THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR THE UNITED STATES TO SERVE THE WORLD

68. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. September 4, 1916

(Congressional Record, LIII, Appendix, 2160)

The commands of democracy are as imperative as its privileges and opportunities are wide and generous. Its compulsion is upon us. It will be great and lift a great light for the guidance of the nations only if we are great and carry that light high and for the guidance of our own feet. We are not worthy to stand here unless we ourselves be in deed and in truth real democrats and servants of mankind, ready to give our very lives for the freedom and justice and spiritual exaltation of the great nation which shelters and nurtures us.

69. Extract from an Address of President Wilson.1 September 25, 1916

(From the official printed copy; for the entire address see New York Times, September 26, 1916)

America has stood in the years past for that sort of political understanding among men which would let every man feel that his rights were the same as those of another and as good as those of another, and the mission of America in the field of the world's commerce is to be the same, that when an American comes into that competition he comes without any arms that would enable him to conquer by force, but only with those peaceful influences of intelligence, a desire to serve, a knowledge of what he is about, before' 1 Statements Nos. 69 to 78 inclusive are speeches delivered by Mr. Wilson in his campaign for the presidency in 1916.

which everything softens and yields and renders itself subject. That is the mission of America, and my interest, so far as my small part in American affairs is concerned, is to lend every bit of intelligence I have to this interesting, this vital, this all-important matter of releasing the intelligence of America for the service of mankind.

70. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. October 5, 1916

(New York Times, October 6, 1916)

We have never yet sufficiently formulated our program for America with regard to the part she is going to play in the world, and it is imperative that she should formulate it at once. But, in order to carry out a program, you must have a unification of spirit and purpose in America which no influence can invade.

In making that program what are we to say to ourselves? And what are we to say to the world? It is very important that the statesmen of other parts of the world should understand America. America has held off from the present conflict with which the rest of the world is ablaze, not because she was not interested, not because she was indifferent, but because the part she wanted to play was a different part from that.

The singularity of the present war is that its origin and objects never have been disclosed. They have obscure European roots which we do not know how to trace. So great a conflagration could not have broken out if the tinder had not been there, and the spark in danger of falling at any time. We were not the tinder. The spark did not come from us. It will take the long inquiry of history to explain

this war.

But Europe ought not to misunderstand us. We are holding off, not because we do not feel concerned, but because when we exert the force of this nation we want to know what we are exerting it for. You know that we have always remembered and revered the advice of the great Washington, who advised us to avoid foreign entanglements. By that I understand him to mean avoid being entangled in the ambitions and the national purposes of other nations.

It does not mean - if I may be permitted to venture an interpretation of the meaning of that great man — that we are to avoid the entanglements of the world, for we are part of the world, and nothing that concerns the whole world can be indifferent to us. We want always to hold the force of America to fight for what? Not merely for the rights of property or of national ambition, but for the rights of mankind.

71. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. October 5, 1916

(New York Times, October 6, 1916)

America up to the present time has been, as if by deliberate choice, confined and provincial, and it will be impossible for her to remain confined and provincial. Henceforth she belongs to the world and must act as part of the world, and all of the attitudes of America will henceforth be altered.

The extraordinary circumstances that for the next decade, at any rate after that it will be a matter of our own choice whether it continues or not but for the next decade, at any rate, we have got to serve the world. That alters every commercial question, it alters every political question,

it alters every question of domestic development. The men who insist upon going on to do the old things in the old way are going to be at the tail end of the procession.

The sign of our destiny has at last become as wide as the horizon. And the thing that we have to be careful about is that we do this thing in a new way. It has hitherto been done by those who wanted to exploit the world. It has got to be done now in a way that will deserve the confidence of the world.

American character, as well as American enterprise, is going to be put to the test. American ideals are for the first time to be exhibited upon a world-wide scale, American purposes are going to be tested by the purposes of mankind, and not by the purposes of national ambition.

72. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. October 7, 1916

(New York Times, October 8, 1916)

We are indeed at a critical juncture in the affairs of the world, and the affairs of the world touch America very nearly. She does not stand apart. up out of the peoples of the world. broad as the extended stocks of There is nothing human that does not concern her.

Her people are made Her sympathies are as national Governments.

73. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. October 12, 1916

(New York Times, October 13, 1916)

I have said, and shall say again, that when the great present war is over it will be the duty of America to join with the other nations of the world in some kind of league for the maintenance of peace. Now, America was not a

party to this war, and the only terms upon which we will be admitted to a league, almost all the other powerful members of which were engaged in the war and made infinite sacrifices when we apparently made none, are the only terms which we desire, namely, that America shall not stand for national aggression, but shall stand for the just conceptions and bases of peace, for the competitions of merit alone, and for the generous rivalry of liberty.

Are we ready always to be the friends of justice, of fairness, of liberty, of peace, and of those accommodations which rest upon justice and peace? In these two trying years that have just gone by we have forborne, we have not allowed provocation to disturb our judgments, we have seen to it that America kept her poise when all the rest of the world seemed to have lost its poise.

Only upon the terms of retaining that poise and using the splendid force which always comes with poise can we hope to play the beneficent part in the history of the world which I have just now intimated.

74. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. October 14, 1916

(New York Times, October 15, 1916)

I want you to realize the part that the United States must play. It has been said, my fellow-citizens, been said with cruel emphasis in some quarters, that the people of the United States do not want to fight about anything. . . . But the people of the United States want to be sure what they are fighting about, and they want to be sure that they are fighting for the things that will bring to the world justice and peace. Define the elements; let us know that we are not fighting for the prevalence of this nation over that, for the