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Title: Good citizenship

Author: Grover Cleveland

Release Date: May 23, 2022 [eBook #68159]

Language: English

Produced by: David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
             images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CITIZENSHIP ***





  GOOD
  CITIZENSHIP

  BY
  GROVER
  CLEVELAND

  [Illustration]

  PHILADELPHIA

  HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY




  Copyright, 1908, by Howard E. Altemus

  Published June, 1908




CONTENTS


  Introduction                            5

  Good Citizenship                       11

  Patriotism and Holiday Observance      37




INTRODUCTION


It is not of the author’s own motion that the following essays are
given to the public in this form. With characteristic modesty, Mr.
Cleveland was willing that these addresses should lie undiscovered and
unread in the limbo of pigeonholes or of yellowing newspaper-file; and
yet the thoughtful reader will be the first to proclaim that these
utterances are neither insignificant nor ephemeral. Their very themes
are age-old. Before Rome was, Patriotism and Good Citizenship were the
purest and loftiest ideals of the ancient world; and, through the
ages that have followed, those nations have been noblest, bravest and
most enduring in which love of home and love of country have been most
deep-seated.

Mr. Cleveland’s address on Good Citizenship was delivered before the
Commercial Club of Chicago in October, 1903; and that on Patriotism and
Holiday Observance before the Union League Club, of the same city, on
Washington’s Birthday, 1907. Now, with Mr. Cleveland’s sanction, they
appear for the first time in book form.

No one can scan these pages, however hastily, without saying to
himself, “Here is a man who preaches what, for a lifetime, he has been
practicing.”

Not all patriotism finds expression in the heat and joy of the
battlefield; nor does good citizenship begin and end on election day.
Mr. Cleveland has, in himself, proved that an upright and fearless
chief magistrate in the White House may be as true a patriot as the
leader of a forlorn hope, as lofty a type of citizen as a Garrison or
a Phillips. No public man of this generation has been more bitterly
assailed than Grover Cleveland; none has met with more unswerving
serenity the attacks, fair and foul, of those whose selfish interests
have made them his sworn foes.

That famous phrase, uttered years ago, “We love him for the enemies he
has made,” is a true saying.

                                                       THE PUBLISHERS.




GOOD CITIZENSHIP

[Illustration]




GOOD CITIZENSHIP


There is danger that my subject of American good citizenship
is so familiar and so trite as to lack interest. This does not
necessarily result from a want of appreciation of the importance of
good citizenship, nor from a denial of the duty resting upon every
American to be a good citizen. There is, however, abroad in our land a
self-satisfied and perfunctory notion that we do all that is required
of us in this direction when we make profession of our faith in the
creed of good citizenship and abstain from the commission of palpably
unpatriotic sins.

We ought not to be badgered and annoyed by the preaching and
exhortation of a restless, troublesome set of men, who continually
urge upon us the duty of active and affirmative participation in
public affairs. Why should we be charged with neglect of political
obligations? We go to the polls on election day, when not too busy with
other things, and vote the ticket our party managers have prepared
for us. Sometimes, when conditions grow to be so bad politically
that a revival or stirring-up becomes necessary, a goodly number
of us actually devote considerable time and effort to better the
situation. Of course, we cannot do this always, because we must not
neglect money-getting and the promotion of great enterprises, which,
as everybody knows, are the evidence of a nation’s prosperity and
influence.

It seems to me that within our citizenship there are many whose
disposition and characteristics very often resemble those found in the
membership of our churches. In this membership there is a considerable
proportion composed of those who, having made profession of their
faith and joined the church, appear to think their duty done when they
live honestly, attend worship regularly, and contribute liberally
to church support. In complacent satisfaction, and certain of their
respectability, they do not care to hear sermonizing concerning the
sinfulness of human nature, or the wrath to come; and if haply they
are sometimes roused by the truths of vital Christianity, they soon
relapse again to their tranquil and easy condition of listlessness. A
description of these, found in the Holy Writ, may fitly apply to many
in the State as well as in the church:

“For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a
man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself,
and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he
was.”

