United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
Comprehension must be the soil in which shall grow all the fruits of
friendship, and there is a reason and a compulsion lying behind all this
which is dearer than anything else to the thoughtful men of America. I
mean the development of constitutional liberty in the world. Human
rights, national integrity, and opportunity as against material
interests--that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue which we now have to
face. I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will
never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest. She will
devote herself to showing that she knows how to make honorable and
fruitful use of the territory she has, and she must regard it as one of
the duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are material
interests made superior to human liberty and national opportunity. I say
this, not with a single thought that anyone will gainsay it, but merely
to fix in our consciousness what our real relationship with the rest of
America is. It is the relationship of a family of mankind devoted to the
development of true constitutional liberty. We know that that is the
soil out of which the best enterprise springs. We know that this is a
cause which we are making in common with our neighbors, because we have
had to make it for ourselves.
Reference has been made here to-day to some of the national problems
which confront us as a nation. What is at the heart of all our national
problems? It is that we have seen the hand of material interest
sometimes about to close upon our dearest rights and possessions. We
have seen material interests threaten constitutional freedom in the
United States. Therefore we will now know how to sympathize with those
in the rest of America who have to contend with such powers, not only
within their borders but from outside their borders also.
I know what the response of the thought and heart of America will be to
the program I have outlined, because America was created to realize a
program like that. This is not America because it is rich. This is not
America because it has set up for a great population great
opportunities of material prosperity. America is a name which sounds in
the ears of men everywhere as a synonym with individual opportunity
because a synonym of individual liberty. I would rather belong to a poor
nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love
with liberty. But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the
nation that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best and
be his best, and that means the release of all the splendid energies of
a great people who think for themselves. A nation of employees cannot be
free any more than a nation of employers can be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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