268 Presidential Addresses 



likewise rest assured that no foreign power will ever 

 quarrel with us about the Monroe Doctrine. 



AT WAUKESHA, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903 



Gentlemen and Ladies; my Fellow-Citizens of Wis- 

 . consin : 



You are men and women of Wisconsin, but you 

 are men and women of America first. I am glad of 

 having the chance of saying a few words to you to 

 day. I believe with all my heart in this Nation play 

 ing its part manfully and well. I believe that we are 

 now, at the outset of the twentieth century, face to 

 face with great world problems ; that we can not help 

 playing the part of a great world power; that all 

 we can decide is whether we will play it well or ill. 

 I do not want to see us shrink from any least bit of 

 duty. We have not only taken during the past five 

 years a position of even greater importance in this 

 Western Hemisphere than ever before, but we have 

 taken a position of great importance even in the 

 furthest Orient, in that furthest West, which is the 

 immemorial East. We must hold our own. If we 

 show ourselves weaklings we will earn the contempt 

 of mankind, and what is of far more consequence 

 our own contempt; but I would like to impress 

 upon every public man, upon every writer, in the 

 press, the fact that strength should go hand in hand 

 with courtesy, with scrupulous regard in word and 

 deed, not only for the rights, but for the feelings, 

 of other nations. I want to see a man able to hold 