There is an habitual associate of civic American indifference and
listlessness, which reënforces their malign tendencies and adds
tremendously to the dangers that threaten our body politic. This
associate plays the _rôle_ of smooth, insinuating confidence operator
and, clothed in the garb of immutable faith in the invulnerability of
our national greatness, it invites our admiring gaze to the flight of
the American eagle, and assures us that no tempestuous weather can ever
tire his wings. Thus many good and honest men are approached through
their patriotic trust in our free institutions and immense national
resources, and are insidiously led to a condition of mind which will
not permit them to =harbor= the uncomfortable thought that any omission
on their part can check American progress or endanger our country’s
continued development. Have we not lived as a nation more than a
century; and have we not exhibited growth and achievement in every
direction that discredit all parallels in history? After us the deluge.
Why then need we bestir ourselves, and why disturb ourselves with
public affairs?

Those of our citizens who are deluded by these notions, and who allow
themselves to be brought to such a frame of mind, may well be reminded
of the good old lady who was wont to impressively declare that she had
always noticed if she lived until the first of March she lived all the
rest of the year. It is quite likely she built a theory upon this
experience which induced her with the passing of each of these fateful
days to defy coughs, colds and consumption and the attacks of germs and
microbes in a million forms. However this may be, we know that with no
design or intention on her part, there came a first day of March which
passed without her earthly notice.

The withdrawal of wholesome sentiment and patriotic activity from
political action on the part of those who are indifferent to their
duty, or foolhardy in their optimism, opens the way for a ruthless and
unrelenting enemy of our free institutions. The abandonment of our
country’s watch-towers by those who should be on guard, and the slumber
of the sentinels who should never sleep, directly invite the stealthy
approach and the pillage and loot of the forces of selfishness and
greed. These baleful enemies of patriotic effort will lurk everywhere
as long as human nature remains unregenerate; but nowhere in the world
can they create such desolations as in free America, and nowhere
can they so cruelly destroy man’s highest and best aspirations for
self-government.

It is useless for us to blink at the fact that our scheme of
government is based upon a close interdependence of interest and
purpose among those who make up the body of our people. Let us be
honest with ourselves. If our nation was built too much upon sentiment,
and if the rules of patriotism and benignity that were followed in the
construction have proved too impractical, let us frankly admit it.
But if love of country, equal opportunity and genuine brotherhood in
citizenship are worth the pains and trials that gave them birth, and
if we still believe them to be worth preservation and that they have
the inherent vigor and beneficence to make our republic lasting and
our people happy, let us strongly hold them in love and devotion. Then
it shall be given us to plainly see that nothing is more unfriendly to
the motives that underlie our national edifice than the selfishness
and cupidity that look upon freedom and law and order only as so many
agencies in aid of their designs.

Our government was made by patriotic, unselfish, sober-minded men for
the control or protection of a patriotic, unselfish and sober-minded
people. It is suited to such a people; but for those who are selfish,
corrupt and unpatriotic it is the worst government on earth. It is so
constructed that it needs for its successful operation the constant
care and guiding hand of the people’s abiding faith and love, and
not only is this unremitting guidance necessary to keep our national
mechanism true to its work, but the faith and love which prompt it are
the best safeguards against selfish citizenship.

Give to our people something that will concentrate their common
affection and solicitous care, and let them be their country’s good;
give them a purpose that stimulates them to unite in lofty endeavor,
and let that purpose be a demonstration of the sufficiency and
beneficence of our popular rule, and we shall find that in their
political thought there will be no place for the suggestions of
sordidness and pelf.

