Perth Amboy evening news. [volume] (Perth Amboy, N.J.) 1903-1959, 1907-10-03
President Roosevelt Tells PeopIe
of Cairo III. That Nation
Must Be Ready.
ROUTE A GREAT OVATION
Thousands Of People Gather TO
Cheer Him..NIII be Off for
Memphis Tonight.

CA1hO, III, OCA. o.-PfeSlQe0I
Roosevelt and party arrived here at
9 O'Clock this morning. The trip
from st. Louis was one continued
ovation.
On this steamer last night, the
President was the guest of honor at
dinner given to the members of the
Inland Waterways Commission, by
the st. Louis men.
At Cape Cirardeau, early today the
citizens, who had been awakened by
the bombs, lined the river bank and
cheered the President as the pageant
passed by.
On arriving here the President was
driven from the wharf to St. Marv's
hall where Mayor George Parsons
introduced Governor Deneen, who. in
turn introduced the President to the
people. After the speaking the
Presidential party left for Memphis,
Tenn. The President spoke as fol-
lows:
Men of Illinois, and You, Men of Ken
lucky and Missouri:
| am glad to have the chance to
speak TO you today. This is the heart
of what may be called the old west,
which we now call the Middle West,
using the term TO denote that great
group of rich and powerful states
which literally forms the heart of the
country. 1t is region whose people
are distinctively American in all their
thoughts, in all their ways of looking
at life; and in it's past and its pres
ent alike it is typical of our country.
The oldest men present can still re-
m an hnr hn mir DIV Il
of the white-tilted OK wagon, of the
emigrant, and of the log cabin in
which that emigrant first lived when
he settled to his task as a pioneer
farmer. They were rough days, days
of hard work, and the people who
did that work seemed themselves un-
couth and forbidding to visitors who
could not look below the surface.
1t is curious and amusing to think
that even as genuine a lover of his
kind, a man normally so free from
national prejudices as Charles Dick
ems, should have selected the region
where we are now standing as the
seat of his forlorn Eden" in Martin
Chuzzlewit. The country he so bit
terly assailed is now one of the most
fertile and productive portions of
one of the most fertile and product
i've agricultural territories in all the
world, and the dwellers in this ter
ritory represent higher average of
comfort, intelligence, and sturdy ca
pacity for self-government than the
people in any tract of like extent in
any other continent. The land teens
with beauty and fertility, and but
score of years after Dickens wrote
it was shown to he nursery and
breeding ground of heroes, of SOL
diers and statesmen of the highest
rank, while the rugged worth of the
rank and file of the citizenship rem
dered possible the deeds of the
mighty men who led in council and
in battle. This was the region that
brought forth mighty Abraham Lin
coin, the incarnation of all that is
best in democratic life; and from the
loins of the same people, living only
a little farther south, sprang another
OF our greatest Presidents. Andrew
Jackson, "Old Hickory man who
made mistakes, like most strong men,
but man of iron will and incorrup-
tible integrity, fearless, upright, de-
voted to the welfare of his country
men, born of our bone ana flesh of
our flesh, a typical American if ever
there was one:
| commend a careful reading of
Martin Chuzzlewit to the pessimists
of today, to the men who, instead of
fighting hard to do away with abuses
while at the same time losing no jot
of their buoyant hopefulness for the
country, insist that all our people.
socially and industrially, in their pri-
vate lives no less than as politicians.
newspaper men, and business men.
are at a lower cbb than ever before.
If ever any one of you feels a little
downcast over the peculiarly gloomy
view of the present taken by some
well-meaning pessimist of today. you
will find it real comfort to read
Martin Chuzzlewit TO see what a we'll
meaning pessimist the past thought
of our people siXty-five years ago:
and then think of the extraordinary
achievement, the extraordinary gain,
morally no less than materially, of
those siXty-five years. Dickens can
be read by us now with profit Elijah
Pogram, Hannibal Chollop, jefferson
Brick and Scadder have their repre-
sentatives today, plenty of them;
and the wise thing for us to do is to
recognize that these are still types of
evil in politics, journalism, business,
and private life, and to war against
them with all our hearts. But it is
rank folly to regard these as the only.
or the chief, types in our national
life. 1t was not of much consequence
whether Dickens made such an error
or not, but it would be of great con-
sequence if we ourselves did; for
foolish pessimism is an even greater
foe of healthy national growth than
a foolish optimism. 1t was not that
Dickens invented characters or scenes
that had no basis in fact; on the con-