Rome fell by attack from without only because the ills within her own borders had grown incurable. What is true of your country, my hearers, is true of my own; while we should be vigilant against foes from without, yet we need never really fear them so long as we safeguard ourselves against the enemies within our own households; and these enemies are our own passions and follies. Free peoples can escape being mastered by others only by being able to master themselves. We Americans and you people of the British Isles alike need ever to keep in mind that, among the many qualities indispensable to the success of a great democracy, and second only to a high and stern sense of duty, of moral obligation, are self-knowledge and self-mastery. You, my hosts, and I may not agree in all our views; some of you would think me a very radical democrat—as, for the matter of that, I am—and my theory of imperialism would probably suit the anti-imperialists as little as it would suit a certain type of forcible-feeble imperialist. But there are some points on which we must all agree if we think soundly. The precise form of government, democratic or otherwise, is the instrument, the tool, with which we work. It is important to have a good tool. But, even if it is the best possible, it is only a tool. No implement can ever take the place of the guiding intelligence that wields it. A very bad tool will ruin the work of the best craftsman; but a good tool in bad hands is no better. In the last analysis the all-important factor in national greatness is national character.

There are questions which we of the great civilized nations are ever tempted to ask of the future. Is our time of growth drawing to an end? Are we as nations soon to come under the rule of that great law of death which is itself but part of the great law of life? None can tell. Forces that we can see, and other forces that are hidden or that can but dimly be apprehended, are at work all around us, both for good and for evil. The growth in luxury, in love of ease, in taste for vapid and frivolous excitement, is both evident and unhealthy. The most ominous sign is the diminution in the birth-rate, in the rate of natural increase, now to a larger or lesser degree shared by most of the civilized nations of Central and Western Europe, of America and Australia; a diminution so great that if it continues for the next century at the rate which has obtained for the last twenty-five years, all the more highly civilized peoples will be stationary or else have begun to go backward in population, while many of them will have already gone very far backward.

There is much that should give us concern for the future. But there is much also which should give us hope. No man is more apt to be mistaken than the prophet of evil. After the French Revolution in 1830 Niebuhr hazarded the guess that all civilization was about to go down with a crash, that we were all about to share the fall of third-and fourth-century Rome—a respectable, but painfully overworked, comparison. The fears once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to the future of the world have proved groundless as regards the civilized portion of the world; it is strange indeed to look back at Carlyle's prophecies of some seventy years ago, and then think of the teeming life of achievement, the life of conquest of every kind, and of noble effort crowned by success, which has been ours for the two generations since he complained to High Heaven that all the tales had been told and all the songs sung, and that all the deeds really worth doing had been done. I believe with all my heart that a great future remains for us; but whether it does or does not, our duty is not altered. However the battle may go, the soldier worthy of the name will with utmost vigor do his allotted task, and bear himself as valiantly in defeat as in victory. Come what will, we belong to peoples who have not yielded to the craven fear of being great. In the ages that have gone by, the great nations, the nations that have expanded and that have played a mighty part in the world, have in the end grown old and weakened and vanished; but so have the nations whose only thought was to avoid all danger, all effort, who would risk nothing, and who therefore gained nothing. In the end, the same fate may overwhelm all alike; but the memory of the one type perishes with it, while the other leaves its mark deep on the history of all the future of mankind.

A nation that seemingly dies may be born again; and even though in the physical sense it die utterly, it may yet hand down a history of heroic achievement, and for all time to come may profoundly influence the nations that arise in its place by the impress of what it has done. Best of all is it to do our part well, and at the same time to see our blood live young and vital in men and women fit to take up the task as we lay it down; for so shall our seed inherit the earth. But if this, which is best, is denied us, then at least it is ours to remember that if we choose we can be torch-bearers, as our fathers were before us. The torch has been handed on from nation to nation, from civilization to civilization, throughout all recorded time, from the dim years before history dawned down to the blazing splendor of this teeming century of ours. It dropped from the hands of the coward and the sluggard, of the man wrapped in luxury or love of ease, the man whose soul was eaten away by self-indulgence; it has been kept alight only by those who were mighty of heart and cunning of hand. What they worked at, provided it was worth doing at all, was of less matter than how they worked, whether in the realm of the mind or the realm of the body. If their work was good, if what they achieved was of substance, then high success was really theirs.

