We meet here to pay glad homage to the memory of our illustrious dead; but let us keep ever clear before our minds the fact that mere lip-loyalty is no loyalty at all, and that the only homage that counts is the homage of deeds, not of words.
In an address honoring past heroes, this passage asserts that genuine loyalty is demonstrated through actions rather than mere verbal tributes.
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More from Teddy Roosevelt
A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics.
Our country—this great Republic—means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show…
I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present.
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