WASHINGTON'S PRINCIPLES ON NEUTRALITY AND DEFENSE
Henry Cabot Lodge (1916)

The United States was still neutral in the World War when Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge devoted much of his hawkish address to stressing Washington’s belief that military preparedness is critical, and that “if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for war.” But Lodge’s speech is equally interesting in that it underscored his commitment to Washington’s belief in the principle of neutrality, a view he would cite repeatedly three years later as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in defeating Woodrow Wilson’s push for U.S. participation in the League of Nations.

Since the present century came in we have all become familiar with the agitation which has been carried on for the restoration of popular government in the United States. The radiance and energy of this movement have been a little dimmed lately through the absorption of the public interest in the great war, but it was very conspicuous before the war began. Just where and when popular government in the United States was lost has never been clearly explained but the method proposed for its restoration was to change -- we might almost say destroy -- the government which Washington founded and which Lincoln described as “of the people, for the people, and by the people.”

When the opinions of Washington and Lincoln on this point were quoted we were told that Lincoln lived fifty years ago, and Washington in a period of great antiquity, and that although they were undoubtedly remarkable men in their day they could hardly be compared with the master minds engaged in undoing their work, and moreover, that everything had altered since they flourished and that what they thought was, therefore, not now important. This view involves a somewhat wide and far-reaching proposition which, briefly and broadly stated, amounts to saying that there is nothing to be learned from the past.

I have said frequently, and I will venture to say again, that while I am far from thinking that all wisdom died with our forefathers I am perfectly certain that all wisdom was not born yesterday. The propositions in geometry of a certain Greek named Euclid are still generally accepted and the fact that they are two thousand years old does not appear to impair their validity. The atomic theory put forward by Lucretius in his great poem, and derived by him from the Greeks of a much earlier time, may or may not be sound but modern science has not thought it unworthy of consideration. You will indeed find Lucretius quoted on the first page of that very remarkable book, the Men of the Old Stone Age, just published, by Henry Fairfield Osborn, one of the most eminent and
distinguished of the world's scientific men.

If this can be said of ancient mathematics and of ancient science, branches of learning where the advances of modern times have been greatest and most rapid, it is much more true of theories of government and society. Anyone who will take the trouble to read the Politics of Aristotle or The Republic of Plato will discover that there are very few phases of the relations of human beings associated in states and governments which those two great intellects had not considered. If we pursue this subject historically we shall be interested to find how very rare any new idea in government is, and
this arises from the fact that the chief element in government is human nature which, we may assert with reasonable confidence, is as old as humanity itself. Some of the excellent persons who are engaged just now in the admirable work of improving existing conditions are fond of declaring that those who are skeptical about their panaceas have
closed their minds against new ideas. I think that in saying this they labor under a misapprehension. That there are minds shut to new ideas and which information cannot penetrate is undoubtedly true, but minds of this description are found quite as often among those who wish to change and reform everything as among those who are incapable of movement. Every thinking man of any age is disposed, if not eager, to welcome new ideas, but the condition of his doing so is that the idea should be really new as well as beneficial. I have read disquisitions by persons who think that everyone who disagrees with them is a foe of new ideas and I have been struck very much by the fact that the new ideas which they themselves bring forward with a great blare of trumpets as something wholly novel and destined to regenerate the world are apt to be very old. They put new dresses on them, they trick them out with ribbons, smooth away the wrinkles and touch the pallid faces with red, but they are the same old ideas with a long history of experiments and usually of more or less complete failure behind them.

Therefore when we are dealing with questions which are not new in the history of men and in which human nature and the capacity of human beings for self-control and self-government are largely involved, the wisdom of the greatest men of the past who were called upon to meet these same questions and to deal with identical conditions is just as valuable today as when it was exercised in bygone centuries for the benefit of mankind.

