By EDMUND MORRIS

              WASHINGTON - We stand on the threshold of a
              new century big with the fate of many nations. It
        rests with us now to decide whether in the opening
        years of that century we shall march forward to fresh
        triumphs, or whether at the outset we shall cripple
        ourselves for the contest. Is America a weakling, to
        shrink from the work of the great world-powers? No.
        The young giant of the West stands on a continent and
        clasps the crest of an ocean in either hand. . . ."

        Theodore Roosevelt's speech to the Republican
        National Convention in 1900 was exuberantly a young
        man's oration, suppurating with testosterone (a
        substance he preferred to call "vigor di vita"). His
        projection was so forceful — sentences
        machine-gunning to the back of Philadelphia's
        Exposition Hall, gesticulations shaking his entire body
        — that nobody listening could doubt his total
        identification with "the young giant of the West."

        Nothing is more notable in modern American campaign
        oratory than its careful, gray, timid quality. Can anyone
        imagine any candidate now essaying such a robustly
        masculine paragraph as the one quoted above? George
        W. Bush is not about to invoke "the fate of many
        nations," for fear that he may be asked to name some of
        them. One doubts that Al Gore would risk using the
        word "cripple," even as a verb. (Some time back, his
        boss, careless of the dictionary, actually apologized to
        Welsh-Americans for saying that Congress was
        "welching" on its responsibilities.)

        In the hundred years since T.R. strutted that stage, our
        civilization has matured. Sensibilities quiescent then
        are more vocal now. But the United States is still a
        young republic, in the Greek or Roman sense. Why do
        presidential hopefuls who put such a premium on
        jogging talk as if they were on their last legs? Is the
        young giant of the West succumbing to ossification?
        You'd certainly think so, the way monuments are
        proliferating in Washington at Starbucks speed. (A
        group of nostalgic Reaganauts in Congress, not content
        with Ronald Reagan National Airport and the Ronald
        Reagan Building downtown, now want an official
        Ronald Reagan memorial and shrines to the Gipper in
        every one of the 50 states.)

        Paradoxically, Mr. Reagan — the oldest president
        we've ever had — was the last candidate who could get
        away with testosterone-laden oratory. From the outset
        of his political career he cultivated, and addressed
        himself to, groups like Young Americans for Freedom.
        When backers offered him the use of a television studio
        for his famous "Time for Choosing" speech of Oct. 27,
        1964, he declined and asked for a "large room full of
        students."

        Political campaigners have always relied on youthful
        supporters, if only because they cheer louder, jump
        higher, and have more stamina for licking envelopes.
        But Reagan (who wrote most of his own speeches
        before entering the White House) unself-consciously
        thought of himself as young — and orated accordingly.
        Hence his lusty willingness to assail Communism with
        words like "evil" and "lie" and "cheat," instead of the
        careful vocabulary of containment.

        Young people respond, albeit viscerally, to short,
        direct words like these. Their restless minds have no
        patience for circumlocutions. For that matter, we older
        voters appreciate frank talk, too. We like to know what
        a candidate really feels, even if his aggression alarms
        us (as T.R.'s sometimes did) or his ignorance takes us
        aback (as Reagan's often did). America is still a nation
        that values individual expression — which is to say,
        free speech.

        Joseph Lieberman started out as an attractive candidate
        with Reagan esque humor and Rooseveltian moral
        fervor, but he perverted the latter with an address to
        Hollywood moguls that gave new dimensions of
        meaning to the word "pander": "Al and I have a
        tremendous regard for this industry. . . . We will never
        put the government in the position of telling you by law,
        through law, what to make."

        Richard Cheney deserves equal time here, but can
        anybody recall a single one of his public remarks?

        Neither Vice President Gore nor Governor Bush seem
        able, in their carefully scripted utterances, to say
        anything that has the slightest ping of personality. Even
        as "just folks," both men stiffen up. Their joviality, in
        armchair schmoozes with Jay Leno or Oprah Winfrey,
        is that of a pair of Toby jugs. That onstage kiss at the
        Democratic Convention persuaded a lot of people that
        Honest Al has a blood temperature of more than an
        ecologically correct 68 degrees Fahrenheit. But for this
        viewer, it looked as engineered as the torch-lighting
        ceremony in Sydney.

        All of which does not augur well for the debates. When
        we build our monuments and write our histories, it's the
        presidents with vigor di vita we identify with.

        In live memory and folk memory, we hear again the
        chuckling self-certainty of Ronald ("There you go
        again") Reagan; Gerald Ford's unmatched simple
        eloquence after the resignation of Richard Nixon ("My
        fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is
        ended"); Harry Truman warning the thermally
        challenged to stay out of his kitchen; John Kennedy
        tossing those dry, disarming wisecracks at press
        conferences; Franklin Roosevelt's baritonal
        pronouncements making the Oval Office resonate like a
        drum; T.R.'s sibilant teeth biting out his unforgettable
        epigrams ("S-speak s- softly and carry a big s-stick");
        and so on back through the thunderers of the 19th
        century.

        Here's one undecided voter's appeal to all current
        candidates: Between now and Nov. 7, will somebody
        please say something?

        Edmund Morris, the author of "Dutch: A Memoir of
        Ronald Reagan," is writing the second volume of a
        trilogy on Theodore Roosevelt.
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A graphic by Paula Scherer accompanied this article, showing "rewrites" of some classic speeches:

"The only thing we have to be afraid of is being scared."

"Give me liberty or I'd rather be dead."

"Don't ask what you can get out of your country.  Ask how you can help out."

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, listen up."

"87 years ago older Americans started a new nation that was based on men being equal.  So now we're in a big civil war testing whether or not a country like this can last.  I'm speaking to you live from the battlefield of the civil war.  We're here to dedicate some of this field as a graveyard for those men who died fighting the civil war.  And the dedication is a good thing to do.  But the big picture is that we can't do anything in the way of a ceremony because that would be insignificant..."