FEAR GOD
and
Take Your Own Part
By
Theodore Roosevelt

NEW YORK GEORGE   H.   DORAN   COMPANY

Copyright, 1916, BY GEORGE H. DORAN  COMPANY
Copyright, 1914, BY THE  WHEELEB.  SYNDICATE, INC.
Copyright, 1915, BY THEODORE  ROOSEVELT
Copyright, 1915 and 1916, BY THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of Julia Ward Howe
because in the vital matters fundamentally affecting the life of the Republic, she was as good a citizen of the Republic as Washington and Lincoln themselves. She was in the highest sense a good wife and a good mother; and therefore she fulfilled the primary law of our being. She brought up with devoted care and wisdom her sons and her daughters. At the same time she fulfilled her full duty to the commonwealth from the public standpoint. She preached righteousness and she practised righteousness. She sought the peace that comes as the handmaiden of well doing. She preached that stern and lofty courage of soul which shrinks neither from war nor from any other form of suffering and hardship and danger if it is only thereby that justice can be served. She embodied that trait more essential than any other in the make-up of the men and women of this Republic—the valor of righteousness.

BATTLE HYMN  OP  THE  REPUBLIC
JULIA   WARD   HOWE
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the -fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred
circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening
dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim amd
flaring lamps, His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows
of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my
grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent
with His heel, Since God is marching on."
vii

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgMent-seatt;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet,
Our God is inarching on.
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across
the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you
and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make
men free, While God is marching on.
Till

TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA
Over two months have gone by since this book was published and during those two months affairs have moved rapidly, and at every point the march of events has shown the need of reducing to practice every principle herein laid down.
The monotonous succession of outrages upon our people by the Mexicans was broken by a spectacular raid of Villa into American territory, which resulted in the death of half a dozen American soldiers and an equal number of civilians. We accordingly asked Carranza to permit us to assist him in hunting down Villa and Carranza grudgingly gave the permission. We failed to get Villa; we had to fight the Villistas and at one moment also the Carranzistas; we lost valuable lives, and at this time of writing the expedition is halted and it is announced at Washington that it is being considered whether or not it shall be withdrawn. We have not been able to scrape together the troops and equipment necessary to punish a single bandit. The professional pacificists and professional antipreparedness advocates are invited to consider these facts. We are told we have kept the peace in Mexico. As a matter of fact we have twice been at war in Mex-
ix

TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA
ico within the last two years. Our failure to prepare, our failure to take action of a proper sort on the Mexican border has not averted bloodshed; it has invited bloodshed. It has cost the loss of more lives than were lost in the Spanish War. Our Mexican failure is merely the natural fruit of the policies of pacificism and anti-preparedness.
Since the first edition of this book was published, President Wilson has notified Germany and has informed Congress that if Germany continues submarine warfare against merchant and passenger steamers as she has carried it on for the last year America will take action. Apparently the first step is to be the sundering of diplomatic relations. Such sunderance would, of course, mean nothing if the submarine war was continued. Merely to recall our Ambassador if men, women and children are being continually killed on the high seas and to take no further action would be about as effective as the conduct of a private individual who, when another man slapped his wife's face, retaliated by not bowing to the man. Therefore, either Germany will have to surrender on the point at issue, or this protest of ours will prove to have meant nothing, or else there must be a war. Fourteen months have elapsed since we sent our "strict accountability" note to Germany demanding that there

TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA
be no submarine warfare that should endanger the lives of American citizens. She did not believe that we meant what we said and the warfare has gone on. If she now stops, it will be proof positive that she would have stopped at the very outset had we made it evident that we meant what we said. In such case the loss of thousand^-of lives of men, women and children will be at our doors for having failed to make it evident that we meant what we said. If she does not stop, then we shall have to go to war or back down; and in that case it must be remembered that during these fourteen months—and during the preceding seven months—we have not prepared in naval, military or industrial matters in the smallest degree. The peace-at-any-price men, the professional pacificists shrieked loudly that to prepare would be to invite war. The Administration accepted their view and has not prepared. The result is that we are near to war. The blindest can now see that had we, in August 1914 when the great war began, ourselves begun actively to prepare, we would now be in a position such that every one knew our words would be made good by our deeds. In such case no nation would dream of interfering with us or of refusing our demands; and each of the warring nations would vie with the others to keep us out of the war. Immediate preparedness at the outset
xi

TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA
of the war would have meant that there would never have been the necessity for sending the "strict accountability" note. It would have meant that there never would have been the murder of the thousands of men, women and children on the high seas. It would have meant that we would now be sure of peace for ourselves. It would have meant that we would now be ready to act the part of peacemaker for others.
theodore RoosEV3i/r. Sagamore Hill, April 2/^th, 1916.
Xll

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This book is based primarily upon, and mainly consists of, matter contained in articles I have written in the Metropolitan Magazine during the past fourteen months. It also contains or is based upon an article contributed to the Wheeler Syndicate, a paper submitted to the American Sociological Congress, and one or two speeches and public statements. In addition there is much new matter, including most of the first chapter. In part the old matter has been rearranged. For the most part, I have left it unchanged. In the few instances where what I spoke was in the nature of prophecy as to what might or would happen during the last year, the prophecy has been fulfilled, and I have changed the tense but not the purport of the statements. I have preferred to run the risk of occasional repetition rather than to attempt rewriting certain of the chapters, because whatever of value these chapters have had lay in the fact that in them I was applying eternal principles of right to concrete cases which were of vital importance at the moment, instead of merely treating these eternal principles as having their place forever in the realm of abstract thought and never to be reduced to action. I was speaking to and for the living present about the immediate needs of the present.
xiii

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The principles set forth in this book are simply the principles of true Americanism within and without our own borders, the principles which, according to my abilities, I have preached and, according to my abilities, I have practised for the thirty-five years since, as a very young man, I first began to take an active interest in American history and in American political life.
theodore roosevelt.
Sagamore Hill, February 3, 1916.
XIV

CONTENTS
PAGE
dedication	       .       v
battle hymn of the republic   .       _8	vii
introductory note	ix
CHAPTER
I.    fear god and take your own part      15
II. warlike power—the prerequisite
for the preservation of social
values	59
III.	where there Is a sword for of-
fence there must be a sword
for defence  .	76
IV.	america first—A phrase or a fact ?    no
V.	international  duty  and  hyphen-
ated americanism .        .        .        .138
VI.    peace   insurance   by   preparedness
against war .        .       .       .       .165
VII.	uncle sam's only friend Is uncle
sam	205
VIII.	the   sound   of   laughter   and   of
playing    children    has    been stilled in mexico .        .        .        .231
IX.    when   Is   an   american   not   an
american?     .....    284
X.    the japanese in korea    .        .       .    293 XL   the panama blackmail treaty     .    305
xv

CONTENTS
CHAPTBH	PAOB
XII.    conclusion		343
appendix A.   murder on the high seas   .	351
appendix B.   americanism   ....	357
appendix C.   letter in reply to a request to speak at a mass meeting on behalf
of the armenians		377
appendix D.   record on preparedness      .	384
xvi