The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-21

tion has through long centuries been headed in one direction? That is not true of the United States The United States has no racial momentum. It has no his- tory back of it which makes 1t run all it's energies and all it's ambitions in one particular direction, and America is par ticularly free in this that she has no ham pering ambitions as a world power. If we have been obliged by circumstances or have considered ourselves to be obliged by circumstances in the past to take ter ritory whicn we otherwise would not have thought of taking. l believe I am right ir saying that have considered it our duty to administer that territory, not for ourselves, but for the people living in it, and to put this burden upon our con- sciences. not to think that this thing IS ours for our use, but to regard ourselves as trustees of the great business for those to whom it does really belong, trustees ready to hand over the trust at any time when the business seems to make that possible and feasible. That is what I mean by saying we have no hammpering ambi- tions. We do not want anything that does not belong to us. Isn't a nation in that position free to serve other nations and isn't a nation like that ready to form some part of the assessing opinion of the world?
 My interest in the neutrality of the United States is not the petty desire to keep out of trouble. I have never looked for it. but l have always found 1t. 1 do not want to walk around trouble If any man wants a scrap that is an inter- esting scrap, and worth while, I am his man. l warn him that he isn't going to draw me into the scrap for his advertise ment, but if he is looking for trouble that is the trouble of men in general and can help a little, why then I am in for it. I int ct in, ttr,l l. Is so much more to do for all than fight ing, I place the distinction of waiting for this nation, because no nation ever yet has got it unreservedly on account of our self-control and self-mastery. Whom do you admire most among your friends The irritable man, the man out of whom you can get a rise without trying, the man who will fight at the drop of the hat whether he knows what the hat is drop 1 ping for or not?
 Don't you admire and don't you fear if 1 you. have to contest with him the self 1 mastered man who watches you with calm eye and comes in only when you have carried the thing so far that you must be disposed? That is the man you must re- 1 spect That is the man you know has at 1 the bottom much more fundamental and terrible courage than the irritable fight ing man.
 News and News"
 1 How I covet for America this splendid courage of reserve moral force and
 wanted to point out to you gentlemen ade- quately this:
 There is news, and news. There is l what is called news from Turtle bay thai | turns out to be falsehood at any rate in 1 what it is said to signify, and which il 1 you could get the nation to believe fl
 true, might disturb our equilibrium ant
 our self possession. We ought not tt T ;n .e tl. -fx,I | to permit things of that sort to use III l the electrical energy of the wires, be cause it's energy is malign, it's energy is not of the truth, it's energy is of mischief It is possible to sift through to truth. 1 "I have known some things to go ou on the wires as true when there was only one man or one group of men who could have told the originator of the repor whether it was true or not, and they wer, not asked whether it was true or not fol fear 1t might not be true That sort O report ought not to go out over the wires There is generally, if not always, some body who knows whether that thing is so
 or not and in these days above all othe days, we ought to take particular palm
 to resort to the one small group of men or to the one man. if there be but one who knows whether those things are tru, | or not The world ought to know tn l truth but the world ought not at thi | period of unstable equilibrium to be dis turbed by rumor; ought not to be dis
 turbed by imaginative combinations o ! circumstances, or rather by circumstance
 stated in combination who do not belon | in combination.
 For we are holding, not I, but yol and gentlemen engaged like you. the bal ance in your hand. This unstable equi librium rests upon scales that are in you 1 bands. For the food of opinion, as began by saying, is the news of tn day. l have known many man g,
 off at a tangent on information that wa not reliable. Indeed, that describes tn majority of men. The world is hel, stable by the man who waits for the mex day to find out whether the report wa true not.
 We cannot afford, therefore, to le the rumors of irresponsible persons an, organs get into the atmosphere of tn United States We are trustees for wha venture to say is the greatest heritag that any nation ever had, the love 0 Justice and righteousness. and humai liberty. For fundamentally those are tn
 things to which America is addicted