NAIROBI AND MT. KENYA 
103 
“I wish to take this opportunity to thank the people of British 
East Africa for their generous and courteous hospitality. I have had 
a thoroughly good time. I am immensely interested in the country and 
its possibilities as an abode for white men. Very large tracts are fit 
for a fine population and healthy and prosperous settlements, and it 
would be a calamity to neglect them. But the settlers must be of the 
right type. 
“I believe that one of the best feats performed by members of the 
white race in the last ten years is the building of the Uganda Railroad. 
I am convinced that this country has a great agricultural and indus¬ 
trial future and it is the most attractive playground in the world. It 
most certainly presents excellent openings for capitalists, and ample 
inducements should be offered them to come here. The home maker 
and actual settler, and not the speculator, should be encouraged in 
making this a white man’s country. 
“Remember that righteousness and our real ultimate self-interest 
demand that the blacks be treated justly. I have no patience with 
sentimentalists, and I think that sentimentality does more harm to 
individuals than brutality. Therefore I believe in helping the mis¬ 
sionary, of whatever creed, who is laboring sincerely and disinter¬ 
estedly with practical good sense. 
“It is natural that I should have a peculiar feeling for the settlers. 
They remind me of the men in our West with whom I worked and in 
whose aspirations I so deeply sympathize.” 
In conclusion, Mr. Roosevelt drew a comparison of the conditions 
as he found them in British East Africa with those that confronted 
the pioneers of western America. 
It is hardly what one would expect in this country, in which little 
more than ten years before lions hunted their prey without fear of 
bullets, and white people were confined to a few daring travelers, to 
see long rows of diners in evening dress at a well appointed table, or 
perhaps, on a ball-room floor, to see a company in gay uniforms danc¬ 
ing with ladies in showy dresses. Verily, civilization has invaded the 
wilds and the days of savage dominion in Africa are nearing an end. 
Mr. Roosevelt’s address gives us some idea of the state of affairs 
he found in this seat of the provincial administration, and of the 
