Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/179

Rh all this? While a hostile power wishing to attack us would have had the advantage of greater readiness, it could not strike at a vital point in our continental stronghold. It would have had to count upon a discouragingly long struggle against immense resources and an incalculable staying-power on our side, and during that struggle it would have offered dangerous opportunities to its jealous rivals in the Old World. Moreover, it was thought that our Monroe doctrine, looking to the primacy of this Republic in this hemisphere, would keep us from unnecessary meddling with Old-World affairs.

Therefore, we could not have a war unless we kicked some foreign nation into it. Even all our wishes concerning Cuba would probably have been conceded by Spain without firing a gun, if we had only waited. In one word, it was the first precept of European statesmanship to remain on good terms with this Republic at almost any cost. And therefore it was that we were secure in the enjoyment of the inestimable blessing of unarmed peace, with the fullest liberty to devote all our social energies to the development of our immense material resources and of our mental and moral capabilities; to the solution of the great problem of popular government given in our charge; and to our glorious mission to promote the cause of liberty and civilization among mankind by the peaceable moral force of our example.

These were the extraordinary providential favors be stowed upon the American people, part of which Washington witnessed, part of which he foresaw and the duties and responsibilities flowing from which he felt so deeply.

What have we done with these blessings? While the conduct of the American democracy has indeed not reached the ideal which was in Washington's mind, and while for this reason it has had its failures, and those failures have had to be dearly paid for, yet remaining until recently sub-