We have been
obliged to arm ourselves to make good our claim to a certain minimum of
right and of freedom of action. We stand firm in armed neutrality since
it seems that in no other way we can demonstrate what it is we insist
upon and cannot forego. We may even be drawn on, by circumstances, not
by our own purpose or desire, to a more active assertion of our rights
as we see them and a more immediate association with the great struggle
itself. But nothing will alter our thought or our purpose. They are too
clear to be obscured. They are too deeply rooted in the principles of
our national life to be altered. We desire neither conquest nor
advantage. We wish nothing that can be had only at the cost of another
people. We have always professed unselfish purpose and we covet the
opportunity to prove that our professions are sincere.
There are many things still to do at home, to clarify our own politics
and give new vitality to the industrial processes of our own life, and
we shall do them as time and opportunity serve; but we realize that the
greatest things that remain to be done must be done with the whole world
for stage and in cooeperation with the wide, and universal forces of
mankind, and we are making our spirits ready for those things.
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