foreign policy under which we shall make the name of the United States Government a symbol on the one hand, as it ought to be, for the just and proper insistence upon its own rights, but also a symbol for a disinterested and generous willingness to treat all other nations, all other powers, with just and with frank courtesy and good-will, and to make it evident that in this country’s foreign policy it recognizes its duty toward the weak just as much as its responsibility to the strong. AT THE BANQUET OF THE IROQUOIS CLUB, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905 _Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, and you, my Hosts_: Our country is governed, and under existing circumstances can only be governed, under the party system, and that should mean, and that will mean, when we have a sufficient number of people who take the point of view that Judge Dickinson takes, that there shall be a frank and manly opposition of party to party, of party man to party man, combined with an equally frank refusal to conduct a party contest in any such way as to give good Americans cause for regret because of what is said before election, when compared with what is said after election. The frankest opposition to a given man or a given party on questions of public policy not only can be, but almost always should be, combined with the frankest recognition of the infinitely greater number of points of agreement than of the points of difference. I have accepted your kind and generous invitation to come before you this evening, because the longer I am in public life the more firmly I am convinced that the great bulk of the questions of most importance before us as a people are questions which we can best decide not from the standpoint of republicanism or democracy, but from the standpoint of the interests of the average American citizen, whether Republican or Democrat. This is true of both foreign and domestic questions. Our political differences should, and in the great majority of cases do, disappear at the water’s edge. When I had to choose a man to represent to a peculiar degree the interests of this Government in one of the most important foreign negotiations of recent years—that concerning the Alaskan boundary—I chose the best lawyer, one of the ablest public men, and one of the most fair-minded patriots that could be found in the country; and the fact that he was of opposite political faith did not interfere with Judge Dickinson’s doing that work well. That was a question that concerned the United States—all of the United States. Most questions that come up in Washington are questions that go much deeper than party, are questions that affect the whole country, and the man would be indeed unfit for the position of President who did not feel that when he held that office he held it in the most emphatic sense as the representative of all the people.