The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1910-04-28
ROOSEVELT HOLDS The
RIGHTS OF MAN ABOVE
RIGHTS OF PROPERTY
fSterility Is Branded by Speaker
as Crime of Magnitude
Against Country.

SoSSAAJ oW01VCu 4CC1u1C OA
Citizenship in a Republic in
the Sorbonne this afternoon.
His audience was composed of
ali of the members Of the French
cabinet, students from the uni
fversity of Paris, and many dis
tinguished persons by whom the
occasion was regarded as the
most important feature of the
distinguished Americans visit
10 France.
Mr.. Roosevelt's Speech.
The speaker said in part:
With you here, n 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 iii the ordinary, every day affairs
of life, and text 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. The stream will not per-
~manently rise higher than the main
source; and the main source of ma
tional power and national greatness is
found in the average citizenship of the
nation. Therefore, it behooves US to
DO our best to see that the standard
of the average citizen is kept high;
and the average canno be kept high
unless the standard of the leaders is
very much higher.
1t Is well if a large proportion of
the leaders in any republic, in any
npn10pr2 rV are aC q .r,,ntfap re oo,,~c0
drawn from the classes represented in
this audience today; out only provided
that those classes possess the gifts of
sympathy with plain people and of de-
Notion to great ideals. You and those
Xix you have received special advant-
ages; you have all of you had the OPP
p%ortunity for mental training; many
of you have had leisure; most of you
have had a chance for the enjoyment
of life far greater than comes to the
majority of your fellows. To you and
your kind much has been given, and
from you much should be expected.
1t is not the critic who counts not
the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles, or where the
doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the
man who is actually in the arena,
who's face is marred by dust and
sweat and blood; who strives valiant
ly; who errs, and comes short again
ana again, because there is no effort
without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the
deeds; who knows the great enthu-
siasm, the great devotions; who spends
himself in a worthy cause; who at the
best knows in the end the triumph Of
nigh achievement, and who at the
worst, If he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly, SO that his place shall
never be with those cold and timid
souls who know neither victory nor
defeat. Shame on the man of culti-
waited taste who permits refinement to
develop in a fastidiousness tina units
him for doing the rough work Of a
work-day 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. 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 always profess that
they would like to take action. If only
the conditions Of life were not what
they actually are.
Intellect Not Most Important.
Il pay all homage to intellect, and
to elaborate n specialized training
of the intellect, and yet 1 know 1 shall
have the assent of all of you present
when l d that more important still
are the commonplace, every day quail
tiles and virtues.
Such ordinary. everyday qualities
Include the Will and the power to work,
to fight at need, and to have plenty of
healthy children. There are 2 few
people in every country so born that
they can lead lives of leisure. These
fill a useful function If they make ii
evident that leisure does not mean idle
ness. But the average man must earn
his own livelihood. He should be
trained to feel that he occupies a con-
temptible position if he does not do so:
that he is not an object of envy if he
is idle, at whichever end of the social
scale ne stands, but an object Of con-
tempt, an object Of derision.
Whack at Race Suicide.
FINALLY. even more important than
ability to work, ever more important
than ability to fight at need, Is it to
for any nation is that it shall leave it's
seed to inherit the land. 1t was the
crown of blessings In Biblical times;
md 1T is the crown Of blessings now.
tThe greatest of all curses is the
curse of sterility, and the sever
Est of all COMBINATIONS should
be that visited upon wilful sterility.
The first essential in any civilization is
that the mar and the woman shall be
father and mother of healthy children,
so that the race snail increase INC not
decrease. If this is not so, if through
no fault of the society there is failure
to increase. it is a great misfortune.
.If the failure is due to deliberate
n wilful fault, then 1T is not merely
a misfortune. it is one of those crimes
of ease and self-indulgence, of shrink
ing from pain and effort and risk. which
in the long run nature Furnishes more
heavily than any other. If we of the
great republics, If we, the free people
who claim to have emancipated our
selves from: the tnraldom of wrong and
error. br,ng Town IN our heads the
curse that comes upon the wilfully bar
rem. then 1t will be an idle waste of
breath to prattle of our achievements.
to boast of all that we have done. No
refinement OF life, no delicacy of taste,
no material progress, no sordid heaping
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