TR on the Strenuous
Life and Expansionism
In speaking to you,
men of the greatest city of the West, men of the State which gave to the
country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently and distinctly embody all that
is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine
of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and
effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which
comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not
shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these
wins the splendid ultimate triumph. A life of slothful ease, a life of that
peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive
after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask
only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his
sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole.…
In the last analysis
a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead
clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they
shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek
ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.…
If we are to be a
really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the
world. We can not avoid meeting great issues. All
that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.
In 1898 we could not help being brought face to face with the problem of war
with Spain. All we could decide was whether we should shrink like cowards from
the contest, or enter into it as beseemed a brave and high-spirited people;
and, once in, whether failure or success should crown our banners. So it is
now.
We can not avoid the responsibilities that confront us in
Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. All we can decide is whether we
shall meet them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or whether
we shall make of our dealings with these new problems a dark and shameful page
in our history.
. . . We cannot sit
huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of
well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond. Such a policy
would defeat even its own end; for as the nations grow to have ever wider and
wider interests, and are brought into closer and closer contact, if we are to
hold our own in the struggle for naval and commercial supremacy, we must build
up our power without our own borders. We must build the Isthmian Canal, and we
must grasp the points of vantage which will enable us to have our say in
deciding the destiny of the oceans of the East and the West.