The fact that Washington had never seen an automobile or a flying machine or received a wireless message does not alter in the least the value of his judgment as to forms of government or as to the conduct of nations and their relations to each other. Washington was not only a great but a very wise man of large experience who had reflected much upon all these subjects. It fell to him to lead in the establishment and organization of a new government and to determine some of its great policies when it started upon its career. He then laid down certain fundamental doctrines, from some of which we have never swerved. He was the greatest man of his time, he was immensely successful in the work which he was called upon to do; and I think that from his calm wisdom we all, yes, even the youngest and wisest among us, can learn much today. The country has never suffered hitherto from following Washington's leadership and counsel, whether in his own lifetime or since. In dealing with those things where the underlying conditions, like human nature and international relations, are in their essence constant, I do not think we shall gravely err if we consider his advice today, and I think that in many directions it is just as applicable now as when he was President of the United States.
I do not intend to say anything of Washington's great services in bringing about the adoption of the Constitution or as to his general views of government. My purpose is merely to discuss briefly, first, the policy he adopted in our foreign relations under circumstances which have much resemblance to those which confront us today and, second, a certain general rule which he laid down as essential in its observance to our safety and existence as a nation.

Washington's accession to the Presidency was coincident with the beginning of the French Revolution and before his first term had ended that Revolution had brought on a general war in Europe. It became necessary, therefore, to determine what the attitude of the United States should be in the perilous conditions thus created. The difficulties of the situation were much enhanced by the fact that with France, one of the chief belligerents, we had a treaty of alliance and we were also bound to her by a strong sense of gratitude and a very real sympathy. Nevertheless, Washington, after careful consideration and full discussion with his Cabinet, determined upon a policy of strict neutrality and, on April 22nd, 1793, issued his famous neutrality proclamation.

This action was by no means so easy or so obvious as it is today. We had just emerged from the colonial condition and for one hundred years our peace had been involved in the peace of Europe. War in Europe had hitherto always meant war for the American Colonies. As Macaulay says in his essay upon "Frederic the Great": "The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the Coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America." Thus it came to pass inevitably that the people of the United States had not in 1793 grasped the idea, since habits of thought change very slowly, that there could be a general war in Europe from which they were to hold themselves entirely aloof.

The situation was further complicated, as I have just said, by the general, intense and very natural sympathy with France. Not only had France been our ally and helped us to win our independence but since then the French, following our example, had turned from a despotic monarchy to a democracy. The inevitable feeling among the masses of the people was that we ought to be fighting on the side of France and against Great Britain, with whom we had been so recently at war. The policy of neutrality, therefore, was far from popular; but Washington was determined not only to keep the country at peace but to separate it once for all from the old idea that wars in Europe necessarily involved the American people.

The policy he then laid down, and which he reiterated in his Farewell Address, has been the policy of the United States ever since. The Monroe Doctrine of thirty years later was a mere corollary and extension of Washington's proposition that our interests and our future were different from those of the nations of Europe and demanded our separation from them. It all seems very simple now but it was anything but simple then and the declaration of neutrality was only the first step upon a path beset with difficulties and dangers. Washington was not a phrase-maker. When, after deep and anxious consideration, he laid down the policy of neutrality he did so with the complete determination to carry it out rigidly. When he declared the country to be neutral he meant that it really should be a neutral and in that capacity should not only insist on every neutral right but should also perform all neutral duties.

The policy was soon brought to a sharp test by the acts of Genet, Minister of the French Republic, who endeavored in various ways to use the United States as a base of supplies for naval operations against England. Washington endured Genet's performances, with the large patience so characteristic of him always, until a point was reached when forbearance ceased to be a virtue and inaction would have made the policy of neutrality seem at once false and absurd. He, therefore, demanded Genet's recall. In this action in regard to Genet Washington was fulfilling the duties of a neutral.

Let us now see how he dealt with a great question of neutral rights. The question arose as to the export of arms and munitions of war and their sale to belligerents. Washington himself made no specific utterance, but he spoke through the members of his Cabinet. On the 15th of May, 1793, shortly after the proclamation of neutrality, Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, wrote as follows to the British Minister:

Our citizens have been always free to make, vend, and export arms. It is the constant occupation and livelihood of some of them. To suppress their callings, the only means perhaps of their subsistence, because a war exists in foreign and distant countries, in which we have no concern, would scarcely be expected. It would be hard in principle and impossible in practice. The law of nations, therefore, respecting the rights of those at peace, does not require from them such an internal disarrangement of their occupations. It is satisfied with the external penalty pronounced in the President's proclamation, that of confiscation of such portion of these arms as shall fall into the hands of any of the belligerent powers on their way to the ports of their enemies. To this penalty our citizens are warned that they will be abandoned, and, that even private contraventions may work no inequality between the parties at war, the benefit of them will be left equally free and open to all.