In the first part of this lecture I drew certain analogies between what has occurred to forms of animal life through the procession of the ages on this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring to the great artificial civilizations which have gradually spread over the world's surface, during the thousands of years that have elapsed since cities of temples and palaces first rose beside the Nile and the Euphrates, and the harbors of Minoan Crete bristled with the masts of the AEgean craft. But of course the parallel is true only in the roughest and most general way. Moreover, even between the civilizations of to-day and the civilizations of ancient times, there are differences so profound that we must be cautious in drawing any conclusions for the present based on what has happened in the past. While freely admitting all of our follies and weaknesses of to-day, it is yet mere perversity to refuse to realize the incredible advance that has been made in ethical standards. I do not believe that there is the slightest necessary connection between any weakening of virile force and this advance in the moral standard, this growth of the sense of obligation to one's neighbor and of reluctance to do that neighbor wrong. We need have scant patience with that silly cynicism which insists that kindliness of character only accompanies weakness of character. On the contrary, just as in private life many of the men of strongest character are the very men of loftiest and most exalted morality, so I believe that in national life, as the ages go by, we shall find that the permanent national types will more and more tend to become those in which, though intellect stands high, character stands higher; in which rugged strength and courage, rugged capacity to resist wrongful aggression by others, will go hand in hand with a lofty scorn of doing wrong to others. This is the type of Timoleon, of Hampden, of Washington, and Lincoln. These were as good men, as disinterested and unselfish men, as ever served a State; and they were also as strong men as ever founded or saved a State. Surely such examples prove that there is nothing Utopian in our effort to combine justice and strength in the same nation. The really high civilizations must themselves supply the antidote to the self-indulgence and love of ease which they tend to produce.

Every modern civilized nation has many and terrible problems to solve within its own borders, problems that arise not merely from juxtaposition of poverty and riches, but especially from the self-consciousness of both poverty and riches. Each nation must deal with these matters in its own fashion, and yet the spirit in which the problem is approached must ever be fundamentally the same. It must be a spirit of broad humanity; of brotherly kindness; of acceptance of responsibility, one for each and each for all; and at the same time a spirit as remote as the poles from every form of weakness and sentimentality. As in war to pardon the coward is to do cruel wrong to the brave man whose life his cowardice jeopardizes, so in civil affairs it is revolting to every principle of justice to give to the lazy, the vicious, or even the feeble or dull-witted, a reward which is really the robbery of what braver, wiser, abler men have earned. The only effective way to help any man is to help him to help himself; and the worst lesson to teach him is that he can be permanently helped at the expense of some one else. True liberty shows itself to best advantage in protecting the rights of others, and especially of minorities. Privilege should not be tolerated because it is to the advantage of a minority; nor yet because it is to the advantage of a majority. No doctrinaire theories of vested rights or freedom of contract can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses from the body politic. Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires of an impossible—and incidentally of a highly undesirable—social revolution, which in destroying individual rights—including property rights—and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the advance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance or the preservation of mankind is worth while. It is an evil and a dreadful thing to be callous to sorrow and suffering and blind to our duty to do all things possible for the betterment of social conditions. But it is an unspeakably foolish thing to strive for this betterment by means so destructive that they would leave no social conditions to better. In dealing with all these social problems, with the intimate relations of the family, with wealth in private use and business use, with labor, with poverty, the one prime necessity is to remember that though hardness of heart is a great evil it is no greater an evil than softness of head.

But in addition to these problems, the most intimate and important of all, and which to a larger or less degree affect all the modern nations somewhat alike, we of the great nations that have expanded, that are now in complicated relations with one another and with alien races, have special problems and special duties of our own. You belong to a nation which possesses the greatest empire upon which the sun has ever shone. I belong to a nation which is trying on a scale hitherto unexampled to work out the problems of government for, of, and by the people, while at the same time doing the international duty of a great Power. But there are certain problems which both of us have to solve, and as to which our standards should be the same. The Englishman, the man of the British Isles, in his various homes across the seas, and the American, both at home and abroad, are brought into contact with utterly alien peoples, some with a civilization more ancient than our own, others still in, or having but recently arisen from, the barbarism which our people left behind ages ago. The problems that arise are of well-nigh inconceivable difficulty. They cannot be solved by the foolish sentimentality of stay-at-home people, with little patent recipes, and those cut-and-dried theories of the political nursery which have such limited applicability amid the crash of elemental forces. Neither can they be solved by the raw brutality of the men who, whether at home or on the rough frontier of civilization, adopt might as the only standard of right in dealing with other men, and treat alien races only as subjects for exploitation.

No hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying to all alien races, because they differ from one another far more widely than some of them differ from us. But there are one or two rules which must not be forgotten. In the long run there can be no justification for one race managing or controlling another unless the management and control are exercised in the interest and for the benefit of that other race. This is what our peoples have in the main done, and must continue in the future in even greater degree to do, in India, Egypt, and the Philippines alike. In the next place, as regards every race, everywhere, at home or abroad, we cannot afford to deviate from the great rule of righteousness which bids us treat each man on his worth as a man. He must not be sentimentally favored because he belongs to a given race; he must not be given immunity in wrong-doing or permitted to cumber the ground, or given other privileges which would be denied to the vicious and unfit among ourselves. On the other hand, where he acts in a way which would entitle him to respect and reward if he was one of our own stock, he is just as entitled to that respect and reward if he comes of another stock, even though that other stock produces a much smaller proportion of men of his type than does our own. This has nothing to do with social intermingling, with what is called social equality. It has to do merely with the question of doing to each man and each woman that elementary justice which will permit him or her to gain from life the reward which should always accompany thrift, sobriety, self-control, respect for the rights of others, and hard and intelligent work to a given end. To more than such just treatment no man is entitled, and less than such just treatment no man should receive.

The other type of duty is the international duty, the duty owed by one nation to another. I hold that the laws of morality which should govern individuals in their dealings one with the other, are just as binding concerning nations in their dealings one with the other. The application of the moral law must be different in the two cases, because in one case it has, and in the other it has not, the sanction of a civil law with force behind it. The individual can depend for his rights upon the courts, which themselves derive their force from the police power of the State. The nation can depend upon nothing of the kind; and therefore, as things are now, it is the highest duty of the most advanced and freest peoples to keep themselves in such a state of readiness as to forbid to any barbarism or despotism the hope of arresting the progress of the world by striking down the nations that lead in that progress. It would be foolish indeed to pay heed to the unwise persons who desire disarmament to be begun by the very peoples who, of all others, should not be left helpless before any possible foe. But we must reprobate quite as strongly both the leaders and the peoples who practise, or encourage, or condone, aggression and iniquity by the strong at the expense of the weak. We should tolerate lawlessness and wickedness neither by the weak nor by the strong; and both weak and strong we should in return treat with scrupulous fairness. The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting country should be conducted on exactly the same plane of honor, for insistence upon one's own rights and of respect for the rights of others, that marks the conduct of a brave and honorable man when dealing with his fellows. Permit me to support this statement out of my own experience. For nearly eight years I was the head of a great nation, and charged especially with the conduct of its foreign policy; and during those years I took no action with reference to any other people on the face of the earth that I would not have felt justified in taking as an individual in dealing with other individuals.

I believe that we of the great civilized nations of to-day have a right to feel that long careers of achievement lie before our several countries. To each of us is vouchsafed the honorable privilege of doing his part, however small, in that work. Let us strive hardily for success even if by so doing we risk failure, spurning the poorer souls of small endeavor who know neither failure nor success. Let us hope that our own blood shall continue in the land, that our children and children's children to endless generations shall arise to take our places and play a mighty and dominant part in the world. But whether this be denied or granted by the years we shall not see, let at least the satisfaction be ours that we have carried onward the lighted torch in our own day and generation. If we do this, then, as our eyes close, and we go out into the darkness, and others' hands grasp the torch, at least we can say that our part has been borne well and valiantly.

* * * * *



APPENDIX

CONVOCATION

JUNE 7, 1910

FOLLOWED BY THE DELIVERY OF

THE ROMANES LECTURE

BY

THE HON'BLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT

HON. D.C.L.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON

CHANCELLOR

PRESIDING

* * * * *



Convocation and the Romanes Lecture, June 7, 1910[16]

[16] An artistically printed pamphlet, containing, with text in Latin and in English, the programme and ritual here given, was placed by the University authorities in the hands of each member of the audience.—L.F.A.

THE CHANCELLOR.

Causa huius Convocationis est, Academici, ut, si vobis placuerit, in virum Honorabilem Theodorum Roosevelt, Civitatum Foederatarum Americae Borealis olim Praesidentem, Gradus Doctoris in Iure Civili conferatur honoris causa; ut Praelectio exspectatissima ab eodem, Doctore in Universitate facto novissimo, coram vobis pronuncietur; necnon ut alia peragantur, quae ad Venerabilem hanc Domum spectant.

