Teddy Roosevelt

A policy with so slender a basis of principle would not stand the strain of a single year of business adversity.

But it is difficult to respect an attitude of mind such as has been fairly described above; and where there is no respect there can be no trust.

Men who hold sincere convictions on vital questions can respect equally sincere men with whose views they radically differ; and men may confess a change of faith without compromising their honor or their self-respect.

We of the United States owe the fact that to-day we have a country to what they did; and the Nation has decreed by law that no one of them, if disabled from earning his own living, shall lack the pension to which he is entitled, not only…

As for the Navy, it has been and is now the most potent guarantee of peace; and it is such chiefly because it is formidable, and ready for use.

The Government has shown itself no less anxious to respect the rights of others than insistent that the rights of Americans be respected in return.

Our foreign policy has been not only highly advantageous to the United States, but hardly less advantageous to the world as a whole.

This Government has used that tribunal, and advocated its use by others, in pursuance of its policy to promote the cause of international peace and goodwill by all honorable methods.

No other Administration in our history, no other Government in the world, has more consistently stood for the broadest spirit of brotherhood in our common humanity, or has held a more resolute attitude of protest against every wrong that…

The President’s duty is to serve the country in accordance with the Constitution; and I should be derelict in my duty if I used a false construction of the Constitution as a shield for weakness and timidity, or as an excuse for…

Our opponents can criticise what we did in Panama only on condition of misstating what was done.

They attack them only when they have first misrepresented them; for a truthful recital would leave no room for adverse comment.

So well has the work been done that our opponents do not venture to recite the facts about our policies or acts and then oppose them.

Therefore, our promises may surely be trusted as regards any issue that is now before the people; and we may equally be trusted to deal with any problem which may hereafter arise.

We are content to rest our case before the American people upon the fact that to adherence to a lofty ideal we have added proved governmental efficiency.

A party which, with facile ease, changes all its convictions before election can not be trusted to adhere with tenacity to any principle after election.

A party whose members are radically at variance on most vital issues, and if united at all, are only united on issues where their attitude threatens widespread disaster to the whole country, can not be trusted to govern in any matter.

Our actions speak even louder than our words for the faith that is in us.

The policies we have pursued are those which we earnestly hold as essential to the national welfare and repute.

Men may differ from us; but they can not accuse us of shiftiness or insincerity.

The principles which we profess are those in which we believe with heart and soul and strength.

We do not have to guess at our own convictions, and then correct the guess if it seems unpopular.

Such an attitude is the probably inevitable result of the effort to improvise convictions; for when thus improvised, it is natural that they should be held in a tentative manner.

In fact, it is doubtful if they venture resolutely to press a single issue; as soon as they raise one they shrink from it and seek to explain it away.

It is not unfair to say that, having abandoned most of the principles upon which they have insisted during the last eight years, they now seem at a loss, both as to what it is that they really believe, and as to how firmly they shall…