AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

AMERICANISM 73
to be distinctly his, it is the foreign policy
which characterized his administration. His
idea almost alone in the first instance was that
we never could become a nation with a national
mind, a national purpose, and national ideals,
until we divorced ourselves from the European
system. He entertained this view before he
became President. I venture to recall to your
minds a letter which he wrote, prior to the
presidency, to Sir Edward Newenham, in
which he says:
I hope the United States of America will be able to keep
disengaged from the labyrinth of European politics and
wars. * * * It should be the policy of the United
States to administer to their wants without being engaged
in their quarrels.
In 1791 he addressed a letter to Mr. Morris,
in which he said
I trust we shall never so far lose sight of our own interest
and happiness as to become unnecessarily a party to
these political disputes. Our local situation enables us to
maintain that state with respect to them which otherwise
could not, perhaps, be preserved by human wisdom.
The author from whom I quote, Senator
Lodge, commenting upon this, says*
The world was told that a new power had come into being,
which meant to hold aloof from Europe, and which
took no interest in the balance of power or the fate of