412 Presidential Addresses 



of what other men by the hundred have done, Amer- 

 icans who have graduated from no college, Ameri- 

 cans who have graduated from our different colleges, 

 and especially by practically all those Americans who 

 have graduated from the two great typical Ameri- 

 can institutions of learning West Point and Annap- 

 olis. Taft and Wood and their fellows are spend- 

 ing or have spent the best years of their prime in do- 

 ing a work which means to them pecuniary loss, at 

 the best a bare livelihood while they are doing it, 

 and are doing it gladly because they realize the truth 

 that the highest privilege that can be given to any 

 American is the privilege of serving his country, his 

 fellow- Americans. As I am speaking to an audience 

 with proper ideals, when I say that Taft and Wood 

 have done all this service to their pecuniary loss 

 I am holding them up not for pity but for ad- 

 miration. Every man, every woman here should 

 feel it incumbent upon him or her to welcome 

 with joy the chance to render service to the coun- 

 try, service to our people at large, and to accept the 

 rendering of the service as in itself ample repay- 

 ment therefor. Do not misunderstand me. The 

 average man, the average woman must earn his or 

 her living in one way or another, and I most em- 

 phatically do not advise any one to decline to do the 

 humdrum, every-day duties because there may come 

 a chance for the display of heroism. I ask of you 

 the straightforward, earnest, performance of duty 

 in all the little things that come up day by clay 

 in business, in domestic life, in every way, and then 



