I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will
never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest. She will
devote herself to showing that she knows how to make honorable and
fruitful use of the territory she has, and she must regard it as one of
the duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are material
interests made superior to human liberty and national opportunity. I say
this, not with a single thought that anyone will gainsay it, but merely
to fix in our consciousness what our real relationship with the rest of
America is. It is the relationship of a family of mankind devoted to the
development of true constitutional liberty. We know that that is the
soil out of which the best enterprise springs. We know that this is a
cause which we are making in common with our neighbors, because we have
had to make it for ourselves.
Reference has been made here to-day to some of the national problems
which confront us as a nation. What is at the heart of all our national
problems? It is that we have seen the hand of material interest
sometimes about to close upon our dearest rights and possessions.
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