The Annual Dinner 



2 5 



qualified to respond to that toast than 

 the distinguished man who is our hon- 

 ored guest tonight? He has served in 

 many capacities under that flag; served 

 well, served with credit to his country, 

 and before he rises to speak I will ask 

 you, without leaving your seats, to 

 drink to the health of the Secretary of 

 War, our guest. 



The President and the Flag — The 

 Secretary oe War, Mr William H. 

 Taet 



Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I was very much interested, in the 

 statement the chairman has just made, 

 to learn how much cheaper it is to run 

 a geographic society than it is to build 

 a Panama Canal. (Laughter.) There 

 is one man connected with this associa- 

 tion, whose name was not mentioned 

 by the chairman, of whom I have the 

 honor of being a cousin, and if I meet 

 that gentleman under circumstances 

 where the police will not interfere he 

 will remember our relationship. 

 (Laughter.) A number of months ago 

 he inveigled me to agree to make a 

 speech on the Philippines, to make a 

 speech which as I understood was 

 simply to talk in a parlor, and the first 

 thing I knew I found I was in an 

 armory and talking to a most formid- 

 able audience. After having made the 

 speech he came to me and thanked me 

 for it, and then confidentially he said 

 to me, "Now we wish to make you the 

 guest of honor at a dinner." When I 

 consented, I said to him, "That is all 

 right about the honor part of it, but I 

 have already made one speech for your 

 Society and I do not wish to make 

 another; it takes too much prepara- 

 tion ;" and he agreed. Now I find that 

 the way you compensate your lecturer 

 for making one speech is to require him 

 to make another. You cannot run the 

 canal on that principle. (Laughter.) 

 The toast which has been assigned 

 to me since I sat at the table — it was 



printed on the program — is "The Presi- 

 dent and the Flag." The discussion of 

 one of these subjects would have been 

 enough to overwhelm a man ; but two, 

 under the circumstances, I submit to 

 the members of the National Geo- 

 graphic Society are certainly — with its 

 corrupt management — more than a man 

 ought to be subjected to. 



The President. It is not too much 

 to say that it has fallen to the lot of 

 Theodore Roosevelt to be the President 

 of the United States when its prestige 

 as a nation has been carried to a higher 

 point than ever before in its history. 

 (Applause.) The influence of the 

 United States for good on this round 

 globe is greater than it ever was be- 

 fore, and that is due not only to the 

 material progress and the marvelous 

 growth of this nation, not only to its 

 capacity for war, should that be chal- 

 lenged, but to the moral position that 

 the United States occupies among the 

 family of nations as not seeking to ag- 

 grandize itself, but anxious only to pro- 

 duce peace and prosperity the world 

 around. (Applause.) That is what our 

 flag means wherever it flies, and the 

 reason why, certainly one of the rea- 

 sons why, the prestige of the nation has 

 reached the point that it has, is the per- 

 sonality, the intense Americanism, and 

 the limpid purity of the character of 

 Theodore Roosevelt. (Applause.) He 

 is the embodiment of the American 

 spirit, and I do not think it too much 

 to say, though they do not know him 

 so well, that his personality and his 

 character interest the people of foreign 

 lands almost as much as they do the 

 people in our country. 



Now with respect to the flag. I have 

 to suggest these things as they come. 

 There has been an idea current for a 

 long time, and especially in the mind 

 of my Democratic friend, Senator New- 

 lands, for he is almost the only Demo- 

 crat we have today — all the others are 

 slipping away — that the Constitution 



