Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/397

Rh the abolition of the Danish Sound dues. In the second half of the last century it opened Japan to the world. Throughout all this time it made very valuable additions to the recognized rules of international law. All this with only a few regiments on land and a few frigates on the sea. Have we given worthier evidence of being a great world-power since?

Surely I want this Republic to be a great world-power—a greater world-power than it is now, or than it can be made by armies and navies ever so gigantic. The way to accomplish this is simple: Let this Republic present to the world the most encouraging example of a great people governing themselves in liberty, justice and peace, and let its dealings with all other nations, great and small, strong and weak, be so obviously just and fair, so patient and forbearing, so mindful not only of their rights, but also of their self-respect, so free from all arrogance or humiliating assertion of superior strength, that nobody can doubt its generous unselfishness, and that, whenever a mediator is wanted for the adjustment of international differences, this Republic will be looked up to as the natural arbiter. Then it will be in the noblest sense a great world-power—indeed, the grandest world-power mankind has ever known.

How ignoble, how unspeakably vulgar, appears by the side of this conception the idea that the American Republic should assert its position as a great power by swaggering about among the nations of the earth as the big battleship bully, carrying a chip on his shoulder and demanding his rights on the strength of the fist which he shakes under everybody's nose!

The ideal of the great world-power which this Republic should be, as I have described it, is no mere figment of fancy, no mere dream impossible of realization. To accomplish it we have only to return with full sincerity