142 Presidential Addresses 



and nine months, and then it was over the other 

 way. And you got it over by setting your faces 

 steadily toward the goal, by not relying upon any 

 thing impossible, but by each doing everything pos 

 sible that came in his line to do, by each man doing 

 his duty. You did not win by any patent device ; you 

 won by the generalship of Grant and Sherman and 

 Thomas and Sheridan, and, above all, by the sol 

 diership of the men who carried the muskets and 

 the sabres. It did not come as soon as you wanted, 

 and the men who said it would come at once did not 

 help you much either. 



In dealing with any great problem in civil life, be 

 it the trusts or anything else, you are going to get 

 along in just about the same fashion. There is not 

 any patent remedy for all the ills. All we can 

 do is to make up our minds definitely that we 

 intend to find some method by which we shall be 

 able to tell, in the first place, what are the real 

 evils and what of the alleged evils are imaginary; 

 in the next place, what of those real evils it is 

 possible to cure by legislation; and then to cure 

 them by legislation and by an honest administration 

 of the laws after they have been enacted. That state 

 ment of the problem will never be attractive to the 

 man who thinks that somehow, by turning your 

 hand, you are going to get a complete solution at 

 once. 



Grant's plan of fighting it out on that line, if it 

 took all summer, was not attractive to the men who 

 wanted it done in a week. But it was the only plan 



