3jo Presidential Addresses 



curses if they serve the men of the Nation at present 

 as excuses for shirking the problems of the day. 

 They are blessings if they serve to spur on the men 

 of now to see that they act as well in their time as 

 the men of yesterday did in theirs. 



Each generation has its peculiar problems; each 

 generation has certain tasks allotted to it to do. 

 Shame to it if it treats the glorious deeds of a gen 

 eration that went before as an excuse for its own 

 failure to do the peculiar task it finds ready to hand. 

 Upon the way in which we solve our problems 

 will depend whether our children and our children's 

 children shall look back or shall not look back to us 

 with the veneration which we feel for the men of 

 the mighty years of the Civil War. Our task is a 

 lighter one than theirs, but it is an important one, 

 and do it we must, if we wish to rise level to the 

 standard set us by our forefathers. You in Ne 

 braska have passed through periods of terrible pri 

 vation, of misery and hardship. They were evil 

 times. And yet, there is no experience, no evil, that 

 out of it good can not come, if only we look at it 

 right. Things are better now. Things can be kept 

 better, but only on condition that we face facts with 

 coolness and sanity, with clear-eyed vision that tells 

 us what is true and what is false. When things go 

 wrong there is a tendency in humanity to wish to 

 blame some of its fellows. It is a natural tendency, 

 and by no means always a wholesome tendency. 

 There is always, a tendency to feel that somehow by 

 legislation, by the enactment of some law, by the 



