The Forrest City times., 1905-03-10
OUR DUTIES AND
 RESPONSIBILITIES
THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.
CAUSE FOR THANKFUlNESS
He Says We Have Obligations Both to Ourselves and to the World
 and Can Shirk Neither.

Washington, March 4.-The following is the text of President Rooseyelt's in augural address:
 My Fellow Citizens: No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently. in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver 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 people it of our national life in 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 bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away Un- der such conditions 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 l will bring, should cause in us no feel ing of vain glory, but rather deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; full acknowledgement 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 our selves; and we can shirk neither We have become great nation, forced by the fact of it's greatness into relations With the other nations of the earth: {: and we must behave as beseems a peo- pie with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sin cere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and gen erosity in nation, as in an individual count most when shown not by the weak, but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain 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 be- cause we think 1t is right, and not be- cause 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 a subject for insolent aggression. Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among l ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population and in powers as this nation has seen during the century and quar- ter of its national life is inevitably ac- companied by like growth in the prob lems which are ever before every na- tion that rises to greatness. Power in- variably 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 com i plex 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.
 The conditions which have told for our marvellous material well-being, which have developed to very high de gree our energy, self-reliance and indi- vidual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in indus trial centers. Upon the success of our experiment much depends; not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail. the cause of free self government through out the world will rock to it's founda- tions; and therefore, our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as il is to-day. and to the generations yet unborn.
 Yet after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ l from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this repub- i lie. the spirit in which these tasks must l be undertaken and these problems faced, 1 If our duty Is to be we'll done, remains l essentially unchanged. We know that i self-goyernment is difficult We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs alright through the freely expressed will of the free men who compose il. But We have faith that We shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy.