Transcriber’s Note: The cover image was createdfrom the decorative cover and title page by the transcriber, and isplaced in the public domain.
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
AT THE LINCOLN DINNER OF THE
REPUBLICAN CLUB OF THE CITY OF
NEW YORK
WALDORF-ASTORIA
HOTELFEBRUARY 13, 1905
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1905
Mr. President, and you, my fellow-membersof the Republican Club,and you, my fellow-guests of theRepublican Club:
In his second inaugural, in a speechwhich will be read as long as the memoryof this nation endures, Abraham Lincolnclosed by saying:
“With malice toward none; with charityfor all; with firmness in the right, asGod gives us to see the right, let us strive[2]on to finish the work we are in; * * *to do all which may achieve and cherisha just and lasting peace among ourselves,and with all nations.”
Immediately after his reelection hehad already spoken thus:
“The strife of the election is but humannature practically applied to the facts ofthe case. What has occurred in this casemust ever recur in similar cases. Humannature will not change. In any futuregreat national trial, compared with the men[3]of this, we shall have as weak and asstrong, as silly and as wise, as bad and asgood. Let us, therefore, study the incidentsof this as philosophy to learn wisdomfrom, and none of them as wrongsto be revenged. * * * May not allhaving a common interest reunite in acommon effort to (serve) our commoncountry? For my own part, I have strivenand shall strive to avoid placing any obstaclein the way. So long as I have beenhere I have not willingly planted a thorn[4]in any man’s bosom. While I am deeplysensible to the high compliment of a reelection,and duly grateful, as I trust, toAlmighty God for having directed mycountrymen to a right conclusion, as Ithink, for their own good, it adds nothingto my satisfaction that any other man maybe disappointed or pained by the result.
“May I ask those who have not differedwith me to join with me in this same spirittoward those who have?”
This is the spirit in which mighty Lincoln[5]sought to bind up the nation’s woundswhen its soul was yet seething with fiercehatreds, with wrath, with rancor, with allthe evil and dreadful passions provokedby civil war. Surely this is the spiritwhich all Americans should show no