AT ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

APRIL 29, 1903 

Cardinal Gibbons., Ladies and Gentlemen: 

It is indeed a pleasure to be received here as a 
guest of the first and oldest university founded in 
our country west of the Mississippi River in the Louisiana Purchase. 
I know your work. I have myself 
been much in the West, and I have come across the 
traces of your work, both among the communities 
of our own people and among the Indian tribes. 

I thank you personally for your kind allusions to 
me, and would hold myself recreant to the principles 
upon which this government was founded did I not 
strive as Chief Executive to do fair and equal justice 
to all men without regard to the way in which 
any man chooses to worship his Maker.

Source: The Works of Theodore Roosevelt Roosevelt, Memorial Edition