468 Presidential Addresses 



cent frequently find themselves obliged to pay some 

 of the penalty for the misdeeds of the guilty; and 

 so if hard times come, whether they be due to our 

 own fault or to our misfortune, whether they be due 

 to some burst of speculative frenzy that has caused 

 a portion of the business world to lose its head 

 a loss which no legislation can possibly supply or 

 whether they be due to any lack of wisdom in a 

 portion of the world of labor in each case the trou- 

 ble once started is felt more or less in every walk 

 of life. 



It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy 

 national life that we should recognize this com- 

 munity of interest among our people. The welfare 

 of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the 

 welfare of all df us, and therefore in public life that 

 man is the best representative of each of us who 

 seeks to do good to each by doing good to all ; in 

 other words, whose endeavor it is, not to represent 

 any special class and promote merely that class's 

 selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest 

 men of all sections and all classes and to work for 

 their interests by working for our common country. 



We can keep our government on a sane and 

 healthy basis, we can make and keep our social sys- 

 tem what it should be, only on condition of judging 

 each man, not as a member of a class, but on his 

 worth as a man. It is an infamous thing in our 

 American life, and fundamentally treacherous to our 

 institutions, to apply to any man any test save that 

 of his personal worth, or to draw between two sets 



