Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 3 (of 7)

by Theodore Roosevelt

ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, HOTEL ASTOR, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 17, 1905

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am glad to greet not merely the Sons but the Daughters of the American Revolution, and it is indeed a pleasure to be with you and say a few words, partly of greeting to you and partly in reference to what I feel should be the work, the special work, of a society like this, the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. It ought to fulfil more than one function. In the first place, it should, of course, keep up our sense of historic continuity with the past. It is a good thing, pre-eminently a good thing, for this Nation never to lose sight of what has been done in the past by those who founded and those who preserved the Republic. It is eminently fit that there should be associations banded together for the special purpose of keeping fresh in the minds of all of us the great memories of the men of the past and of what these men did. But if we treat that merely as a relaxation, merely as a pleasant mental exercise, I think we come lamentably short of what we ought to do.

The way to pay effective homage to the men of the mighty past is to live decently and efficiently in the present. We have a right to expect that every society like this shall be a nucleus for patriotic endeavor in the affairs of the day. Now, in studying the past I wish that societies like this would pay heed not only to what is pleasant for us to read about, but also to what is unpleasant. I do not think that a diet of all praise is good for any one, and it is no better for us as a body politic than for any one of us individually. Admiral Coghlan will tell you that the first step necessary in bringing the Navy up to its present standard of marksmanship was having the Navy understand that its marksmanship was not what it ought to be. I think the facts will bear me out.

The thing to do is to remember what Emerson says, that in the long run an unpleasant truth is a very much safer companion than even the pleasantest falsehood. Our pride in what was done in the past should not permit us to be led away into blindness by failure to appreciate whatever was wrong in the past. Read what Washington said about the average militia regiment of the Revolutionary War, and you will not find he used complimentary language. It was because our people declined to accept Washington’s judgment on the militia, and persisted in trying the experiment of fighting the War of 1812 with militia, that the first two years of that war resulted not merely disastrously, but shamefully, and among other things resulted in the burning of the city of Washington. We did not begin to win on land until we had evolved through mighty hard knocks a small army under Brown and Scott on the northern frontier, which, when evolved, proved able to do what no Continental army at that time could do, that is, meet to advantage the best troops of Britain. We won at sea because we had a number of frigates and sloops which had been built more than fifteen years before and whose officers had been trained in the school of their profession at sea and in action. We won these victories because we had the fleet; and if the fleet had been bigger we would not have had to fight the war at all.

Now, I ask that societies like this teach the truth; teach the truth that helps, even if it hurts a little in the helping. Take our struggle in building up our Navy to its present strength. We were hampered in that struggle by the ignorant and unspeakably foolish belief that somehow or other America was so big and smart a Nation that we did not need a Navy, and could improvise one out of hand if the need ever arose.

Admiral Coghlan lived through the period which saw the United States at the close of the Civil War, with Farragut and his fellows as our admirals, loom up as one of the great naval Powers of the earth, which then saw us about the year 1882 reduced to a condition of effective sea-strength when it would have been flattery to call us a fifth-rate Power, and which then saw the building up of our Navy until at present, taking into account the ships built and authorized, and, above all, taking into account the way those ships are handled, singly and in squadrons—taking into the account the ships, the armor, the guns, and, above all, the men in the conning towers, in the engine rooms and behind the guns—we rank as one of the big naval Powers of the earth. We rank as such, we occupy our present position and we are a power potent for peace because we deliberately faced the fact that we did not have a Navy worth anything in 1882.

I take immense interest in the Navy, because the Navy is the arm upon which this country must most depend for holding its own and upholding its honor so far as our international relations are concerned. We had to educate our people slowly up to the need of a Navy. We began by building some cruisers. We then built two or three fast vessels called commerce destroyers. We had quite a time for several years in persuading excellent people of good intentions, but not entirely clear minds, that it was rather less immoral to destroy commerce than to take life in battleships. Then we had to go through the stage of meeting and by degrees overcoming the arguments of those other excellent people who said we must have fighting ships, but only for defence; that we must only have coast defence ships; that is, we must win the fight not by hitting, but by parrying. If we had carried out that theory, Admiral Coghlan and his fellow-captains under Dewey would have been cooped up in coast defence vessels in San Francisco, while the hostile ships rested unharmed in Manila. That is the theory of coast defence; and in that case the war would never have had any end. We won because by that time our people had at last awakened to the fact that in a navy you want the very best type of ship; and that of all foolish things, the most foolish is to hit soft. Do not hit at all if you can help it. Avoid trouble of every kind. Do not hit at all if you can help it, but never hit soft. When Dewey and the captains under him went into Manila Bay they went in in ships that had been built, not that year nor the year before. Some of them had been built as much as fifteen years before, twelve years, eight years; and the legislators who authorized the building of those ships, the men who built them, the captains who first took them out, the captains who trained the men aboard them, every man who did his part in bringing up the Navy to the standard of efficiency which it had reached in 1898 is justly entitled to his share of the credit in the victory won on that first day of May.

