76 Presidential Addresses 



in the future than ever before to know your pro 

 fession, and more essential also; and you officers, 

 and you who are about to become officers, if you are 

 going to do well, have got to learn how to perform 

 the duty which, while become more essential, has 

 become harder to perform. 



You want to face the fact and realize more than 

 ever before that the honor or the shame of the 

 country may depend upon the high average of char 

 acter and capacity of the officers and enlisted men, 

 and that a high average of character and capacity 

 in the enlisted men can to a large degree be ob 

 tained only through you, the officers ; that you must 

 devote your time in peace to bringing up the stan 

 dard of fighting efficiency of the men under you, 

 not merely in doing your duty so that you can not 

 be called to account for failure to perform it, but 

 doing it in a way that will make any man under 

 you abler to perform his. 



I noticed throughout the time that we were in 

 Cuba that the orders given and executed were of 

 the simplest kind, and that there was very little 

 manoeuvring, practically none of the manoeuvring 

 of the parade ground. Now, I want you to 

 weigh what I say, for if you take only half of 

 it, you will invert it. I found out very soon in 

 my regiment that the best man was the man who 

 had been in the Regular Army in actual service, 

 out in the West, campaigning on the plains; if he 

 had been a good man in the Regular Army in actual 

 service on the plains he was the best man that I 



