Photo of the Day

What makes America great?

Theodore Roosevelt explains.

“We cannot be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders,

taking no interest in what goes on beyond them,

sunk in a scrambling commercialism.

Anti-draft protesters, WWII.

If we are to be a really great people,

we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world.

Registering for the draft, Seattle, October 1940.

We cannot avoid meeting great issues.

All we can decide is whether we shall meet them in a way

that will redound to the national credit,

US troops in France during WWI line up at the disinfecting station for their turn in a bath, a dash of Lysol-like disinfecting cleanser, and a fresh set of clothing. 1918.

or [be] a dark and shameful page in our history.

Left: Fourth US Infantry, US Colored Troops, 1864. Right: Gen. Grant at Cold Harbor, 1864.

The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country,

the over-civilized man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues,

the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind

-all these, of course, shrink from seeing the nation undertake its duties.

Johnny Silvercloud photo.

These are the men who fear the strenuous life,

who fear the only national life which is really worth leading.

Left: New York Stock Exchange trading floor, 1921. Right: Long Island estate of J.P. Morgan, Jr., built in 1913.

They are wedded to that base spirit of gain and greed

which recognizes in commercialism the be-all and end-all of national life,

instead of realizing that, though an indispensable element, it is, after all,

but one of the many elements that go to make up true national greatness.

Building Rockefeller Center, 1931.

No country can long endure if its foundations are not laid deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift,

from business energy and enterprise,

from hard, unsparing effort in the fields of industrial activity;

Fulton Fish Market, New York, 1952.

but neither was any nation ever yet truly great

if it relied upon material prosperity alone.

Coalminers, Birmingham, Alabama, 1937.

We cannot sit huddled within our own borders

and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters

who care nothing for what happens beyond.

Forced evacuations in Lorraine, in Nazi - occupied France, 1940.

The work must be done;

we cannot escape our responsibility;

and if we are worth our salt, we shall be glad of the chance to do the work.

Members of the "Dirty Thirteen" apply war paint on June 5, 1944, in preparation for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. The group was an elite sabateur demolition unit of the 101st Airborne Division, whose D-Day mission involved the destruction of bridges behind enemy lines in advance of the beach landings. The men's paint and haircut honor the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma, the heritage of one of the group's members.

Above all, let us, as we value our own self-respect,

face the responsibilities with proper seriousness, courage, and high resolve.

We must demand the highest order of integrity and ability

in our public men who are to grapple with these new problems.

We must hold to a rigid accountability those public servants

who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation

or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands

upon our strength and our resources.”

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

“The Strenuous Life,” an address given by Theodore Roosevelt, Governor of New York, to Chicago’s Hamilton Club, April 10, 1899.