The San Francisco call., 1910-06-08
Grave Dangers Confront
Nations, Says Roosevelt
Follies and Passions Are
Greatest EnernieS0f
Free Peoples

, dore Roosevelt spoke at the Oxford
university today and took as the
) subject of his lecture biological
Analogies in History" Roosevelt
said:
Rome fell by the attack from
without only because the ills with
in her own borders had grown in
durable. What is true of your
country. my hearers, is true of my
own; while we should be vigilant
against foes from without. yet we
need never really fear them so long
as we safeguard ourselves against
the enemies within our own house
holds, and these enemies are our
) own passions and follies. Free peo-
pies can escape being mastered by
others only by being able to master
) themselves.
In the last analysis the all i'm
portant factor in national greatness
is national character.
There are questions that we of
the great civilized nations are ever
tempted to ask of the future. Is
our time of growth drawing to an
end? Are we as nations soon to
come under the rule of that great
} law of death which is itself but
part of the great law of life? None
can tell. Forces that we can see
and other forces that are hidden or
that can but dimly be apprehended
are at work all around us, both for
good and for evil. The growth in
} luxury, in love of ease, in taste for
vapid and frivolous excitement is
both evident and unhealthy The
most ominous sign is the diminution
in the birth rate and the rate of
natural increase, now to a larger or
lesser degree shared by most of the
civilized nations of central and
western Europe, OF America and
Australia: diminution so great
that If it continues for the next
century at the rate which has OBJ
tanned for the last 25 years all the
more highly civilized peoples will
be stationary or else have begun to
go backward in population. while
many of them will have already
gone very far backward
There is much that should give
us concern for the future But there
is much also which should give us
hope. I believe with all my heart
that a great future remains for us;
but whether it does or does not, our
duty is not altered. Best of all it is
to do our part well and at the same
time to see our blood live young and
vital in men and women fit to take
up the task as we lay it down, for
so shall our seed inherit the earth.
But if this. which is best. is denied
us, then at least it is ours to re-
member that if we choose we can
be torch bearers, as our fathers were
before us. The torch has been
handed on from nation to nation,
from civilization to civilization.
throughout all recorded time. down
to the blazing splendor of this teem-
ing century of ours. 1t dropped
from the hand of the coward and
the sluggard. of the man wrapped
in luxury or love of ease. the man
whose soul was eaten away by self
Indulgence; it has been kept alight
only by those who were mighty of
heart and cunning of hand.
Every modern civilized nation has
many and terrible problems to solve
within its own borders, problems
that arise not merely from juxta-
position of poverty and riches, but
especially from the self-conscious-
ness of both poverty and riches. Each
nation must deal with these matters
in its own fashion, and yet the spirit
in which the problem is approached
must ever be fundamentally the
same. 1t must be a spirit of broad
humanity. of brotherly kindness, of
acceptance of responsibility. one for
each and each for all; and at the
same time a spirit as remote as the
poles from every form OF weakness
and sentimentality. The only effec-
tive way to help any man is to help
him to help himself Privilege
should not be tolerated because it is
to the advantage of a minority, nor
yet because it is to the advantage of
a majority. No doctrinaire theories
of vested rights or freedom of con-
tract can stand in the way of our
cutting out abuses from the BODY
polite. Just as little can we AFFORD
to follow the doetrinaires of an i'm
possible-and, incidentally, of
highly undesirable-a-social revoIu-
.tion which, in destroying individual
rights (ncluding property rights)
, and the family, would destroy the
two chief agents in the advance of
mankind and the two chief reasons
why either the advance or the pres
ervation of mankind is worth while.
1t is an evil and dreadful thing to
be callous to sorrow and. suffering
and blind to our duty to do all
things possible for the betterment of