on nor in one century can the effective control of a superior
sovereign, so long deemed necessary to government, be rejected, and
effective self-control by the governed be perfected in its place. The
first fruits of democracy are many of them crude and unlovely; its
mistakes are many, its partial failures many, its sins not few. Capacity
for self-government does not come to man by nature. It is an art to be
learned, and it is also an expression of character to be developed among
all the thousands of men who exercise popular sovereignty.

To reach the goal toward which we are pressing forward, the governing
multitude must first acquire knowledge that comes from universal
education; wisdom that follows practical experience; personal
independence and self-respect befitting men who acknowledge no
superior; self-control to replace that external control which a
democracy rejects; respect for law; obedience to the lawful expressions
of the public will; consideration for the opinions and interests of
others equally entitled to a voice in the state; loyalty to that
abstract conception--one's country--as inspiring as that loyalty to
personal sovereigns which has so illumined the pages of history;
subordination of personal interests to the public good; love of justice
and mercy, of liberty and order. All these we must seek by slow and
patient effort; and of how many shortcomings in his own land and among
his own people each one of us is conscious!

Yet no student of our times can fail to see that not America alone but
the whole civilized world is swinging away from its old governmental
moorings and intrusting the fate of its civilization to the capacity of
the popular mass to govern. By this pathway mankind is to travel,
whithersoever it leads. Upon the success of this our great undertaking
the hope of humanity depends.

Nor can we fail to see that the world makes substantial progress toward
more perfect popular self-government.

I believe it to be true that, viewed against the background of
conditions a century, a generation, a decade ago, government in my own
country has advanced, in the intelligent participation of the great mass
of the people, in the fidelity and honesty with which they are
represented, in respect for law, in obedience to the dictates of a sound
morality, and in effectiveness and purity of administration.

Nowhere in the world has this progress been more marked than in Latin
America. Out of the wrack of I