Transcriber’s Note: The cover image was created from the titlepage by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER
STONE OF THE OFFICE BUILDING OF
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1906
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1906
Over a century ago Washington laidthe corner stone of the Capitol in whatwas then little more than a tract ofwooded wilderness here beside the Potomac.We now find it necessary to provideby great additional buildings forthe business of the Government. Thisgrowth in the need for the housing of[2]the Government is but a proof and exampleof the way in which the nation hasgrown and the sphere of action of theNational Government has grown. Wenow administer the affairs of a nation inwhich the extraordinary growth of populationhas been outstripped by the growthof wealth and the growth in complexinterests. The material problems thatface us to-day are not such as they werein Washington’s time, but the underlyingfacts of human nature are the same now[3]as they were then. Under altered externalform we war with the same tendenciestoward evil that were evident in Washington’stime, and are helped by the sametendencies for good. It is about some ofthese that I wish to say a word to-day.
In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress youmay recall the description of the Man withthe Muck-rake, the man who could lookno way but downward, with the muck-rakein his hand; who was offered a celestialcrown for his muck-rake, but who would[4]neither look up nor regard the crown hewas offered, but continued to rake to himselfthe filth of the floor.
In Pilgrim’s Progress the Man withthe Muck-rake is set forth as the exampleof him whose vision is fixed on carnalinstead of on spiritual things. Yet healso typifies the man who in this life consistentlyrefuses to see aught that is lofty,and fixes his eyes with solemn intentnessonly on that which is vile and debasing.Now, it is very necessary that we should[5]not flinch from seeing what is vile anddebasing. There is filth on the floor, andit must be scraped up with the muck-rake;and there are times and places wherethis service is the most needed of all theservices that can be performed. But theman who never does anything else, whonever thinks or speaks or writes, save ofhis feats with the muck-rake, speedilybecomes, not a help to society, not anincitement to good, but one of the mostpotent forces for evil.
There are, in the body politic, economicand social, many and grave evils,and there is urgent necessity for the sternestwar upon them. There should berelentless exposure of and attack uponevery evil man, whether politician or busines