Once the evil is discovered, there is no sacrifice too great to repair the damage which their unwitting neglect may have allowed to become irreparable.

So it is, I think, with the people of the United States.

Capable of every devotion in a recognized crisis, we have yet carelessly allowed the habit of improvidence and waste of resources to find lodgment.

It is our great good fortune that the harm is not yet altogether beyond repair.
The profoundest duty that lies upon any father is to leave his son with a reasonable equipment for the struggle of life and an untarnished name.
So the noblest task that confronts us all to-day is to leave this country unspotted in honor, and unexhausted in resources, to our descendants, who will be, not less than we, the children of the Founders of the Republic.

I conceive this task to partake of the highest spirit of patriotism..