United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
I get a little impatient sometimes about the discussion of the channels
and methods by which it is to prevail. It is going to prevail, and that
is a very superficial and ignorant view of it which attributes it to
mere social unrest. It is not merely because the women are discontented.
It is because the women have seen visions of duty, and that is something
which we not only cannot resist, but, if we be true Americans, we do not
wish to resist. America took its origin in visions of the human spirit,
in aspirations for the deepest sort of liberty of the mind and of the
heart, and as visions of that sort come up to the sight of those who are
spiritually minded in America, America comes more and more into her
birthright and into the perfection of her development.
So that what we have to realize in dealing with forces of this sort is
that we are dealing with the substance of life itself. I have felt as I
sat here to-night the wholesome contagion of the occasion. Almost every
other time that I ever visited Atlantic City, I came to fight somebody.
I hardly know how to conduct myself when I have not come to fight
against anybody, but with somebody. I have come to suggest, among other
things, that when the forces of nature are steadily working and the tide
is rising to meet the moon, you need not be afraid that it will not come
to its flood. We feel the tide; we rejoice in the strength of it; and we
shall not quarrel in the long run as to the method of it. Because, when
you are working with masses of men and organized bodies of opinion, you
have got to carry the organized body along. The whole art and practice
of government consists not in moving individuals, but in moving masses.
It is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but, after all, you have
got to wait for the body to follow. I have not come to ask you to be
patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that
there was a force behind you that will beyond any peradventure be
triumphant, and for which you can afford a little while to wait.
THE TERMS OF PEACE
[Address to the Senate of the United States, delivered January 22,
1917.]
GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account