Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-05-30
President Tells the Army
and Navy League at
Portsmouth.
IN WAR AND THE STATE
Declares Politicians In Long
Run Represent the Will
of People.

Portsmouth, Va, May 30.-President
Roosevelt Joined the people of Virginia
today in a beautiful and impressive
tribute to the nations dead. Under the
auspices of the army and navy union
organization, officers and enlisted men
of the United States army and navy,
the president delivered the Memorial
day address here TO an audience num-
bering thousands. He said in part:
This day is hallowed and sacred in
our history. for on this day throughout
the land We meet to pay homage TO
the memory of the valiant dead who
fell in the great civil war. No other
men deserve so well of this country as
those to whom We owe 1t that we now
have a country. Moreover the men to
whose valor we owe it that the union
was preserved have left us a country
reunited in fact as well as in name.
LEFT Memory of Deeds.
They have left us the memory of
the great deeds and the self devotion
alike of the men who wore the blue
and of the men who wore the gray in
the contest where brother fought
brother with equal courage, with equal
sincerity of conviction, with equal
fidelity to high ideal, as ii was given
to each to see that ideal.
THE first duty of leader. civil or
military. is to lead; and he must lead
well. Exactly as the people must de-
mand the highest grade of integrity
and efficiency from their leaders in
civil affairs. SO in military affairs they
must insist upon every officer devot-
ing all the best that there is in him
90 fitting himself in the duties of his
profession, to caring for and drilling
and training those under him, so that
alike in point of personnel and in point
of material the army and navy of the
United States may reach as high
point of perfection as is humanity pos
sible. This is the work that only the
leaders can do; and if they shirk it
their shame is unspeakable.
Must Have Men.
Nevertheless it remains true that
no leader can accomplish very much
unless he has the right kind of men
10 lead. Unless the enlisted man has
the right stuff in him it stands TO rea-
son that no officer can get it out of
him, because it is not there to get out.
So in civil life, if all our leaders were
Washingtons and Lincolns they could,
nevertheless, make no permanent i'm
provement in our citizenship unless
the average citizen had in him the
capacity for such improvement. In
the last analysis il is the man behind
the ballot who counts most in civil
life, just as it is the man behind the
gun who counts most in military life.
I'VE cannot too highly honor the
memory of the leaders in the civil war
of Grant and Lee, of Sherman and
Johnston, of Stonewall Jackson and
Sheridan, of Farragut and of the cap
tains who fought under and against
him. But after all the man upon whom
the chief credit must rest was the
plain man in the ranks. the man in
blue or in gray who went in to see the
war through, and who did see it
through He had the courage to stand
without flinching the pickering of the
skirmishes and the hammering of the
great fights; he had the steadfast en-
durance TO bear with uncomplaining
resolution the hunger and the heat and
the cold, the scorching days and the
freezing nights, the grinding, heart
breaking fatigue of the marches, the
wearisome monotony of the camps,
and the slow suffering of the field hos
pitfalls.
Character Determines.
so in the army and the navy today,
in the last analysis we must depend
upon having the right stuff in the en-
listed man and then upon having that
stuff put into proper shape. So again
in our republic as whole it is just as
true in peace now as it was 45 years
ago in war that it is the character OF
the average man that must be the de-
termining factor in achieving national
success or going down to national dis
aster. Leadership is necessary In or
der that we may get really good re-
suits out of high average OF indlvid-
ual character; but without the high
character in the average individual
the leadership by itself can avail but
little.
Now it is easy to say this in words
which shall imply merely fiattery OF
the average voter or of the average en-
listed man. I certainly do not intend
my words to be so taken. 1t is sure