Who will say that this is now our happy condition? Is not our public
life saturated with the indecent demands of selfishness? More than
this, can any of us doubt the existence of still more odious and
detestable evils which, with steady, cankering growth, are more
directly than all others threatening our safety and national life? I
speak of the corruption of our suffrage, open and notorious, of the
buying and selling of political places for money, the purchase of
political favors and privileges, and the traffic in official duty for
personal gain. These things are confessedly common. Every intelligent
man knows that they have grown from small beginnings until they have
reached frightful proportions of malevolence; and yet respectable
citizens by the thousands have looked on with perfect calmness, and
with hypocritical cant have declared they are not politicians, or with
silly pretensions of faith in our strength and luck have languidly
claimed that the country was prosperous, equal to any emergency and
proof against all dangers.

Resulting from these conditions in a manner not difficult to trace,
wholesome national sentiment is threatened with utter perversion. All
sorts of misconceptions pervade the public thought, and jealousies,
rapidly taking on the complexion of class hatred, are found in
every corner of the land. A new meaning has been given to national
prosperity. With a hardihood that savors of insolence, an old pretext,
which has preceded the doom of ancient experiments in popular vote, is
daily and hourly dinned in our ears. We are told that the national
splendor we have built upon the showy ventures of speculative wealth
is a badge of our success. Unsharing contentment is enjoined upon the
masses of our people, and they are invited, in the bare subsistence
of their scanty homes, to patriotically rejoice in their country’s
prosperity.

This is too unsubstantial an enjoyment of benefits to satisfy those
who have been taught American equality, and thus has arisen, by a
perfectly natural process, a dissatisfied insistence upon a better
distribution of the results of our vaunted prosperity. We now see
its worst manifestation in the apparently incorrigible dislocation
of the proper relations between labor and capital. This of itself is
sufficiently distressing; but thoughtful men are not without dread of
sadder developments yet to come.

There has also grown up among our people a disregard for the restraints
of law and a disposition to evade its limitations, while querulous
strictures concerning the actions of our courts tend to undermine
popular faith in the course of justice, and, last but by no means
least, complaints of imaginary or exaggerated shortcomings in our
financial policies furnish an excuse for the flippant exploitation of
all sorts of monetary nostrums.

I hasten to give assurance that I have not spoken in a spirit of gloomy
pessimism. I have faith that the awakening is forthcoming, and on
this faith I build a cheerful hope for the healing of all the wounds
inflicted in slumber and neglect.

It is true that there should be an end of self-satisfied gratification,
or pretense of virtue, in the phrase, “I am not a politician,” and it
is time to forbid the prostitution of the word to a sinister use. Every
citizen should be politician enough to bring himself within the true
meaning of the term, as one who concerns himself with “the regulation
or government of a nation or State for the preservation of its safety,
peace and prosperity.” This is politics in its best sense, and this is
good citizenship.

If good men are to interfere to make political action what it should
be, they must not suppose they will come upon an open field unoccupied
by an opposing force. On the ground they neglected they will find a
host of those who engage in politics for personal ends and selfish
purposes, and =this= ground cannot be taken without a hand-to-hand
conflict. The attack must be made under the banner of disinterested
good citizenship, by soldiers drilled in lessons of patriotism. They
must be enlisted for life and constantly on duty.

Their creed should bind together in generous coöperation all who are
willing to fight to make our government what the fathers intended it to
be--a depository of benefits which, in equal current and volume, should
flow out to all the people. This creed should teach the wickedness of
attempting to make free opportunity the occasion for seizing especial
advantages, and should warn against the danger of ruthless rapacity.
It should deprecate ostentation and extravagance in the life of our
people, and demand in the management of public affairs simplicity
and strict economy. It should teach toleration in all things save
dishonesty and infidelity to public trusts.

It should insist that our finance and currency concern not alone the
large traders, merchants and bankers of our land, but that they are
intimately and every day related to the well-being of our people in
all conditions of life, and that, therefore, if any adjustments are
necessary they should be made in such manner as shall certainly
maintain the soundness of our people’s earnings and the security of
their savings. It should enjoin respect for the law as the quality that
cements the fabric of organized society and makes possible a government
by the people. And in every sentence and every line of this creed of
good citizenship the lesson should be taught that our country is a
beautiful and productive field to be cultivated by loyal Americans,
who, with weapons near at hand, whether they sow and reap or whether
they rest, will always be prepared to resist those who attempt to
despoil by day and pilfer in the night.

