drawn into the Academy because you belong to certain influential circles. You do not come here with a long tradition of military pride back of you.

You are picked out from the citizens of the United States to be that part of the force of the United States which makes its polity safe against interference. You are the part of American citizens who say to those who would interfere, "You must not" and "You shall not." But you are American citizens, and the idea I want to leave with you boys today is this: No matter what comes, always remember that first of all you are citizens of the United States before you are officers, and that you are officers because you represent in your particular profession what the citizenship of the United States stands for. There is no danger of militarism if you are genuine Americans, and I for one do not doubt that you are. When you begin to have the militaristic spirit-not the military spirit, that is all rightthen begin to doubt whether you are Americans or not.

You know that one thing in which our forefathers took pride was this, that the civil power is superior to the military power in the United States. Once and again the people of the United States have so admired some great military man as to make him President of the United States, when he became commander-in-chief of all the forces of the United States, but he was commander-in-chief because he was President, not because he had been trained to arms, and his authority was civil, not military. I can teach you nothing of military power, but I am instructed by the Constitution to use you for constitutional and patriotic purposes. And

that is the only use you care to be put to, and that is the only use you ought to care to be put to, because, after all, what is the use in being an American if you do not know what it is?

You have read a great deal in the books about the pride of the old Roman citizen, who always felt like drawing himself to his full height when he said, "I am a Roman," but as compared with the pride that must have risen to his heart, our pride has a new distinction, not the distinction of the mere imperial power of a great empire, not the distinction of being masters of the world, but the distinction of carrying certain lights for the world that the world has never so distinctly seen before, certain guiding lights of liberty and principle and justice. We have drawn our people, as you know, from all parts of the world, and we have been somewhat disturbed recently, gentlemen, because some of those though I believe a very small number-whom we have drawn into our citizenship have not taken into their hearts the spirit of America and have loved other countries more than they loved the country of their adoption; and we have talked a great deal about Americanism. It ought to be a matter of pride with us to know what Americanism really consists in.

Americanism consists in utterly believing in the principles of America and putting them first as above anything that might by chance come into competition with it. And I, for my part, believe that the American test is a spiritual test. If a man has to make excuses for what he had done as an American, I doubt his Americanism. He ought to know at every step of his

action that the motive that lies behind what he does is a motive which no American need be ashamed of for a moment. Now, we ought to put this test to every man we know. We ought to let it be known that nobody who does not put America first can consort with us.

But we ought to set them the example. We ought to set them the example by thinking American thoughts, by entertaining American purposes, and those thoughts and purposes will stand the test of example anywhere in the world, for they are intended for the betterment of mankind.

So I have come to say these few words to you today, gentlemen, for a double purpose; first of all to express my personal good wishes to you in your graduation, and my personal interest in you, and second of all to remind you how we must all stand together in one spirit as lovers and servants of America. And that means something more than lovers and servants merely of the United States. You have heard of the Monroe Doctrine, gentlemen. You know that we are already spiritual partners with both continents of this hemisphere and that America means something which is bigger even than the United States, and that we stand here with the glorious power of this country ready to swing it out into the field of action whenever liberty and independence and political integrity are threatened anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And we are ready-nobody has authorized me to say this, but I am sure of it-we are ready to join with the other nations of the world in seeing that the kind of justice prevails everywhere that we believe in.

So that you are graduating to-day, gentlemen, into a new distinction. Glory attaches to all these men whose names we love to recount who have made the annals of the American Army distinguished. They played the part they were called upon to play with honor and with extraordinary character and success. I am congratulating you, not because you will be better than they, but because you will have a wider world of thought and conception to play your part in. I am an American, but I do not believe that any of us loves a blustering nationality, a nationality with a chip on its shoulder, a nationality with its elbows out and its swagger on.

We love that quiet, self-respecting, unconquerable spirit which does not strike until it is necessary to strike, and then strikes to conquer. Never since I was a youngster have I been afraid of the noisy man. I have always been afraid of the still man. I have always been afraid of the quiet man. I had a classmate at college who was most dangerous when he was most affable. When he was maddest he seemed to have the sweetest temper in the world. He would approach you with the most ingratiating smile, and then you knew that every red corpuscle in his blood was up and shouting. If you work things off in your elbows, you do not work them off in your mind; you do not work them off in your purposes.

So my conception of America is a conception of infinite dignity, along with quiet, unquestionable power. I ask you, gentlemen, to join with me in that conception, and let us all in our several spheres be soldiers together to realize it.

ADDRESS ON FLAG DAY, WASHINGTON, JUNE 14, 1916

MR. SECRETARY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I have not come here this afternoon with the purpose of delivering to you an elaborate address. It seems to me that the day is sufficiently eloquent already with the meaning which it should convey to us. The spectacle of the morning has been a very moving spectacle indeed an almost unpremeditated outpouring of thousands of sober citizens to manifest their interest in the safety of the country and the sacredness of the flag which is its emblem.

I need not remind you how much sentiment has been poured out in honor of the flag of the United States. Sometimes we have been charged with being a very sentimental people, fond of expressing in general rhetorical phrases principles not sufficiently defined in action, and I dare say there have been times of happy and careless ease in this country, when all that it has been necessary to do for the honor of the flag was to put our sentiments into poetic expressions, into the words that for the time being satisfied our hearts.

But this is not a day of sentiment. Sentiment is a propulsive power, but it does not propel in the way that is serviceable to the nation unless it have a definite purpose before it. This is not merely a day of sentiment. This is a day of purpose.