The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-05-20
RoosEvELTs ADDRESS
At the Formal Opening of the Pan
American Exposition.

Buffalo, n. Y. May 20.-Vice President
Roosevelt at the formal opening of the
American exposition, spoke as fol-
lows:
Today we formally open this great ex-
position, by the shores of the mighty in
land seas of the north. where all the
peoples of the western hemisphere have
joined to show what they have done in
art, science and industrial invention,
what they have been able to acconD-
lish with their manifold resources and
their infinitely varied individual and ma
tional qualities. Such an exposition, held
at the opening of this new century, in
evitably suggests two trains Of
thought It should make US think ser
iously and solemnly of our several du-
ties to one another as citizens of the
different nations of this western henis-
phere; and also of our duties each to
the nation to which he personally be-
longs
The century upon which we have just
entered must inevitably be one of tre-
mendous triumph or of tremendous fall
ure for the whole human race; because,
to an infinitely greater extent than ever
before humanity is knit together in all
its parts. for veal or for woe. All about
US there are innumerable TENDENCIES that
tell for good and innumerable tendencies
that tell i'll of the evil. It is of course 4
mere truism to say that our own acts
must determine which set of tendencies
shall overcome the other. In order to
act wisely we must first see clearly.
There is no place among US for the
mere Dessimist: no man who looks at
life with a vision that sees all things
black or gray. can do aught healthful in
moulding the destiny of a mighty and
vigorous people. But there is just as
little use for the foolish oDtimist who
refuses to face the many and real evils
that exist and who fails to see that the
only way to insure the triumph of right
eousness in the future is to war against
all that is base. weak and unlovely in
the present.
There are certain things so obvious as
to seem commonplace which neverthe-
less must be kept constantly before US
if we are to preserve our just sense of
proportion. This twentieth century is
big with the fate of the nations of man
kind, because the fate Of each is now
interviewer with the fate of all to q. de-
gree never even approached in any pre-
vious stage of history. No better proof
could be givea than by this very expo
sition- a century ago no such exposi-
tion could have even been thought of.
The larger part of the territory repre-
sentcd here today by so many free na-
tions was not mapped, and very much
of it was unknown to the hardest ex-
plorer. The influence of America upon
old world affairs was imponderable.
World politics still meant European pol
itics.
All that is now changed, not merely by
what has happened here in America, but
by what has happened elsewhere It is
not necessary for rs here to consider
the giant changes which have come else
where in the globe; to treat Of the rise
in the south seas of the great free COM
mcnwealths Of Australia and New Zea-
land; Of the way in which Japan has
been rejUvenated and has advanced by
leaps and bounds to a position among
the leading civilized powers; Of the
problems affecting the major portion of
mankind, which call imperiOusly for so
luton in parts Of the old world which
century ago were barely known to
Europe even by rumor. Our present
concern is not with the old world, but
with our own western hemisphere,
America. We meet today, representing
the peoples of this continent from the
Dominion Of Canada in the North to
Chile and the Argentine in the south;
representing peoples who have Travelled
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