The easiest thing is to strike. The brutal thing is the impulsive thing. No man has to think before he takes aggressive action; but before a man really conserves the honor by realizing the ideals of the Nation he has to think exactly what he will do and how he will do it.

Do you think the glory of America would be enhanced by a war of conquest in Mexico? Do you think that any act of violence by a powerful nation like this against a weak and destructive neighbor would reflect distinction upon the annals of the United States?

Do you think that it is our duty to carry self-defense to a point of dictation into the affairs of another people? The ideals of America are written plain upon every page of American history.

We have the evidence of a very competent witness, namely, the first Napoleon, who said that as he looked back in the last days of his life upon so much as he knew of human history he had to record the judgment that force had never accomplished anything that was permanent.

Force will not accomplish anything that is permanent, I venture to say, in the great struggle which is going on on the other side of the sea. The permanent things will be accomplished afterwards, when the opinion of mankind is brought to bear upon the issues, and the only thing that will hold the world steady is this same silent, insistent, allpowerful opinion of mankind.

Force can sometimes hold things steady until opinion has time to form, but no force that was ever exerted, except in response to that opinion, was ever a conquering and predominant force.

I think the sentence in American history that I myself am proudest of is that in the introductory sentences of the Declaration of Independence, where the writers say that a due

respect for the opinion of mankind demands that they state the reasons for what they are about to do.

I venture to say that a decent respect for the opinions of mankind demanded that those who started the present European war should have stated their reasons; but they did not pay any heed to the opinion of mankind, and the reckoning will come when the settlement comes.

THE PURPOSE OF THE UNITED STATES 65. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. July 4, 1916

(Congressional Record, LIII, Appendix, 1395)

America did not come into existence to make one

nations, to show its America opened her

more great nation in the family of strength and to exercise its mastery. doors to everybody who wanted to be free and to have the same opportunity that everybody else had to make the most of his faculties and his opportunities, and America will retain its greatness only so long as it retains and seeks to realize those ideals. No man ought to suffer injustice in America. No man ought in America to fail to see the dictates of humanity.

SERVICE OF AMERICA IN FOREIGN TRADE 66. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. July 10, 1916

(Congressional Record, LIII, Appendix, 1480)

These are days of incalculable change, my fellow citizens. It is impossible for anybody to predict anything that is

certain in detail with regard to the future either of this country or of the world in the large movements of business; but one thing is perfectly clear, and that is that the United States will play a new part, and that it will be a part of unprecedented opportunity and of greatly increased responsibilities. The United States has had a very singular history in respect of its business relationships with the rest of the world. I have always believed — and I think you have always believed that there is more business genius in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and yet America has apparently been afraid of touching too intimately the great processes of international exchange. America of all countries in the world has been timid; has not until recently has not until within the last two or three years provided itself with the fundamental instrumentalities for playing a large part in the trade of the world. America, which ought to have had the broadest vision of any nation, has raised up an extraordinary number of provincial thinkers, men who thought provincially about business, men who thought that the United States was not ready to take her competitive part in the struggle for peaceful conquest of the world. For anybody who reflects philosophically upon the history of this country, that is the most amazing fact about it.

But the time for provincial thinkers has gone by. We must play a great part in the world whether we choose it or not. Do you know the significance of this single fact that within the last year or two we have, speaking in large terms, ceased to be a debtor Nation and become a creditor Nation; that we have more of the surplus gold of the world than we ever had before, and that our business hereafter is to be to lend and to help and to promote the great peaceful enterprises of the world? We have got to finance the world in some important degree, and those who finance

the world must understand it and rule it with their spirits and with their minds. We can not cabin and confine ourselves any longer, and so I said that I came here to congratulate you upon the great rôle that lies ahead of you to play. This is a salesmanship congress, and hereafter salesmanship will have to be closely related in its outlook and scope to statesmanship, to international statesmanship. It will have to be touched with an intimate comprehension of the conditions of business and enterprise throughout the round globe, because America will have to place her goods by running her intelligence ahead of her goods. No amount of mere push, no amount of mere hustling, or, to speak in the western language, no amount of mere rustling, no amount of mere active enterprise will suffice.

There have been two ways of doing business in the world outside of the lands in which the great manufactures have been made. One has been to try to force the tastes of the manufacturing country on the country in which the markets were being sought, and the other way has been to study the tastes and needs of the countries where the markets were being sought and suit your goods to those tastes and needs, and the latter method has beaten the former method. . . . That is statesmanship because that is relating your international activities to the conditions which exist in other countries.

. . You can not force yourself upon anybody who is not obliged to take you. The only way in which you can be sure of being accepted is by being sure that you have got something to offer that is worth taking, and the only way you can be sure of that is by being sure that you wish to adapt it to the use and the service of the people to whom you are trying to sell.

I was trying to expound in another place the other day

the long way and the short way to get together. The long way is to fight. I hear some gentlemen say that they want to help Mexico, and the way they propose to help her is to overwhelm her with force. That is the long way to help Mexico, as well as the wrong way, because after the fighting you have a nation full of justified suspicion and animated by well-founded hostility and hatred, and then will you help them? Then will you establish cordial business relationships with them? Then will you go in as neighbors and enjoy their confidence? On the contrary, you will have shut every door as if it were of steel against you. What makes Mexico suspicious of us is that she does not believe as yet that we want to serve her. She believes that we want to possess her, and she has justification for the belief in the way in which some of our fellow citizens have tried to exploit her privileges and possessions. For my part, I will not serve the ambitions of these gentlemen, but I will try to serve all America, so far as intercourse with Mexico is concerned, by trying to serve Mexico herself. There are some things that are not debatable. Of course, we have to defend our border. That goes without saying. Of course, we must make good our own sovereignty, but we must respect the sovereignty of Mexico. I am one of those I have sometimes suspected that there were not many of them - who believe, absolutely believe, the Virginia Bill of Rights, which was the model of the old Bill of Rights, which says that a people has a right to do anything they please with their own country and their own government. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that, and I am going to stand by the belief. . . .