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Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

"President Wilson's Addresses"

A man who is trying to fight for his single hand is
fighting against the community and not fighting with it. There are a
great many dreadful things about war, as nobody needs to be told in this
day of distress and of terror, but there is one thing about war which
has a very splendid side, and that is the consciousness that a whole
nation gets that they must all act as a unit for a common end. And when
peace is as handsome as war there will be no war. When men, I mean,
engage in the pursuits of peace in the same spirit of self-sacrifice and
of conscious service of the community with which, at any rate, the
common soldier engages in war, then shall there be wars no more. You
have moved the vanguard for the United States in the purposes of this
association just a little nearer that ideal. That is the reason I am
here, because I believe it.
There is a specific matter about which I, for one, want your advice. Let
me say, if I may say it without disrespect, that I do not think you are
prepared to give it right away. You will have to make some rather
extended inquiries before you are ready to give it. What I am thinking
of is competition in foreign markets as between the merchants of
different nations.


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