t is part of the general situation she has to reckon with when shaping
her policies. I fervently hope these policies will remain in concordance
with the great principles on which the commonwealth is built and with
the teaching embodied in that farewell address which is read once a year
in Congress and in which the greatest American emphatically warns his
countrymen from becoming entangled in the conflicts of European nations.

A few words more about the future of Europe may be said on this
occasion. I have read with the keenest interest your own and Mr.
Carnegie's statements concerning a future organization of Europe on the
pattern of the United States. My personal views concerning this
magnificent idea have been expressed in anticipation in my America
lectures of the year 1911. Allow me to quote my own words:

Analogies are often misleading, the most obvious ones
especially so. Nothing seems more obvious than to draw
conclusions from the existing union of American States to a
possible union of European nations; but no fancied analogy is
to be applied with greater caution than this one. The American
Union's origin was the common struggle of several English
colonies, now States, for their emancipation; unity of purpose
was the main principle of their growth, union its natural
result.

Europe, on the other hand, is, in her origin and in her
present state, a compound of conflicting interests and
struggling potentialities. Mutual antagonism remained the
principle of growth embodied in the several national lives.
The juridical formula of this system is the principle of
national sovereignty in its most uncompromising interpretation
and most limitless conception. As such it is the natural
result of a historical growth mainly filled with antagonism;
in the consciousness of (European) nations it lives as
synonymous with national honor, as something above doubt and
discussion.

Let me add to this the following remarks:

1. Any sort of union among the nations of Europe appears impossible if
it is meant to include Russia. Russia represents eastern mentality,
which implies an unadmissible spirit of aggression and of conquest. It
seems to be a law of nature on the old Continent that eastern nations
should wish to expand to the west as long as they are powerful. Not to
mention the great migration of nations which gave birth to med