if we expect to hold a
true course. If we examine carefully what we have done, we can determine
the more accurately what we can do.

We stand at the opening of the one hundred and fiftieth year since our
national consciousness first asserted itself by unmistakable action with
an array of force. The old sentiment of detached and dependent colonies
disappeared in the new sentiment of a united and independent Nation. Men
began to discard the narrow confines of a local charter for the broader
opportunities of a national constitution. Under the eternal urge of
freedom we became an independent Nation. A little less than 50 years
later that freedom and independence were reasserted in the face of all
the world, and guarded, supported, and secured by the Monroe doctrine.
The narrow fringe of States along the Atlantic seaboard advanced its
frontiers across the hills and plains of an intervening continent
until it passed down the golden slope to the Pacific. We made freedom
a birthright. We extended our domain over distant islands in order to
safeguard our own interests and accepted the consequent obligation to
bestow justice and liberty upon less favored peoples. In the defense of
our own ideals and in the general cause of liberty we entered the Great
War. When victory had been fully secured, we withdrew to our own shores
unrecompensed save in the consciousness of duty done.

Throughout all these experiences we have enlarged our freedom, we have
strengthened our independence. We have been, and propose to be, more
and more American. We believe that we can best serve our own country and
most successfully discharge our obligations to humanity by continuing
to be openly and candidly, in tensely and scrupulously, American. If
we have any heritage, it has been that. If we have any destiny, we have
found it in that direction.

But if we wish to continue to be distinctively American, we must
continue to make that term comprehensive enough to embrace the
legitimate desires of a civilized and enlightened people determined in
all their relations to pursue a conscientious and religious life. We can
not permit ourselves to be narrowed and dwarfed by slogans and
phrases. It is not the adjective, but the substantive, which is of real
importance. It is not the name of the action, but the result of the
action, which is the chief concern. It will be well not to be too
much disturbed by the thought of either isolation or entanglement of
pacifis