emphasizing the points of our own life, and we should prove ourselves
untrue to our own traditions if we proved ourselves untrue friends to
them. Do not think, therefore, gentlemen, that the questions of the day
are mere questions of policy and diplomacy. They are shot through with
the principles of life. We dare not turn from the principle that
morality and not expediency is the thing that must guide us and that we
will never condone iniquity because it is most convenient to do so. It
seems to me that this is a day of infinite hope, of confidence in a
future greater than the past has been, for I am fain to believe that in
spite of all the things that we wish to correct the nineteenth century
that now lies behind us has brought us a long stage toward the time
when, slowly ascending the tedious climb that leads to the final
uplands, we shall get our ultimate view of the duties of mankind. We
have breasted a considerable part of that climb and shall presently--it
may be in a generation or two--come out upon those great heights where
there shines unobstructed the light of the justice of God.




THE STATE OF THE UNION

[Address delivered at a joint session of the two Houses of Congress,
December 2, 1913.]


MR. SPEAKER, MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

In pursuance of my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress
information of the state of the Union," I take the liberty of addressing