Placetne igitur Venerabili huic Convocationi ut in virum Honorabilem Theodorum Roosevelt Gradus Doctoris in Iure Civili conferatur honoris causa?

Placetne vobis, Domini Doctores? Placetne vobis, Magistri?

* * * * *

To the Bedels.

Ite, Bedelli! Petite Virum Honorabilem!

* * * * *

The Chancellor to the Vice-Chancellor, as Mr. Roosevelt takes his place for presentation.

Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Cuius in adventum pavidi cessere cometae Et septemgemini turbant trepida ostia Nili!

* * * * *

PRESENTATION SPEECH by DR. HENRY GOUDY, Regius Professor of Civil Law, Fellow of All Souls College.

Insignissime Cancellarie!

Vosque Egregii Procuratores!

Saepenumero mihi et antea contigit plurimos e Republica illa illustri oriundos, affines nostros, vobis praesentare gradum honorarium Doctoris in Iure Civili accepturos, inter quos vel nomina praestantissimorum hominum citare in promptu esset. Neque tamen quemquam vel suis ipsius meritis vel fama digniorem, qui hoc titulo donaretur, salutavi quam hunc virum quem ad vos duco.

Batavorum antiqua stirpe ortus, sicut et nomen ipsius inclitum indicat, Americanae patriae germanum civem sese praestitit; in qua nemo sane laudem maiorem Reipublicae suae suorum iudicio contulisse creditur.

Tardius quidem ad Britannos fama nominis inclaruit, imprimis tum quum certamine inter Hispanos atque suos orto alae Equitum praefectus rei militaris sese peritissimum ostentabat. Huic autem, omnia scire ardenti, nulla pars humanitatis supervacua aut negligenda videbatur. Manifesto quippe declaravit, ut cum poeta loquar:

"Non sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo,"

atque exinde annales non tantum patriae suae sed totius terrarum orbis exemplo virtutis implere.

Quippe bis Hercule! in locum amplissimum Praesulis Reipublicae suae electus egregio illo in statu ita se gerebat ut laudes et nomen magni illius antecessoris, Abraham Lincoln, vel aequipararet—quorum alter servitudinem, alter corruptionem vicit. Unde et spem licet concipere ut viro bis summum civitatis honorem adepto accedat et denuo idem ille honor terna vice, numero auspicatissimo, numerandus.

Fortem hospitis nostri animum et tenacem propositi novimus; felicitati et otio non modo suorum sed etiam gentium exterarum consuluit: bellator ipse atque idem pacis omnibus terrae gentibus firmandae auctor indefessus, sicut et exemplum illustre praebuit nuper foedere icto post bellum inter Iapones et Scytharum populos gestuni. Neque idem pacem veram esse iudicavit, nisi quae iustitiae et ipsa inniteretur; quippe civitates laude dignas negavit quibus nee in se ipsis constaret fides et animi magnitudo.

Venatoriam artem exercuit, historiae naturalis amator; post dimissum opus civicum requiem in Africae solitudinibus nuper quaesivit ubi in feras terrae non minore animo, successu haud minore, ferrum exacuit quam in malos saeculi mores saevire solitus est.

Iam tandem, laboribus functus, patriam suam repetiturus nobiscum paulum temporis commoratur Ulysses ille alter, viarum pariter expertus et consiliorum largitor.

Neque praetermittendum est hospitem nostrum, dum varias artes colit, Musarum opus non neglexisse, stilo non minus quam lingua facundus; quem nos, Academici, magnis de rebus loquentem hodie audituri sumus.

Hunc igitur praesento

Theodorum Roosevelt,

ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Iure Civili honoris causa.

* * * * *

The Chancellor to Mr. Roosevelt in admitting him to the Degree.

Strenuissime, insignissime, civium toto orbe terrae hodie agentium, summum ingentis rei publicae magistratum bis incorrupte gestum, ter forsitan gesture, augustissimis regibus par, hominum domitor, beluarum ubique vastator, homo omnium humanissime, nihil a te alienum, ne nigerrimum quidem, putans, ego auctoritate Mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad Gradum Doctoris in Iure Civili honoris causa.

The Chancellor to the Bedels.

Ite, Bedelli! Ducite Doctorem Honorabilem ad Pulpitum!