On August 4th of the same year Hamilton, in a Treasury circular, stated the same proposition in his own concise and lucid way: “The purchasing within, and exporting from the United States, by way of merchandise, articles commonly called contraband, being generally warlike instruments and military stores, is free to all the parties at war, and is not to be interfered with.”

Hamilton had a large part in framing the neutrality policy and, like Jefferson, he expressed the views of the President and of the Administration. At a later date, in 1796, Mr. Lee, the Attorney General, again expressed the opinion of the Administration as to the purchase of arms and munitions of war from a neutral. He said:

Belligerents may come into the territory of a neutral nation and there purchase and remove any article whatsoever, even munitions of war, unless the right be denied by express statute. If, however, the object of such an act be to impede the operations of either belligerent power, and to favor the other, it is a violation of neutrality.

At about the same time, on the 15th of May, 1796, Timothy Pickering, then Secretary of State, in reply to Mr. Adet, who had protested against the sale of contraband of war to Great Britain, again stated the views of Washington's Administration in the following language:

In both the sections cited (II 2, and II 3 Vattel) the right of neutrals to trade in articles contraband of war is clearly established; in the first, by selling to the warring powers who come to the neutral country to buy them; in the second, by the neutral subjects or citizens carrying them to the countries of the powers at war, and there selling them.

Nothing could be clearer, as these citations show, than the view of Washington's Administration and of Hamilton and Jefferson as to the undoubted right of the citizens or subjects of a neutral power to sell arms and other munitions of war at their own risk to belligerents. The doctrine and the policy thus laid down by Washington's Administration have been strictly adhered to by the United States from that day to this. Chancellor Kent, whose authority is the very highest, says in his Commentaries:

It was contended on the part of the French nation, in 1796, that neutral governments were bound to restrain their subjects from selling or exporting articles contraband of war to the belligerent powers. But it was successfully shown, on the part of the United States, that neutrals may lawfully sell, at home, to a belligerent purchaser, or carry, themselves, to the belligerent powers, contraband articles subject to the right of seizure in transit. This right has since been explicitly declared by the judicial authorities of this country. The right of the neutral to transport, and of the hostile power to seize, are conflicting rights, and neither party can charge the other with a criminal act.

The judicial decision to which Chancellor Kent refers was that in the case of the Santissima Trinidad, 7 Wheaton, 283, where Judge Story says:

But there is nothing in our laws, or in the law of nations, that forbids our citizens from sending armed vessels, as well as munitions of war, to foreign ports for sale. It is a commercial adventure which no nation is bound to prohibit; and which only exposes the persons engaged in it to the penalty of confiscation.

Thus it will be seen that the Washington assertion of neutral rights has not only been the policy of the United States but has been sustained by the highest judicial authority and also by Chancellor Kent. In the recall of Genet and in the attitude of the government as to the export of arms and munitions of war we get a complete understanding of Washington's conception of neutrality, both as to duties and rights. That has become the American conception and the American doctrine and has been formally embodied in the Hague Convention of 1907, which says: “A neutral power is not bound to prevent the export or transit, for the use of either belligerent, of arms, ammunitions, or, in general, of anything which could be of use to an army or fleet.”

It is certainly well therefore to bear this in mind in times like these, when the subject is being agitated and when those are not wanting who desire to overthrow the position taken by Washington and sustained ever since by his successors.
Our new government had just been established; its success was uncertain. We were poor and still struggling with the burdens left by the Revolution. With a large portion of the American people any act unfavorable to France was extremely unpopular, but Washington did not hesitate. He had declared the country to be neutral and he meant it to be so. To Washington nothing was more repulsive than bluster or fine language or large phrases which sounded well and meant nothing. His words were simple but the deed was always behind the words. He had measured accurately all the responsibilities which the policy of neutrality carried with it. He knew what he meant to do and when the time came to enforce neutrality, vindicate the honor of the country and support its declarations, he did not hesitate. He undoubtedly regretted that the people of the United States did not all understand the question and feel about it as he did, but groups of dissatisfied voters had no terrors for him when he had made up his mind to the performance of a great duty, as he conceived it. He succeeded in steering the new-born nation of which he was the head through the raging seas of the wars succeeding the French Revolution. Under his successor it became necessary to face one of the belligerents in arms, going to the very verge of declared war, but the Government did not falter and peace was the result.

