The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1908-09-10

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
On Life in the Country and Work on the
Farm

On Life in the Country and Work on the
Farm.
At the dedication of a library at Jor-
danviile, New York, President Roose-
welt was asked to speak and said, in
part:
.'The value of gift depends abs0-
lutely upon what you make Of it. You
have got to use it rightly. That is all
that any human being Can do for any
one else-to give him chance, and it
rests with himself or herself to take ad-
vantage of it.
eve have right to be proud of the
great progress our country is making
in the way of population, material de-
velOpment, ETC., but it is not satlsfac-
tory to think that the great cities have
gone ahead so much faster than the
country districts. You know the cid
saying that God made the country and
man made the town. Well, it is said
that the last is not yet an improvement
on the first. 1 am glad to see the cities
grow, but not at the expense of the
country. Their tendency to grow is
not because of the opportunity they
present to make great fortunes, but be-
cause of their tendency to be more in
teresting and attractive in themselves.
81 hope in the course of few de-
cades to see the farmers bend their
energies toward making life in the
country more interesting and more at
tractive and inducing our people to un-
derstand how really attractive our
country ute is at present. l sometimes
get impatient with the individual who
goes to the city because he can find no
attraction in the country; but | am
doubtful if the fault lies with him so
much as with the fact that there are
too much loneliness and isolation and a
failure 10 take advantage of much that
could be used with the expenditure of
little energy.
81 have done what l could to develop
free rural mail delivery. l want to see
it developed still further, the same as
the telephone and the bicycle have been
developed. l welcome the development
of every agency that tends to increase
the attractiveness of country life and
develop the social side of it. believe
that more and more buildings like this
| could be used to advantage not only be-
cause of the books, but because it can
be used as a place for social meeting,
and while you boys and girls can meet
| here for social improvement 1T Will be a
place, l hope, where mothers will meet
also. If have got to choose any, whom
| would put ahead of the Grand Army
men even, it would be the mothers"
WHERE WOMEN WORK HARD.
The President switched abruptly to
telling about the man who does not
sbirk his work.
Il never preach the doctrine of shirk-
ing" he said, ''or | never put play ahead
of work. The happiest persons are those
who do well the work before Them"
| Speaking of idlerS the President went
on:
81 do not envy the idler, neither the
idle son of a multimillionaire nor the
hobo. | have for both intense pity of
the kind that it is not akin to love but
to contempt.
''rhe hardest worked individual on
the farm is apt to be the mother or
wife of the farmer. If you don't APP
plaud that you ought to.
Il believe in the farmer economizing,
but ON himself, not his wife. ] am dead
right on that. Ii you have got to drop
some one, drop one hired man rather
than the hired girl.
Il want to see buildings like this one
used for mothers meetings. 1t gives
the women chance to meet each other
socially and it puts them in better trim
for work"
''NoW and then you will hear the wise
father, or one who thinks he is wise,
dwell upon the fact that his boy is
smart. If he means to be able, quick
and to be trusted, then all right, but if
by SmartneSS is meant, as is too often
the case, the kind of ability that is just
off the line of honesty, then you should
teach him that he is growing up to be
an enemy of the republic Trckery is
trickery if it takes the form of doing a
man out of his days work or cheating
a grocery store or swindling on great
scale by stock gambling or the manipu-
lation of railway securities.
I'm with you to the limit in trying
to put stop to the rascaity of the big
man. III go to any length to do it, and
the big man knows it, but there never
will be an end until the big man is made
to know that what you object to is ras-
caiity itself and not rascality in a big
man alone. Rascality in the great and
the small is to be frowned upon in this
republic. Distrust equally the man who
never sees dishonesty in the big man
and the one who sees it only in the big
man.
VIRTUE OF HARD KNOCKS.
"Fathers need the most preaching,
yet frequently the mothers who have
had hard lives take the unwise course
in attempting to benefit their daughters
and sons by bringing them up free from
hard knocks. Next to hardness of heart
the least desirable quality is goodness
of heart and the mother or father should
not try to bring UP their child in that
way. You don't get the right stuff out !
of those children for the next war or |
you don't get decent citizens when there
isn't any war. Bring them up to work
so that they shall recognize that an OBJ
stacle is not something to be shirked
but to be overcome.
eff there is one thing the farmer has
the advantage of it is in the matter OF
fresh air. If you have your bedroom too
stuffy then get rid of that advantage:
If your rooms are Theoretically sealed
and then if any air gets in and you catch
cold you are no better off than If you
were a dweller in a tenement. Such
homely problems as these l cannot dis
cuss, but can suggest them to you for
your discussion
Half Century in Public Lite