When you cheer for Dewey, when you think of Farragut, when you speak of the founders of the American Navy in the days of the Revolution, do not confine yourselves to cheers, do not confine yourselves to saying what a great man Washington was and how he was backed up by generals and statesmen of that day; but take example from what those men did, take warning from what their less wise fellows did, and prepare for victory in the only way in which victory can be prepared for, by preparing for it in advance.

I spoke to you of the difficulties to be met with in getting the Navy built up. Among these difficulties is the fact that there are some very good people who, whenever you say that you want a good Navy, say that “this is a lamentable illustration of the jingo spirit, and that there is no reason why this country should ever have a war.” I know one excellent gentleman in Congress who said he preferred arbitration to battleships. So do I. But suppose the other man does not. I want to have the battleships as a provocative for arbitration so far as the other man is concerned.

We have now got our Navy up to a good point. We have built and are building forty armored ships. For a year or two, or two or three years, to come, what we need to do is to provide for the personnel of those ships, and to secure the very highest standard of efficiency in handling them, singly and in squadrons; above all, for handling the great guns. So much for the Navy.

Now a word for the Army. I was very sorry that this year Congress did not provide the means for having field manœuvres such as those General Grant and General Bell took part in last year. Those manœuvres are very useful. It is impossible to take National Guard regiments and put them into such manœuvres without causing them great discomfort, and it may be better to keep such manœuvres as were carried on last year for the Regular Army. But it is a great mistake not to continue them for the Regular Army. We have a small Regular Army. It is not advisable or necessary that we should have a large one. It is advisable, it is necessary, that the Army we have should be efficient as a whole as well as efficient in its individual parts. I firmly believe that given an equal chance, the officers and enlisted men of the American Army offer material quite as good as any to be found in any army of the world. Because I believe that I think it not merely an iniquity but a crime not to give the officers and the enlisted men that equal chance. We have an Army now short of seventy thousand men. Deducting the men necessary for the manning of the coast defences, it would give us at the very outside figure a possible Army of fifty thousand men—that is, an Army about one-fourteenth the size of the forces that have been contending in the mighty death wrestle around Mukden. Surely we owe it to this Nation that we should have that Army of fifty thousand men able to manœuvre as an Army of fifty thousand men and able to render as good service as such as any army can render. We can never achieve that ideal unless we are willing as a Nation to spend the money so that the Army shall have the chance of being handled in time of peace in great masses by the men who will handle it in masses in time of war. If when war comes you set thirty thousand men, of whom no more than five or six hundred have ever served together, under officers who have never handled, any of them, more than five or six hundred men, you can not expect anything but disaster; unless perchance you go against a foe even more foolish than you are.

So I ask you of this society, the Sons of the American Revolution, to study the war of the Revolution, to study the War of 1812, to study the war with Mexico, and the Civil War, not only from the standpoint of the victories, but from the standpoint of the defeats, and to try to see to it that in our policy at the present time we carry out the old policies that won the victories, and avoid the old policies that brought about the defeats.

I speak in the interest of peace when I ask for an efficient Army and Navy. This is a high-spirited people. This is a people that will not abandon the Monroe Doctrine, will not stop building the Isthmian Canal, will not surrender its hold upon the islands of the sea. Very good; then take such steps as are necessary to make your hold on those possessions, your backing of this doctrine, effective, and not empty bluster.

So it is in civic affairs. Study not only what Washington and Washington’s supporters did, but study what was done by those who brought the Continental Congress to absolute impotence. Study what was done by those who nearly undid the good work of Washington. Study what has been done in the past by the men who have made errors no less than by the men who have won triumphs, and profit alike by the study of the triumphs and by the study of the errors.

Talking among ourselves, man to man, each of us will admit to the other that there are things in our life that he does not like; but when one of us gets on his feet to address the rest he often seems to feel as if somehow he ought never to speak save in indiscriminate praise of all. The same man who will take an unwarrantably pessimistic view of all our governmental matters in private will feel obliged to speak in unwarrantable praise of all these matters in public. We ought to avoid ignorant praise as much as ignorant blame. It is only by making a correct diagnosis that we can find out how to treat any given disease. A good physician in making a diagnosis is not either an optimist or a pessimist. He wants to find out the facts; for to take either too dark or too rosy a view may be fatal to the patient. Just so in our body politic. Try to find out what the facts really are, try to find out what the good qualities, what the defects; what the good side is in any portion of our Government, what the defect is in any portion of our Government. State the truth; do not hysterically exaggerate what is good; do not hysterically exaggerate what is evil. Find out the facts; and then with your whole heart set to work to preserve and make better the good and to cut out and do away with the evil.