cannot
be invaded even by the power of the State. So deep is the American
hatred of trespass against property rights that imperialism finds it
impossible to understand this. Here the individual is a king of kings in
his native right, and takes out an injunction against the city that
wishes to trespass upon his property. This antagonism manifests itself
in the laws that safeguard the small shopkeeper against the big firm,
and the small manufacturer against any company with its billion dollars
of capital. This antagonism to the sin of trespass has lent a peculiar
sanctity to treaties between Canada and the United States. We have one
hundred millions of people, and Canada nine millions. We need many
things that Canada has, but it is intellectually unthinkable that "we
should take what we want and explain afterward," or that we should
violate our treaty guaranteeing neutrality to Canada. Our frontier line
is three thousand miles long. There is not a fort from Maine to
Victoria. If we adopted Germany's position we would have to build one
thousand forts, withdraw two million young men from the farm, factory,
store and bank, and load the working people with taxes to support them.
In a free land, and in God's world, there should be a place for the poor
man and for the small nation. In the olden time there was a king who had
herds and flocks, and a poor man who had one pet lamb. It came to pass
that a stranger claimed the right of hospitality at the rich man's
palace, and the king sent out and took the poor man's one lamb and gave
it for food to the stranger. And, soon or late, the time will come when
history will tell the story of Germany's taking little Belgium, and
conscience, like a prophet, will indict the militarism that seized the
one lamb that belonged to the poor man. This episode is not closed. The
German representative who says that Belgium is a part of Germany may be
right in terms of future government and war, but the incident has just
begun in the memory of the soldiers who never can forget that they first
broke their sacred treaty, and then, when the Belgian defended his home
as his castle, butchered the man, who died with a sacred treaty in his
hand. Why, all over this land, teachers, fathers, editors, authors, have
found it necessary to say to the young men and women of the republic,
"Do not sign your name to an obligation unless you intend to keep it."
Keep your faith. Remember that your word given should be as g