US Presidency
1900

Our platform of 1896 declared the Hawaiian Islands should be controlled by the United States, and no foreign power should be permitted to interfere with them. This purpose has been fully accomplished by annexation, and delegates from those beautiful islands have participated in the declaration for which you speak today. In the great conference of nations at The Hague, we reaffirmed before the world the Monroe doctrine and our adherence to it and our determination not to participate in the complications of Europe. We have happily ended the European alliance in Samoa, securing to ourselves one of the most valuable harbors in the Pacific Ocean, while the open door in China gives to us fair and equal competition in the vast trade of the Orient. Some things have happened which were not promised, nor even foreseen, and our purposes in relation to them must not be left in doubt. A just war has been waged for humanity, and with it have come new problems and responsibilities.