The death of Queen Victoria caused the people of the United States deep and heartfelt sorrow, to which the Government gave full expression.  When President McKinley died, our Nation in turn received from every quarter of the British Empire expressions of grief and sympathy no less sincere.  The death of the Empress Dowager Frederick of Germany also aroused the genuine sympathy of the American people; and this sympathy was cordially reciprocated by Germany when the President was assassinated.  Indeed, from every quarter of the civilized world we received, at the time of the President’s death, assurances of such grief and regard as to touch the hearts of our people.  In the midst of our affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend that our policy shall be such as to continue unbroken these international relations of mutual respect and good will.

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State of the Union Address
Theodore Roosevelt
December 2, 1902

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

We still continue in a period of unbounded prosperity.  This prosperity is not the creature of law, but undoubtedly the laws under which we work have been instrumental in creating the conditions which made it possible, and by unwise legislation it would be easy enough to destroy it.  There will undoubtedly be periods of depression.  The wave will recede; but the tide will advance.  This Nation is seated on a continent flanked by two great oceans.  It is composed of men the descendants of pioneers, or, in a sense, pioneers themselves; of men winnowed out from among the nations of the Old World by the energy, boldness, and love of adventure found in their own eager hearts.  Such a Nation, so placed, will surely wrest success from fortune.

As a people we have played a large part in the world, and we are bent upon making our future even larger than the past.  In particular, the events of the last four years have definitely decided that, for woe or for weal, our place must be great among the nations.  We may either fall greatly or succeed greatly; but we can not avoid the endeavor from which either great failure or great success must come.  Even if we would, we can not play a small part.  If we should try, all that would follow would be that we should play a large part ignobly and shamefully.

But our people, the sons of the men of the Civil War, the sons of the men who had iron in their blood, rejoice in the present and face the future high of heart and resolute of will.  Ours is not the creed of the weakling and the coward; ours is the gospel of hope and of triumphant endeavor.  We do not shrink from the struggle before us.  There are many problems for us to face at the outset of the twentieth century—­grave problems abroad and still graver at home; but we know that we can solve them and solve them well, provided only that we bring to the solution the qualities of head and heart which were shown by the men who, in the days of Washington, rounded this Government, and, in the days of Lincoln, preserved it.