One secret, perhaps I might say the chief secret, of Mr. Blaine’s extraordinary hold upon the affections of his countrymen was his entirely genuine and unaffected Americanism. When I speak of Americanism I do not for a minute mean to say, gentlemen, that all the things we do are all right. I think there are plenty of evils to correct and that often a man shows himself all the more a good American because he wants to cut out any evil of the body politic which may interfere with our approaching the ideal of true Americanism. But not only admitting but also emphasizing this, it yet remains true that throughout our history no one has been able to render really great service to the country if he did not believe in the country. Mr. Blaine possessed to an eminent degree the confident hope in the nation’s future which made him feel that she must ever strive to fit herself for a great destiny. He felt that this Republic must in every way take the lead in the Western Hemisphere. He felt that this Republic must play a great part among the nations of the earth. The last four years have shown how true that feeling of his was.
He had always hoped that we would have a peculiarly intimate relation with the countries south of us. He could hardly have anticipated—no one could have—the Spanish War and its effects. In consequence of that war America’s interest in the tropic islands to our south and the seas and coasts surrounding those islands is far greater than ever before. Our interest in the Monroe Doctrine is more complicated than ever before. The Monroe Doctrine is simply a statement of our very firm belief that on this continent the nations now existing here must be left to work out their own destinies among themselves and that the continent is not longer to be regarded as colonizing ground for any European power. The one power on the continent that can make that doctrine effective is, of course, ourselves; for in the world as it is, gentlemen, the nation which advances a given doctrine likely to interfere in any way with other nations must possess power to back it up if she wishes the doctrine to be respected. We stand firmly on the Monroe Doctrine.
The events of the last nine months have rendered it evident that we shall soon embark on the work of excavating the Isthmian Canal to connect the two great oceans—a work destined to be, probably, the greatest engineering feat of the twentieth century, certainly a greater engineering feat than has ever yet been successfully attempted among the nations of mankind; and as it is the biggest thing of its kind to be done I am glad it is the United States that is to do it. Whenever a nation undertakes to carry out a great destiny it must make up its mind that there will be work and worry, labor and risk, in doing the work. It is with a nation as it is with an individual; if you are content to attempt but little in private life you may be able to escape a good deal of worry, but you won’t achieve very much. The man who attempts much must make up his mind that there will now and then come days and nights of worry; there will come even moments of seeming defeat. But out of the difficulties we wrest success. So it is with the nation. It is not the easy task that is necessarily the best.
AT BANGOR, MAINE, AUGUST 27, 1902
My Fellow-Citizens:
I am glad to greet the farmers of Maine. During the century that has closed, the growth of industrialism has necessarily meant that cities and towns have increased in population more rapidly than the country districts. And yet, it remains true now as it always has been, that in the last resort the country districts are those in which we are surest to find the old American spirit, the old American habits of thought and ways of living. Conditions have changed in the country far less than they have changed in the cities, and in consequence there has been little breaking away from the methods of life which have produced the great majority of the leaders of the Republic in the past. Almost all of our great Presidents have been brought up in the country, and most of them worked hard on the farms in their youth and got their early mental training in the healthy democracy of farm life.
The forces which made these farm-bred boys leaders of men when they had come to their full manhood are still at work in our country districts. Self-help and individual initiative remain to a peculiar degree typical of life in the country, life on a farm, in the lumbering camp, on a ranch. Neither the farmers nor their hired hands can work through combinations as readily as the capitalists or wage-workers of cities can work.
It must not be understood from this that there has been no change in farming and farm life. The contrary is the case. There has been much change, much progress. The granges and similar organizations, the farmers’ institutes, and all the agencies which promote intelligent co-operation and give opportunity for social and intellectual intercourse among the farmers, have played a large part in raising the level of life and work in the country districts. In the domain of government, the Department of Agriculture since its foundation has accomplished results as striking as those obtained under any other branch of the national administration. By scientific study of all matters connected with the advancement of farm life; by experimental stations; by the use of trained agents, sent to the uttermost countries of the globe; by the practical application of anything which in theory has been demonstrated to be efficient; in these ways, and in many others, great good has been accomplished in raising the standard of productiveness in farm work throughout the country. We live in an era when the best results can only be achieved, if to individual self-help we add the mutual self-help which comes by combination, both of citizens in their individual capacity and of citizens working through the State as an instrument. The farmers of the country have grown more and more to realize this, and farming has tended more and more to take its place as an applied science—though, as with everything else, the theory must be tested in practical work, and can avail only when applied in practical fashion.
But after all this has been said, it remains true that the countryman—the man on the farm, more than any other of our citizens to-day, is called upon continually to exercise the qualities which we like to think of as typical of the United States throughout its history—the qualities of rugged independence, masterful resolution, and individual energy and resourcefulness. He works hard (for which no man is to be pitied), and often he lives hard (which may not be pleasant); but his life is passed in healthy surroundings, surroundings which tend to develop a fine type of citizenship. In the country, moreover, the conditions are fortunately such as to allow a closer touch between man and man, than, too often, we find to be the case in the city. Men feel more vividly the underlying sense of brotherhood, of community of interest. I do not mean by this that there are not plenty of problems connected with life in our rural districts. There are many problems; and great wisdom and earnest disinterestedness in effort are needed for their solution.
After all, we are one people, with the same fundamental characteristics, whether we live in the city or in the country, in the East or in the West, in the North or the South. Each of us, unless he is contented to be a cumberer of the earth’s surface, must strive to do his life-work with his whole heart. Each must remember that, while he will be noxious to every one unless he first do his duty by himself, he must also strive ever to do his duty by his fellow. The problem of how to do these duties is acute everywhere. It is most acute in great cities, but it exists in the country, too. A man, to be a good citizen, must first be a good bread-winner, a good husband, a good father—I hope the father of many healthy children; just as a woman’s first duty is to be a good housewife and mother. The business duties, the home duties, the duties to one’s family, come first. The couple who bring up plenty of healthy children, who leave behind them many sons and daughters fitted in their turn to be good citizens, emphatically deserve well of the State.