Grover Cleveland

“ Those institutions had their birth and nurture in unselfish patriotism and unreserved consecration; and, by a decree of fate beyond recall or change, their perpetuity and beneficence are conditioned on the constant devotion and single-hearted loyalty of those to whom their blessings are vouchsafed. It would be a joy if we could know that all the bright incidents in our history were so much in the expected order of events, and that patriotism and loving service are so familiar in our present surroundings, and so clear in their manifestation, as to dull the edge of their especial commendation. ”

“ The land we live in seems to be strong and active. But how fares the land that lives in us? Are we sure that we are doing all we [75] ought to keep it in vigor and health? Are we keeping its roots well surrounded by the fertile soil of loving allegiance, and are we furnishing them the invigorating moisture of unselfish fidelity? Are we as diligent as we ought to be to protect this precious growth against the poison that must arise from the decay of harmony and honesty and industry and frugality ”

“ Their creed should bind together in generous coöperation all who are willing to fight to make our government what the fathers intended it to be—a depository of benefits which, in equal current and volume, should flow out to all the people. ”

“ It should enjoin respect for the law as the quality that cements the fabric of organized society and makes possible a government by the people. And in every sentence and every line of this creed of good citizenship the lesson should be taught that our country is a beautiful and productive field to be cultivated by loyal Americans, who, with weapons near at hand, whether they sow and reap or whether they rest, will always be prepared to resist those who attempt to despoil by day and pilfer in the night. ”

“ In furtherance of the high endeavor of your organization, it would have been impossible to select for observance any other civic holiday having as broad and fitting a significance [54] as this. It memorizes the birth of one whose glorious deeds are transcendently above all others recorded in our national annals; and, in memorizing the birth of Washington, it commemorates the incarnation of all the virtues and all the ideals that made our nationality possible, and gave it promise of growth and strength. It is a holiday that belongs exclusively to the American people. ”

“ Thus many good and honest men are approached through their patriotic trust in our free institutions and immense national resources, and are insidiously led to a condition of mind which will not permit them to harbor the uncomfortable thought that any omission on their part can check American progress or endanger our country’s continued development. Have we not lived as a [17] nation more than a century; and have we not exhibited growth and achievement in every direction that discredit all parallels in history? ”

“ It is useless for us to blink [20] at the fact that our scheme of government is based upon a close interdependence of interest and purpose among those who make up the body of our people. Let us be honest with ourselves. If our nation was built too much upon sentiment, and if the rules of patriotism and benignity that were followed in the construction have proved too impractical, let us frankly admit it. ”

“ The palpable and immediate good growing out of the commemorations which for twenty years have occurred under the auspices of the League are less impressive than the assurance that, in generations yet to come, the seed thus sown in the hearts of children and youth will bear the fruit of disinterested love of country and saving steadfastness to our national mission. ”

“ Its limitless resources, its astonishing growth, its unapproachable industrial development and its irrepressible inventive genius have made it the wonder of the centuries. Nevertheless, these things do not complete the story of a people truly great. Our country is infinitely more than a domain affording to those who dwell upon it immense material advantages and opportunities. ”

“ But if love of country, equal opportunity and genuine brotherhood in citizenship are worth the pains and trials that gave them birth, and if we still believe them to be worth preservation and that they have the inherent vigor [21] and beneficence to make our republic lasting and our people happy, let us strongly hold them in love and devotion. Then it shall be given us to plainly see that nothing is more unfriendly to the motives that underlie our national edifice than the selfishness and cupidity that look upon freedom and law and order only as so many agencies in aid of their designs. ”

“ More than this, can any of us doubt the existence of still more odious and detestable evils which, with steady, cankering growth, are more directly than all others threatening our safety and national life? ”

