Force will not be needed or used when
those who make war against us shall make it no more. May it end
without further bloodshed, and there be ushered in the reign of
peace to be made permanent by a government of liberty under law!
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
Theodore Roosevelt
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1905
***
The energetic Republican President had taken his first oath of
office upon the death of President McKinley, who died of an
assassin's gunshot wounds on September 14, 1901. Mr. Roosevelt had
been President himself for three years at the election of 1904.
The inaugural celebration was the largest and most diverse of any
in memory--cowboys, Indians (including the Apache Chief Geronimo),
coal miners, soldiers, and students were some of the groups
represented. The oath of office was administered on the East
Portico of the Capitol by Chief Justice Melville Fuller.
***
My fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be
thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of
boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver
of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled
us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness.
To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of
our national life in a new continent.
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