288 Presidential Addresses 



have been able to escape the leadership of those who 

 feared Scylla so much that they would plunge us into 

 Charybdis, and of those who feared Charybdis so 

 much that they would plunge us into Scylla. We 

 have been able to preserve orderly liberty and 

 strength to grow in greatness among the nations of 

 the earth, while becoming steadily more and more 

 democratic in the truest and broadest sense of the 

 word. I believe with all my heart that we shall con 

 tinue on the path thus marked out for us; but we 

 shall so continue only if we remember that in the 

 last analysis the safety of the Republic depends upon 

 the high average of individual citizenship. 



We can keep all the forms of free government; 

 and every Fourth of July we can talk possibly a little 

 too boastfully of both the past and the present ; and 

 yet it shall not avail us if we do not have in our 

 hearts the spirit that makes for decent citizenship, 

 the spirit that alone counts in the formation of a true 

 republic. And that spirit is essentially the same in 

 public life as in private life. The manifestations of 

 it differ, but the spirit is the same. A public man 

 is as much bound to tell the truth on the stump as 

 off the stump. On the other hand, his critics will 

 do well to remember that truth-telling is a virtue for 

 them to practice also. What we need in public life 

 and in private life is not genius so much as the 

 many-sided development of the qualities which in 

 their sum make good citizenship. In a great crisis 

 we shall need a genius ; thrice and thrice over fortu 

 nate is the nation which then develops a Lincoln to 



