The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-08-20
President RooseveIt's Provincetown
Speech.


Provincetown, Mass, Aug. 2O.-Presi-
dent Roosevelt was the chief orator at
the celebration of the Landing of the
Pilgrims held here today. The presi-
dent spoke as follows:
1t is not too much to say that the
event commemorated by the monu-
ment which we have come here to dedi-
cate was one of those rare events which
can in good faith be called of world i'm
portance. The coming hither of the
Puritan three centuries ago shaped the
destinies of this continent and therefore
profoundly affected the destiny Of the
whole world. Men of other races, the
! Frenchman and the Spaniard, the
Dutchman, the German, the Scotch
man, and the Swede, made settlements
within what is now the United States,
during the colonial period of our his
tory and before the Declaration of In
dependence; and since then there has
been an ever-swelling immigration from
Ireland and from the mainland OF Eu-
rope; but it was the Englishman who
settled in Virginia and the Engnsnmau
who settled in Massachusetts who did
most in shaping the lines of our ma
tional development.
We can not as nation be too pro-
foundly grateful for the fact that the
Puritan has stamped his influence so
deeply on our national life. We need
have but scant patience with the men
who now rail at the Puritan's faults
They were evident, of course, for it is
d
failings, like their virtues should
stand out in bold belief; but there
is nothing easier than to belittle the
great men of the past by dwelling only
on the points where they come short Of
the universally recognized standards of
the present. Men must be judged with
reference to the age in which they
dwell, and the work they have to do.
The Puritan's task was to conquer
continent; not merely to overrun 1t, but
to settle it, to till it, to build upon il
a high industrial and social life; and,
while engaged in the rough work of
tanning the shaggy wilderness, at that
very time also to lay deep the fmmoV-
able foundations of our whole American
system of civil, political, and religious
liberty achieved through the orderly
process of law. This was the work
allotted him to do; this is the work
he did; and only a master spirit among
men could have done it,
We have Travelled far since his day
That liberty of conscience which he de-
manded for himself we now realize
must be as freely accorded to others as
If is resolutely insisted upon for our
selves The splendid qualities which
he left to his children, we other Amert-
cans who are not of Puritan blood also
claim as our heritage. You, sons or
the Puritans, and we, who are descended
from races whom the Puritans would
have deemed alien-we are all Amert-
cans together. We all feel the same
pride in the genesis, IN the nlSloIyt VI
our people; and therefore this shrine
of Puritanism is one at which we all
gather to pay homage, no matter from
what country our ancestors sprang-
We Have Gained Some Things.
We have gained some things that the
Puritan had not-we of this genera
ton, we of the twentieth century, here
in this great republic; but we are also
in danger of losing certain things
which the Puritan had and which we
can by no manner of means afford to
lose. We have gained joy OF living
which he had not. and which it is a
good thing for every people to have
and to develop. Let US see to 1t that
we do not lose what is more important
still; that we do not lose the Puritan's
iron sense of duty. his unbending, un-
hinching will to do the right as it was
given him to see the right. 1t is a
good thing that life should gain in
sweetness, but only provided that 1t
does not lose in strength. Ease and
rest and pleasure are good things, but
only if they come the reward of
work we'll done, of a good fight well
won of strong effort resolutely made
and crowned by high achievement. Tha
life of mere pleasure, of mere effort
less ease is as ignoble for nation as
for an individual. The man is but a
poor father who teaches his sons that
ease 2nd pleasure should be their
chief objects in life; the woman who
IS a mere petted toy. incapable OF