“ When Washington wrote that nothing but these was necessary to make us a great and happy people, he had in [64] mind the harmony of American brotherhood and unenvious good-will, the honesty that insures against the betrayal of public trust and hates devious ways and conscienceless practices, the industry that recognizes in faithful work and intelligent endeavor abundant promise of well-earned competence and provident accumulation, and the frugality which outlaws waste and extravagant display as plunderers of thrift and promoters of covetous discontent. ”

“ Resulting from these conditions in a manner not difficult to trace, wholesome national sentiment is threatened with utter perversion. All sorts of misconceptions pervade the public thought, and jealousies, rapidly taking on the complexion of class hatred, are found in every corner of the land. A new meaning has been given to national prosperity. With a hardihood that savors of insolence, an old pretext, which has preceded the doom of ancient experiments in popular vote, is daily and hourly dinned in our ears. ”

“ But they teach nothing more impressive and nothing more needful by way of recalling our countrymen to a faith which has become somewhat faint and obscured than the necessity to national beneficence and the people’s happiness of the homely, simple, personal virtues that grow and thrive in the hearts of men who, with high intent, illustrate the goodness there is in human nature. ”

“ In the day when all shadows shall have passed away and when good citizenship shall have made sure the safety, permanence and happiness of our nation, how small will appear the strifes of selfishness in our civic life, and how petty will seem the machinations of degraded politics. ”

“ Not all patriotism finds expression [7] in the heat and joy of the battlefield; nor does good citizenship begin and end on election day. Mr. Cleveland has, in himself, proved that an upright and fearless chief magistrate in the White House may be as true a patriot as the leader of a forlorn hope, as lofty a type of citizen as a Garrison or a Phillips. No public man of this generation has been more bitterly assailed than Grover Cleveland; none has met with more unswerving serenity the attacks, fair and foul, of those whose selfish interests have made them his sworn foes. ”

“ Who among us all, if our hearts are purged of misleading impulses and our minds freed from perverting pride, can be sure that to-day the posture of affairs and the prevailing disposition of our countrymen coöperate in the establishment and promotion of harmony, honesty, industry and frugality? ”

“ Happily, the strength and solidity of our institutions can safely withstand the utmost freedom and activity of political discussion [70] so far as it involves the adoption of governmental policies or the enforcement of good administration. But they cannot withstand the frenzy of hate which seeks, under the guise of political earnestness, to blot out American brotherhood, and cunningly to persuade our people that a crusade of envy and malice is no more than a zealous insistence upon their manhood rights.
Political parties are exceedingly human ”

“ I deem it a great privilege to be allowed to participate with the League in a commemoration so exactly designed, not only to remind those of mature years of the duty exacted by their heirship in American free institutions, but to teach children the inestimable value of those institutions, to inspire them to emulation of the virtues in which our nation had its birth, and to lead them to know the [53] nobility of patriotic citizenship. ”

“ If we are to deserve security, and make good our claim to sensible, patriotic Americanism, we will carefully and dutifully take our bearings, and discover, if we can, how far wind and tide have carried us away from safe waters. ”

“ There is an habitual associate of civic American indifference and listlessness, which reënforces their malign tendencies and adds tremendously to the dangers that threaten our body politic. This associate plays the rôle of smooth, insinuating confidence operator and, clothed in the garb of [16] immutable faith in the invulnerability of our national greatness, it invites our admiring gaze to the flight of the American eagle, and assures us that no tempestuous weather can ever tire his wings. ”

“ It is true that there should be an end of self-satisfied gratification, or pretense of virtue, in the phrase, “I am not a politician,” and it is time to forbid the prostitution of the word to a sinister use. Every citizen should be politician enough to bring himself within [29] the true meaning of the term, as one who concerns himself with “the regulation or government of a nation or State for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity.” ”

“ But it is important—and more important now than ever before—that they [58] should clearly apprehend and adequately value the virtues and ideals of which he was the embodiment, and that they should realize how essential to our safety and perpetuity are the consecration and patriotism which he exemplified. The American people need to-day the example and teachings of Washington no less than those who fashioned our nation needed his labors and guidance; and only so far as we commemorate his birth with a sincere recognition of this need can our commemoration be useful to the present generation. ”

