Foreword
Title Page || 1: Boyhood and Youth
Naturally, there are chapters of my autobiography which cannot now
be written.
It seems to me that, for the nation as for the individual, what is
most important is to insist on the vital need of combining certain
sets of qualities, which separately are common enough, and, alas,
useless enough. Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism
not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the
combination is rare. Love of peace is common among weak, short-
sighted, timid, and lazy persons; and on the other hand courage is
found among many men of evil temper and bad character. Neither
quality shall by itself avail. Justice among the nations of
mankind, and the uplifting of humanity, can be brought about only
by those strong and daring men who with wisdom love peace, but who
love righteousness more than peace. Facing the immense complexity
of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use
freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and
yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average
individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty,
initiative, and responsibility. There is need to develop all the
virtues that have the state for their sphere of action; but these
virtues are as dust in a windy street unless back of them lie the
strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of
the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless
acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are
theirs. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must
go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of
shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight
in the many-sided beauty of life. With soul of flame and temper of
steel we must act as our coolest judgment bids us. We must
exercise the largest charity towards the wrong-doer that is
compatible with relentless war against the wrong-doing. We must be
just to others, generous to others, and yet we must realize that
it is a shameful and a wicked thing not to withstand oppression
with high heart and ready hand. With gentleness and tenderness
there must go dauntless bravery and grim acceptance of labor and
hardship and peril. All for each, and each for all, is a good
motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main
to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others.
We of the great modern democracies must strive unceasingly to make
our several countries lands in which a poor man who works hard can
live comfortably and honestly, and in which a rich man cannot live
dishonestly nor in slothful avoidance of duty; and yet we must
judge rich man and poor man alike by a standard which rests on
conduct and not on caste, and we must frown with the same stern
severity on the mean and vicious envy which hates and would
plunder a man because he is well off and on the brutal and selfish
arrogance which looks down on and exploits the man with whom life
has gone hard.
Theodore Roosevelt.
Sagamore Hill, October 1, 1913.
