Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-04-24
CITIZENSHIP
IN 4 REPUBLIC.
Colonel Roosevelt Tells the
French Why We Succeed.
HIS VIEWS ON SOCIALISM.

Again Asks For Large Families In
Address In Paris-Talks of Mans
Chief Duty, Danger of Glass Hatred
and Appeals For Patriotic Spirit.
No Room For slighters.
Paris. April 23.-ColoneI Theodore
Roosevelt delivered the following ad-
dress on Citizenship In a Republic" at
the Sorbonne
Strange and impressive associations
rise in the mind of a man from the
new world who speaks before this au-
gust body in this ancient institution
of learning. Before his eyes pass the
shadows of mighty kings and warlike
mobiles. of great masters of law and
theology Through the shining dust
of the dead centuries he sees crowded
figures that tell of the power and
learning and splendor of times. gone
by, and he sees also the innumerable
host of humble students to whom
clerkship meant emancipation, to
whom it was we'll nigh the only outlet
from the dark thraldom of the middle
ages.
Today 1 shall speak to you on the
subject of individual citizenship. the
one subject of vital Importance to you,
my hearers, and to me and my coun-
trymen, because you and we are citi-
zens of great democratic republics. A
democratic republic such as each of
ours-an effort to realize in its full
sense government by, of and for the
people-represents the most gigantic
of all possible social experiments, the
one fraught with greatest possibilities
! alike for good and for evil.
The success of republics like yours
and like ours means the glory and our
failure the despair of mankind, and
for you and for US the question of the
quality of the individual citizen is SUI
preme.
To Succeed Be Good
With you here and with us in my
own home, in the long run, success or
failure will be conditioned upon the
way in which the average man, the
average woman, does his or her duty,
first in the ordinary, everyday affairs
of life and next in those great occa-
sional crises which call for the heroic
virtues. The average citizen must be
a good citizen if our republics are to
succeed.
Let the man of learning. the man of
lettered leisure, beware of that queer
| and cheap temptation to pose to him.
self and to others as the cynic, as the
man who has outgrown emotions and
beliefs, the man to whom good and
evil are as one. The poorest way to
face life is to face it with a sneer.
There is no more unhealthy being,
no man less worthy of respect, than he
who either really holds or feigns to
| hold an attitude of sneering disbelief
toward all that is great and lofty,
whether in achievement or in that no.
bic effort which, even if it fail, comes
second to achievement.
Shame on the man of cultivated taste
who permits refinement to develop into
a fastidiousness that units him for
doing the rough work of a workaday
world. Among the free peoples who
govern themselves there is but a small
field of usefulness open for the men
of clustered life who shrink from con-
tact with their fellows.
Mo Room For Slighters.
Still less room is there for those who
deride or slight what is done by those
who actually bear the brunt of the
day nor yet for those others who al
ways profess that they would like to
take action if only the conditions of
life were not what they actually are
The man who does nothing cuts the
same sordid figure in the pages of his
tory, whether he be cynic or fop or
voIuptuary.
1t is war worn Hotspur, spent with
hard fighting, he of the many errors
and the valiant end. over whose mem
DRY we love to linger, not over the
memory of the young lord who but
for the vile guns would have been a
soldier"
The good man should be both q
strong and brave man-that is, he
should be able to fight, he should be
able to serve his country as a soldier
if the need arises There are well
meaning philosophers who declaim
against the unrighteousness of war
They are right only if they lay all
their emphasis upon the unrighteous-
ness. War is a dreadful thing, and
unjust war is a crime against human
ity. But it is such a crime because it
is unjust, not because it is war.
The choice must ever be in favor of
righteousness, and this whether the
alternative be peace or whether the
alternative be war The question must
not be merely, Is there to be peace or
war? The question must be, Is the
right to prevail?
Are the great laws of righteousness
once more to be fulfilled? And the an
swer from. a strong and virile people
must be Yes" whatever the cost.
Every honorable effort should always
be made to avoid war, just as every
honorable effort should always be
made by the individual in private life
TO keep out of a brawl, to keep out Of
trouble. but no SELF respecting indi-
vidual. no self respecting nation. can
or ought TO submit to wrong.