These results have not occurred by mere chance.  They have been secured by a constant and enlightened effort marked by many sacrifices and extending over many generations.  We can not continue these brilliant successes in the future, unless we continue to learn from the past.  It is necessary to keep the former experiences of our country both at home and abroad continually before us, if we are to have any science of government.  If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.  We must realize that human nature is about the most constant thing in the universe and that the essentials of human relationship do not change.  We must frequently take our bearings from these fixed stars of our political firmament if we expect to hold a true course.  If we examine carefully what we have done, we can determine the more accurately what we can do.

We stand at the opening of the one hundred and fiftieth year since our national consciousness first asserted itself by unmistakable action with an array of force.  The old sentiment of detached and dependent colonies disappeared in the new sentiment of a united and independent Nation.  Men began to discard the narrow confines of a local charter for the broader opportunities of a national constitution.  Under the eternal urge of freedom we became an independent Nation.  A little less than 50 years later that freedom and independence were reasserted in the face of all the world, and guarded, supported, and secured by the Monroe doctrine.  The narrow fringe of States along the Atlantic seaboard advanced its frontiers across the hills and plains of an intervening continent until it passed down the golden slope to the Pacific.  We made freedom a birthright.  We extended our domain over distant islands in order to safeguard our own interests and accepted the consequent obligation to bestow justice and liberty upon less favored peoples.  In the defense of our own ideals and in the general cause of liberty we entered the Great War.  When victory had been fully secured, we withdrew to our own shores unrecompensed save in the consciousness of duty done.

Throughout all these experiences we have enlarged our freedom, we have strengthened our independence.  We have been, and propose to be, more and more American.  We believe that we can best serve our own country and most successfully discharge our obligations to humanity by continuing to be openly and candidly, in tensely and scrupulously, American.  If we have any heritage, it has been that.  If we have any destiny, we have found it in that direction.