I come to Texas not for the first time. Seven years ago, again there was a call to arms, a call to arms against a foreign foe. It then fell to my lot to come here to help in raising a regiment, a regiment in which I think over half of the men had fathers who served in the Confederate army, and about one-third, perhaps somewhat more, fathers who served in the Union army. We were the sons of the men who wore the blue, the sons of the men who wore the gray, and our only desire was to show ourselves not wholly unworthy of the mighty men of the years that are past.
You of this State of Texas have behind you a history containing the deeds of which not only you but all of the country must be forever proud. My regiment was raised under the walls of that historic building of which it was said that “Thermopylæ had its messengers of death, but the Alamo had none.” You, the men of Texas, like the men of Oregon and California, like the men of Kentucky and Tennessee in a previous generation, did your part in changing this Nation from a string of Atlantic seaboard commonwealths into a people bounded only by a continent. No people more than the Texans have rendered it impossible for this country to be anything but great. It is not open to us to choose whether we shall play a small part or a great part. Your fathers helped to make that choice impossible. Play a great part we must. All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill; and I know too well, oh, my fellow-countrymen, not to know what your decision will be.
The problems change. One generation faces different difficulties from the difficulties faced by its predecessors. But the spirit in which those problems must be faced is forever the same. You, the men of the Civil War, who wrought deeds of deathless fame, who left memories of honor that will last as long as this Nation endures, fought with muzzle-loading, percussion-cap muskets and rifles, with cannon that you could afford to put out in the open when you wanted to shoot at the foe. You fought still in the shoulder-to-shoulder tactics. Nowadays men must fight with different weapons; men must fight with different tactics; but the spirit in which they must fight if they are to win must be the spirit that sustained you alike in triumph and defeat. The outward problem changes, the outward means of solving that problem changes, but the heart of the man who is to solve it can not be changed. We must show as a Nation now the same spirit that has been shown by the mighty men of times past under penalty of failure; show it in war if the need arises; and we must also show it in peace; show it in the days that are with us all the time instead of waiting for the heroic days that may never come.
Just as in time of war the man who does his duty in camp, on the march, who does not throw away his blanket at noon because it is heavy, and then wishes that he had two at midnight, is the type of man who makes the best soldier in the long run; so it is true that in civil life the man who does his duty as a citizen in the long run is the man who does his ordinary work day by day, doing each day’s duty, great or small, behaving as he should toward his wife, toward his children, toward his neighbor, in his business, in his home; and if he does those duties well the sum of the duties performed means that he is a good citizen.
I want you men of Texas, you men of my age, to see to it that exactly as you lift your heads higher because of what your fathers have done, so your children have the right to hold their heads higher because of the way in which you handle yourselves. A glorious memory is the best of all things for a nation if it spurs that nation on to try to rise level with that memory. It is a poor thing for a nation if it uses the memory of the past to excuse it for inaction or failure in the present. Keep it before yourselves ever that the very fact that you are proud of those who have gone before makes it incumbent upon you to leave a heritage of honor to those who are to come after you, and to train up those who are to come after you so that they can do their work in the world. One of the things that has pleased me most in passing through the part of your State that I have passed through this afternoon was to see the care that you are giving to the education of the children, to see the public schools and the private schools that you have built and in which your boys and girls are being trained. Do not forget that besides the training of the school must come the training in the family. Take care the next generation is able to rise level to its duty. You can not make it rise level if you do not give it the proper training. Remember always that this life is certain to contain much that is hard, much that is unpleasant. It is not a kindness to the children, it is a curse, if you train them so that they can not meet any need that arises. I do not believe that we ought ever to try to delude ourselves with the thought that we can make life easy, effortless, and yet keep it worth having. For a nation as for an individual the life is the life of effort. You have made this great State of Texas what it is because your forefathers had in them the spirit which recognized in a difficulty something not to be flinched from, but to be overcome.
I can not sufficiently thank you for the way you have greeted me to-day. I am more touched than I can express by it. I come to the soil of this State, hallowed by the great deeds of great men, I come knowing your people already and believing in them with my heart and soul. A couple of years ago I went from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have now come down to this mighty State, this wonderful commonwealth, which borders on the Gulf, and I shall go away with the feeling that after all, while there are small differences among us, the fundamental fact is that wherever you find the average American, the average American is a pretty good man. It is our unity, not our divergency, that is the great fundamental fact of our national life. I shall go away a stronger and better American for having been in this State of strong and good Americans, this mighty commonwealth of Texas.
AT THE BANQUET AT DALLAS, TEX., APRIL 5, 1905
Mr. Toastmaster, and you, My Hosts:
Before I came to Texas I knew the generous hospitality which is one of your chief characteristics, and I anticipated a good reception, but neither I nor any one else could have anticipated such a reception, and it has touched me and pleased me more than I can well say. I think I was a middling good American before I came here, but I go away an even better one.
Mr. Simpson spoke of the fact that nearly seven years ago I came to this State to take part in raising a volunteer regiment. Many among you who served on one side or the other in the Civil War will remember the number of things that you did not know at the beginning. If you will take that lack of knowledge and multiply it by two you will get a fair estimate of what I and the regiment did not know when we started. That we learned something I hope is true.