I have not attempted to enter into the details of Washington's neutrality policy. They may be read in all our histories and may, I think, be studied with advantage at this moment. My sole purpose was to call attention to the policy which Washington then laid down of separating the United States from the policies of Europe and establishing in this respect a system of our own.

The other important point to be remembered is that when he announced that policy and founded that system he did it with a full realization of its dangers and difficulties and with a complete intention of carrying it out. He was emphatically a man of action and he never came to a momentous decision, either in peace or war, where he was not prepared to act as circumstances demanded. When we celebrate Washington's birthday it is well that we should consider what he did and see whether from his grave wisdom and his perfect courage there are not lessons to be learned and whether he does not offer an example to be followed, for wisdom, courage and pure patriotism can never be out of fashion.

The other great policy of Washington which seems to have most immediate connection with our own times was set forth at the very beginning of his administration and was by him regarded as essential to the safety, the success and the future of the United States. In his speech to the Congress, on the 8th of January, 1790, he said:

Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.

In this message occurs the sentence, so often quoted, that to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. It ought always to be read with the succeeding sentence, which is not constantly quoted but which is of almost equal weight and value now as then. We should never forget that Washington laid it down as a fundamental rule that “a free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined.” He demanded a well digested plan of defense and ample provision for the manufacture of munitions of war by “promoting such manufacture.” He saw nothing incompatible with a love of peace in preparation for war. On the contrary, he knew that such love could never be gratified except by intelligent and large preparation for war in defense of the country. The Democracy of Washington was not to buy its way to safety by gold and by the surrender of its rights but to assure and make real its ideal of peace by “arms and discipline.”

Again, on December 3, 1793, he said to Congress: “If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for war.”

" If we desire to repel insult"; how strange that must sound in certain ears today! There is no nobler figure, no finer character in history than George Washington, and yet he believed that an independent nation ought to be ready to repel insult. Noisy voices of late years have scoffed and scorned "national honor." Washington was as sensitive about his nation's honor as about his own. He was right about many things. Perhaps he was right about this. Who knows? There are many views about the conduct of life. This was the view of Washington. Then he repeats that readiness for war is the security of peace. The thought indeed was often in his mind and in varying forms was expressed by him in his letters. It was not a new thought of which Washington himself was no doubt quite aware.

If you will turn to your Familiar Quotations you will see that Horace said: "In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello" (“In peace, as a wise man, one should make suitable preparation for war.”)

And when Horace wrote his terse line he simply expressed what was probably a commonplace in the days of Augustus. But the fact that the doctrine represented the general opinion of the wisest men of all times only adds weight to Washington's advice. We have followed Washington’s counsels in many directions but never in this one, and we have paid heavily in the past for not doing so. In the War of I812 we raised half a million men, largely untrained and unprepared, and yet a small body of British Regulars marched almost unopposed to the City of Washington and burned the Capitol. In the same war, although we had no sufficient navy, we won a series of remarkable frigate victories, as well as the actions on the Lakes, because our little force, such as it was, was of the very best, well officered, well manned and thoroughly prepared.
What the utter absence of preparation cost the United States at the time of the Civil War it is impossible even to guess, but if in I86I we had possessed a well equipped regular army of one hundred thousand men there are good judges who think that the Civil War would have been checked at its very inception. The vital, living interest in Washington's declaration is that it meets so exactly the opposition to proper national defense which we are encountering today.

