We recognize the new order
in the world, with the closer contacts which progress has wrought.
We sense the call of the human heart for fellowship, fraternity,
and cooperation. We crave friendship and harbor no hate. But
America, our America, the America builded on the foundation laid
by the inspired fathers, can be a party to no permanent military
alliance. It can enter into no political commitments, nor assume
any economic obligations which will subject our decisions to any
other than our own authority.
I am sure our own people will not misunderstand, nor will the
world misconstrue. We have no thought to impede the paths to
closer relationship. We wish to promote understanding. We want to
do our part in making offensive warfare so hateful that
Governments and peoples who resort to it must prove the
righteousness of their cause or stand as outlaws before the bar of
civilization.
We are ready to associate ourselves with the nations of the world,
great and small, for conference, for counsel; to seek the
expressed views of world opinion; to recommend a way to
approximate disarmament and relieve the crushing burdens of
military and naval establishments. We elect to participate in
suggesting plans for mediation, conciliation, and arbitration, and
would gladly join in that expressed conscience of progress, which
seeks to clarify and write the laws of international relationship,
and establish a world court for the disposition of such
justiciable questions as nations are agreed to submit thereto.
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