Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/289

 ROOSEVELT

I

HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS*

(1905)

Bom in ia*)8; elected to the New York Assembly in 1888; defeated Candidate for Mayor of New York in 188G; National Civi' Service Commissioner in 1889-95; President of the New York Police Board in 1895-97; Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897-98; organized the Rough Riders for the Spanish War, and became their Colonel In 1898; elected Governor of New York in 1899; elected Vice-President in 1900; succeeded to Presidency in 1901; elected President in 1904.

My Fellow Citizens: — No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastful- ness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, Who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and happiness.

To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race ; and yet our life has called for the vigor and

» DeUvered March 4, 1905.

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