The chief argument of the extreme pacifists is that a well prepared national defense is an incentive to war. This Washington regarded as false. He puts his demand for preparedness on the ground that it will preserve peace, and no man ever lived more anxious for the preservation of peace than George Washington. It was the cardinal policy of his administration. He believed profoundly that the success of the new government depended on the maintenance of peace. He felt that time must be given for the cement which held the fabric of the United States together to harden. He knew, no one better, how frail the bonds were when the great experiment of a Union of States under one government was attempted. He knew our weaknesses, no one so well.

He had led us through seven years of war to victory and independence and he knew by the bitterest experience that one of the greatest obstacles which he had to meet in that long and trying conflict was the utter inefficiency of the Congress in dealing with the war. He had suffered from their refusal to do what was necessary. He had not forgotten that on the very eve of Yorktown, when the final victory was just coming within his grasp, Congress had proposed to reduce the Army.

No man could have been more convinced than he of the need of peace in the United States after the adoption of the Constitution. To preserve that peace he sacrificed the French Alliance in order to make a treaty with England which dispelled the danger of war and brought about the withdrawal of the British from Western posts, thus removing a constant menace and opening the gates to the westward movement of the American people. Yet this devoted friend and upholder of peace, who had made such sacrifices and incurred so much unpopularity in maintaining it, told his people with grave emphasis that preparation for war was the surest way of preserving peace. He knew that nothing was more shallow than the argument that the possession of an ample national defense was an incentive to war. He was certain that it was just the reverse. He knew that armaments in themselves did not mean peace or war but that it was the purpose of the armament which determined its results. No man understood more thoroughly than Washington that armaments designed for conquest were a means of conquest and that armaments designed purely for national defense were the greatest assurance of peace.

To his clear mind, free from all illusions and looking facts straight in the face, it was plain beyond dispute that a weak and undefended nation offered a temptation to other nations fully armed and seeking the spoils of war. Therefore this great lover of peace wished to assure peace, so far as it could be assured, by thorough preparation for a national defense which would be notice to all the world that we could not be attacked with impunity. In those days we were weak and poor; now we are rich and powerful, with a great population, but our vast material prosperity makes us, when undefended, more tempting to attack than ever before in our history.

We celebrate annually the birthday of Washington that we may do honor not only to him for what he did but for what he was. If we really honor his memory we must not disregard his counsels. That pure patriotism, that broad outlook upon life, that grave wisdom, should be just as powerful with us today as when he took the presidency of the United States. From neglecting his advice as to national defense we have suffered sorely in the past. Never in our history was that advice more pertinent than at this moment. We shall do well to follow the counsels of Washington, rather than the unthinking babble of those who dwell in a world of illusions and, unlike Washington, have never in their lives looked facts in the face arid never have wandered beyond the range of police protection.

The people who mistake the frail conventions of civilization for the realities of human existence, who wholly fail to realize that domestic peace and law and order rest on the organized force of the community are dangerous guides to trust or follow. They are like children playing on the glittering surface of a frozen river, unconscious of the waters beneath. They seem incapable of comprehending that when the ice goes all that holds the stream then rising in flood are the bridges and embankments which the power of man has erected. They are blind to the fact that if the dykes, which represent the force of the community, betrayed and weakened by neglect, shall break, the dark and rushing waves of the fierce torrent of human passions, of lawlessness, violence and crime, will sweep over the fair fields reclaimed by the slow labors of civilization and leave desolation and ruin in their track. With them the wise words of Horace -- wise despite the fact that he lived two thousand years ago -- fall upon deaf ears. I will venture to quote them: "Jura inventa metu injusti fateare necesse est, Tempora si fastosque velis evolvere mundi."

They would do well to come out from the mists of large language in which they wander and learn from history, as Horace had learned, that most rights are the creation and offspring of prevented wrongs, and then sit down and consider just what that fact means. It is a fact well worthy of thought, for it lies deep at the very roots of things. Whence came “rights,” as we call them? They are not natural forces like the tides or the mysterious electric currents which glide invisible about this pendent world. They are not born with us, like the color of our eyes or the shape of our skulls. They are the work of man. Consider a moment. Each of us has the right to pass along the road unmolested. It was not always so. In distant days a man could only go up and down on the earth if physically able to protect himself. In the slow process of the years the community stepped in and declared that interference with an innocent traveler was a wrong and must be prevented. The wrong prevented, the right came.

