212 Presidential Addresses 



holders of the principles of Lincoln in the early 

 sixties stand no less stoutly for those typified in the 

 person of McKinley during the closing years of the 

 century. The qualities apt to make men respond to 

 the call of duty in one crisis are also apt to make 

 them respond to a similar call in a crisis of a dif 

 ferent character. The traits which enabled our peo 

 ple to pass unscathed through the fiery ordeal of 

 the Civil War were the traits upon which we had to 

 rely in the less serious, but yet serious, dangers by 

 which we were menaced in 1896, 1898, and 1900. 

 From the very beginning our people have mark 

 edly combined practical capacity for affairs with 

 power of devotion to an ideal. The lack of either 

 quality would have rendered the possession of the 

 other of small value. Mere ability to achieve suc 

 cess in things concerning the body would not have 

 atoned for the failure to live the life of high en 

 deavor; and, on the other hand, without a foun 

 dation of those qualities which bring material pros 

 perity there would be nothing on which the higher 

 life could be built. The men of the Revolution 

 would have failed if they had not possessed alike 

 devotion to liberty and ability (once liberty had been 

 achieved) to show common-sense and self-restraint 

 in its use. The men of the great Civil War would 

 have failed had they not possessed the business ca 

 pacity which developed and organized their resources 

 in addition to the stern resolution to expend these 

 resources as freely as they expended their blood in 

 furtherance of the great cause for which their hearts 



