One only wonders what Theodore Roosevelt would say today. In 1899, the swashbuckling, well-educated, patriotic Republican, soon to be president, gave a speech called “The Strenuous Life.” Its message: Hard work is essential.
The speech was given in Chicago, back then a safe, self-aware, hardworking city. His words resonate in a day when some prefer ease and socialism – endless government giveaways and dependence. Theodore Roosevelt warned against the idea.
Began Theodore Roosevelt: “In speaking to you…about the American character, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and…wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”
Even that opening paragraph would offend the modern neo-communist Democrat. But Theodore Roosevelt had just begun. “A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual.”
“You…have done your share…in making America great, because you neither preach nor practice such a doctrine…We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.”
“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life, we get nothing save by effort…A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life.”
Then came the line many recall: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
“Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant!… Let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that…the suffering and loss…were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured, for in the end the slave was freed, the Union restored…”
“We of this generation do not have to face a task such as that our fathers faced, but we have our tasks, and woe to us if we fail to perform them! We cannot…be heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying ourselves only with the wants of our bodies for the day, until suddenly…we go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities.”
“If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith…The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over-civilized man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty lift…shrinks.”
“These are the men who fear the strenuous life…They believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation, as it saps them in the individual….”
“The work must be done; we cannot escape our responsibility…We must demand the highest order of integrity and ability in our public men who are to grapple with these new problems.”
“We must hold to a rigid accountability those public servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands upon our strength and our resources.”
“I preach to you, then…our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor…Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals …Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical…that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.” One only wonders what Theodore Roosevelt would say today.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
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