In the day when all shadows shall have passed away and when good
citizenship shall have made sure the safety, permanence and happiness
of our nation, how small will appear the strifes of selfishness in
our civic life, and how petty will seem the machinations of degraded
politics.

There shall be set over against them in that time a reverent sense
of coöperation in Heaven’s plans for our people’s greatness, and
the joyous pride of standing among those who, in the comradeship of
American good citizenship, have so protected and defended our heritage
of self-government that our treasures are safe in the citadel of
patriotism, “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal.”




PATRIOTISM AND HOLIDAY OBSERVANCE

[Illustration]




PATRIOTISM AND HOLIDAY OBSERVANCE


The American people are but little given to the observance of public
holidays. This statement cannot be disposed of by the allegation that
our national history is too brief to allow the accumulation of days
deserving civic commemoration. Though it is true that our life as a
people, according to the standard measuring the existence of nations,
has been a short one, it has been filled with glorious achievements;
and, though it must be conceded that it is not given to us to see in
the magnifying mirage of antiquity the exaggerated forms of American
heroes, yet in the bright and normal light shed upon our beginning and
growth are seen grand and heroic men who have won imperishable honor
and deserve our everlasting remembrance. We cannot, therefore, excuse a
lack of commemorative inclination and a languid interest in recalling
the notable incidents of our country’s past under the plea of a lack
of commemorative material; nor can we in this way explain our neglect
adequately to observe days which have actually been set apart for the
especial manifestation of our loving appreciation of the lives and the
deeds of Americans who, in crises of our birth and development, have
sublimely wrought and nobly endured.

If we are inclined to look for other excuses, one may occur to us
which, though by no means satisfying, may appear to gain a somewhat
fanciful plausibility by reason of its reference to the law of
heredity. It rests upon the theory that those who secured for American
nationality its first foothold, and watched over its weak infancy were
so engrossed with the persistent and unescapable labors that pressed
upon them, and that their hopes and aspirations led them so constantly
to thoughts of the future, that retrospection nearly became with them
an extinct faculty, and that thus it may have happened that exclusive
absorption in things pertaining to the present and future became
so embedded in their natures as to constitute a trait of character
descendible to their posterity, even to the present generation. The
toleration of this theory leads to the suggestion that an inheritance
of disposition has made it difficult for the generation of to-day to
resist the temptation inordinately to strive for immediate material
advantages, to the exclusion of the wholesome sentiment that recalls
the high achievements and noble lives which have illumined our national
career. Some support is given to this suggestion by the concession,
which we cannot escape, that there is abroad in our land an inclination
to use to the point of abuse the opportunities of personal betterment,
given under a scheme of rule which permits the greatest individual
liberty, and interposes the least hindrance to individual acquisition;
and that in the pursuit of this we are apt to carry in our minds, if
not upon our lips, the legend:

“Things done are won; joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

But the question is whether all this accounts for our indifference to
the proper observance of public holidays which deserve observance.

There is another reason which might be advanced in mitigation of our
lack of commemorative enthusiasm, which is so related to our pride
of Americanism that, if we could be certain of its sufficiency, we
would gladly accept it as conclusive. It has to do with the underlying
qualities and motives of our free institutions. Those institutions
had their birth and nurture in unselfish patriotism and unreserved
consecration; and, by a decree of fate beyond recall or change, their
perpetuity and beneficence are conditioned on the constant devotion
and single-hearted loyalty of those to whom their blessings are
vouchsafed. It would be a joy if we could know that all the bright
incidents in our history were so much in the expected order of events,
and that patriotism and loving service are so familiar in our present
surroundings, and so clear in their manifestation, as to dull the
edge of their especial commendation. If the utmost of patriotism and
unselfish devotion in the promotion of our national interests have
always been and still remain universal, there would hardly be need of
their commemoration.

