506 Presidential Addresses 



both of whom did their part in holding up the hands 

 of mighty Lincoln, and both of whom were born in 

 the State of Lincoln's birth. 



REMARKS TO THE DELEGATES OF THE GER- 

 MAN SOCIETIES RECEIVED AT THE WHITE 

 HOUSE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1903 



Mr. Voelckner, and Gentlemen: 



IT gives me peculiar pleasure to greet you to-day ; 

 and it is a matter of real regret to me that I can 

 not attend formally your celebration. 



You are quite right, Mr. Chairman, when you 

 speak of the stand that the German element in our 

 citizenship has always taken in all crises of our 

 national life. In the first place, from the beginning 

 of our colonial history to this day, the German 

 strain has been constantly increasing in importance 

 among the many strains that go to make up our 

 composite national character. I do not have to 

 repeat to you the story of the early German im- 

 migration to this country the German immigra- 

 tion that began in a mass toward the end of the 

 seventeenth century, but before that time had been 

 represented among the very first settlers. Allow 

 me to give you one bit of ancestral experience of 

 mine. The first head of the New York City Gov- 

 ernment who was of German birth was Leisler, 

 about the year 1680. He was the representative 

 of the popular faction in the New York colony of 

 that day, and among the Leislerian aldermen was 

 a forbear of mine named Roosevelt. You are en- 



