E 705 .H282 Qass. Book :Uztz. ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AT ATLANTA, GEORGIA THURSDAY AFTERNOON OCTOBER 27, 1921 WASHINGTON 1921 .■• ?*. UBHAHY Of CONGRESS DOCUMENT- ^.v.JION ADDRESS AT ATLANTA, OCTOBER 27, 1921. Fellow Americans: I can not tell you how glad I am to be here. to greet you men and women of Atlanta, of Georgia, and the South, and to receive this testimony of devotion to our common country. Be assured that, much as I crave, and wish to deserve, your good will, I shall not mistakenly assume that such a greeting as this is for me. or ever could he for any one man. I recognize it as the tribute which a great people pays to a constituted authority in its public life. It is the reflection of the spirit which makes our popularly governed institutions secure. But you will permit me to say, from my heart, that nowhere else do they do these tilings with quite the same zest and flavor and convincing enthusiasm which spice the hospitality of your wonderful South. As private citizen or public official, it has always been to me an especial pleasure to come to the South. As a young man 1 was very near indeed to becoming a resi- dent of the South anil a citizen of your neighboring State, Tennessee. Even for the sake id' paying a compliment, I shall not tell you I am entirely sorry I didn't come; it might imply a lack of appreciation for the somewhat notable kindnesses that have been extended to me by the people of my own State, operating in conjunction with a very impressive company of friends in other parts. To come to Georgia is to come to the heart of the South. To come to Georgia on this, of all days of the year — the birthday of Roose- velt — is to realize that the heart of the South throbs for all the Nation. To the making of that typical American of the new era went equally the wanner strains of the Old South and the sturdy stock that gave the Nation its Empire State. So it is good, in greeting you men and women of Georgia, to recall the career of that outstanding 'American who in his life, as in his lineage, taught us how much we arc prospered and exalted because of being united. And. coming thus among you, it is peculiarly, a satisfaction to speak from the shadow of the shaft which you have reared to the memory of one who taught a reunited nation its duties, its obligations, its possibilities. For 1 recall the thrill with which 1 re, id. as a young man, the address of Henry W. Grady to the New England Club; that most famous oration. 1 think, of its generation; that inspiring call to a nation to awaken to itself, to understand that its yesterdaj was dead, its to-morro^ pregnant with magnificent opportunity. 7 -•Vi]— 21 ( 3 ) 1 If ever one man was ordained to speak with the tongue of convic- tion and the voice of a great people, thai man was Grady. Gifted the poet's imagery, the seers wisdom, the plain man's humor, and the statesman's vision, he pretended to be neither poet, seer, nor statesman; he sought n<> public plan, but preferred the private post close to his people Bui someht n it was his t<> understand and inter- pret the longing of the Nation for a true and perfect reunion. 11. appraised the difficulty of i ing a new temple of concord and hope out of disappointment and sorrow incident to conflict, but lie -aw beneath the surface the hungering in develop a common inherit- ance, In' caughl the aspirations for a common glory. In- touched the chords <'l' sympathy which echoed the note of common rejoicing. W i i hi : . . aglow ami tongue inspired, lie felt it his duty to preach tin gospel of new understanding, and having uttered his new gospel at home, he came north, the evangel of a new day, ami made his New England speech. Since that night he has belonged not to \.. ' • rgia hut to the nation, to the truly reunited nation, of which, in hi- day, be was the foremost apostle and spoke-man. The South never had a i loyal or jealous -on: hut he saw. with in c\ e for wider scopes, that this people W a- not to lie divided. And he pi pel North ami South: the gospel of unity and common destiny; and when he died untimely, at :is years of age, the nation which so soon had learned to love him. bowed its head in a universal sorrow. Reading his passionate pleadings for a nation- wide understanding, I can not hut feel that he would have been content i ho did if he could have known how close that tie of c mou sorrow would bring the people for whom his life had the Labor of a supreme hue. lh.w strangely has destiny interwoven the parts in this drama •■!' a Nations restoration ! I ■■■ - inn year of I88fl that saw Grad} lain away with love's laurels on his proud and noble brow, saw another son of a mother of Georgia and the South entered in the career of national sen 1 it earl leod n It. following his impel - appeals political moral- at the Baltimore civil e con fen is appointed I Pi dent Harrison to the Civil on. and his national began. A -on of the and the South, but already adopted bj I he West, he had become out admirei of thai -on . i E Old Thad Stevens could maintain an effective front against such appeals as that. The North did come to you. with olive branch in- stead of sword; and you went to the North and AY est. and becamG full partners in making that new empire which together we carved out of the trans-Missouri wilderness; and now truly there can be descried no sectional division of this land. Recently, passing in a motor car through a section where his torical interest has inspired the setting ol tablets marking M and Dixon's line, I beard a group of highly intelligent people quarreling about its geography, half of them insisting