But, after all, why should we attempt to delude ourselves? I am
confident that I voice your convictions when I say that no play of
ingenuity and no amount of special pleading can frame an absolutely
creditable excuse for our remissness in appropriate holiday observance.

You will notice that I use the words “holiday observance.” I have not
in mind merely the selection or appointment of days which have been
thought worthy of celebration. Such an appointment or selection is
easy, and very frequently it is the outcome of a perfunctory concession
to apparent propriety, or of a transient movement of affectionate
sentiment. But I speak of the observance of holidays, and such
holidays as not only have a substantial right to exist, but which
ought to have a lasting hold upon the sentiment of our people--days
which, as often as they recur, should stimulate in the hearts of our
countrymen a grateful recognition of what God has done for mankind,
and especially for the American nation; days which stir our consciences
and sensibilities with promptings to unselfish and unadulterated love
of country; days which warm and invigorate our devotion to the supreme
ideals which gave life to our institutions and their only protection
against death and decay. I speak of holidays which demand observance by
our people in spirit and in truth.

The commemoration of the day on which American independence was born
has been allowed to lose much of its significance as a reminder of
Providential favor and of the inflexible patriotism of the fathers
of the republic, and has nearly degenerated into a revel of senseless
noise and aimless explosion, leaving in its train far more of mishap
and accident than lessons of good citizenship or pride of country.
The observance of Thanksgiving Day is kept alive through its annual
designation by Federal and State authority. But it is worth our while
to inquire whether its original meaning, as a day of united praise and
gratitude to God for the blessings bestowed upon us as a people and as
individuals, is not smothered in feasting and social indulgence. We, in
common with Christian nations everywhere, celebrate Christmas, but how
much less as a day commemorating the birth of the Redeemer of mankind
than as a day of hilarity and the interchange of gifts.

I will not, without decided protest, be accused of antagonizing or
deprecating light-hearted mirth and jollity. On the contrary, I am an
earnest advocate of every kind of sane, decent, social enjoyment, and
all sorts of recreation. But, nevertheless, I feel that the allowance
of an incongruous possession by them of our commemorative days is
evidence of a certain condition, and is symptomatic of a popular
tendency, which are by no means reassuring.

On the days these words are written, a prominent and widely read
newspaper contains a communication in regard to the observance of the
birthday of the late President McKinley. Its tone plainly indicates
that the patriotic society which has for its primary purpose the
promotion of this particular commemoration recognizes the need of a
revival of interest in the observance of all other memorial days, and
it announces that “its broader object is to instil into the hearts and
minds of the people a desire for real, patriotic observance of all of
our national days.”

Beyond all doubt, the commemorations of the birth of American heroes
and statesmen who have rendered redemptive service to their country
in emergencies of peace and war should be rescued from entire neglect
and from fitful and dislocated remembrance. And, while it would be
more gratifying to be assured that throughout our country there was
such a spontaneous appreciation of this need, that in no part of
our domain would there be a necessity of urging such commemorations
by self-constituted organizations, yet it is comforting to know
that, in the midst of prevailing apathy, there are those among us
who have determined that the memory of the events and lives we
should commemorate shall not be smothered in the dust and =smoke= of
sordidness, nor crushed out by ruthless materialism.

On this day the Union League Club of Chicago should especially rejoice
in the consciousness of patriotic accomplishment; and on this day,
of all others, every one of its members should regard his membership
as a badge of honor. Whatever else the organization may have done,
it has justified its existence, and earned the applause of those
whose love of country is still unclouded, by the work it has done for
the deliverance of Washington’s birthday from neglect or indolent
remembrance. I deem it a great privilege to be allowed to participate
with the League in a commemoration so exactly designed, not only to
remind those of mature years of the duty exacted by their heirship in
American free institutions, but to teach children the inestimable value
of those institutions, to inspire them to emulation of the virtues in
which our nation had its birth, and to lead them to know the nobility
of patriotic citizenship. The palpable and immediate good growing out
of the commemorations which for twenty years have occurred under the
auspices of the League are less impressive than the assurance that, in
generations yet to come, the seed thus sown in the hearts of children
and youth will bear the fruit of disinterested love of country and
saving steadfastness to our national mission.

