Part 11

It 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 has told so tremendously in the making of our history. It is part of the man’s greatness that now we can use his career purely for illustration. We can take for granted the fact that each American who knows the history of the country must know the history of this man, at least in its broad outline; and that we no more need to explain Vicksburg and Appomattox than we need to explain Yorktown. I shall ask attention, not to Grant’s life, but to the lessons taught by that life as we of to-day should learn them.

Foremost of all is the lesson of tenacity, of stubborn fixity of purpose. In the Union armies there were generals as brilliant as Grant, but none with his iron determination. This quality he showed as President no less than as general. He was no more to be influenced by a hostile majority in Congress into abandoning his attitude in favor of a sound and stable currency than he was to be influenced by check or repulse into releasing his grip on beleaguered Richmond. It is this element of unshakable strength to which we are apt specially to refer when we praise a man in the simplest and most effective way, by praising him as a man. It is the one quality which we can least afford to lose. It is the only quality the lack of which is as unpardonable in the nation as in the man. It is the antithesis of levity, fickleness, volatility, of undue exaltation, of undue depression, of hysteria and neuroticism in all their myriad forms. The lesson of unyielding, unflinching, unfaltering perseverance in the course upon which the nation has entered is one very necessary for a generation whose preachers sometimes dwell overmuch on the policies of the moment. There are not a few public men, not a few men who try to mold opinion within Congress and without, on the stump and in the daily press, who seem to aim at instability, who pander to and thereby increase the thirst for overstatement of each situation as it arises, whose effort is, accordingly, to make the people move in zigzags instead of in a straight line. We all saw this in the Spanish War, when the very men who at one time branded as traitors everybody who said there was anything wrong in the army at another time branded as traitors everybody who said there was anything right. Of course such an attitude is as unhealthy on one side as on the other, and it is equally destructive of any effort to do away with abuse.

Hysterics of this kind may have all the results of extreme timidity. A nation that has not the power of endurance, the power of dogged insistence on a determined policy, come weal or woe, has lost one chief element of greatness. The people who wish to abandon the Philippines because we have had heavy skirmishing out there, or who think that our rule is a failure whenever they discover some sporadic upgrowth of evil, would do well to remember the two long years of disaster this nation suffered before the July morning when the news was flashed to the waiting millions that Vicksburg had fallen in the West and that in the East the splendid soldiery of Lee had recoiled at last from the low hills of Gettysburg. Even after this nearly two years more were to pass before the end came at Appomattox. Throughout this time the cry of prophets of disaster never ceased. The peace-at-any-price men never wearied of declaiming against the war, of describing the evils of conquest and subjugation as worse than any possible benefits that could result therefrom. The hysterical minority, passed alternately from unreasoning confidence to unreasoning despair; and at times they even infected for the moment many of their sober, steady countrymen. Eighteen months after the war began the State and Congressional elections went heavily against the war party, and two years later the opposition party actually waged the Presidential campaign on the issue that the war was a failure. Meanwhile there was plenty of blundering at the front, plenty of mistakes at Washington. The country was saved by the fact that our people, as a whole, were steadfast and unshaken. Both at Washington and at the front the leaders were men of undaunted resolution, who would not abandon the policy to which the nation was definitely committed, who regarded disaster as merely a spur to fresh effort, who saw in each blunder merely something to be retrieved, and not a reason for abandoning the long-determined course. Above all, the great mass of the people possessed a tough and stubborn fibre of character.

There was then, as always, ample room for criticism, and there was every reason why the mistakes should be corrected. But in the long run our gratitude was due primarily, not to the critics, not to the fault-finders, but to the men who actually did the work; not to the men of negative policy, but to those who struggled toward the given goal. Merciful oblivion has swallowed up the names of those who railed at the men who were saving the Union, while it has given us the memory of these same men as a heritage of honor forever; and brightest among their names flame those of Lincoln and Grant, the steadfast, the unswerving, the enduring, the finally triumphant.

Grant’s supreme virtue as a soldier was his doggedness, the quality which found expression in his famous phrases of “unconditional surrender” and “fighting it out on this line if it takes all summer.” He was a master of strategy and tactics, but he was also a master of hard hitting, of that “continuous hammering” which finally broke through even Lee’s guard. While an armed foe was in the field, it never occurred to Grant that any question could be so important as his overthrow. He felt nothing but impatient contempt for the weak souls who wished to hold parley with the enemy while that enemy was still capable of resistance.