“ If we find that the wickedness [66] of destructive agitators and the selfish depravity of demagogues have stirred up discontent and strife where there should be peace and harmony, and have arrayed against each other interests which should dwell together in hearty coöperation; if we find that the old standards of sturdy, uncompromising American honesty have become so corroded and weakened by a sordid atmosphere that our people are hardly startled by crime in high places and shameful betrayals of trust everywhere ”

“ Beyond all doubt, the commemorations of the birth of American heroes and statesmen who have rendered redemptive service to their country in emergencies of peace and war should be rescued from entire neglect and from fitful and dislocated remembrance. ”

“ We ought not to be badgered and annoyed by the preaching and exhortation of a restless, troublesome set of men, who continually urge upon us the duty of active and affirmative participation in public affairs. Why should we be charged with neglect of political obligations? ”

“ The commemoration of the day on which American independence was born has been allowed to lose much of its significance as a reminder of Providential favor and of the [47] inflexible patriotism of the fathers of the republic, and has nearly degenerated into a revel of senseless noise and aimless explosion, leaving in its train far more of mishap and accident than lessons of good citizenship or pride of country. The observance of Thanksgiving Day is kept alive through its annual designation by Federal and State authority. ”

“ It seems to me that within our citizenship there are many whose disposition and characteristics very often resemble those found in the membership of our churches. In this membership there is a considerable [14] proportion composed of those who, having made profession of their faith and joined the church, appear to think their duty done when they live honestly, attend worship regularly, and contribute liberally to church support. In complacent satisfaction, and certain of their respectability, they do not care to hear sermonizing concerning the sinfulness of human nature, or the wrath to come ”

“ GOOD CITIZENSHIP THERE is danger that my subject of American good citizenship is so familiar and so trite as to lack interest. This does not necessarily result from a want of appreciation of the importance of good citizenship, nor from a denial of the duty resting upon every American to be a good citizen. There is, however, abroad in our land a self-satisfied and perfunctory notion that we do all that is required of us in this direction [12] when we make profession of our faith in the creed of good citizenship and abstain from the commission of palpably unpatriotic sins. ”

“ If we would bestow upon the land that lives in us the care it needs, it is indispensable that we should recognize the weakness of our human nature, and our susceptibility to temptations and influences that interfere with a full conception of our obligations; and thereupon we should see to it that cupidity and selfishness do not blind our consciences or dull our efforts. ”

“ We go to the polls on election day, when not too busy with other things, and vote the ticket our party managers have prepared for us. Sometimes, when conditions grow to be so [13] bad politically that a revival or stirring-up becomes necessary, a goodly number of us actually devote considerable time and effort to better the situation. Of course, we cannot do this always, because we must not neglect money-getting and the promotion of great enterprises, which, as everybody knows, are the evidence of a nation’s prosperity and influence. ”

“ It is so constructed that it needs for its successful operation the constant care and guiding hand of the people’s abiding faith and love, and not only is this unremitting guidance necessary to keep our national mechanism true to its work, but the faith and love which prompt it are the best safeguards against selfish citizenship. ”

“ This is politics in its best sense, and this is good citizenship.
If good men are to interfere to make political action what it should be, they must not suppose they will come upon an open field unoccupied by an opposing force. On the ground they neglected they will find a host of those who engage in politics for personal ends and selfish purposes, and this ground cannot be taken without a hand-to-hand conflict. [30] The attack must be made under the banner of disinterested good citizenship, by soldiers drilled in lessons of patriotism. They must be enlisted for life and constantly on duty. ”

“ It should insist that our finance and currency concern not alone the large traders, merchants and bankers of our land, but that they are intimately and every day related to the well-being of our people in all conditions of life, and that, therefore, if any adjustments are necessary they should be made in such manner as shall certainly [32] maintain the soundness of our people’s earnings and the security of their savings. ”