The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-11
IS LAUNCHED
roosevelt Makes His Bid for the
Presidency.
A BIG TALK IN CHICAGO
The Strenuous Life the Peg Upon
Which He Hung Bold National
Policy OF Thorougbgoing
Imperialism.

Chicago, April 10.--Seldom, if ever, in
Chicago has more enthusiastic body
of men met around the banquet table
than the one which met tonight under
the auspices of the Hamilton club to
celebrate Appomattox day and to greet
Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New
York, who had come from Albany as
the guest of honor of the club The
enthusiasm was extended in generous
measure to other speakers of the even
ing, but the greater part of it was given
to the governor when he rose to make
his address on The Strenuous Life.
The hall was a mass of waving hand
kerchiefs and napkins, and the cheers
that greeted him as he rose prevented
the speaker for many minutes from be-
ginning his speech. 1t was a greeting
such as one man does not receive more
than once or twice in lifetime The
boxes of the auditorium, in which the
banquet was held. as well as the seats
in the hall back of the banquet floor,
were filled with a large throng who
had come to look on and to listen to
the speeches, and these. as wei! as the
their invited guests, joined in the well
come that for a few minutes seemed
to overpower the governor.
Fully 600 were around the banquet
tables when President Cody, who pre-
sided. raped for order, and in short
put fehcitous address, introduced the
guest of the evening
AS soon as Governor Roosevelt was
given a chance to talk he spoke as
follows:
Toll and Effort.
Governor Roosevelt said:
In speaking to you, men of the
greatest city of the West, men of the
state which gave to the country Lin
coin and Grant, and who pre- eminent
ly and distinctly embody all that is
most American in the American char
acter, l wish to preach, not the doc
trine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine
of the strenuous life: the life Of toll and
effort; of labor and strife; to preach
that highest form Of success which
comes, not to the man who desires more
easy peace, but to the man who does
not shirk from danger, from hardship
or from bitter toll. and who out of
these wins the splendid ultimate tri-
umph.
"A life of ignoble ease, life of that
peace which springs merely from lack
either of desire or of power to strive
after great things, is as little worthy
of a nation az of an Individual I ask
only that what every self-respecting
American demands from himself and
from his sons. shall be demanded of
the American nation as a whole Who
among you would teach your boys that
case, that peace is to be the first con-
sideration in their eyes--to be the Ill
innate goal after which they strive?
You men of Chicago have made this
city great, you men of Illinois have
done your share, and more than your
share, in making America great, be-
cause you neither preach nor practice
such doctrine. You work yourselves
and you bring up your sons to work. If
you are rich and are wcrth your salt,
you will teach your sons that though
they may have leisure. it is not to be
spent in idleness: for wisely used leis-
ure merely means that those who pos
sess it, being free from the necessity of
working for their livelihood, are all the
more bound to carry on some kind of
non remunerative work in science in
letters, in art. in exploration, in his
torical research-work of the type we
most need in this country, the success
full carrying out of which reflects most
honor upon the nation. We do not ad-
mire the man of timid peace. We ad-
mlre the man who embodies victorious
efforts, the man who never wrongs his
nelghbor, who is prompt to help a
friend. but who has those virile quail
ties necessary to win the stern strife of
atcual life. 1t is hard to fail but it is
worse never to have tried to succeed.
In this life we get nothing save by eff
fort. Freedom from effort in the pres
ent merely means that there has been
stored up effort in the past A man
can be freed from the necessity of work
only by the fact that he or his fathers
before worked IN
pose. If the freedom thus purchased Is
used Alright, and the man still does
actual work, though of different kind,
whether as a writer or a general
whether in the field of politics or in the
field of exploration and adventure. he
shows he deserves his good fortune. But
if he treats this period of freedom from
the need of actual labor. as a period
not OF preparation, but of mere enjoy
ment, even though perhaps not of vi
cious enjoyment, he shows that he is
simply cumberer on the earth's sur
face; and he surely units himself to
hold his own with his fellows If the
need to do so should again arise A
mere life of ease is not in the end a
very satisfactory life, and, above all,
it is life which ultimately units those
who follow it for serious work in the
world.
A Base Untruth.
AS it is with the individual. so it is
with the nation. 1t is a base untruth to
say that happy is the nation that has
no history. Thrice happy is the nation
that has glorious history. Far better
is it to dare mighty things, to win glor-
ious triumphs, even though checkered
by failure. than to take rank with these
poor spirits who neither enjoy much
nor suffer much, because they live in
the gray twilight that knows neither
victory nor defeat. If in 1861 the men
who loved the union had believed that
peace was the end of all things and
war and strife worst of all things, and
had acted up to their belief, we would
have saved hundreds of thousands of
lives: we would have saved hundreds
of millions of dollars. Moreover. be-
sides saving all the blood and treasure
we then lavished. We would have pre-
vented the heart-break of many women,
the dissolution of many homes; and we
would have Spa red the country those