already knocking at our doors, will push us from the way, and take the
torch and bear it onward, and we shall go down.

But I have no fear of the future. I think, looking around upon the
country at present, that even if it would seem to us at times that there
are gravest perils which confront us, that even though there may be
evidence of weakening in our character, notwithstanding this I say, I
believe the great Anglo-Saxon race, not only on the other side of the
water, but on this side of the water--and when I say the Anglo-Saxon
race I mean the great white, English-speaking race--I use the other term
because there is none more satisfactory to me--contains elements which
alone can continue to be the leaders of civilization, the elements of
fundamental power, abiding virtue, public and private. Wealth will not
preserve a state; it must be the aggregation of individual integrity in
its members, in its citizens, that shall preserve it. That integrity, I
believe, exists, deep-rooted among our people. Sometimes when I read
accounts of vice here and there eating into the heart of the people, I
feel inclined to be pessimistic; but when I come face to face with the
American and see him in his life, as he truly is; when I reflect on the
great body of our people that stretch from one side of this country to
the other, their homes perched on every hill and nestled in every
valley, and recognize the sterling virtue and the kind of character that
sustains it, built on the rock of those principles that our fathers
transmitted to us, my pessimism disappears and I know that not only for
this immediate time but for many long generations to come, with that
reservoir of virtue to draw from, we shall sustain and carry both
ourselves and the whole human race forward.

There are many problems that confront us which we can only solve by the
exercise of our utmost courage and wisdom. I do not want anything I say