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From “The Capacity for Greatness”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The twenty-sixth president of the United States and a hero of the Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt (1858–1919) believed in the capacity of the American people for greatness. Greatness is not based on birth or status or income, but on an attitude of a man’s heart to care for and help his fellow man. Roosevelt delivered this address at the beginning of the third session of the fifty-eighth Congress. The last sentence of this excerpt—“Each must stand on his worth as a man and each is entitled to be judged solely thereby”—is a good summary of this entire volume.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

First and foremost, let us remember that the question of being a good American has nothing whatever to do with a man’s birthplace any more than it has to do with his creed. In every generation from the time this Government was founded men of foreign birth have stood in the very foremost rank of good citizenship, and that not merely in one, but in every field of American activity; while to try to draw a distinction between the man whose parents came to this country and the man whose ancestors came to it several generations back is a mere absurdity. Good Americanism is a matter of heart, of conscience, of lofty aspiration, of sound common-sense, but not of birthplace or of creed. The medal of honor, the highest prize to be won by those who serve in the Army and the Navy of the United States, decorates men born here, and it also decorates men born in Great Britain and Ireland, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in France, and doubtless in other countries also. In the field of statesmanship, in the field of business, in the field of philanthropic endeavor, it is equally true that among the men of whom we are most proud as Americans no distinction whatever can be drawn between those who themselves or whose parents came over in sailing ship or steamer from across the water and those whose ancestors stepped ashore into the wooded wilderness at Plymouth or at the mouth of the Hudson, the Delaware, or the James nearly three centuries ago. No fellow-citizen of ours is entitled to any peculiar regard because of the way in which he worships his Maker, or because of the birthplace of himself or his parents, nor should he be in any way discriminated against therefore. Each must stand on his worth as a man and each is entitled to be judged solely thereby.