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OCR Page 1 of 592014
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
First Annual Message
2015
private soldier. Wealth was not struck at when the President was
FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE
assassinated, but the honest toil which is content with moderate gains
WHITE HOUSE, December 3, 1901.
after a lifetime of unremitting labor, largely in the service of the pub-
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
lic. Still less was power struck at in the sense that power is irrespon-
sible or centered in the hands of any one individual. The blow was
The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calam-
not aimed at tyranny or wealth. It was aimed at one of the strongest
ity. On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an
champions the wage-worker has ever had; at one of the most faithful
anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and
representatives of the system of public rights and representative gov-
died in that city on the fourteenth of that month.
ernment who has ever risen to public office. President McKinley filled
Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been
that political office for which the entire people vote, and no President -
murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to justify grave
not even Lincoln himself- was ever more earnestly anxious to repre-
alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the circumstances
sent the well thought-out wishes of the people; his one anxiety in every
of this, the third assassination of an American President, have a pecul-
crisis was to keep in closest touch with the people to find out what
iarly sinister significance. Both President Lincoln and President Gar
they thought and to endeavor to give expression to their thought, after
field were killed by assassins of types unfortunately not uncommon in
having endeavored to guide that thought aright. He had just been re-
history; President Lincoln falling a victim to the terrible passions
elected to the Presidency because the majority of our citizens, the ma.
aroused by four years of civil war, and President Garfield to the revenge-
jority of our farmers and wage-workers, believed that he had faithfully
ful vanity of a disappointed office-seeker. President McKinley was
upheld their interests for four years. They felt themselves in close and
killed by an utterly depraved criminal belonging to that body of
intimate touch with him. They felt that he represented so well and so
criminals who object to all governments, good and bad alike, who are
honorably all their ideals and aspirations that they wished him to con-
against any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most
tinue for another four years to represent them.
just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of
And this was the man at whom the assassin struck! That there
a free people's sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot.
might be nothing lacking to complete the Judas-like infamy of his act,
It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley's
he took advantage of an occasion when the President was meeting the
death he was the most widely loved man in all the United States;
people generally; and advancing as if to take the hand out-stretched to
while we have never had any public man of his position who has been
him in kindly and brotherly fellowship, he turned the noble and gener-
so wholly free from the bitter animosities incident to public life. His
ous confidence of the victim into an opportunity to strike the fatal blow.
political opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most gener-
There is no baser deed in all the annals of crime.
ous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and gentle-
The shock, the grief of the country, are bitter in the minds of all
ness of character which so endeared him to his close associates. To a
who saw the dark days, while the President yet hovered between life
standard of lofty integrity in public life he united the tender affections
and death. At last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes and the
and home virtues which are all-important in the make-up of national
breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony uttered no words
character. A gallant soldier in the great war for the Union, he also
save of forgiveness to his murderer, of love for his friends, and of un.
shone as an example to all our people because of his conduct in the
faltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such a death, crowning
most sacred and intimate of home relations. There could be no per-
the glory of such a life, leaves us with infinite sorrow, but with such
sonal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration
pride in what he had accomplished and in his own personal character,
for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him who knew
that we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck at the Nation
him in public or private life. The defenders of those murderous
We mourn a good and great President who is dead; but while we mourn
criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting that it is
we are lifted up by tlie splendid achievements of his life and the grand
exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible
heroism with which he met his death.
power. But for this assassination even this base apology cannot be
When we turn from the man to the Nation, the harm done is so great
urged.
as to excite our gravest apprehensions and to demand our wisest and
President McKinley was a man of moderate means, a man whose
most resolute action. This criminal was a professed anarchist, inflamed
stock sprang from the sturdy tillers of the soil, who had himself be-
by the teachings of professed anarchists, and probably also by the reck-
longed among the wage-workers, who had entered the Army as a
less utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public press,