ashamed of this flag if it ever did anything outside America that we
would not permit it to do inside of America.

The world is becoming more complicated every day, my fellow-citizens. No
man ought to be foolish enough to think that he understands it all. And,
therefore, I am glad that there are some simple things in the world. One
of the simple things is principle. Honesty is a perfectly simple thing.
It is hard for me to believe that in most circumstances when a man has a
choice of ways he does not know which is the right way and which is the
wrong way. No man who has chosen the wrong way ought even to come into
Independence Square; it is holy ground which he ought not to tread upon.
He ought not to come where immortal voices have uttered the great
sentences of such a document as this Declaration of Independence upon
which rests the liberty of a whole nation.

And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to prefer the honor of the
country to its material interest. Would you rather be deemed by all the
nations of the world incapable of keeping your treaty obligations in
order that you might have free tolls for American ships? The treaty
under which we gave up that right may have been a mistaken treaty, but
there was no mistake about its meaning.

When I have made a promise as a man I try to keep it, and I know of no
other rule permissible to a nation. The most distinguished nation in
the world is the nation that can and will keep its promises even to its
own hurt. And I want to say parenthetically that I do not think anybody
was hurt. I cannot be enthusiastic for subsidies to a monopoly, but let
those who are enthusiastic for subsidies ask themselves whether they
prefer subsidies to unsullied honor.