Comprehension must be the soil in which shall grow all the fruits of friendship, and there is a reason and a compulsion lying behind all this which is dearer than anything else to the thoughtful men of America.  I mean the development of constitutional liberty in the world.  Human rights, national integrity, and opportunity as against material interests—­that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue which we now have to face.  I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest.  She will devote herself to showing that she knows how to make honorable and fruitful use of the territory she has, and she must regard it as one of the duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are material interests made superior to human liberty and national opportunity.  I say this, not with a single thought that anyone will gainsay it, but merely to fix in our consciousness what our real relationship with the rest of America is.  It is the relationship of a family of mankind devoted to the development of true constitutional liberty.  We know that that is the soil out of which the best enterprise springs.  We know that this is a cause which we are making in common with our neighbors, because we have had to make it for ourselves.

Reference has been made here to-day to some of the national problems which confront us as a nation.  What is at the heart of all our national problems?  It is that we have seen the hand of material interest sometimes about to close upon our dearest rights and possessions.  We have seen material interests threaten constitutional freedom in the United States.  Therefore we will now know how to sympathize with those in the rest of America who have to contend with such powers, not only within their borders but from outside their borders also.

I know what the response of the thought and heart of America will be to the program I have outlined, because America was created to realize a program like that.  This is not America because it is rich.  This is not America because it has set up for a great population great opportunities of material prosperity.  America is a name which sounds in the ears of men everywhere as a synonym with individual opportunity because a synonym of individual liberty.  I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.  But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the nation that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best and be his best, and that means the release of all the splendid energies of a great people who think for themselves.  A nation of employees cannot be free any more than a nation of employers can be.