The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-08-28
AT WATERVILLE.
The President Discusses the Rearing
 of Families.

WaterviI1e, Me, Aug 27.-President Roosevelt was greeted here by a large number of people, and spoke to them from a stand which had been erected near the depot. He said:
 My Fellow Citizens: wish 10 thank you and all the people of Maine for the way in which I have been greeted I feel in certain sense right to the greeting, for at least I am trying to put into practice the principles in which you believe. I believe the art of self-govern- ment in our country is the art of apply ing practically the everyday principles of decency, morality and common sense, which must be applied by the average citizen if he is to be a good husband, a good father, good neighbor and a good citizen.
 There is not any wonderful brilliancy or genius in 1t. What we need is the application of the everyday principles a man needs if he is to make his business success. if he Is to do his duty in his own family and to his neighbor. Now, up here in Maine, you are so fortunate as to have a State which, on the whole, represents as well as any other in the Union (better than all save a very few others in our Union) the conditions of life. the ways of looking at life out of which a republic. such democratic government dS ours,
 You believe pra actically that each man must work out his fate for himself and yet that the State must be called on to try to give each man a fair show in life.
 'I passed by your State House in Au- gusta this morning. Your Legislature only meets every other year. and only stays in session about two months. Quite right. You do not need too many laws, too much legislation. What we need Is stability of laws. feariessness in apply ing legislation to new evils when the evils spring up. but above all, common sense and self-restraint in applying these remedies and the fyed and unchange- able belief that fundamo ntally each mans salvation rests in his own hands. All of us stumble at times. There is not a man here who does not al times need a helping hand stretched out toward him.
 Shame on the man who, when the opportunity to help Is given, fails to stretch out the hard. Help the man who stumbles. Help the brother who slips Set him upon his feet Try to start him along the right road. But if he lies down, make up your mind you cannot carry him. If he won't try to walk himself, he Is not worth carrying. That is so among your neighbors; that is so in your families. Every father of a large famly-and. being an old-fashioned man. I believe in large families-knows that if he has to do well by his children, he must try to do well by himself. Now haven't you in your own experience known men-and I am sorry to say, even mere often, women-who think they are doing a favor to their children when they shield them from any effort? When they let the girls sit at ease and read while the mother does all the housewOrk? Don't you know cases like that? l do; yes; | when a boy will be thought to be very ornamental and not useful? Don't you see that, too? Exactly. Now, these are not good fathers and mothers. They are | foolish fathers and mothers. They are not being kind. they are simply being | silly.
 "The only way by which. in the long | run any man can be helped is by teach ing him to help himself. Of course. there may come sudden cataclysms where you have got to extend help with a free hand, | thinking only of the immediate need. not of the ultimate results. Of course, new conditions will arise here end there, es- pecially in the complex industrial life of | great cities, where you must shape legs- | lation of the country on new basis to l meet the new conditions. But fundamen- i tally it Is true that the only permanent , betterment ir the condition of any nation | is to raise the standard of individual ! atizenshta throughout that nation"