By Acting As If I

We Americans Have Many Grave Problems To Solve, Many Threatening Evils To Fight, And Many Deeds To Do, If, As We Hope And Believe, We Have The Wisdom, The Strength, And The Courage And The Virtue To Do Them. But We Must Face Facts As They Are. We Must Neither Surrender Ourselves To A Foolish Optimism, Nor Succumb To A Timid And Ignoble Pessimism.

Our Chief Usefulness To Humanity Rests On Our Combining Power With High Purpose. Power Undirected By High Purpose Spells Calamity, And High Purpose By Itself Is Utterly Useless If The Power To Put It Into Effect Is Lacking.

There Are Always In Life Countless Tendencies For Good And For Evil, And Each Succeeding Generation Sees Some Of These Tendencies Strengthened And Some Weakened; Nor Is It By Any Means Always, Alas! That The Tendencies For Evil Are Weakened And Those For Good Strengthened. But During The Last Few Decades There Certainly Have Been Some Notable Changes For Good In Boy Life. The Great Growth In The Love Of Athletic Sports, For Instance, While Fraught With Danger If It Becomes One-sided And Unhealthy, Has Beyond All Question Had An Excellent Effect In Increased Manliness.

At The Risk Of Repetition Let Me Say Again That My Plea Is Not For Immunity To, But For The Most Unsparing Exposure Of, The Politician Who Betrays His Trust, Of The Big Business Man Who Makes Or Spends His Fortune In Illegitimate Or Corrupt Ways. There Should Be A Resolute Effort To Hunt Every Such Man Out Of The Position He Has Disgraced. Expose The Crime, And Hunt Down The Criminal; But Remember That Even In The Case Of Crime, If It Is Attacked In Sensational, Lurid, And Untruthful Fashion, The Attack May Do More Damage To The Public Mind Than The Crime Itself.

An Airedale Can Do Anything Any Other Dog Can Do And Then Whip The Other Dog If He Has To.