that it didnt belong there at all, but sunn- hundreds of miles farther >«>utl» ! Neither the atlases nor 1 1 jo election returns give us nowadays a dependable basis for judgment of what is South and what North; we have been politically annexing you when you were not politi- cally taking us into camp— and we have been socially, industrially, economically invading and seizing as much of your imperial oppor- tunities as we could get >>m- hands pn. We have been pooling our capital with your brains and resources, and both sides earning _ dividend-, on the transaction, and all the time jointly making a greater republic. It would lie hard to find a more fitting platform from which to preai h a gospel of confidence, courage, and determination than is afforded here in your wonderful .it;, of Atlanta. In one of his speeches I think it was the one at tie Sew England Society din ner Henry Grady, turning to Gen. Sherman, who .~.tt near him, observed that Gen. Sherman was "considered an aide man in our parts, though some people think he is a kind of careless man about tire." That grim joke contained the spirit of the South, the courage of Atlanta, the eternal \isi.,n .if the brighter side that is SO natural to you people of the land id' sunshine. One who comes to your metropolis of to-day can not but realize how useless to attempt, with lire and sword, to discourage such a people as this, to extinguish their enthusiasm, to daunt then- matchless courage. What chance is there t0 keep down a peuple who. whell VOU buMI the,!' llOUSe, leal 111 lt> place a palace of marble; and when amid the passions <>\ wai drive them in thousands from their home, return in ten- of thou -ami- to build it into a metropolis) The reason why the South re- covered * ■ soon from the war was that it ,\a- made up of just that sort of | pie, Hut ! to aj . ,n of that conflict, t Vnrth hn esire to desl roy, li ie combat for under-iai . and a battle to 'i \i-k of tin int. in which • lice to day. It has seemed to me, many times in the |»ei World War elided, that the World at i ell let u» -Imw ll the n, whicl ight througl nited and restored An, i . w ill io get dow ii to work, i and i ,■ have amol tl DTC, OUt of the i that our war wrought, a country in which we maj fitlj take the pride evei \ ■ i ii f( Who would have ours less than the great, rich, progressive, power- ful, and enlightened America which we justly boast to-day? Who would have it less a figure in the world than it has been in these years of crisis and disaster? What friend of civilization, of Chris- tianity, of human advancement, would have wished our part less than it has been? Who among us all is not proud that we were able to participate very notably in the rescue of humanity in the struggle which menaced its very existence? Who would have us relinquish now our service for a better civilization? Surely, we will go on, developing the nationality that has given us faith and weight and power for the tasks of the past, knowing there are other tasks in the future which will demand the utmost we can contribute to them. AVe have, learned, along with the rest, that mankind must go forward or backward as a whole; it is not to be expected that some sectors shall advance as others retire. Either the race will advance or it will retrograde ; it will not stand still. It has had a tremendous lesson, and I am one of those who firmly believe that this lesson will be analyzed, tested, scrutinized, and made to afford us at last a direction for future effort. It is not possible to believe that all the lessons of all the yesterdays will have gone in vain. The increase of education, of the studious habit, of social consciousness, can not but bring us nearer to agreement about some few fundamentals. I believe, for instance, that every family which has lost a mem- ber in the struggle to save mankind from absolutism; every citizen- soldier who has given years and sufferings to that cause; every gold- star mother or maimed veteran, will agree that peace is preferable to war. and that to train a world in the ways of peace is better than to prepare it for war. I would not have you misconstrue. I believe it wholly consistent to preach peace and its triumphs in that con- vincing sincerity which an unselfish nation commands and yet make sure about our proper defense. Manifestly, mankind is disposed to try that experiment. If, trying it, nations shall fail, it will be no fault of the United States of America. AA T e are ready to offer a helping hand in the new path. We have tendered our invitation, and the cordial acceptance which has come from every quarter leads to earnest hope for good results. AA'e Americans have learned the lesson, on both the national and world scale. AA'e fought our war of sections and systems, and decided for- ever in favor of peace and unity. Our own experience lias taught us that we may hope that a like decision will be reached by a world reasoning amid (lie convictions which follow in the wake of a tragedy supreme. It should not be needful for me to repeat that, in whatever contri- bution we can make to the establishment of a better order, we shall 8 not surrender any of our national independence. America will \>r for America first; l>nt it will never be a merely selfish America, imagining to prosper by the misfortunes of others. It will .stand for tii<- cooperations, 1 1 »* - mutual helpfulness, the wide perceptions which mankind needs to cheer and speed it on the way to the brighter ami better realm of peace restored ami effectively assured, of progn Lined, and righteous aspirations impelling ever greater achiei ments and ever higher attainments.