The News And Herald

PRESIDENT SPOKE TO MINERS
President Roosevelt Gave Some Splendid Advice.

Wilkesbarre, Pa., Special.—From every section of the anthracite region miners and temperance workers came here, thousands arriving on the early trains, and before daylight crowds of people with lunch boxes and umbrellas had camped out in advantageous spots to await the arrival of President Roosevelt.

The Catholic Total Abstinence Union delegates transacted but little business this morning, and at noon the ten thousand uniformed cadets and soldiers of the two regiments of the order paraded. This parade ended in time for the regiments to line the streets and keep back the great crowds. Before the President's train came to a full stop a great shout went from the enormous crowd assembled at the station, which increased into a roar as the President stepped briskly from the train. The President was met by the local reception committee, which included Father Curran and John Mitchell. The streets along the route from the station to the Susquehanna river, where the speakers' stand was erected, were lined with a solid mass of people. Many of them had been standing at favorite places for hours. The President's reception as he was rapidly driven over the route was a tremendous one. The President appeared to be extremely pleased at the demonstration and kept bowing to the right and left.

The crowd at the speakers' stand was so noisy that it took several minutes to quiet the enthusiasm and permit the exercise to begin. Those who spoke were President Roosevelt, Cardinal Gibbons, President Mitchell, Mayor Kirkendall and Father Curran.

John Mitchell, in introducing the President, made a long defence of trade unionism. The President then spoke as follows:

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

I am particularly glad to speak to this audience of miners and their wives and children and especially to speak under the auspices of this great temperance society. In our country the happiness of all the rest of our people depends most of all upon the welfare of the wage-worker and the welfare of the farmer. If we can secure the welfare of these two classes we can be reasonably certain that the community as a whole will prosper. And we must never forget that the chief factor in securing the welfare alike of wage-worker and of farmer, as of everybody else, must be the man himself.

The only effective way to help anybody is to help him help himself. There are exceptional times when any one of us needs outside help, and then it should be given freely; but normally each one of us must depend upon his own exertions for his own success. Something can be done by wise legislation and by wise and honest administration of the laws: that is, something can be done by our action taken in our collective capacity through the State and nation.

INDIVIDUAL MAN PARAMOUNT.

Something more can be done by combination and organization among ourselves in our private capacities as citizens, so long as this combination or organization is managed with wisdom and integrity, with insistence upon the rights of those benefited and yet with just regard for the rights of others.

But in the last analysis the factor most influential in determining any man's success must ever be the sum of that man's own qualities, of his knowledge, foresight, thrift and courage. Whatever tends to increase his self-respect, whatever tends to help him overcome the temptations with which all of us are surrounded, is of benefit, not only to him, but to the whole community.

No one society can do more to help the wage-worker than such a temperance society as that which I am now addressing. It is of incalculable consequence to the man himself that he should be sober and temperate, and it is of even more consequence to his wife and his children; for it is a hard and cruel fact that in this life of ours the sins of the man are often visited most heavily upon those whose welfare should be his one special care.

THE DRUNKARD'S FAMILY.

For the drunkard, for the man who loses his job because he cannot control or will not control his desire for liquor and for vicious pleasure, we have a feeling of anger and contempt mixed with our pity: but for his unfortunate wife and little ones we feel only pity, and that of the deepest and tenderest kind.

Everything possible should be done to encourage the growth of that spirit of self-respect, self-restraint, self-reliance, which, if it only grows enough, is certain to make all those in whom it shows itself move steadily upward toward the highest standard of American citizenship. It is a proud and responsible privilege to be citizens of this great self-governing nation; and each of us needs to keep steadily before his eyes the fact that he is wholly unfit to take part in the work of governing others unless he can first govern himself. He must stand up manfully for his own rights: he must respect the rights of others: he must obey the law, and he must try to live up to those rules of righteousness which are above and behind all laws.

This applies just as much to the man of great wealth as to the man of small means: to the capitalist as to the wage-worker. And as one practical point, let me urge that in the event of any difficulty, especially if it is what is known as a labor trouble, both sides should show themselves willing to meet, willing to consult, and anxious each to treat the other reasonably and fairly, each to look at the other's side of the case and to do the other justice. If only this course could be generally followed, the chance of industrial disaster would be minimized.