And State Papers 459 



vice on the great battleship Kearsarge I listened to 

 a sermon addressed to the officers and enlisted men 

 of the navy, in which the central thought was that 

 each American must be a good man or he could not 

 be a good citizen. And one of the things dwelt upon 

 in that sermon was the fact that a man must be 

 clean of mouth as well as clean of life must show 

 by his words as well as by his actions his fealty to 

 the Almighty if he was to be what we have a right 

 to expect from men wearing the national uniform. 

 We have good Scriptural authority for the statement 

 that it is not what comes into a man's mouth but 

 what goes out of it that counts. I am not address- 

 ing weaklings, or I should not take the trouble to 

 come here. I am addressing strong, vigorous men, 

 who are engaged in the active hard work of life; 

 and life to be worth living must be a life of activity 

 and hard work. I am speaking to men engaged in 

 the hard, active work of life, and therefore to men 

 who will count for good or for evil. It is pe- 

 culiarly incumbent upon you who have strength to 

 set a right example to others. I ask you to remem- 

 ber that you can not retain your self-respect if you 

 are loose and foul of tongue, that a man who is to 

 lead a clean and honorable life must inevitably suffer 

 if his speech likewise is not clean and honorable. 

 Every man here knows the temptations that beset all 

 of us in this world. At times any man will slip. 

 I do not expect perfection, but I do expect genuine 

 and sincere effort toward being decent and cleanly 

 in thought, in word, and in deed. As I said at the 



