The Republican Party is just the party that _cannot_ meet the new
conditions of a new age. It does not know the way and it does not wish
new conditions. It tried to break away from the old leaders and could
not. They still select its candidates and dictate its policy, still
resist change, still hanker after the old conditions, still know no
methods of encouraging business but the old methods. When it changes its
leaders and its purposes and brings its ideas up to date it will have
the right to ask the American people to give it power again; but not
until then. A new age, an age of revolutionary change, needs new
purposes and new ideas.
In foreign affairs we have been guided by principles clearly conceived
and consistently lived up to. Perhaps they have not been fully
comprehended because they have hitherto governed international affairs
only in theory, not in practice. They are simple, obvious, easily
stated, and fundamental to American ideals.
We have been neutral not only because it was the fixed and traditional
policy of the United States to stand aloof from the politics of Europe
and because we had had no part either of action or of policy in the
influences which brought on the present war, but also because it was
manifestly our duty to prevent, if it were possible, the indefinite
extension of the fires of hate and desolation kindled by that terrible
conflict and seek to serve mankind by reserving cur strength and our
resources for the anxious and difficult days of restoration and healing
which must follow, when peace will have to build its house anew.
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