WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7) cover

Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)

Chapter 37: TO A DELEGATION OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, AT NEW ORLEANS, LA., OCTOBER 26, 1905
By Theodore Roosevelt
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Essays, Letters & SpeechesHistory - AmericanPolitics

About This Book

A collection of addresses and official papers presented across a series of public appearances, offering speeches to civic clubs, universities, professional associations, veterans' groups, and ceremonial audiences. Themes range from advocacy for naval preparedness and deliberate foreign policy to reflections on civic duty, public service, and educational advancement, alongside local dedications and commemorative remarks. The pieces blend practical policy argument and administrative detail with rhetorical appeals to national character, urging measured conduct by officials and private citizens while connecting specific institutional concerns to broader questions of governance and responsibility.

TO A DELEGATION OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, AT NEW ORLEANS, LA., OCTOBER 26, 1905

Gentlemen: Rather, if you will allow one who took part in a very small war to call you so, Comrades:

I accept your gift with pleasure. Although sometimes we have difficulties in this country that we have to battle against, and sometimes things that we are not quite satisfied with, yet we are pretty good people. I have felt this almost as never before during the past weeks. Now think what it means in a Nation for the President of that Nation, forty years after one of the greatest wars of all time, to be able to come and speak as I spoke in the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and to feel that I was addressing a people as loyal to the flag of our reunited country as can be found in this broad land of ours.

I passed in the shadow of the monument of Admiral Semmes in Mobile—under whom one of my uncles fired the last gun that was discharged from the “Alabama,” which another uncle built. The daughter of that admiral is now the wife of our Governor in the Philippines.

Gentlemen, this is an honor I appreciate. I thank you not only for the gift and the words which accompany it, but for the spirit which lies behind the words.