It is foolish to assert our position as entitled to the respect of other great nations unless we are willing to build the ships, to build the guns, and to train the men who are to man the ships and handle the guns if the need arises.

But I would rather see it play that part frankly than see it boast what it was and then so handle itself that if any one questioned the boast we should have to retreat from the position we assumed because we lacked the power to make our…

We can test the sincerity of those people devoted to peace largely by seeing whether this people does in effective fashion desire to have those treaties ratified, to have those treaties adopted.

I have proceeded upon the assumption that this Nation was sincere when it said that it desired peace, that all proper steps to provide against the likelihood of war ought to be taken; and these arbitration treaties represent precisely…

What we desire is to have it evident that this Nation seeks peace, not because it is afraid, but because it believes in the eternal and immutable laws of justice and of right living.

But our people as a whole possess not only faith, but resolution, and are of too virile fibre to be swept one way or the other by mere sensationalism.

And just the same thing is true in any great enterprise in civil life; there are always weaklings who get trampled down or lose heart, and there are always people who listen to their complaints.

They amount to nothing one way or the other, so far as achieving results is concerned; and their complaints and outcries need never detain us.

The administration is steadily becoming better and more effective, from the hygienic as well as from every other standpoint.

The work of building the canal is a great American work, in which the whole American people are interested.

I need not say that the United States not only has no purpose of aggression upon any republic, continental or insular, to the south of us, but has the friendliest feeling toward them, and desires nothing save their progress and prosperity.

It is an ungenerous thing for us to refuse such aid; and it is foolish not to give it in a way that will make it really effective, and therefore of direct benefit to the people concerned—and of indirect benefit to us, simply because it is…

In the last resort, and only in the last resort, it may occasionally be necessary to interfere by exercising what is virtually an international police power, if only to avoid seeing some European power forced to exercise it.

My friends, let me say what a pleasure it has been in driving along the streets to have the Governor and the Mayor point out to me house after house owned by colored citizens, who by their own industry, energy, and thrift had accumulated a…

Every good American must be interested in seeing every other American citizen rise, help himself upward, so as to be better able to do his duty by himself and those dependent upon him and by the State at large.

It seems to me that it is true of all of us that our duties are even more important than our rights.

If we do our duties faithfully in spite of all difficulties, then sooner or later the rights will take care of themselves.

What I say to this body of my colored fellow-citizens is just exactly what I would say to any body of my white fellow-citizens.

We need education, morality, industry; we need intelligence, clean living, and the power to work hard and effectively.

The costliest crop for any community is the crop of ignorance.

It is perfectly true that education in mind alone won’t make a good citizen; but it is equally true that you can not get the best citizen without education.

All honor to the teacher, to the doctor, to the preacher; but remember that it is impossible that the bulk of any people shall be teachers, or doctors, or lawyers, or preachers.

If we had not acted as we have, all chance of building that canal would have vanished for half a century to come; and as it is we now are assured of having that canal within a comparatively short time.

I know that an audience composed as this audience is of men who either themselves fought or whose fathers fought in the Civil War, appreciate to the full the sound national policy (if I may use the vernacular) of never bluffing unless you…

We undertook to build the Panama Canal because we said that owing to our position and interest and standing we were the only nation that could or should do it.