 | Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 |  |
XXXV
TO THE HOLY NAME SOCIETY, AT OYSTER BAY,
N. Y., AUGUST 16, 1903
Very Reverend Dean, Reverend Clergy, and you, of the
Holy Name Society:
I count myself fortunate in having the chance to say a
word to you to-day; and at the outset let me, Father
Power, on behalf of my neighbors, your congregation,
welcome all your guests here to Oyster Bay. I have a
partial right to join in that welcome myself, for it was my
good fortune in the days of Father Power's predecessor,
Father Belford, to be the first man to put down a small
contribution for the erection of your church here. I am
particularly glad to see such a society as this flourishing
as your society has flourished, because the future welfare
of our nation depends upon the way in which we can
combine in our men—in our young men—decency and
strength. Just this morning, when attending service on
the great battleship Kearsarge, I listened to a sermon addressed
to the officers and enlisted men of the navy, in
which the central thought was that each American must
be a good man or he could not be a good citizen. And
one of the things dwelt upon in that sermon was the fact
that a man must be clean of mouth as well as clean of life
—must show by his words as well as by his actions his
fealty to the Almighty if he was to be what we have a
right to expect from men wearing the national uniform.
We have good Scriptural authority for the statement that
out of it that counts. I am not addressing weaklings, or
I should not take the trouble to come here. I am addressing
strong, vigorous men who are engaged in the
active, hard work of life; and life to be worth living must
be a life of active and hard work. I am speaking to men
engaged in the hard, active work of life, and therefore to
men who will count for good or. for evil. It is peculiarly
incumbent upon you who have strength to set a right example
to others. I ask you to remember that you cannot
retain your self-respect if you are loose and foul of
tongue; that a man who is to lead a clean and honorable
life must inevitably suffer if his speech likewise is not
clean and honorable. Every man here knows the temptations
that beset all of us in this world. At times any
man will slip. I do not expect perfection, but I do expect
genuine and sincere effort toward being decent and
cleanly in thought, in word, and in deed. As I said at
the outset, I hail the work of this society as typifying
one of those forces which tend to the betterment and uplifting
of our social system. Our whole effort should be
toward securing a combination of the strong qualities
with those qualities which we term virtues. I expect
you to be strong. I would not respect you if you were
not. I do not want to see Christianity professed only by
weaklings; I want to see it a moving spirit among men of
strength. I do not expect you to lose one particle of
your strength or courage by being decent. On the contrary,
I should hope to see each man who is a member
of this society, from his membership in it become all the
fitter to do the rough work of the world; all the fitter to
work in time of peace; and if, which may Heaven forfend!
war should come, all the fitter to fight in time of war. I
desire to see in this country the decent men strong and
the strong men decent, and until we get that combination
in pretty good shape we are not going to be by any
tendency among very young men, and among boys who
are not quite young men as yet, to think that to be
wicked is rather smart; to think it shows that they are
men. Oh, how often you see some young fellow who
boasts that he is going to "see life," meaning by that
that he is going to see that part of life which it is a
thousand-fold better should remain unseen! I ask that
every man here constitute himself his brother's keeper by
setting an example to that younger brother which will
prevent him from getting such a false estimate of life.
Example is the most potent of all things. If any one of
you in the presence of younger boys, and especially the
younger people of your own family, misbehaves yourself,
if you use coarse and blasphemous language before them,
you can be sure that these younger people will follow
your example and not your precept. It is no use to
preach to them if you do not act decently yourself. You
must feel that the most effective way in which you can
preach is by your practice.
As I was driving up here a friend who was with us said
that in his experience the boy who went out into life with
a foul tongue was apt so to go because his kinsfolk, at
least his intimate associates, themselves had foul tongues.
The father, the elder brothers, the friends, can do much
toward seeing that the boys as they become men become
clean and honorable men.
I have told you that I wanted you not only to be decent,
but to be strong. These boys will not admire virtue
of a merely anemic type. They believe in courage,
in manliness. They admire those who have the quality
of being brave, the quality of facing life as life should be
faced, the quality that must stand at the root of good
citizenship in peace or in war. If you are to be effective
as good Christians you must possess strength and courage,
or your example will count for little with the young
the men of the Holy Name Society, you who embody
the qualities which the younger people admire, by your
example give those young people the tendency, the trend,
in the right direction; and remember that this example
counts in many other ways besides cleanliness of speech.
I want to see every man able to hold his own with the
strong, and also ashamed to oppress the weak. I want
to see each young fellow able to do a man's work in the
world, and of a type which will not permit imposition to
be permitted upon him. I want to see him too strong
of spirit to submit to wrong, and, on the other hand,
ashamed to do wrong to others. I want to see each man
able to hold his own in the rough work of actual life outside,
and also, when he is at home, a good man, unselfish
in dealing with wife, or mother, or children. Remember
that the preaching does not count if it is not backed up
by practice. There is no good in your preaching to your
boys to be brave, if you run away. There is no good in
your preaching to them to tell the truth if you do not.
There is no good in your preaching to them to be unselfish
if they see you selfish with your wife, disregardful
of others. We have a right to expect that you will come
together in meetings like this; that you will march in
processions; that you will join in building up such a
great and useful association as this; and even more we
have a right to expect that in your own homes and among
your own associates you will prove by your deeds that
yours is not a lip loyalty merely; that you show in actual
practice the faith that is in you.
| Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 | |