ed the traditional right of Anglo-Saxons to rebel against
injustice. We have traveled centuries and centuries since then--measured in
events, in achievements, in depth of insight into the secrets of nature, in
breadth of view, in sweep of sympathy, and in the rise of ennobling hope.
Physically we are to-day nearer to China than we were then to Ohio.
Socially, industrially, commercially the wide world is almost a unit. And
these thirteen states have spread across a continent to which have been
gathered the peoples of the earth. We are the "heirs of all the ages." Our
inheritance of tradition is greater than that of any other people, for we
trace back not alone to King John signing the Magna Charta in that little
stone hut by the riverside, but to Brutus standing beside the slain Caesar,
to Charles Martel with his battle-axe raised against the advancing horde of
an old-world civilization, to Martin Luther declaring his square-jawed
policy of religious liberty, to Columbus in the prow of his boat crying to
his disheartened crew, "Sail on, sail on, and on!" Irishman, Greek, Slav,
and Sicilian--all the nations of the world have poured their hopes and
their history into this great melting pot, and the product will be--in
fact, is--a civilization that is new in the sense that it is the blend of
many, and yet is as old as the Egyptians.

Surely the real tradition of such a people is not any one way of doing a
certain thing; certainly not any set and unalterable plan of procedure in
affairs, nor even any fixed phrase expressive of a general philosophy
unless it comes from the universal heart of this strange new people. Why
are we here? What is our purpose? These questions will give you the
tradition of the American people, our supreme tradition--the one into which
all others fall, and a part of which they are--the right of man to oppose
injustice. There follow from this the right of man to govern himself, the
right of property and to personal liberty, the right to freedom of speech,
the right to make of himself all that nature will permit, the right to be
one of many in creating a national life that will realize those hopes which
singly could not be achieved.

Is there any other tradition so sacred as this--so much a part of
ourselves--this hatred of injustice? It carries in its bosom all the past
that inspires our people. Their spirit of unrest under wrong has lighted
the way for the nations of the world. It is not seen alone in