There are men
of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden upon
our public revenues or a threat to social order. These should be
identified and excluded.
We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with
European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their
contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices
to promote peace, but never obtruding our advice and never attempting
unfairly to coin the distresses of other powers into commercial
advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect that our European
policy will be the American policy of European courts.
It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace
and safety which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in
matters affecting them that a shorter waterway between our eastern and
western seaboards should be dominated by any European Government that we
may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by
any friendly power.
We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to maintain
and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great powers, but they
will not expect us to look kindly upon any project that would leave us
subject to the dangers of a hostile observation or environment. We have
not sought to dominate or to absorb any of our weaker neighbors, but
rather to aid and encourage them to establish free and stable
governments resting upon the consent of their own people.
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