i86 Presidential Addresses 



War, which was its aftermath, but in the presence 

 of those who fought in the great Civil War; and 

 more than that, I speak here in a typical city of 

 the old Northwest, what is now the Middle West, 

 in a typical State of our Union. You men of Mich 

 igan have been mighty in war and mighty in peace. 

 You belong to a country mighty in war and mighty 

 in peace a country of a great past, whose great 

 present is but an earnest of an even greater future. 

 The world has never seen more marvelous prosperity 

 than that which we now enjoy, and this prosperity 

 is not ephemeral. We shall have our ups and downs. 

 The waves at times will recede, but the tide will 

 go steadily higher. This country has never yet 

 been called upon to meet a crisis in war or a 

 crisis in peace to which it did not eventually prove 

 equal. I preach the gospel of hope to you men of 

 the West who in thought and life embody this gos 

 pel of hope, this gospel of resolute and confident 

 belief in your own powers and in the destiny of 

 this mighty Republic. I believe in the future 1 not 

 in a spirit which will sit down and look for the 

 future to work itself out but with a determination 

 to do its part in making the future what it can and 

 shall be made. We are optimists. We spurn the 

 teachings of despair and distrust. We have an 

 abiding faith in the growing strength, the growing 

 future of the mighty young nation, still in the flush 

 of its youth, and yet with the might of a giant, 

 which stands on a continent and grasps an ocean 

 with either handl 



