No nation as great as ours can expect to escape the penalty of greatness, for greatness does not come without trouble and labor.  There are problems ahead of us at home and problems abroad, because such problems are incident to the working out of a great national career.  We do not shrink from them.  Scant is our patience with those who preach the gospel of craven weakness.  No nation under the sun ever yet played a part worth playing if it feared its fate overmuch—­if it did not have the courage to be great.  We of America, we, the sons of a nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings of distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair.  We know that the future is ours if we have in us the manhood to grasp it, and we enter the new century girding our loins for the contest before us, rejoicing in the struggle, and resolute so to bear ourselves that the nation’s future shall even surpass her glorious past.

    THEODORE ROOSEVELT at Philadelphia, 1902

Grave times always make men look into the future.  All acts are judged and justified after they are performed.  All progress depends upon this straining the vision into the darkness of the yet-to-be.  Upon the eve of great struggles anticipation is always uppermost in men’s minds.  In the midst of the strife it is man’s hope.  In the next extract, only one sentence glances backward.

For us there is but one choice.  We have made it.  Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations.  We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster.  Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our people.

     WOODROW WILSON:  Flag Day Address, 1917

Retrospective and Anticipatory Conclusion.  While it does not occur so frequently as the two kinds just illustrated it is possible for a conclusion to be both retrospective and anticipatory—­to look both backward and forward.  The conclusion may enforce what the speech has declared or proved, then using this position as a safe starting point for a new departure, look forward and indicate what may follow or what should be done.  The only danger in such an attempt is that the dual aspect may be difficult to make effective.  Either one may neutralize the other.  Still, a careful thinker and master of clear language may be able to carry an audience with him in such a treatment.  The division in the conclusion between the backward glance and the forward vision need not be equal.  Here again the effect to be made upon the audience, the purpose of the speech, must be the determining factor.  Notice how the two are blended in the following conclusion from a much read commemorative oration.