In furtherance of the high endeavor of your organization, it would have
been impossible to select for observance any other civic holiday having
as broad and fitting a significance as this. It memorizes the birth of
one whose glorious deeds are transcendently above all others recorded
in our national annals; and, in memorizing the birth of Washington,
it commemorates the incarnation of all the virtues and all the ideals
that made our nationality possible, and gave it promise of growth and
strength. It is a holiday that belongs exclusively to the American
people. All that Washington did was bound up in our national life, and
became interwoven with the warp of our national destiny. The battles he
fought were fought for American liberty, and the victories he won gave
us national independence. His example of unselfish consecration and
lofty patriotism made manifest, as in an open book, that those virtues
were conditions not more vital to our nation’s beginning than to its
development and durability. His faith in God, and the fortitude of his
faith, taught those for whom he wrought that the surest strength of
nations comes from the support of God’s almighty arm. His universal and
unaffected sympathy with those in every sphere of American life, his
thorough knowledge of existing American conditions, and his wonderful
foresight of conditions yet to be, coupled with his powerful influence
in the councils of those who were to make or mar the fate of an infant
nation, made him a tremendous factor in the construction and adoption
of the constitutional chart by which the course of the newly launched
republic could be safely sailed. And it was he who first took the
helm, and demonstrated, for the guidance of all who might succeed him,
how and in what spirit and intent the responsibilities of our chief
magistracy should be discharged.

If your observance of this day were intended to make more secure the
immortal fame of Washington, or to add to the strength and beauty
of his imperishable monument built upon a nation’s affectionate
remembrance, =your= purpose would be useless. Washington has no need
of you. But in every moment, from the time he drew his sword in the
cause of American independence to this hour, living or dead, the
American people have needed him. It is not important now, nor will it
be in all the coming years, to remind our countrymen that Washington
has lived, and that his achievements in his country’s service are
above all praise. But it is important--and more important now than
ever before--that they should clearly apprehend and adequately value
the virtues and ideals of which he was the embodiment, and that they
should realize how essential to our safety and perpetuity are the
consecration and patriotism which he exemplified. The American people
need to-day the example and teachings of Washington no less than those
who fashioned our =nation= needed his labors and guidance; and only so
far as we commemorate his birth with a sincere recognition of this need
can our commemoration be useful to the present generation.

It is, therefore, above all things, absolutely essential to an
appropriately commemorative condition of mind that there should be no
toleration of even the shade of a thought that what Washington did
and said and wrote, in aid of the young American republic have become
in the least outworn, or that in these later days of material advance
and development they may be merely pleasantly recalled with a sort
of affectionate veneration, and with a kind of indulgent and loftily
courteous concession of the value of Washington’s example and precepts.
These constitute the richest of all our crown jewels; and, if we
disregard them or depreciate their value, we shall be no better than
“the base Indian who threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.”

They are full of stimulation to do grand and noble things, and full
of lessons enjoining loyal adherence to public duty. But they teach
nothing more impressive and nothing more needful by way of recalling
our countrymen to a faith which has become somewhat faint and obscured
than the necessity to national beneficence and the =people’s= happiness
of the homely, simple, personal virtues that grow and thrive in the
hearts of men who, with high intent, illustrate the goodness there is
in human nature.

