◆ SpookStack

. et le at aM naa rales ts pe" AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY.:2 3: wee Se fete 2) IN A. NATIONALISTIC WORL | Ce ETS SS By William E. Borah | a AGREE entirely with the views expressed by the Chairmanastotheobjects 0... and services of this association. “Those of us who have not had the op- (= == portunity of being your guest, and thus coming in closer contact with you, nevertheless know of your work. We greatly respect it. I think the Chairman is “quite correct in saying that your publication is looked upon by all men as the coe highest and best expression of opinions on all sides of the questions which .......: touch foreign affairs. It is both a pleasure and an honor to be your guest this “Les evening. I express my appreciation of the remarks of the Chairman, whom I oe have known for many years and whose ability and disinterestedness I deeply —- 1.20. The strong tendency of all revolutions is to break entirely with the past. A 9° new world is to be created. A new start must be made. What men have thought before is unimportant, perhaps harmful. The efforts they have put forth, the sacrifices they have made, are to be regarded as without value. Traditions and policies which have become interwoven with the moral and intellectual fibre of a people, the habits, customs, and mode of living, the institutions they chave reared at great cost of money and blood, are in revolutionary times... sought to be rejected and forever put aside. Books and symbols are burned or © = - in some way destroyed. This is the revolutionary ideal. But fortunately, it is never realized. Fortunately, the wealth — material, moral, intellectual — gathered through centuries of effort, cannot be destroyed. No revolutionary movement can wholly escape the living past. Tradition, after all, does not yield to revolutionary decrees. Experience will have a hearing. Reflection and the inexorable nexus of things bring men back to take up the broken threads, mend them if possible, preserve that which is best, separate things which are fugitive from things which are permanent, and then go forward with that patient building which is the true and dependable method of permanent advancement. , Washington, in his immortal farewell address, said: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. .. . Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a very remote, relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns, . . . Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European am- bition, rivalship, interests, humor, or caprice?” Thomas Jefferson stated the same principle with greater brevity, declaring: “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.” . This policy thus announced remained the unchallenged and revered policy of this nation for one hundred and twenty-odd years. Whatever differences of view may have arisen in most recent years, none were found, and none will be