US Presidency
1905

Upon the success ofour experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but asregards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self governmentthroughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibilityis heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generationsyet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, butthere is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding fromourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approachthese problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright. Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set beforeus differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preservedthis Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and theseproblems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self government is difficult.