NAIROBI AND MT. KENYA 103 



*'I wish to take this opportunity to thank the people of British 

 East Africa for their generous and courteous hospitahty. I have had 

 a thoroughly good time. I am immensely interested in the country and 

 its possibilities as an abode for white men. Very large tracts are fit 

 for a fine population and healthy and prosperous settlements, and it 

 would be a calamity to neglect them. But the settlers must be of the 

 right type. 



"I believe that one of the best feats performed by members of the 

 white race in the last ten years is the building of the Uganda Railroad. 

 I am convinced that this country has a great agricultural and indus- 

 trial future and it is the most attractive playground in the world. It 

 most certainly presents excellent openings for capitalists, and ample 

 inducements should be offered them to come here. The home maker 

 and actual settler, and not the speculator, should be encouraged in 

 making this a white man's country. 



"Remember that righteousness and our real ultimate self-interest 

 demand that the blacks be treated justly. I have no patience with 

 sentimentalists, and I think that sentimentality does more harm to 

 individuals than brutality. Therefore I believe in helping the mis- 

 sionary, of whatever creed, who is laboring sincerely and disinter- 

 estedly with practical good sense. 



'Tt is natural that I should have a peculiar feeling for the settlers. 

 They remind me of the men in our West with whom I worked and in 

 whose aspirations I so deeply sympathize." 



In conclusion, Mr. Roosevelt drew a comparison of the conditions 

 as he found them in British East Africa with those that confronted 

 the pioneers of western America. 



It is hardly what one would expect in this country, in which little 

 more than ten years before lions hunted their prey without fear of 

 bullets, and white people were confined to a few daring travelers, to 

 see long rows of diners in evening dress at a well appointed table, or 

 perhaps, on a ball-room floor, to see a company in gay uniforms danc- 

 ing with ladies in showy dresses. Verily, civilization has invaded the 

 wilds and the days of savage dominion in Africa are nearing an end. 



Mr. Roosevelt's address gives us some idea of the state of affairs 

 ^e found in this seat of the provincial administration, and of the 



