America, The Hope Of The World
We, here, in America hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years: and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. If on this new continent we merely build another country of great but unjustly divided material prosperity, we shall have done nothing; and we shall do little if we shall merely set the greed of envy against the greed of arrogance, and thereby destroy the material wellbeing of all of us. To turn this Government either into government by a plutocracy or government by a mob, would be to repeat on a large scale the lamentable failures of the world that is dead.
We stand against all tyranny, by the few or by the many. We stand for the rule of the many in the interest of all of us, for the rule of the many in a spirit of courage, of common sense, or high purpose; above all, in a spirit of kindly justice towards every man and every woman. We not merely admit, but insist, that there must be self-control on the part of the people, that they must keenly perceive their own duties as well as the rights of others; but we also insist that the people can do nothing unless they not merely have, but exercise to the full, their own rights.
The worth of our great experiment depends upon its being in good faith an experiment—the first that has ever been tried—in true democracy on the scale of a continent, on a scale as vast as the mightiest empires of the Old World. Surely this is a noble ideal, an ideal for which it is worth while to strive, an ideal for which it is worth while to sacrifice much; for our ideal is the rule of all the people in a spirit of friendliest brotherhood toward each and every one of the people.
—Theodoee Roosevelt.
The Wedded Flags
Hang out that glorious old red cross!
Hang out the stripes and stars!
They faced each other fearlessly
In two historic wars.
But now the ocean circlet binds
The bridegroom and the bride:
Old England, young America—
Display them, side by side.
Was ever sign so beautiful.
Hung from the heavens, abroad?
Old England, young America
For freedom and for God!
—G. W. Doane.
Alternate Reading: Psalms 144:12-15.