Let the advocates of peace at any price, let the pacifists consider this. Force, and force alone, gives to them, as to all of us, the right of free speech. Withdraw the force that prevents the wrong and the right would disappear. It rests on the prevention of wrong and nothing else. As it is with the rights of the individual, so is it with the rights of nations. Fail in preparing the force to prevent wrong, invasion and outrage, and the right of the nation to peace and security, to live its own life and work out its own destiny, would vanish like the mists of the morning before the rising sun.

It has apparently become a commendable fashion of late to quote from the Bible in this discussion of national defense. Let me imitate, in connection with the believers in an unprotected peace bought at any price, those who have called our attention to Ezekiel and ask you to recall the words of the prophet Jeremiah:

Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.

Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake I unto them; they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of naught, and the deceit of their heart.

Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall these prophets be consumed.

There is, however, much more here than the concrete question of national defense, vital as that question is. The opposition of those who, like Washington, would have the nation's defense always ready and prepared, to those who directly or indirectly resist any such preparation, involves a complete and radical difference as to the true conception of life and duty. When I was a boy we used to declaim at school a speech which ended in this way: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Al mighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me give me liberty or give me death."

I dare say that boys are no longer permitted to recite that speech or sundry others by the same orator; that they may be regarded in certain quarters as containing improper ideas for a child to acquire. They certainly would not harmonize with the lofty and inspiriting aspirations of those who like the song, "I Did Not Raise My Boy to be a Soldier." But in my day the thought and the sentiment which Patrick Henry expressed with stormy eloquence were accepted as truisms, as declarations of duty which no one questioned. We also used to recite a speech which ran in this way:

How beautiful is death, when earned by virtue!
Who would not be that youth?
What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country!
Why sits this sadness on your brows, my friends?
I should have blushed if Cato's house had stood
Secure, and flourished in a civil war.
“ Portius, behold thy brother, and remember
Thy life is not shine own, when Rome demands it.”

That was the eighteenth century conception of life and duty, as expressed by Addison, and it was the conception of Washington. That same conception of life and duty came down unbroken to the time of the Civil War. That which the schoolboys declaimed the men who saved the Union put into action. This conception, held by Washington and Lincoln and by the men both North and South, who died in battle, was a very simple one. It was merely that there was something more precious than life, comfort, safety, money-making, prosperity.

It probably never dawned on the mind of Washington that anyone but a coward could question that there were certain duties to the country, to right and to humanity, which made the brief life which is here our portion as dust in the balance. I have no doubt that, once awakened, this same conception would be dominant among the American people now as it always has been in the past and as it is at this moment with the nations across the water who are fighting for national existence, for all that they hold dearer than life.

But the other doctrine, that the short and uncertain life which is given to us on earth is to be preserved at all hazards, even if its preservation involves becoming a tributary and subject nation, and that there is nothing for which life and comfort ought to be sacrificed, is widely and loudly preached. To the proclamation of this doctrine great millionaires, who think the accumulation of money is the chief end of man, have given uncounted sums. It is a doctrine which, if successful, would destroy the soul of any people and would turn them into helpless degenerates, the ready victims of stronger and more manly races.

Every sensible man, every humane man and woman, hates war and, alas, we know only too well what the horrors of war are. We all wish peace to be maintained. We earnestly desire to see international law restored and enforced; but that is a very different thing from the acceptance of the doctrine that there is nothing for which life should be sacrificed. Between the conception of life which puts money and personal, physical safety first, and the conception of life held by Washington and Lincoln and those whom they led, which put freedom, honor and self-respect first, the choice must be made. The greatness of a people is to be found not in the amount of money which can be accumulated, or in the ease and softness which can be wrapped about life, but in what a people stands for in morals and in character.

On this day of all others it seems to me that we should remember the conception of life and duty held by Washington. The men of his day who were for peace at any price frankly because they were afraid and cared more for money than aught else are forgotten, but the name of Washington is enshrined and reverenced in the memory of all nations. Let us not depart from his teachings or from his high conception of man's duty and the conduct of life. Let us apply that conception now and put it into action without fear or favor.