54 Presidential Addresses 



up by your society to the memory of those who fell 

 in the war with Spain; a short war; a war that 

 called for the exertion of only the merest fraction 

 of the giant strength of this nation; but a war, the 

 effects of which will be felt through the centuries 

 to come, because of the changes it wrought. It is 

 eminently appropriate that the monument should be 

 unveiled to-day, the day succeeding that on which 

 the free republic of Cuba took its place among the 

 nations of the world as a sequel to what was done 

 by those men who fell and by their comrades in '98. 

 And here, where we meet to honor the memory 

 of those who drew the great prize of death in battle, 

 a word in reference to the survivors : I think that 

 one lesson every one who was capable of learning 

 anything learned from his experience in that war 

 was the old, old lesson that we need to apply in 

 peace quite as much the lesson that the man who 

 does not care to do any act until the time for heroic 

 action comes, does not do the heroic act when the 

 time does come. You all of you remember, com 

 rades, some man it is barely possible some of you 

 remember being the man who, when you enlisted, 

 had a theory that there was nothing but splendor 

 and fighting and bloodshed in the war, and then 

 had the experience of learning that the first thing 

 you had to do was to perform commonplace duties, 

 and perform them well. The work of any man in 

 the campaign depended upon the resolution and 

 effective intelligence with which he started about 

 doing each duty as it arose; not waiting until he 