* * * * *

The Chancellor will then, in English, welcome Mr. Roosevelt to Oxford, and invite him to deliver his Lecture.

* * * * *

THE ROMANES LECTURE

* * * * *

At the close of the Lecture the Chancellor will direct the Vice-Chancellor to dissolve the Convocation as follows:

Iamque tempus enim est, Insignissime mi Vice-Cancellarie, dissolve, quaeso, Convocationem.

* * * * *

The Vice-Chancellor will dissolve the Convocation as follows:

Celsissime Domine Cancellarie, iussu tuo dissolvimus hanc Convocationem.

FINIS

* * * * *



Convocation and the Romanes Lecture

TRANSLATION OF THE LATIN

THE CHANCELLOR.

The object of this Convocation is, that, if it be your pleasure, Gentlemen of the University, the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil Law may be conferred on the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, ex-President of the United States of North America, that the long-expected Romanes Lecture may be delivered by him, when he has been made the youngest Doctor in the University, and that any other business should be transacted which may belong to this Venerable House.

Is it the pleasure then of this Venerable House that the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil Law should be conferred upon the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt? Is it your pleasure, Reverend Doctors? Is it your pleasure, Masters of the University?

* * * * *

Go, Bedels, and bring in the Honorable gentleman!

* * * * *

The Chancellor to the Vice-Chancellor.

Behold, Vice-Chancellor, the promised wight, Before whose coming comets turned to flight, And all the startled mouths of sevenfold Nile took fright!

* * * * *

PRESENTATION SPEECH by DR. HENRY GOUDY.

It has been my privilege to present in former years many distinguished citizens of the great American Republic for our honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, but none of them have surpassed in merit or obtained such world-wide celebrity as he whom I now present to you. Of ancient Dutch lineage, as his name indicates, but still a genuine American, he has long been an outstanding figure among his fellow citizens. He first became known to us in England during the Spanish-American War, when he commanded a regiment of cavalry and proved himself a most capable military leader. Omnivorous in his quest of knowledge, nothing in human affairs seemed to him superfluous or negligible. In the language of the poet, one might say of him—"Non sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo." Twice has he been elevated to the position of President of the Republic, and in performing the duties of that high office has acquired a title to be ranked with his great predecessor Abraham Lincoln—"Quorum alter servitudinem, alter corruptionem vicit." May we not presage that still a third time—most auspicious of numbers—he may be called upon to take the reins of government?

With unrivalled energy and tenacity of purpose he has combined lofty ideals with a sincere devotion to the practical needs not only of his fellow countrymen, but of humanity at large. A sincere friend of peace among nations—who does not know of his successful efforts to terminate the devastating war between Russia and Japan?—he has also firmly held that Peace is only a good thing when combined with justice and right. He has ever asserted that a nation can only hope to survive if it be self-respecting and makes itself respected by others.

A noted sportsman and lover of Natural History, he has recently, after his arduous labors as Head of the State, been seeking relaxation in distant Africa, where his onslaughts on the wild beasts of the desert have been not less fierce nor less successful than over the many-headed hydra of corruption in his own land.

Now, like another Ulysses, on his homeward way he has come to us for a brief interval, after visiting many cities and discoursing on many themes.

Nor must I omit to remind you that our guest, amid his engrossing duties of State, has not neglected the Muses. Not less facile with the pen than the tongue, he has written on many topics, and this afternoon it will be our privilege to listen to him discoursing on a lofty theme.

* * * * *

By the Chancellor.

Most strenuous of men, most distinguished of citizens to-day playing a part on the stage of the world, you who have twice administered with purity the first Magistracy of the Great Republic (and may perhaps administer it a third time), peer of the most august Kings, queller of men, destroyer of monsters wherever found, yet the most human of mankind, deeming nothing indifferent to you, not even the blackest of the black; I, by my authority and that of the whole University, admit you to the Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa.

* * * * *

Go, Bedels, conduct the Honorable Doctor to the Lectern!

* * * * *

Here follows the Chancellor's welcome, and the Romanes Lecture.

* * * * *

After the Lecture, the Chancellor to the Vice-Chancellor.

And now, my dear Vice-Chancellor—for it is time—be good enough to dissolve the Convocation!

* * * * *

The Vice-Chancellor.

Exalted Lord Chancellor, at your bidding we dissolve the Convocation.

FINIS