a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their
confidence in a new principle; whereas, it cost us none of these things.
We were born into this privilege; we were rocked and cradled in it; we
did nothing to create it; and it is, therefore, the greater duty on our
part to do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it. I am not deceived
as to the balance of opinion among the foreign-born citizens of the
United States, but I am in a hurry for an opportunity to have a line-up
and let the men who are thinking first of other countries stand on one
side and all those that are for America first, last, and all the time on
the other side.

Now, you can do a great deal in this direction. When I was a college
officer. I used to be very much opposed to hazing; not because hazing is
not wholesome, but because sophomores are poor judges. I remember a very
dear friend of mine, a professor of ethics on the other side of the
water, was asked if he thought it was ever justifiable to tell a lie. He
said Yes, he thought it was sometimes justifiable to lie; "but," he
said, "it is so difficult to judge of the justification that I usually
tell the truth." I think that ought to be the motto of the sophomore.
There are freshmen who need to be hazed, but the need is to be judged by
such nice tests that a sophomore is hardly old enough to determine them.
But the world can determine them. We are not freshmen at college, but we
are constantly hazed. I would a great deal rather be obliged to draw
pepper up my nose than to observe the hostile glances of my neighbors. I
would a great deal rather be beaten than ostracized. I would a great
deal rather endure any sort of physical hardship if I might have the
affection of my fellow men. We constantly discipline our fellow citizens
by having an opinion about them. That is the sort of discipline we ought
now to administer to everybody who is not to the very core of his heart
an American. Just have an opinion about him and let him experience the
atmospheric effects of that opinion! And I know of no body of persons
comparable to a body of ladies for creating an atmosphere of opinion! I
have myself in part yielded to the influences of that atmosphere, though
it took me a long time to determine how I was going to vote in New
Jersey.

So it has seemed to me that my privilege this afternoon was not merely
a privilege of courtesy, but the real privilege of reminding you--for I
am sure I am doing nothing more--