is side of the water--and when I say the Anglo-Saxon
race I mean the great white, English-speaking race--I use the other term
because there is none more satisfactory to me--contains elements which
alone can continue to be the leaders of civilization, the elements of
fundamental power, abiding virtue, public and private. Wealth will not
preserve a state; it must be the aggregation of individual integrity in
its members, in its citizens, that shall preserve it. That integrity, I
believe, exists, deep-rooted among our people. Sometimes when I read
accounts of vice here and there eating into the heart of the people, I
feel inclined to be pessimistic; but when I come face to face with the
American and see him in his life, as he truly is; when I reflect on the
great body of our people that stretch from one side of this country to
the other, their homes perched on every hill and nestled in every
valley, and recognize the sterling virtue and the kind of character that
sustains it, built on the rock of those principles that our fathers
transmitted to us, my pessimism disappears and I know that not only for
this immediate time but for many long generations to come, with that
reservoir of virtue to draw from, we shall sustain and carry both
ourselves and the whole human race forward.

There are many problems that confront us which we can only solve by the
exercise of our utmost courage and wisdom. I do not want anything I say
here this evening to have in the least degree the complexion of a
political talk. I am like a friend of mine down in Virginia who told me
that he never could talk politics with a man, "Because," he says, "I am
that sort of a blanked fool that thinks if a man disagrees with him in
politics he has insulted him." Consequently, I am not discussing this
matter in any political sense whatever. But I feel quite sure, though I
see many men whose opinion I respect who disagree with me, that yet this
great people of ours is strong enough to carry through any obligations
whatever which they may take up. I have no fear, however it may cause
trouble, or may create difference and complication, of our extending our
flag in the way we have done of late. I know that I differ with a very
considerable section of the people of the South from whom I come, but I
have no question whatever that we possess the strength to maintain any
obligation that we assume, and I feel sure that in the coming years this
great race of ours will have