BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
[INDEX FIRST ADMINISTRATION]
PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE
AUTHOR THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
VOLUME II
NEW YORK
THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
MCMX
The Publishers desire to make clear to the readers that Ex-president Roosevelt
retains no pecuniary interest in the sale of the volumes containing these
speeches. He feels that the material contained in these addresses
has been dedicated to the public, and that it is, therefore,
not to be handled as copyrighted material from which
Mr. Roosevelt should receive any pecuniary return.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS
DECEMBER 3, 1901
TO
JANUARY 4, 1904
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS
AT DEDICATION OF NAVY MEMORIAL MONUMENT, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., MAY 14, 1903
Mr. Mayor; My Fellow-Citizens:
The ground for this monument was first turned by President McKinley, and I am glad to have the chance of saying a few words in dedication of the completed monument. There is no branch of our government in which all our people are so deeply interested as the Navy of the United States. It is not merely San Francisco, not merely New York, or Boston, or Charleston, or New Orleans, not merely the seacoast cities of the Nation; every individual in the Nation who is proud of America and jealous of her good name must feel a thrill of generous emotion at the erection of a monument to the navy, a monument to the fleet which was victorious under Admiral Dewey on the first of May five years ago, a fleet which then added a new page to the long honor roll of American achievement. It is eminently fitting that there should be here in this great city on the Pacific Ocean a monument to commemorate the deed which showed once for all that America had taken her position on the Pacific. I want you all to draw a practical lesson from this commemoration. We to-day dedicate this monument because those who went before us had the wisdom to make ready for the victory. If we wish our children to have the chance of dedicating monuments of this kind in the event of war we must see that the navy is made ready in advance. To dedicate the monument would be an empty and foolish thing if we accompanied it by an abandonment of our national policy of building up the navy. And good though it is to erect this monument, it is better still to go on with the building up of the navy which gave the monument to us, and which, if we ever give it a fair chance, can be relied upon to rise level to our needs.