But if trouble comes and the treaties are repudiated, or there is a demand for armed intervention, it is not these people who will pay anything; they will stay at home in safety, and leave brave men to pay in blood, and honest men to pay in shame, for their folly.
The trouble is that our policy is apt to go in zigzags, because different sections of our people exercise at different times unequal pressure on our government.

One class of our citizens clamors for treaties impossible of fulfilment, and improper to fulfil; another class has no objection to the passage of these treaties so long as there is no concrete case to which they apply, but instantly oppose a veto on their application when any concrete case does actually arise.

One of our cardinal doctrines is freedom of speech, which means freedom of speech about foreigners as well as about ourselves; and, inasmuch as we exercise this right with complete absence of restraint, we cannot expect other nations to hold us harmless unless in the last resort we are able to make our own words good by our deeds.

One class of our citizens indulges in gushing promises to do everything for foreigners, another class offensively and improperly reviles them; and it is hard to say which class more thoroughly misrepresents the sober, self-respecting judgment of the American people as a whole.

The only safe rule is to promise little, and faithfully to keep every promise; to "speak softly and carry a big stick." A prime need for our nation, as of course for every other nation, is to make up its mind definitely what it wishes, and not to try to pursue paths of conduct incompatible one with the other.