epresentative democracy,
where our freedom never has made offensive warfare, never has sought
territorial aggrandizement through force, never has turned to
the arbitrament of arms until reason has been exhausted. When the
Governments of the earth shall have established a freedom like our own
and shall have sanctioned the pursuit of peace as we have practiced
it, I believe the last sorrow and the final sacrifice of international
warfare will have been written.

Let me speak to the maimed and wounded soldiers who are present today,
and through them convey to their comrades the gratitude of the Republic
for their sacrifices in its defense. A generous country will never
forget the services you rendered, and you may hope for a policy under
Government that will relieve any maimed successors from taking your
places on another such occasion as this.

Our supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way.
Reconstruction, readjustment, restoration all these must follow. I
would like to hasten them. If it will lighten the spirit and add to the
resolution with which we take up the task, let me repeat for our Nation,
we shall give no people just cause to make war upon us; we hold no
national prejudices; we entertain no spirit of revenge; we do not hate;
we do not covet; we dream of no conquest, nor boast of armed prowess.

If, despite this attitude, war is again forced upon us, I earnestly
hope a way may be found which will unify our individual and collective
strength and consecrate all America, materially and spiritually, body
and soul, to national defense. I can vision the ideal republic, where
every man and woman is called under the flag for assignment to duty
for whatever service, military or civic, the individual is best fitted;
where we may call to universal service every plant, agency, or facility,
all in the sublime sacrifice for country, and not one penny of war
profit shall inure to the benefit of private individual, corporation, or
combination, but all above the normal shall flow into the defense chest
of the Nation. There is something inherently wrong, something out of
accord with the ideals of representative democracy, when one portion of
our citizenship turns its activities to private gain amid defensive
war while another is fighting, sacrificing, or dying for national
preservation.

Out of such universal service will come a new unity of spirit and
purpose, a new confidence and consecration, which would make