Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things;...
The old iron days have gone, the days when the weakling died as the penalty of inability to hold his own in the rough warfare against his surroundings. We live in softer times....
10. Part 10An excellent test is afforded by the readiness which the man has shown to take responsibility in any emergency in the past. One factor in Admiral Dewey’s appointment—of which he...
11. Part 11It is not my purpose in this address to sketch, in even the briefest manner, the life and deeds of Grant. It is not even my purpose to touch on the points where his influence ha...
8. Part 8Again, take the case of those who promise an impossible good to the community as a whole if a given course of legislation is adopted. The man who makes such a promise may be a w...
14. Part 14You whom I am now addressing stand for the most part but one generation removed from these pioneers. You are typical Americans, for you have done the great, the characteristic,...
4. Part 4We need the worker in the fields of social and civic reform; the man who is keenly interested in some university settlement, some civic club or citizens’ association which is st...
15. Part 15In addressing you, the one thing that I wish to avoid is any mere glittering generality, any mere high-sounding phraseology, and, above all, any appeal whatsoever made in a dema...
6. Part 6Again, let me call to mind an institution, not in New York, but in Albany, where the sisters of a religious organization devote their entire lives to helping girls who either ha...
7. Part 7Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution. The boy who is going to make a great man, or is going to count in any way in after life, mus...
2. Part 2The army and the navy are the sword and the shield which this nation must carry if she is to do her duty among the nations of the earth—if she is not to stand merely as the Chin...
12. Part 12You, men of Canada, are doing substantially the same work that we of this Republic are doing, and face substantially the same problems that we also face. Yours is the world of t...
9. Part 9If we wish to get an explanation of the efficiency of our navy in 1898, and of the astonishing ease with which its victories were won, we must go a long way back of that year, a...
5. Part 5Unfortunately, this can not be said of the larger cities, where the conditions of life are so complicated that there has been an extreme differentiation and specialization in ev...
1. Part 1How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little...
3. Part 3It is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to the world. The Arab wrecked the civilization of the Mediterranean coasts, the Turk wrecked the civiliza...
16. Part 16It seems to me that there are several reasons why you are entitled to especial recognition from all who are interested in the betterment of our American social system. First and...