It is in this spirit and with this thought that we have grown more
and more aware, more and more certain that the part we wished to
play was the part of those who mean to vindicate and fortify
peace. We have been obliged to arm ourselves to make good our
claim to a certain minimum of right and of freedom of action. We
stand firm in armed neutrality since it seems that in no other way
we can demonstrate what it is we insist upon and cannot forget. We
may even be drawn on, by circumstances, not by our own purpose or
desire, to a more active assertion of our rights as we see them
and a more immediate association with the great struggle itself.
But nothing will alter our thought or our purpose. They are too
clear to be obscured. They are too deeply rooted in the principles
of our national life to be altered. We desire neither conquest nor
advantage. We wish nothing that can be had only at the cost of
another people. We always professed unselfish purpose and we covet
the opportunity to prove our professions are sincere.
There are many things still to be done at home, to clarify our own
politics and add new vitality to the industrial processes of our
own life, and we shall do them as time and opportunity serve, but
we realize that the greatest things that remain to be done must be
done with the whole world for stage and in cooperation with the
wide and universal forces of mankind, and we are making our
spirits ready for those things.
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