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Show MY BROTHER'S KEEPER. ELIHU ROOT, In The Fra. No nation can live unto itself alone, and continue to live. Each nation's -growth is a part of the development of the race. There may be leaders and there may be laggards but no nation can long continue very far in advance of the general progress of mankind, and no nation that is not doomed to extinction can remain very far behind. It is with nations as it is with individual men ; intercourse, inter-course, association, correction of egotism by the influence of others' judgment, broadening of views by the experience and thought of equals, acceptance of the moral standards of a community and the desire for whose good opinion lends a sanction to the rules of right conduct these arc the conditions of growth in civilization. A people whose minds arc not open to the lessons of the world's progress, whose spirits are not stirred by the aspirations and the achievements achieve-ments of humanity struggling the world over for liberty and justice, jus-tice, must be left behind by civilization, in its steady and beneficent advance. These beneficent results the government and the people of the United States of America greatly desire. We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our own; for no sovereignty sov-ereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence in-dependence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire, and wc deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights, or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom and in spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together. Let us help each other to show that for all the races of men the Liberty for which wc have fought and labored is the twin sister of Justice and Peace. Let us unite in creating and maintaining and making effective rn all-American public opinion, whose power shall inflaerK international wrong, and narxov th cace of war, and forever preserve our free lands from the burden of such armaments ar-maments as are massed behind the frontiers of Europe, and bring us ever nearer to the perfection of ordered liberty. So shall come security and prosperity, production and trade, wealth, learning, and happiness for us all. |