There is a fine lesson in this to the people who have been asking us to invite the certain destruction of our power in the Philippines, and therefore the certain destruction of the islands themselves, by putting any concession on our part ahead of the duty of reducing the islands to quiet at all costs and of stamping out the last embers of armed resistance. At the time of the Civil War the only way to secure peace was to fight for it, and it would have been a crime against humanity to have stopped fighting before peace was conquered. So in the far less important, but still very important, crisis which confronts us to-day, it would be a crime against humanity if, whether from weakness or from mistaken sentimentalism, we failed to perceive that in the Philippines the all-important duty is to restore order; because peace, and the gradually increasing measure of self-government for the islands which will follow peace, can only come when armed resistance has completely vanished.

Grant was no brawler, no lover of fighting for fighting’s sake. He was a plain, quiet man, not seeking for glory; but a man who, when aroused, was always in deadly earnest, and who never shrank from duty. He was slow to strike, but he never struck softly. He was not in the least of the type which gets up mass-meetings, makes inflammatory speeches or passes inflammatory resolutions, and then permits over-forcible talk to be followed by over-feeble action. His promise squared with his performance. His deeds made good his words. He did not denounce an evil in strained and hyperbolic language; but when he did denounce it, he strove to make his denunciation effective by his action. He did not plunge lightly into war, but once in, he saw the war through, and when it was over, it was over entirely. Unsparing in battle, he was very merciful in victory. There was no let-up in his grim attack, his grim pursuit, until the last body of armed foes surrendered. But that feat once accomplished, his first thought was for the valiant defeated; to let them take back their horses to their little homes because they would need them to work on their farms. Grant, the champion whose sword was sharpest in the great fight for liberty, was no less sternly insistent upon the need of order and of obedience to law. No stouter foe of anarchy in every form ever lived within our borders. The man who more than any other, save Lincoln, had changed us into a nation whose citizens were all freemen, realized entirely that these freemen would remain free only while they kept mastery over their own evil passions. He saw that lawlessness in all its forms was the handmaiden of tyranny. No nation ever yet retained its freedom for any length of time after losing its respect for the law, after losing the law-abiding spirit, the spirit that really makes orderly liberty.

Grant, in short, stood for the great elementary virtues, for justice, for freedom, for order, for unyielding resolution, for manliness in its broadest and highest sense. His greatness was not so much greatness of intellect as greatness of character, including in the word “character” all the strong, virile virtues. It is character that counts in a nation as in a man. It is a good thing to have a keen, fine intellectual development in a nation, to produce orators, artists, successful business men; but it is an infinitely greater thing to have those solid qualities which we group together under the name of character—sobriety, steadfastness, the sense of obligation toward one’s neighbor and one’s God, hard common-sense, and, combined with it, the lift of generous enthusiasm toward whatever is right. These are the qualities which go to make up true national greatness, and these were the qualities which Grant possessed in an eminent degree.

We have come here, then, to realize what the mighty dead did for the nation, what the dead did for us who are now living. Let us in return try to shape our deeds so that the America of the future shall justify by her career the lives of the great men of her past. Every man who does his duty as a soldier, as a statesman, or as a private citizen is paying to Grant’s memory the kind of homage that is best worth paying. We have difficulties and dangers enough in the present, and it is the way we face them which it to determine whether or not we are fit descendants of the men of the mighty past. We must not flinch from our duties abroad merely because we have even more important duties at home. That these home duties are the most important of all every thinking man will freely acknowledge. We must do our duty to ourselves and our brethren in the complex social life of the time. We must possess the spirit of broad humanity, deep charity, and loving-kindness for our fellowmen, and must remember, at the same time, that this spirit is really the absolute antithesis of mere sentimentalism, of soup-kitchen, pauperizing philanthropy, and of legislation which is inspired either by foolish mock benevolence or by class greed or class hate. We need to be possessed of the spirit of justice and of the spirit which recognizes in work and not ease the proper end of effort.

Of course the all-important thing to keep in mind is that if we have not both strength and virtue we shall fail. Indeed, in the old acceptation of the word, virtue included strength and courage, for the clear-sighted men at the dawn of our era knew that the passive virtues could not by themselves avail, that wisdom without courage would sink into mere cunning, and courage without morality into ruthless, lawless, self-destructive ferocity. The iron Roman made himself lord of the world because to the courage of the barbarian he opposed a courage as fierce and an infinitely keener mind; while his civilized rivals, the keen-witted Greek and Carthaginian, though of even finer intellect, had let corruption eat into their brilliant civilizations until their strength had been corroded as if by acid. In short, the Roman had character as well as masterful genius, and when pitted against peoples either of less genius or of less character, these peoples went down.

