The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1905-03-17
President Roosevelt's Inaugural Ad.
dress.


My fellow citizens. no people on earth
have more cause to be thankful thar
ours, and this is said reverently, In nc
spirit of boastfulness in our own
strength. but with gratitude to the
Oliver of Good who has blessed us with
the conditions which have enabled us
to achieve so large a measure of we'll
being and of happiness. To us as a
people it has been granted to lay the
foundations of our national life in a
new continent. We are the heirs of
the ages, and yet we have had to pay
few of the penalties which in old
countries are exacted by the dead hand
of a bygone civilization. We have not
been obliged to fight for our existence
against any alien race; and vet our life
has called for the vigor and effort with
out which the manlier and harder
virtues wither away. Under such con-
ditions it would be our own fault if we
failed and the success which we have
had in the past, the success which we
confidently believe the future will
bring, should cause in us no feeling of
vainglory, but rather a deep and abid-
ing realization of all which life has
offered us; full acknowledgment of
the responsibility which is ours; and
fixed determination to show that under
a free government mighty people can
thrive best, alike as regards the things
of the body and the things of the soul.
Much has been given to us, and much
will rightfully be expected from us.
We have duties to others and duties to
ourselves; and we can shirk neither.
We have become great nation, forced
by the fact of its greatness into
relations with the other nations of the
earth, and we must behave as beseems
people with such responsibilities.
Toward all other nations, large and
small our attitude must sbe one of
cordial and sincere Friendship. We
must show not only In ourwoyds, but
in our deeds, that we are earnestly
DESTROYS of securing their good will by
acting toward them in a spirit of just
and generous recognition, of all their
rights. But justice and generosity in q
nation, as in an individual, count most
when shown not by the weak but by
the strong. While ever careful to re-
frain from wronging others, we must
be no less insistent that we are not
wronged ourselves. We wish peace,
but we wish the peace of justice, the
peace of righteousness. We wish it
because we think it is right and not
because we are afraid. No weak nation
that acts manfully and justly should
ever have cause to fear us, and no
strong power should ever be able to
single us out as subject for insolent
aggression.
Our relations with the other powers
of the world are important; but still
more important are our relations among
ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in
population, and in power as this nation
has seen during the century and
quarter of its national life is inevitably
accompanied by like growth in the
problems which are ever before every
nation that rises to greatness. Power
invariably means both responsibility
and danger. Our forefathers faced
certain perils which we have outgrown.
We now face other perils, the very
existence of which it was impossible
that they should foresee Modern life
is both complex and intense, and the
tremendous changes wrought by the
extraordinary industrial development
of the last half century are felt in every
fiber Of our social and political being.
Never before have men tried so vast
and formidable an experiment as that
of administering the affairs of con-
tinent under the forms of democratic
republic The conditions which have
told for our marvellous, material we'll
being, which have developed to very
high degree our energy, self-reliance
and individual initiative, have also
brought the care and anxiety INSOFAR
able from the accumulation of great
wealth in industrial centers Upon the !
success of our experiment much de-
ponds, not only as regards our own
welfare, but as regards the welfare of |
mankind. If we fail, the cause of free |
self-government throughout the world |
will rock to it's foundations, and there
fore our responsibility is heavy, to our
selves, to the world as it is to-day, and
to the generations yet unborn. There
is no good reason why we should fear
the future, but there is every reason
why we should face it seriously, neither I
hiding from ourselves the gravity of
the problems before us nor fearing to
approach these problems with the un-
bending. unfiinching purpose to solve
Them Alright
Yet, after all, though this problems
are new though the tasks set before MS
liffer from tho tasks set before our
athers who founded and preserved this
the spirit in which these