US Presidency
1905

My fellow citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankfulthan ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness inour own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessedus with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measureof well being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted tolay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are theheirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties whichin old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which themanlier and hardier virtues wither away.