Three months before his inauguration as first President of the
republic which he had done so much to create, Washington wrote a
letter to Lafayette, his warm friend and Revolutionary ally, in which
he expressed his unremitting desire to establish a general system of
policy which, if pursued, would “ensure permanent felicity to the
commonwealth;” and he added these words:

“I think I see a path as clear and as direct as a ray of light, which
leads to the attainment of that object. Nothing but harmony, honesty,
industry and frugality is necessary to make us a great and happy
people Happily, the present posture of affairs, and the prevailing
disposition of my countrymen promise to coöperate in establishing those
four great and essential pillars of public felicity.”

It is impossible for us to be in accord with the spirit which should
pervade this occasion if we fail to realize the momentous import of
this declaration, and if we doubt its conclusiveness or its application
to any stage of our national life, we are not in sympathy with a proper
and improving observance of the birthday of George Washington.

Such considerations as these suggest the thought that this is a time
for honest self-examination. The question presses upon us with a demand
for reply that will not be denied:

Who among us all, if our hearts are purged of misleading impulses and
our minds freed from perverting pride, can be sure that to-day the
posture of affairs and the prevailing disposition of our countrymen
coöperate in the establishment and promotion of harmony, honesty,
industry and frugality?

When Washington wrote that nothing but these was necessary to make
us a great and happy people, he had in mind the harmony of American
brotherhood and unenvious good-will, the honesty that insures against
the betrayal of public trust and hates devious ways and conscienceless
practices, the industry that recognizes in faithful work and
intelligent endeavor abundant promise of well-earned competence and
provident accumulation, and the frugality which outlaws waste and
extravagant display as plunderers of thrift and promoters of covetous
discontent.

The self-examination invited by this day’s commemoration will be
incomplete and superficial if we are not thereby forced to the
confession that there are signs of the times which indicate a weakness
and relaxation of our hold upon these saving virtues. When thus
forewarned, it is the height of recreancy for us obstinately to close
our eyes to the needs of the situation, and refuse admission to the
thought that evil can overtake us. If we are to deserve security,
and make good our claim to sensible, patriotic Americanism, we will
carefully and dutifully take our bearings, and discover, if we can, how
far wind and tide have carried us away from safe waters.

If we find that the wickedness of destructive agitators and the
selfish depravity of demagogues have stirred up discontent and strife
where there should be peace and harmony, and have arrayed against each
other interests which should dwell together in hearty coöperation;
if we find that the old standards of sturdy, uncompromising American
honesty have become so corroded and weakened by a sordid atmosphere
that our people are hardly startled by crime in high places and
shameful betrayals of trust everywhere; if we find a sadly prevalent
disposition among us to turn from the highway of honorable industry
into shorter crossroads leading to irresponsible and worthless ease; if
we find that widespread wastefulness and extravagance have discredited
the wholesome frugality which was once the pride of Americanism we
should recall Washington’s admonition that harmony, industry and
frugality are “essential pillars of public felicity,” and forthwith
endeavor to change our course.

To neglect this is not only to neglect the admonition of Washington,
but to miss or neglect the conditions which our self-examination has
made plain to us. These conditions demand something more from us than
warmth and zest in the tribute we pay to Washington, and something more
even than acceptance of his teachings, however reverent our acceptance
may be.

The sooner we reach a state of mind which keeps constantly before us,
as a living, active, impelling force, the truth that our people, good
or bad, harmonious or with =daggers= drawn, honest or unscrupulous,
industrious or idle, constitute the source of our nation’s temperament
and health, and that the traits and faults of our people must
necessarily give quality and color to our national behavior, the
sooner we shall appreciate the importance of protecting this source
from unwholesome contamination. And the sooner all of us honestly
acknowledge this to be an individual duty that cannot be shifted or
evaded, and the more thoroughly we purge ourselves from influences that
hinder its conscientious performance, the sooner will our country be
regenerated and made secure by the saving power of good citizenship.

