University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION

By HENRY CABOT LODGE

Dr. Johnson wisely said that no man was ever written
down except by himself. It is equally true that no man
was ever written up except by himself, and although advertisement
and notoriety are so often mistaken for fame,
there is no doubt that a solid and lasting reputation can
only be made by what a man says and does himself and
not by what others may say about him. Despite, therefore,
the great extension of the interview and of the habit
of "writing people up" in the newspapers, whether favorably
or unfavorably, the formal political or campaign
biography, so much in favor in former days, has of late
largely disappeared. It is still the custom in England to
publish for political purposes biographies of living men
who are in the full tide of public activity, but in this
country such works have gone very much out of fashion.
It used to be the inevitable as well as the conventional
practice to write and publish the lives of Presidential
candidates in more or less serious and elaborate books
when the time for their election approached. These volumes
were prepared often with much care, and in at least
two instances men of the highest literary reputation were
called upon to perform the task. Hawthorne wrote the
campaign life of Franklin Pierce, and Howells that of
President Hayes. But even their great reputations could
not save these biographies from oblivion, and what they
failed to make of permanent value, in the hands of lesser
men were utterly ephemeral. It is no doubt a sense of

this failure, joined to the further fact that all the incidents,
both real and imaginary, in the career of a Presidential
candidate are now put within every one's reach
by the daily newspapers, that has caused the practical
disappearance of these biographies, which were written to
enlighten voters and attract votes to their subject.

The case, however, is widely different when we come
to what Dr. Johnson considered the only real foundation
of a man's reputation—sthat which he has done or said or
written himself. It is most important that people should
be able to read and, let us hope, ponder well what has
been written or said by any man to whom they are asked
to intrust the Presidency of the United States. For that
reason this volume has far more significance than that of
being merely an addition to the collected works of President
Roosevelt. Here have been brought together certain
important speeches and messages which express the
President's opinions upon subjects with which he has felt
it his duty to deal since he has been charged with the
highest public duties. In the still distant future they
will form a most important contribution to the history
of the time, as is always the case with the words and
thoughts of men who have had the largest share in their
day in directing the course and fortunes of the country.
It will also be for that distant future to decide what place
these speeches shall take and hold in that very small
group which are remembered and repeated among men,
not as history, but as literature. At the present moment,
however, they have the peculiar and most important
interest of being the utterances of a man who has not
only filled the highest place in the gift of the American
people, but who now stands before that people for their
direct approbation and for re-election to office. This is
neither the time nor the place to analyze or criticise these
speeches from the point-of view of their permanent position
as examples of literature or of oratory, or even to

attempt to measure the historical value which the coming
generations will surely place upon them. That which
concerns us at the moment is the light which they throw
upon the speaker himself, upon what he has done, and
upon what the man who, with the gravest public responsibility
resting on him, thinks and speaks in this way,
may be counted upon to do in the future.

President Roosevelt's speeches, it is needless to say,
have the quality sure to be imparted to the spoken word
by a man of the highest education, who has read widely
and thought deeply, and who has had the invaluable
mental training which comes from many years of historical
study. All the attributes which these habits of
thought and education imply may be found here, but
these speeches have one quality which is more important
at this moment certainly than any other, although its
value and meaning also to those who come after us can
hardly be overrated. That which marks President Roosevelt's
speeches beyond anything else is their entire sincerity.
What he says is pre-eminently genuine, for all his
utterances not only come straight from the heart, but are
set forth with an energy and force of conviction which
are as apparent as they are characteristic. He has no
secrets. The truth that is in him rises unchecked to his
lips. President Roosevelt would never have succeeded
in a diplomacy which deserved the ancient witticism of
Sir Henry Wotton when he described an ambassador as
"an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth,"—still
less can he use language for the purpose
of concealing thought. If he speaks at all he must perforce
say what he thinks, and thus it comes to pass that
men may know him as he is, a knowledge very important
just now to the people of the United States. In daily
life, there is nothing so unpleasant as pretence, nothing
which is so restful as reality. If we know that a man or
woman is real and not a sham we can bear easily with many

a defect or shortcoming. Even an unpleasant truth is, in
the long run, a better companion than a genial falsehood,
and the greatest failures among men are those who dwell
among illusions, the greatest victors those who have
looked facts, whether they smiled or frowned, steadily in
the face. If, then, sham and pretence are so much to be
shunned in the intercourse of private life, how infinitely
more important is it to know as they really are, the men
to whom the fate of the country is to be intrusted. But
we cannot hope to know such men from the narratives or
the criticisms of others. The only sure authority is the
man himself if he be at once honest and fearless. The
biographer may flatter, the political friend may paint
the portrait all in rose, and the political enemy may draw
it in unrelieved shadow with the blackest charcoal, but
there can be no mistake about what the man himself has
said. In this case we may read the speeches here printed
with the profound assurance that whether we agree with
the opinions expressed or not, the man who uttered them
meant exactly what he said because he is both honest and
fearless. In the clear note which carries the conviction
of absolute truth, in the accent of profound sincerity lies
one of the great attributes of the highest eloquence, but
far more important here than any quality of oratory is
the fact that the words and the thoughts they embody
enable those who read to understand the man who speaks
them.

These speeches and letters and messages deal for the
most part with great public questions of varying degrees
of interest and importance, which in their solution
are making up the history of the United States at the
present moment, but in them all is heard not only the
unmistakable note of truth and courage, but also the earnest
tone of exhortation which we associate with the
preacher calling men upward to higher things. If President
Roosevelt were descended from the men who followed

Cromwell in battle or sailed with Winthrop across
the stormy Atlantic, we should say he derived this attitude
toward life from a Puritan ancestry. Without being
fanciful, we may fairly think that it comes down to him
from those ancestors of his own who died for the freedom
of their country and for their religious faith among the
dykes of Holland, or who gave their lives in support of
the Covenant among the rugged hills of Scotland. But
wherever this temperament may originate, there is no
doubt that through all the President's speeches there runs
the appeal of the great Apostle when he called upon men
to awake to righteousness and sin not. It is always hard
to catch the sound of the voice in the printed sentences
or to see the manner which accompanied them, but those
who have heard the President speak know that the earnestness
of the words is repeated both in manner and in
voice. He speaks always with an eagerness to convince
the reason and arouse the better judgment as well as the
best aspirations of his hearers, which can hardly be surpassed,
and this eagerness and energy of appeal shine out
in all the pages of this volume. For these reasons the
speeches here collected have a most peculiar value at this
precise moment. The American people are to be asked
to give again to Mr. Roosevelt the greatest trust and the
highest responsibility which any people can give to any
man. In these speeches they are able to see precisely
what manner of man he is. They can have the assurance
that he says always what he means and means always
what he says. They can judge him better from these
words which he himself has uttered than from countless
biographies or acres of newspaper sketches. Here in
these pages is the real man. We may agree or disagree
with his views, but we have that satisfaction which passes
all others of knowing that it is the man himself who speaks
to us and not a hollow voice sounding like that of a Greek
actor from behind a mask. We may think his views of
public policies are wise or unwise, but no one can read
these speeches and not realize that the man who made
them is not only intensely patriotic but that he is also
trying to make the world better, is seeking the triumph
of good over evil, and so far as he can do it is striving
to have righteousness prevail on the earth.