At present the right of appeal is in certain cases so abused as to make it a matter of the utmost difficulty to ultimately punish a man sufficiently rich or sufficiently influential to command really good legal talent.

I feel that the man who offends against the state occupies a position rather worse than that of any other criminal, from the very fact that he is a man who attacks everybody instead of just one person, so that it is not the special…

In consequence, if he can keep the forces of justice at bay long enough—if he can secure one or two mistrials—gradually the popular interest evaporates and the criminal gets off.

Of course, as we all know, offences must come; but I have endeavored to carry out the Scriptural injunction and to make it a matter of woe unto him by whom they come.

Long delays of justice, abuses of the pardoning power, the sluggishness with which either court or attorney moves; all of those things count in bringing about the condition of affairs which produces lynch law.

And, Governor, as you have so well said, when a man is President, when he holds any public office, questions of a merely partisan character sink into absolute insignificance compared with the mighty questions upon which all good Americans…

I do not want any Senator or any Congressman to vote for anything I favor just because I favor it; but I do not want him to vote against it just because I favor it.

I do not intend, on behalf of the Nation, to take any position until I have carefully thought out whether that position will be advantageous to the Nation, but if I take it I am going to keep it, and I am going to keep it no matter what…

I want to see this Nation do as the individual men in the Nation, who respect themselves, should do, that is be scrupulously regardful of the rights of others and honestly endeavor to avoid all cause of difficulty with any one.

But I want, on behalf of this Nation, the peace that comes, not to the coward who cringes for it, but to the just man armed who asks it as a right.

I do not say anything unless I mean it, and I do not say anything to flatter any audience or speak well of them unless I think well of them, and would speak well of them anywhere.

In actual war there can be no greater or more effective heroism than was shown by those who stayed here at their posts; by those who, being away, came back; and by those who, having planned to go away, instantly gave up going away and…

The highest gratitude is due to the officials of the State, to the officials of the city, and to the private individuals, clergymen, educators, philanthropists, and business men, who have spent their time and money and risked their lives…

The time when one is praised very much is the time one should walk guardedly and carefully and work with all one’s soul and strength.

Any man in the whole ship’s company who does his full duty can claim as his own the honor and repute of the ship and has the right to feel a personal pride in all she does.

Going through the ship yesterday, in the engine rooms, storerooms, turrets, everywhere the thing that impressed me most was the all-importance of each man in his place: the all-importance of that man both knowing his work and feeling it a…

All through the ship I have seen the same purpose, the purpose to learn exactly what the duty to be done was and then to do it; and the power to do presupposes the possession by each of you of intelligence, courage, and physical address.

Remember that if ever, which may Heaven forbid, war comes, it will depend upon you and those like you whether the people of this country are to hold their heads even higher or to hang them in shame.

I hope that no such crisis will ever occur, but I have entire faith that if it ever does occur, you will rise level to any demand that may be made upon you, and that by the way you train yourselves and are trained in time of peace, you…

But you men are fitted for fighting because you have the fighting edge.

This means that you are willing at all times to face death in the performance of your duty.

Therefore he died in the service of his country exactly as much as if he had died in battle, and deserves as much honor.

I need not tell you to remember that battles are decided by gunfire, and that the only shots that count are the shots that hit.

Men, I am glad to have seen you, and I don’t think that anywhere under our flag there could be found a better set of clean-cut, vigorous, self-respecting American citizens of the very type that makes one proudest to be an American.

The interests of the wage-worker and the interests of the tiller of the soil must be peculiarly close to all American public men; among other reasons for the reason that if they prosper all other classes will prosper likewise as a matter…