United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
More is involved than the immediate destinies of Mexico and the
relations of the United States with a distressed and distracted people.
All America looks on. Test is now being made of us whether we be sincere
lovers of popular liberty or not and are indeed to be trusted to respect
national sovereignty among our weaker neighbors. We have undertaken
these many years to play big brother to the republics of this
hemisphere. This is the day of our test whether we mean, or have ever
meant, to play that part for our own benefit wholly or also for theirs.
Upon the outcome of that test (its outcome in their minds, not in ours)
depends every relationship of the United States with Latin America,
whether in politics or in commerce and enterprise. These are great
issues and lie at the heart of the gravest tasks of the future, tasks
both economic and political and very intimately inwrought with many of
the most vital of the new issues of the politics of the world. The
republics of America have in the last three years been drawing together
in a new spirit of accommodation, mutual understanding, and cordial
cooeperation. Much of the politics of the world in the years to come will
depend upon their relationships with one another. It is a barren and
provincial statesmanship that loses sight of such things!
The future, the immediate future, will bring us squarely face to face
with many great and exacting problems which will search us through and
through whether we be able and ready to play the part in the world that
we mean to play. It will not bring us into their presence slowly,
gently, with ceremonious introduction, but suddenly and at once, the
moment the war in Europe is over. They will be new problems, most of
them; many will be old problems in a new setting and with new elements
which we have never dealt with or reckoned the force and meaning of
before. They will require for their solution new thinking, fresh courage
and resourcefulness, and in some matters radical reconsiderations of
policy. We must be ready to mobilize our resources alike of brains and
of materials.
It is not a future to be afraid of. It is, rather, a future to stimulate
and excite us to the display of the best powers that are in us. We may
enter it with confidence when we are sure that we understand it,--and we
have provided ourselves already with the means of understanding it.
Look first at what it will be necessary that the nations of the world
should do to make the days to come tolerable and fit to live and work
in; and then look at our part in what is to follow and our own duty of
preparation. For we must be prepared both in resources and in policy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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