As the ages roll by, the eternal problem forever fronting each man and each race forever shifts its outward shape, and yet at the bottom it is always the same. There are dangers of peace and dangers of war; dangers of excess in militarism and of excess by the avoidance of duty that implies militarism; dangers of slow dry-rot, and dangers which become acute only in great crises. When these crises come, the nation will triumph or sink accordingly as it produces or fails to produce statesmen like Lincoln and soldiers like Grant, and accordingly as it does or does not back them in their efforts. We do not need men of unsteady brilliancy or erratic power—unbalanced men. The men we need are the men of strong, earnest, solid character—the men who possess the homely virtues, and who to these virtues add rugged courage, rugged honesty, and high resolve. Grant, with his self-poise, his self-command, his self-mastery; Grant, who loved peace and did not fear war, who would not draw the sword if he could honorably keep it sheathed, but who, when once he had drawn it, would not return it to the sheath until the weary years had brought the blood-won victory; Grant, who had no thought after the fight was won save of leading the life led by other Americans, and who aspired to the Presidency only as Zachary Taylor or Andrew Jackson had aspired to it—Grant was of a type upon which the men of to-day can well afford to model themselves. As I have already said, our first duty, our most important work, is setting our own house in order. We must be true to ourselves, or else, in the long run, we shall be false to all others. The Republic can not stand if honesty and decency do not prevail alike in public and private life; if we do not set ourselves seriously at work to solve the tremendous social problems forced upon us by the far-sweeping industrial changes of the last two generations.

But in considering the life of Grant it is peculiarly appropriate to remember that, besides the regeneration in political and social life within our own borders, we must also face what has come upon us from without. No friendliness with other nations, no good will for them or by them, can take the place of national self-reliance. No alliance, no inoffensive conduct on our part, would supply, in time of need, the failure in ability to hold our own with the strong hand. We must work out our own destiny by our own strength. A vigorous young nation like ours does not always stand still. Now and then there comes a time when it is sure either to shrink or to expand. Grant saw to it that we did not shrink, and therefore we had to expand when the inevitable moment came.

Great duties face us in the islands where the Stars and Stripes now float in place of the arrogant flag of Spain. As we perform those duties well or ill, so will we, in large part, determine our right to a place among the great nations of the earth. We have got to meet them in the very spirit of Grant. If we are frightened at the task, above all, if we are cowed or disheartened by any check, or by the clamor of the sensation-monger, we shall show ourselves weaklings unfit to invoke the memories of the stalwart men who fought to a finish the great Civil War. If we do not rule wisely, and if our rule is not in the interest of the peoples who have come under our guardianship, then we had best never to have begun the effort at all. As a nation we shall have to choose our representatives in these islands as carefully as Grant chose the generals who were to serve at the vital points under him. Fortunately, so far the choice has been most wise. No nation has ever sent a better man than we sent to Cuba when President McKinley appointed as governor-general of that island Leonard Wood; and now, in sending Judge Taft at the head of the Commission to the Philippines, the President has again chosen the very best man to be found in all the United States for the purpose in view.

Part of Grant’s great strength lay in the fact that he faced facts as they were, and not as he wished they might be. He was not originally an abolitionist, and he probably could not originally have defined his views as to State sovereignty; but when the Civil War was on, he saw that the only thing to do was to fight it to a finish and establish by force of arms the Constitutional right to put down rebellion. It is just the same thing nowadays with expansion. It has come, and it has come to stay, whether we wish it or not. Certain duties have fallen to us as a legacy of the war with Spain, and we can not avoid performing them. All we can decide is whether we will perform them well or ill. We can not leave the Philippines. We have got to stay there, establish order, and then give the inhabitants as much self-government as they show they can use to advantage. We can not run away if we would. We have got to see the work through, because we are not a nation of weaklings. We are strong men, and we intend to do our duty.

To do our duty—that is the sum and substance of the whole matter. We are not trying to win glory. We are not trying to do anything especially brilliant or unusual. We are setting ourselves vigorously at each task as the task arises, and we are trying to face each difficulty as Grant faced innumerable and infinitely greater difficulties. The sure way to succeed is to set about our work in the spirit that marked the great soldier whose life we this day celebrate: the spirit of devotion to duty, of determination to deal fairly, justly, and fearlessly with all men, and of iron resolution never to abandon any task once begun until it has been brought to a successful and triumphant conclusion.