It is our habit to affiliate with political parties. Happily, the
strength and solidity of our institutions can safely withstand the
utmost freedom and activity of political discussion so far as it
involves the adoption of governmental policies or the enforcement of
good administration. But they cannot withstand the frenzy of hate which
seeks, under the guise of political earnestness, to blot out American
brotherhood, and cunningly to persuade our people that a crusade of
envy and malice is no more than a zealous insistence upon their manhood
rights.

Political parties are exceedingly human; and they more easily fall
before temptation than individuals, by so much as partisan success is
the law of their life, and because their responsibility is impersonal.
It is easily recalled that political organizations have been quite
willing to utilize gusts of popular prejudice and resentment; and I
believe they have been known, as a matter of shrewd management, to
encourage voters to hope for some measure of relief from economic
abuses, and yet to “stand pat” on the day appointed for realization.

We have fallen upon a time when it behooves =every= thoughtful citizen,
whose political beliefs are based on reason and who cares enough for
his manliness and duty to save them from barter, to realize that the
organization of the party of his choice needs watching, and that at
times it is not amiss critically to observe its direction and tendency.
This certainly ought to result in our country’s gain; and it is only
partisan impudence that condemns a member of a political party who, on
proper occasion, submits its conduct and the loyalty to principle of
its leaders to a Court of Review, over which his conscience, his reason
and his political understanding preside.

I protest that I have not spoken in a spirit of pessimism. I have and
enjoy my full share of the pride and exultation which our country’s
material advancement so fully justifies. Its limitless resources,
its astonishing growth, its unapproachable industrial development and
its irrepressible inventive genius have made it the wonder of the
centuries. Nevertheless, these things do not complete the story of
a people truly great. Our country is infinitely more than a domain
affording to those who dwell upon it immense material advantages
and opportunities. In such a country we live. But I love to think
of a glorious nation built upon the will of free men, set apart for
the propagation and cultivation of humanity’s best ideal of a free
government, and made ready for the growth and fruitage of the highest
aspirations of patriotism. This is the country that lives in us. I
indulge in no mere figure of speech when I say that our nation, the
immortal spirit of our domain, lives in us--in our hearts and minds
and consciences. There it must find its nutriment or die. This thought
more than any other presents to our minds the impressiveness and
responsibility of American citizenship. The land we live in seems to
be strong and active. But how fares the land that lives in us? Are we
sure that we are doing all we ought to keep it in vigor and health?
Are we keeping its roots well surrounded by the fertile soil of loving
allegiance, and are we furnishing them the invigorating moisture of
unselfish fidelity? Are we as diligent as we ought to be to protect
this precious =growth= against the poison that must arise from the
decay of harmony and honesty and industry and frugality; and are we
sufficiently watchful against the deadly, burrowing pests of consuming
greed and cankerous cupidity? Our answers to these questions make up
the account of our stewardship as keepers of a sacred trust.

The land we live in is safe as long as we are dutifully careful of the
land that lives in us. But good intentions and fine sentiments will
not meet the emergency. If we would bestow upon the land that lives in
us the care it needs, it is indispensable that we should recognize the
weakness of our human nature, and our susceptibility to temptations and
influences that interfere with a full conception of our obligations;
and thereupon we should see to it that cupidity and selfishness do not
blind our consciences or dull our efforts.

From different points of view I have invited you to consider with
me what obligations and responsibilities rest upon those who in
this country of ours are entitled to be called good citizens. The
things I pointed out may be trite. I know I have spoken in the way
of exhortation rather than with an attempt to say something new and
striking. Perhaps you have suspected, what I am quite willing to
confess, that, behind all that I have said, there is in my mind a sober
conviction that we all can and ought to do more for the country that
lives in us than it has been our habit to do; and that no better means
to this end are at hand than a revival of pure patriotic affection
for our country for its own sake, and the acceptance, as permanent
occupants in our hearts and minds, of the virtues which Washington
regarded as all that was necessary to make us a great and happy people,
and which he declared to be “the great and essential pillars of public
felicity”--harmony, honesty, industry and frugality.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Spaced-out text is surrounded by equals signs: =spaced=.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.


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