This passage is excerpted from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech to the workers on the Panama Canal, originally written in 1906. The Panama Canal, which provides a passageway for ships traveling between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. Roosevelt gave this speech during his visit to the Canal zone to check on the progress of the work.
It was without precedent for a president to leave the United
States, but this work is without precedent. You are doing the
biggest thing of the kind that has ever been done, and I wanted
to see how you are doing it. I am profoundly thankful that I
shall be able to take back to the United States the message that
the nation’s picked sons are carrying themselves so well here
that I can absolutely guarantee the success of the mighty work
which they are doing. It is not an easy task. Mighty few things
that are worth doing are easy. . .
I want to say this word to you men,--right through,--to all of
you who are engaged in the work of digging this canal, whether
you are here as superintendent, foreman, chief clerk, machinist,
conductor, engineer, steam-shovel man (and he is the American
who is setting the mark for the rest of you to live up to, by the
way), whoever you are, if you are doing your duty, you are
putting your country under an obligation to you just as a soldier
who does his work well in a great war puts the country under
an obligation to him. As I have seen you at work, seen what
you have done and are doing, noted the spirit in which you are
approaching the task yet to be done, I have felt just exactly as I
should feel if I saw the picked men of my country engaged in
some great war. I am weighing my words when I say that you
here, who do your work well in bringing to completion this
great enterprise, will stand exactly as the soldiers of a few, and
only a few, of the most famous armies of all the nations stand
in history. This is one of the great works of the world; it is a
greater work than you, yourselves, at the moment realize. Some
of you, a good many of you, are sons of men who fought in the
Civil War. When your fathers were in the fighting, they thought
a good deal of the fact that the blanket was too heavy by noon
and not quite heavy enough by night; that the pork was not as
good as it might be; and the hardtack was sometimes
insufficient in amount; and they were not always satisfied with
the way in which the regiments were led.
Those were the things they talked about a good deal of the
time. But when the war was done--when they came home,
when they looked at what had been accomplished--all those
things sank into insignificance, and the great fact remained that
they had played a part like men among men; that they had
borne themselves so that when people asked what they had
done of worth in those great years, all they had to say was that
they had served decently and faithfully in the great armies. So
you men here, in the future, each man of you, will have the
right to feel, if he has done his duty and a little more than his
duty right up to the handle in the work here on the Isthmus, that
he has made his country his debtor; that he has done more than
his full share in adding renown to the nation under whose flag
the canal is being built.
. . .
In closing, all I have to say is this: You are doing the work
the like of which has not before been seen in the ages, a work
that shall last through the ages to come, and I pledge to you as
President of the United States, every ounce of support and help
and assistance, that it is in my power to give you, so that we
together, you backed by the people of the United States, may
speedily bring this greatest of works to a triumphant
conclusion.
It was without precedent for a president to leave the United
States, but this work is without precedent. You are doing the
biggest thing of the kind that has ever been done, and I wanted
to see how you are doing it. I am profoundly thankful that I
shall be able to take back to the United States the message that
the nation’s picked sons are carrying themselves so well here
that I can absolutely guarantee the success of the mighty work
which they are doing. It is not an easy task. Mighty few things
that are worth doing are easy. . .
I want to say this word to you men,--right through,--to all of
you who are engaged in the work of digging this canal, whether
you are here as superintendent, foreman, chief clerk, machinist,
conductor, engineer, steam-shovel man (and he is the American
who is setting the mark for the rest of you to live up to, by the
way), whoever you are, if you are doing your duty, you are
putting your country under an obligation to you just as a soldier
who does his work well in a great war puts the country under
an obligation to him. As I have seen you at work, seen what
you have done and are doing, noted the spirit in which you are
approaching the task yet to be done, I have felt just exactly as I
should feel if I saw the picked men of my country engaged in
some great war. I am weighing my words when I say that you
here, who do your work well in bringing to completion this
great enterprise, will stand exactly as the soldiers of a few, and
only a few, of the most famous armies of all the nations stand
in history. This is one of the great works of the world; it is a
greater work than you, yourselves, at the moment realize. Some
of you, a good many of you, are sons of men who fought in the
Civil War. When your fathers were in the fighting, they thought
a good deal of the fact that the blanket was too heavy by noon
and not quite heavy enough by night; that the pork was not as
good as it might be; and the hardtack was sometimes
insufficient in amount; and they were not always satisfied with
the way in which the regiments were led.
Those were the things they talked about a good deal of the
time. But when the war was done--when they came home,
when they looked at what had been accomplished--all those
things sank into insignificance, and the great fact remained that
they had played a part like men among men; that they had
borne themselves so that when people asked what they had
done of worth in those great years, all they had to say was that
they had served decently and faithfully in the great armies. So
you men here, in the future, each man of you, will have the
right to feel, if he has done his duty and a little more than his
duty right up to the handle in the work here on the Isthmus, that
he has made his country his debtor; that he has done more than
his full share in adding renown to the nation under whose flag
the canal is being built.
. . .
In closing, all I have to say is this: You are doing the work
the like of which has not before been seen in the ages, a work
that shall last through the ages to come, and I pledge to you as
President of the United States, every ounce of support and help
and assistance, that it is in my power to give you, so that we
together, you backed by the people of the United States, may
speedily bring this greatest of works to a triumphant
conclusion.