The record-union., 1899-04-11
The Guest at the Hamilton Clubs
Banquet.
Received an Ovation When He Arose 10
Deliver the Address Of the Evening.
His Remarks Confined Principally
to the Late War With Spain,
Pointing Out the Duty OF the
ern the Newly Acquired Posses
sions.

GEA tAC 4NC~Ay ~ACA eAAA SA - O-~~~
sions.
CHICAGO, April 10.-Seldom, if ever,
in Chicago has a more enthusiastic body
of men met around the banquet table
than the one which met to- night under
the auspices of the Hamilton Club to
celebrate Appomatox 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 maze of waving haho-
kerchiefs and napkins, and the cheefs
that greeted him as he rose preVehted
the speaker for many minutes from Dc
ginning his speech. 1t was greetlhs
such as one man does not receive more
than once or twice in lifetime. Inc
boxes of the Auditorium, in which tEe
banquet was held, as we'll as the seats
in the hall back of the banquet hoor'
were filled with large threng, VINO
hal come to listen to and look on the
speakers and their invited guests
ioined in the welcome that for few
minutes seemed to overpower the Gov
ernor.
Fully 600 were around the banquet
tables when President Cody, who pre-
sided, raped for order, and in snort
address introduced the guest of the
evening.
AS soon as Governor Roosevelt was
given a chance to talk, he spoke as
follows:
I'm speaking to you, men of the great
est city of the West. men OF the STATE
which gave to the country Lincoln and
Grant, men who pre-eminently and dis
tinctly embody all that is most Ameri-
can in the American character, l wish
to preach. not the doctrine 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 dan
ger. from hardship or from bitter toll,
and who out of these wins the splendid
ultimate triumph.
"A life of ignoble ease, a life or thai
peace which springs merely from lack
either of desire or of power to stliv7
after great things, is as little worthy
of a nation as of an individual l ask
only that what every self-respectins
American demands from himself, and
from his sons shall be demanded of the
American nation as a whole VINO
among you would teach your boys that
ease that peace is to be the first con-
sideration in their eyes-to be the ulti-
mate goal after which they strive. You
men of Chicago have made this city
great, your men of Illinois have done
your share, and more than your share,
in making America great, because you
neither preach nor practice such Goc-
trine. You work yourselves, and you
bring up your sons to work. If You
are rich and worth your salt, You viii
teach your sons that though they may
have leisure, it is not to be spent in
idleness: for wisely used leisure merely
means that those who possess 1t. being
free from the necessity of working for
their livelihood, are all the more bound
to carry on some kind of non -remuner-
ative work in science. in letters, in art,
in exploration, in historical research
work of the type We most need in this
country, the successful carrying out of
which reflects most honor upon the
nation.
We do not admire the man of timid
peace. We admire the man who en-
bodies victorious efforts, the man who
never wrongs his neighbor, who IS
prompt to help a friend, but who has
those yirile qualities necessary to win
the stern strife of actual life. 1t is hard
to fail: but it is worse never to have
tried to succeed. In this life we get
nothing save by effort Freedom from
effort in the present 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 him have
worked to good purpose If the free
dom thus purchased is used Alright, and
the man still does actual work, though
of a 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 pc
rfod of freedom from the need of labor
as a period not of preparation but Of
mere endowment. even though perhaps
not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that
he is simply a cumberer on the earth's
surface: and he surely units himself
to hold his own with his fellows Il the
mere life of ease is not in the end very
satisfactory life, and, above all, It Is a
life which ultimately units those who
follow it for serious work in the world.
''As it is with the individual, SO it is
with the nation. 1t is a base untruth IL
say that happy is the nation that has
no history. Thrice happy is the nation
that has glorious history. Far bet
ter it is to dare mighty things, to win
glorious triumphs, even though check
cred by failure, than to take rank with
those poor spirits who neither enjoy
much nor suffer much, because they
live in the gray twilight that knows
neither victory nor defeat If in 1871
the men who loved the Union had be-
lieved THAT peace was the end of all
things, and war and strife the 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, besides saving all the blood
and treasure we then lavished, we
would shave prevented the break
OF many women, the dissolution OF
many homes; and we would have