Theodore Roosevelt may have spoken too softly at the Minnesota State Fair when he first delivered publicly the line that would come to define his foreign policy as president of the United States.
Its significance seems to have been lost on the local press.
“A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick — you will go far,’ ” Roosevelt said in a speech at the Grandstand on Sept. 2, 1901. “If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power.”
The hour-long speech, titled “National Duties,” was apparently well-received by the roughly 10,000 people in attendance.
“Laughter and applause were mingled throughout his address in equal proportions,” the Pioneer Press reported.
But the paper made no mention of the iconic line in its rapturous coverage of then-Vice President Roosevelt’s visit, except in a transcription of his speech on an inside page.
The St. Paul Globe even put together an abridged version of the address for its lazier readers, highlighting Roosevelt’s “gems of thought.” The “big stick” line was not included.
Just four days after Roosevelt’s speech at the State Fair, President William McKinley was shot by an assassin in Buffalo, N.Y. When McKinley died a week later, Roosevelt assumed the presidency. And he brought his fondness for “Big Stick Diplomacy” with him.
The phrase became so strongly associated with Roosevelt during his presidency that he was often depicted in political cartoons carrying a big stick.
While his State Fair speech was Roosevelt’s first public use of the famous line, a January 1900 letter Roosevelt wrote when he was governor of New York, is believed to be his first recorded use of the phrase, according to the Library of Congress.
