“The Strenuous Life”

Question

We can not avoid the responsibilities that confront us in Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. All we can decide is whether we shall meet them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or whether we shall make of our dealings with these new problems a dark and shameful page in our history. To refuse to deal with them at all merely amounts to dealing with them badly. We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we can not possibly solve it aright. 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, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty lift that thrills “stern men with empires in their brains”—all these, of course, shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties; shrink from seeing us build a navy and an army adequate to our needs; shrink from seeing us do our share of the world’s work, by bringing order out of chaos in the great, fair tropic islands from which the valor of our soldiers and sailors has driven the Spanish flag. These are the men who fear the strenuous life, who fear the only national life which is really worth leading. They believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation, as it saps them in the individual; or else 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. 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; but neither was any nation ever yet truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone. All honor must be paid to the architects of our material prosperity, to the great captains of industry who have built our factories and our railroads, to the strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; for great is the debt of the nation to these and their kind. But our debt is yet greater to the men whose highest type is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, a soldier like Grant. They showed by their lives that they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win a competence for themselves and those dependent upon them; but they recognized that there were yet other and even loftier duties—duties to the nation and duties to the race.

We can not sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond. Such a policy would defeat even its own end; for as the nations grow to have ever wider and wider interests, and are brought into closer and closer contact, if we are to hold our own in the struggle for naval and commercial supremacy, we must build up our power without our own borders. We must build the Isthmian Canal, and we must grasp the points of vantage which will enable us to have our say in deciding the destiny of the oceans of the East and the West.

So much for the commercial side. From the standpoint of international honor the argument is even stronger. The guns that thundered off Manila and Santiago left us echoes of glory, but they also left us a legacy of duty. If we drove out a medieval tyranny only to make room for savage anarchy, we had better not have begun the task at all. It is worse than idle to say that we have no duty to perform, and can leave to their fates the islands we have conquered. Such a course would be the course of infamy. It would be followed at once by utter chaos in the wretched islands themselves. Some stronger, manlier power would have to step in and do the work, and we would have shown ourselves weaklings, unable to carry to successful completion the labors that great and high-spirited nations are eager to undertake.

—Theodore Roosevelt, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899

give me 3 Pro-Imperialist arguments

Answer 1

The excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt's speech "The Strenuous Life" contains several pro-imperialist arguments. Here are three key ones:

1. National Duty and Honor: Roosevelt argues that the United States has a moral obligation to engage with the territories it has acquired (e.g., Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines) following military conquests. He emphasizes that abandoning these territories would be shameful and could lead to chaos, implying that a strong nation must fulfill its duty to bring order and stability to these regions. The notion that failing to engage with these territories equates to weakness reinforces the idea of imperialism as a responsibility that reflects national honor and strength.

2. Economic Interests and Global Competition: Roosevelt outlines the necessity for the United States to expand its infrastructure and military capabilities to compete effectively in the global arena. He contends that commercial prosperity is critical for national strength and that expanding beyond the country's borders is essential for maintaining economic supremacy. This argument posits that imperialism is not just about acquiring land, but also about securing trade routes, resources, and strategic locations (e.g., the construction of the Isthmian Canal) to ensure the United States can thrive in an increasingly interconnected world.

3. The Ideal of the "Strenuous Life": Roosevelt contrasts the ideals of a "cloistered life"—characterized by complacency and apathy—against the virtues of a "strenuous life," which he defines as one of action, effort, and undertaking challenges. He defines true national greatness as the product of hard work and the willingness to confront difficulties, thereby framing imperialism as a manifestation of national vigor and character. In this view, actively engaging in global affairs and assuming responsibility for the well-being of other nations reflects the highest aspirations of a great nation, promoting a vision of American exceptionalism that justifies imperial endeavors.