Our foreign policy has been so conducted that, while not one of our just claims has been sacrificed, our relations with all foreign nations are now of the most peaceful kind; there is not a cloud on the horizon. The last cause of irritation between us and any other nation was removed by the settlement of the Alaskan boundary.
In the Caribbean Sea we have made good our promises of independence to Cuba, and have proved our assertion that our mission in the island was one of justice and not of self-aggrandizement; and thereby no less than by our action in Venezuela and Panama we have shown that the Monroe Doctrine is a living reality, designed for the hurt of no nation, but for the protection of civilization on the Western Continent, and for the peace of the world. Our steady growth in power has gone hand in hand with a strengthening disposition to use this power with strict regard for the rights of others, and for the cause of international justice and goodwill.
We earnestly desire friendship with all the nations of the New and Old Worlds; and we endeavor to place our relations with them upon a basis of reciprocal advantage instead of hostility. We hold that the prosperity of each nation is an aid and not a hindrance to the prosperity of other nations. We seek international amity for the same reasons that make us believe in peace within our own borders; and we seek this peace not because we are afraid or unready, but because we think that peace is right as well as advantageous.
American interests in the Pacific have rapidly grown. American enterprise has laid a cable across this, the greatest of oceans. We have proved in effective fashion that we wish the Chinese Empire well and desire its integrity and independence.
Our foothold in the Philippines greatly strengthens our position in the competition for the trade of the East; but we are governing the Philippines in the interest of the Philippine people themselves. We have already given them a large share in their government, and our purpose is to increase this share as rapidly as they give evidence of increasing fitness for the task. The great majority of the officials of the islands, whether elective or appointive, are already native Filipinos. We are now providing for a legislative assembly. This is the first step to be taken in the future; and it would be eminently unwise to declare what our next step will be until this first step has been taken and the results are manifest. To have gone faster than we have already gone in giving the islanders a constantly increasing measure of self-government would have been disastrous. At the present moment to give political independence to the islands would result in the immediate loss of civil rights, personal liberty, and public order, as regards the mass of the Filipinos, for the majority of the islanders have been given these great boons by us, and only keep them because we vigilantly safeguard and guarantee them. To withdraw our Government from the islands at this time would mean to the average native the loss of his barely won civil freedom. We have established in the islands a Government by Americans assisted by Filipinos. We are steadily striving to transform this into self-government by the Filipinos assisted by Americans.
The principles which we uphold should appeal to all our countrymen, in all portions of our country. Above all they should give us strength with the men and women who are the spiritual heirs of those who upheld the hands of Abraham Lincoln; for we are striving to do our work in the spirit with which Lincoln approached his. During the seven years that have just passed there is no duty, domestic or foreign, which we have shirked; no necessary task which we have feared to undertake, or which we have not performed with reasonable efficiency. We have never pleaded impotence. We have never sought refuge in criticism and complaint instead of action. We face the future with our past and our present as guarantors of our promises; and we are content to stand or to fall by the record which we have made and are making.
LETTER ACCEPTING THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Oyster Bay, N. Y., Sept. 12, 1904
Hon. J. G. Cannon, Chairman of the Notification Committee,
My dear Sir: