The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-06-20
THE PRESIDENT AT
VALLEY FORGE.
On "EvncuatiOn Day" Roosevelt
Made n Speech Where Washington
Canned

OH ENucuatIOm Day" Roosevelt
Made n Speech Where Washington
Campcd.
Philadelphia, June 19.-President
Roosevelt, who, with Mrs. Roosevelt,
spent Sunday with Attorney General
Knox on his farm at Valley Forge,
visited the historic camp ground of
Washington to-day. The forenoon was
taken up with a long drive over the
| territory, visits being made to Wash
lngton's headquarters and other places.
This afternoon the President attended
the patriotic services held in Washing
ton Memorial Chapel on the camp
ground and addressed the meeting.
This was Evacuation Day" at Val
ley Forge, and the anniversary was
celebrated appropriately. 1t was to add
his sympathy and encouragement to
the project of marking the spot by a
suitable memorial that President
| Roosevelt made his address.
The President said that Gettysburg
and Valley Forge, both in Pennsyl-
vania, marked two turning points in
CNA AiAoLOl J-lWO CTIS6S NUeI6 ldl1uIt
meant the surrendering of the nation.
He added:
There have been great deeds and
great men at other periods of our ma
tional history but there has never been
| another deed vital to the welfare of
the nation save the two-the deed of
those who founded and the deed of
those who saved the republic. There
has been no other man whose life has
been vital to the republic save Wash
ington and Lincoln. Think what it
means to us as people that our young
men should have as their ideals two
men, not conquerors, not men who won
glory by wrong-doing, not men whose
lives were spent in their own advance
ment, but men who lived, one of whom
died, that the nation might grow
steadily greater and better.
"Often in history a state has been
saved and liberty struck down at the
same time. Lincoln saved the union
and lifted the cause of liberty higher
than before. Washington created the
republic, rose by Statecraft to the high
est position and used that position only
for the welfare of his fellows and for
so long as his fellows wished him TO
keep it.
ut is a good thing that of these great
landmarks of our history-Gettysbu
and Valley Forge-one should com
memorate a single tremendous effort
and the other what we need on the
whole much more commonly and what
/ think is. on the whole rather more
difficult to do-long sustained effort
Only men with q touch of the heroic in
them could have lasted out that three
days struggle at Gettysburg. Only men
fit to rank with the great men of all
| time could have driven back the mighty
onslaught of that gallant and wonder
full army of Northern Virginia whose
final, supreme effort faded at the stone
wall on Cemetery Ridge on that July
day forty-one years ago.
when two lessons are both indis-
pensable, it seems hardly worth while
to dwell more on one than on the other.
Yet 1 think as a people we need more
to learn the lesson of Valley Forge even
than that of Gettysburg. / have not
the sligtest anxiety but that this peo-
pie, if the need should come in the fu-
ture, will be able to show the heroism,
the supreme effort that was shown at
Gettysburg, though it may well be that
it would need a. similar two years of eff
fort checkered by disaster to lead up to
it.
But the vital thing for this nation to
do is steadily to cultivate the quality
which Washington and those under
him so pre-eminently showed during
the winter at Valley Forge-the quail
ity of steady adherence to duty in the
teeth of difficulty in the teeth of dis
couragement and even disaster the
quality that makes a man do what Is
straight and decent, not one
day when a great crisis comes, but ev-
cry day, day in and day out, until sue
cess comes at the end.
"Of course all of us are agreed that a
prime national need is the need of COM
memorating the memories of the meh
who did greatly, thought highly, who
fought, suffered, endured for the ma
ton. 1t is great thing to commem-
crate their lives; but after all the wor-
thy way to do so is to try to show by
our lives that we have prof1ted by them.
If we show that the lives of the great
men of the past have been to us incite-
ments to do we'll in the present, then
we have paid to them the only homage
which is really worthy of them.
"a man, to amount to anything, must
be practical. He must actually do
things, not talk about. doing them,
least of all cavil at things that are ac-
complished by those who actually go
down into the arena and actually face
the dust and the blood and the sweat.
who actually triumph in the struggle.
The man must have the force. the
power and the will to accomplish re-
suits, but he must have also the lift
toward lofty things which shall make
him Incapable of striving for aught
unless that for which he strives is
something noble and higih-something
we'll worth striving for.
Rev. Dr. Leighton Coleman, Bishop
of Delaware, followed the President
with speech, in which he elaborat-
ed some of the points made by Mr..
Roosevelt. Brief addresses were also
made by former Attorney General
Wayne MacVeagh and Representative
Wanger.
From Valley Forge the President and
party returned directly to Attorney
General Knox's home. Tomorrow they
will leave for Washington.