THE TWO AMERICAS

SPEECH AT THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION, BUFFALO, MAY 20, 1901

To-day we formally open this great exposition by the shores of the mighty inland seas of the North, where all the peoples of the Western Hemisphere have joined to show what they have done in art, science, and industrial invention, what they have been able to accomplish with their manifold resources and their infinitely varied individual and national qualities. Such an exposition, held at the opening of this new century, inevitably suggests two trains of thought. It should make us think seriously and solemnly of our several duties to one another as citizens of the different nations of this Western Hemisphere, and also of our duties each to the nation to which he personally belongs.

The century upon which we have just entered must inevitably be one of tremendous triumph or of tremendous failure for the whole human race, because, to an infinitely greater extent than ever before, humanity is knit together in all its parts, for weal or woe. All about us there are innumerable tendencies that tell for good, and innumerable tendencies that tell for evil. It is, of course, a mere truism to say that our own acts must determine which set of tendencies shall overcome the other. In order to act wisely we must first see clearly. There is no place among us for the mere pessimist; no man who looks at life with a vision that sees all things black or gray can do aught healthful in molding the destiny of a mighty and vigorous people. But there is just as little use for the foolish optimist who refuses to face the many and real evils that exist, and who fails to see that the only way to ensure the triumph of righteousness in the future is to war against all that is base, weak, and unlovely in the present.

There are certain things so obvious as to seem commonplace, which, nevertheless, must be kept constantly before us if we are to preserve our just sense of proportion. This twentieth century is big with the fate of the nations of mankind, because the fate of each is now interwoven with the fate of all to a degree never even approached in any previous stage of history. No better proof could be given than by this very exposition. A century ago no such exposition could have even been thought of. The larger part of the territory represented here to-day by so many free nations was not even mapped, and very much of it was unknown to the hardiest explorer. The influence of America upon Old World affairs was imponderable. World politics still meant European politics.

All that is now changed, not merely by what has happened here in America, but by what has happened elsewhere. It is not necessary for us here to consider the giant changes which have come elsewhere in the globe; to treat of the rise in the South Seas of the great free commonwealths of Australia and New Zealand; of the way in which Japan has been rejuvenated and has advanced by leaps and bounds to a position among the leading civilized powers; of the problems, affecting the major portion of mankind, which call imperiously for solution in parts of the Old World which, a century ago, were barely known to Europe, even by rumor. Our present concern is not with the Old World, but with our own Western Hemisphere, America. We meet to-day, representing the people of this continent, from the Dominion of Canada in the north, to Chile and the Argentine in the south; representing peoples who have traveled far and fast in the last century, because in them has been practically shown that it is the spirit of adventure which is the maker of commonwealths; peoples who are learning and striving to put in practice the vital truth that freedom is the necessary first step, but only the first step, in successful free government.

During the last century we have on the whole made long strides in the right direction, but we have very much yet to learn. We all look forward to the day when there shall be a nearer approximation than there has ever yet been to the brotherhood of man and the peace of the world. More and more we are learning that to love one’s country above all others is in no way incompatible with respecting and wishing well to all others, and that, as between man and man, so between nation and nation, there should live the great law of right. These are the goals toward which we strive; and let us at least earnestly endeavor to realize them here on this continent. From Hudson Bay to the Straits of Magellan, we, the men of the two Americas, have been conquering the wilderness, carving it into state and province, and seeking to build up in state and province governments which shall combine industrial prosperity and moral well-being. Let us ever most vividly remember the falsity of the belief that any one of us is to be permanently benefited by the hurt of another. Let us strive to have our public men treat as axiomatic the truth that it is for the interest of every commonwealth in the Western Hemisphere to see every other commonwealth grow in riches and in happiness, in material wealth and in the sober, strong, self-respecting manliness, without which material wealth avails so little.

To-day on behalf of the United States I welcome you here—you, our brothers of the North and you, our brothers of the South; we wish you well; we wish you all prosperity; and we say to you that we earnestly hope for your well-being, not only for your own sakes, but also for our own, for it is a benefit to each of us to have the others do well. The relations between us now are those of cordial friendship, and it is to the interest of all alike that this friendship should ever remain unbroken. Nor is there the least chance of its being broken, provided only that all of us alike act with full recognition of the vital need that each should realize that his own interests can best be served by serving the interests of others.