It is in
that sense that I mean that America is a mediating nation. The opinion
of America, the action of America, is ready to turn and free to turn in
any direction.
Did you ever reflect upon how almost all other nations, almost every
other nation has through long centuries been headed in one direction?
That is not true of the United States. The United States has no racial
momentum. It has no history back of it which makes it run all its
energies and all its ambitions in one particular direction; and America
is particularly free in this, that she has no hampering ambitions as a
world power.
If we have been obliged by circumstances or have considered ourselves to
be obliged by circumstances, in the past to take territory which we
otherwise would not have thought of taking, I believe I am right in
saying that we have considered it our duty to administer that territory,
not for ourselves, but for the people living in it, and to put this
burden upon our consciences not to think that this thing is ours for our
use, but to regard ourselves as trustees of the great business for those
to whom it does really belong, trustees ready to hand over the cosmic
trust at any time when the business seems to make that possible and
feasible.
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