabilem ad Pulpitum! + + * * * * * + + +The Chancellor will then, in English, welcome Mr. Roosevelt to +Oxford, and invite him to deliver his Lecture. + + * * * * * + + +THE ROMANES LECTURE + + + * * * * * + + +At the close of the Lecture the Chancellor will direct the +Vice-Chancellor to dissolve the Convocation as follows: + +Iamque tempus enim est, Insignissime mi Vice-Cancellarie, dissolve, +quaeso, Convocationem. + + * * * * * + + +The Vice-Chancellor will dissolve the Convocation as follows: + +Celsissime Domine Cancellarie, iussu tuo dissolvimus hanc +Convocationem. + +FINIS + + * * * * * + + + + +Convocation and the Romanes Lecture + +TRANSLATION OF THE LATIN + + +THE CHANCELLOR. + +The object of this Convocation is, that, if it be your pleasure, +Gentlemen of the University, the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil +Law may be conferred on the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, ex-President +of the United States of North America, that the long-expected Romanes +Lecture may be delivered by him, when he has been made the youngest +Doctor in the University, and that any other business should be +transacted which may belong to this Venerable House. + +Is it the pleasure then of this Venerable House that the Honorary +Degree of Doctor of Civil Law should be conferred upon the Honorable +Theodore Roosevelt? Is it your pleasure, Reverend Doctors? Is it your +pleasure, Masters of the University? + + * * * * * + + +Go, Bedels, and bring in the Honorable gentleman! + + * * * * * + + +The Chancellor to the Vice-Chancellor. + + Behold, Vice-Chancellor, the promised wight, + Before whose coming comets turned to flight, + And all the startled mouths of sevenfold Nile took fright! + + * * * * * + + +PRESENTATION SPEECH by DR. HENRY GOUDY. + +It has been my privilege to present in former years many distinguished +citizens of the great American Republic for our honorary degree of +Doctor of Laws, but none of them have surpassed in merit or obtained +such world-wide celebrity as he whom I now present to you. Of ancient +Dutch lineage, as his name indicates, but still a genuine American, +he has long been an outstanding figure among his fellow citizens. He +first became known to us in England during the Spanish-American War, +when he commanded a regiment of cavalry and proved himself a most +capable military leader. Omnivorous in his quest of knowledge, nothing +in human affairs seemed to him superfluous or negligible. In the +language of the poet, one might say of him--"Non sibi sed toti genitum +se credere mundo." Twice has he been elevated to the position of +President of the Republic, and in performing the duties of that high +office has acquired a title to be ranked with his great predecessor +Abraham Lincoln--"Quorum alter servitudinem, alter corruptionem +vicit." May we not presage that still a third time--most auspicious of +numbers--he may be called upon to take the reins of government? + +With unrivalled energy and tenacity of purpose he has combined lofty +ideals with a sincere devotion to the practical needs not only of his +fellow countrymen, but of humanity at large. A sincere friend of peace +among nations--who does not know of his successful efforts to +terminate the devastating war between Russia and Japan?--he has also +firmly held that Peace is only a good thing when combined with justice +and right. He has ever asserted that a nation can only hope to survive +if it be self-respecting and makes itself respected by others. + +A noted sportsman and lover of Natural History, he has recently, after +his arduous labors as Head of the State, been seeking relaxation in +distant Africa, where his onslaughts on the wild beasts of the desert +have been not less fierce nor less successful than over the +many-headed hydra of corruption in his own land. + +Now, like another Ulysses, on his homeward way he has come to us for a +brief interval, after visiting many cities and discoursing on many +themes. + +Nor must I omit to remind you that our guest, amid his engrossing +duties of State, has not neglected the Muses. Not less facile with the +pen than the tongue, he has written on many topics, and this afternoon +it will be our privilege to listen to him discoursing on a lofty +theme. + + * * * * * + + +By the Chancellor. + +Most strenuous of men, most distinguished of citizens to-day playing a +part on the stage of the world, you who have twice administered with +purity the first Magistracy of the Great Republic (and may perhaps +administer it a third time), peer of the most august Kings, queller of +men, destroyer of monsters wherever found, yet the most human of +mankind, deeming nothing indifferent to you, not even the blackest of +the black; I, by my authority and that of the whole University, admit +you to the Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, _honoris causa_. + + * * * * * + + +Go, Bedels, conduct the Honorable Doctor to the Lectern! + + * * * * * + + +Here follows the Chancellor's welcome, and the Romanes Lecture. + + * * * * * + + +After the Lecture, the Chancellor to the Vice-Chancellor. + +And now, my dear Vice-Chancellor--for it is time--be good enough to +dissolve the Convocation! + + * * * * * + + +The Vice-Chancellor. + +Exalted Lord Chancellor, at your bidding we dissolve the Convocation. + +FINIS + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13930 *** |