AT MOBILE, ALA., OCTOBER 23, 1905
Mr. Mayor; My Fellow-Citizens:
I know that the rest of you will not grudge my saying that most of all I am touched by the sight of the men who wore the gray in the great war, parading here to-day. I have just been presented by Judge Semmes with this beautiful badge. I passed by the statue of Admiral Semmes as we drove up hither. Admiral Semmes had under him on the “Alabama” one of my uncles, and it was another uncle that built the “Alabama.” The Judge’s sister, the Admiral’s daughter, is the wife of that distinguished ex-Confederate who by his rule as Governor of the Philippines has held aloft the record of American rule for integrity, efficiency, and firmness.
In speaking before the citizens of this great seaport of the Gulf I naturally wish to say a word about the Panama Canal. I hold that as a matter of public policy whatever helps part of our country helps the whole; and I did my best to bring about the construction of the canal in the interest of all our people; but if there is any one section to be most benefited by it, it is the section that includes the Gulf States. Originally I had been for the Nicaragua canal; but when Congress acted I abode by the decision of Congress. It became evident that we should either have no canal or the Panama Canal; and I am for a canal. 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. Gentlemen, I want to warn you not to be misled by interested clamor. Every man who had to do with bringing about the construction of the canal knows that for decades it was opposed and successfully opposed by great commercial interests which did not wish to see it completed, which did not wish to see a canal speedily dug through the Isthmus and communication between the Atlantic and Pacific established. It seems to me evident from certain things I see in a portion of the daily press that those enemies are still active, and that they are going to try to becloud the issue, with the hope of putting off for ten or fifteen years or over the digging of that canal. Their weapons will be and are every form of misrepresentation. But, gentlemen, they will fail. You need not have the slightest alarm. Uncle Sam has started to dig that canal and it will be dug, and soon. The people who, largely by the circulation of false rumors and by direct misstatement, are seeking to create confusion such as will defer the building of the canal will be disappointed. We have as a people the right to feel genuine satisfaction with the progress that has already been made. Let me point out something of which you here will appreciate the significance: the sanitation of the Isthmus. Do you remember that a couple of years ago men said that you could not dig that canal because yellow fever was epidemic there? We are digging it, and with a cleaner bill of mortality than the Isthmus has ever known before. I am happy to be able to tell you that from information received this very day, I find that those who have just returned from the Isthmus are not only pleased but astonished at the excellent trim in which the project is; that it is going on well, and that it will go along even better in the future.
Of all the things said about me to-day in the over-kind allusions to me, I was especially pleased by what the Colonel said as to my attitude toward crooked public servants. I will take advice about appointing men; but if I find they are crooked I do not take any advice at all about removing them. We have Scriptural authority for saying that “offences must come”; but the Good Book adds, “woe to them through whom they come.” I can not guarantee, and no human being can, that there will not be an occasional man of an improper kind appointed, or an occasional well-meaning man who after being appointed goes wrong; but I can say that every effort within the power of the Government will be made to hunt such a man out of the public service and to punish him to the full extent of the law.
Here in this seaboard city I want to say another word, and that is about the United States Navy. Again, Judge Semmes, in passing by the monument of your illustrious father I felt the thrill of pride that all Americans must feel that the names of the combatants in that famous ship duel are commemorated in the names of the “Kearsarge” and “Alabama” in the United States Navy now, and that if ever they have to go into action they will go into action side by side, manned by Americans, against a common foe. 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 mean to make good. 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. That means that we have got to protect it and police it ourselves. We do not ask anybody else to help us do the work we have allotted to ourselves. We must therefore bring up and keep up our navy to the highest point of efficiency. We can afford to have a small army; although we must insist upon its being kept up to the high point of efficiency that I am glad to say our regular army in its individual units has now attained. In the event of war, however, which I hope will never come, the American people in the future as in the past must on land rely mainly upon its volunteer soldiery. But while it is a comparatively simple task to turn a man of the proper character, physique and intelligence into a good soldier, you can not improvise either a battleship or the crew of a battleship. At sea the battle has to be fought with the ships and the crews that have been prepared before the war begins; and we wish to profit by the lessons of history by seeing that our navy is always kept adequate to our needs. It is not necessary to have a very large navy; but it is necessary that ship for ship it should be just a little the most efficient navy in the world. In battle the shots that count are the shots that hit. There are plenty of gallant fellows who will go down with their ships. That is all right; if there is nothing else to be done, go down with the ships rather than surrender. But try to make the other fellow’s ship go down first! I want our people to feel that in assuming to dig the Isthmian canal, in assuming the position we have assumed as regards this Western Hemisphere and in the Oriental seas, we bind ourselves to keep our navy at such a point of efficiency that there shall be no chance of humiliation at the hands of any foreign foe.
I appreciate immensely this mighty outpouring of people. The Mayor in his most gratifying and touching speech spoke of the fact of our agreement on the fundamental questions, without regard to our differences on what are really matters only of political detail. The things that count are the things upon which we are all agreed and must be all agreed in our civic life. Whether President, Governor, Mayor, Congressman, or State Legislator, there are certain basic principles to which we must prove true if we are to make this country what it shall be made. We can perfectly well afford to differ about the currency or the tariff; but we can not afford to differ about such questions as honesty in public life, decency and cleanliness in private life. Those qualities and others like them go to the root of the whole question of citizenship. I believe in the future of this country; I believe that this great self-governing Republic will rise to a height never even dreamed of by any other nation, because I believe that the average American citizen, North or South, East or West, has the right stuff in him; that the average American citizen has the three fundamental virtues of honesty, courage, and common-sense.