The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence.
Henry Cabot Lodge
The independence of the United States is not only more precious to ourselves but to the world than any single possession.
Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.
But it is well to remember that we are dealing with nations every one of which has a direct individual interest to serve, and there is grave danger in an unshared idealism.
I have loved but one flag and I can not share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for the League of Nations.
You may call me selfish if you will, conservative or reactionary, or use any other harsh adjective you see fit to apply, but an American I was born, an American I have remained all my life.
We would not have our politics distracted and embittered by the dissensions of other lands.
Internationalism, illustrated by the Bolshevik and by the men to whom all countries are alike provided they can make money out of them, is to me repulsive.
The Pilgrim and the Puritan whom we honor tonight were men who did a great deal of work in the world. They had their faults and their - shortcomings, but they were not slothful in business and they were most fervent in spirit.
The time given to athletic contests and the injuries incurred on the playing field are part of the price which the English-speaking race has paid for being world conquerors.
True Americanism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on race and religion.
New England has a harsh climate, a barren soil, a rough and stormy coast, and yet we love it, even with a love passing that of dwellers in more favored regions.
For we, too, have our ideals, even if we differ from those who have tried to establish a monopoly of idealism.
Contrast the United States with any country on the face of the earth today and ask yourself whether the situation of the United States is not the best to be found.
Our ideal is to make her ever stronger and better and finer, because in that way alone, as we believe, can she be of the greatest service to the world's peace and to the welfare of mankind.
Our ideal of the future is that she should continue to render that service of her own free will.
Lincoln did more than any other man to put the stamp of righteousness, to put the stamp of compassion, on the name of America.
If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives, and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.
Standing, as I believe the United States stands for humanity and civilization, we should exercise every influence of our great country to put a stop to that war which is now raging in Cuba and give to that island once more peace, liberty, and independence.
She has great problems of her own to solve, very grim and perilous problems, and a right solution, if we can attain to it, would largely benefit mankind.
I would rather see the United States respected than loved by other nations.
We should never suffer Cuba to pass from the hands of Spain to any other European power.
It sets its face rightfully against the doctrines of the Anarchist and the Communist, who seek to solve the social problems not by patient endeavor, but by brutal destruction.
Look at the United States today. We have made mistakes in the past. We have had shortcomings. We shall make mistakes in the future and fall short of our own best hopes.
Strong, generous, and confident, she has nobly served mankind. Beware how you trifle with your marvellous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.
Washington's entire honesty of mind and his fearless look into the face of all facts are qualities which can never go out of fashion and which we should all do well to imitate.
Are ideals confined to this deformed experiment upon a noble purpose, tainted, as it is, with bargains and tied to a peace treaty which might have been disposed of long ago to the great benefit of the world if it had not been compelled to carry this rider on its back?
We would not have our country's vigour exhausted or her moral force abated, by everlasting meddling and muddling in every quarrel, great and small, which afflicts the world.
True Americanism recognizes the enormous gravity of the social and labor problems which confront us.
I fear that the hearts of the vast majority of mankind would beat on strongly and steadily and without any quickening if the league were to perish altogether.
Whatever may be said as to our relations to some other countries, I think the relations of this country to Spain offer no ties of gratitude or of blood.
If that for which the Spanish Empire has stood since the days of Charles V is right, then everything for which the United States stands and has always stood is wrong.
Recognition of belligerency as an expression of sympathy is all very well.
Animosity is not a policy.
