he work is
difficult and delicate; the two peoples, the Anglo-American and the
Spanish-American, are widely different in their traditions, their laws,
their customs, their methods of thinking and speaking and doing
business. It often happens that we misunderstand each other; it often
happens that we fail to appreciate your good qualities and that you fail
to appreciate ours; and that with perfectly good intentions, with the
best of purposes and kindliest of feelings, we clash, we fail to
understand each other, we get at cross purposes, and misconception and
discord are liable to arise. Let us remember this in all our
intercourse; let us be patient with each other; let us believe in the
sincerity of our mutual good purposes and kindly feelings, and be
patient and forbearing each with the other, so that we may go on
together in the accomplishment of this great enterprise; together bring
it to a successful conclusion; together share in the glory of the great
work done and in the prosperity that will come from the result.

Mr. President and gentlemen, let me assure you that in the share which
the United States is taking and is to take in this work, there is and
can be but one feeling and one desire toward the people of Panama. It is
a feeling of friendship sincere and lasting; it is a feeling of strong
desire that wisdom may control the deliberations of this assembly; that
judgment and prudence and love of country may rule in all your councils
and may control all your actions; it is a desire and a firm purpose that
so far as in us lies, there shall be preserved for you the precious boon
of free self-government. We do not wish to govern you or interfere in
your government, because we are larger and stronger; we believe that the
principle of liberty and the rights of men are more important than the
size of armies or the number of battleships. Your independence which we
recognized first among the nations of the earth, it is our desire to
have maintained inviolate. Believe this, be patient with us, as we will
be patient with you; and I hope, I believe, that at some future day we
shall all be sailing through the canal together, congratulating each
other upon our share in that great and beneficent work.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] "The Ethics of the Panama Question"; address before the Union League
Club of Chicago, February 22, 1904--see _Addresses on International
Subjects_, pp. 175-206, published by the Harvard University Press.