Canada (Riddell 1909)

​Canada

​PRINTED BY REQUEST

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am moved by no mere conventionality, but it is from the very bottom of my heart that I say that I am glad to be here to-night.

I envy my friend Dr. Macdonald his Keltic eloquence and fervor—I must admit that I fear I am but a Sassenach—while, however, I cannot hope wholly to succeed in the pleasant duty imposed upon me, with such a subject and with such an audience, it is impossible that I can wholly fail.

I recognize that I am speaking in large part to those who claim Canada as Fatherland, but who are now dwelling under a flag differing from that whose folds guarded their birth, and some of whom at least now are citizens of a State which is not that to which their ancestors owed allegiance. Yet in the eyes of a Canadian, they have not become foreigners or aliens; nor is that State by any Briton considered foreign or alien. And I, for one, refuse to consider ​myself a foreigner in the midst of a nation whose people speak the language which is that my infant tongue learned at a mother's knee, and are governed by laws based upon the same fundamental principles as mine. The common ancestors of many of—most of—us laid deep and well the foundations of both speech and law—and peoples who speak the English language and obey the English Common Law cannot be alien or foreign to each other.

While many Canadians are not of the same race and do not speak the same language nor are they governed by the same system of law, yet they, too, look upon this nation in the same spirit as their fellow-Canadians of British ancestry.

Nor are the nations enemies or antagonistic, except indeed in that rivalry which is open to brother as to foe—the ways of trade are open to all, and each people will make the laws, levy the tariffs and impose the restrictions conceived to be best calculated to advance their own interests.

War, open or masked, there is not—there has not been open war for nearly one hundred years and it is inconceivable that it can ever again be. "Blood is thicker than water," and all the waters of the sea or of the Great Lakes cannot wholly sever those whom blood unites.

Notwithstanding the change of allegiance, the heart of those who have thus become citizens of the United States must needs turn to the Land of the Maple—for "their clime not their soul they change, who cross the sea"—and once a Canadian always a Canadian.

And some there are who remain, not only in sentiment, but also in fact and in law, citizens of our ​beautiful Dominion, though they reside and do business here in this, the cosmopolitan and metropolitan city of this mighty Union.

It might—it would—have been sufficient honour to be asked to speak to these and to those about our native land; but the honour is increased when not only Canadians, but also Americans, are numbered amongst my audience—Americans, too, of no mean standing, men of light and leading in the community.

I have said "Americans"—many of my compatriots, I know, have girded—perhaps still do so—at the now universal custom of employing the word "American" to designate people of these States only excluding in connotation us to the North. With that hypercriticism, I have never sympathized. We are not told that Pericles or Plato called himself a Greek, or that Caesar or Cicero complained that he was not called an Italian—while of a surety neither Cromwell nor Chatham was a European. Canada and Canadians have, and had, no reason to find fault that the title of the United States of America and of their representatives has become officially what it had long been in popular parlance.

To you, my fellow-Canadians—whether still such in the view of international law or otherwise—and to you my fellow-guests belonging to the kindred nation. I bring greetings from the Northland—from our exquisite Lady of the Snows.

Within a period measured by one generation of men, she has shaken off the fetters which bound her beautiful limbs, she has arisen from the state of lethargy in which too long she had sunk supine. With ​her proud face set, she has forced her way onward and upward to a place amid the nations of the earth—a sister not unworthy to stand by the side of her older and stronger and richer brother to the South.

What is Canada?

From the land of Evangeline and Gabriel, Nova Scotia by the sounding sea, with her hardy fishermen, her wealth of fruit, her stores of coal and of gold; through Prince Edward Island, the true New Scotland of the Western Continent, but blest with soil and climate denied to the old, and New Brunswick, with her forests and farms, we come to old Quebec, the home of the habitant, but the home, too, of the poet and of the statesman. Her cities—Montreal, nestling under her historic mountain, at the head of navigation and at the receipt of custom, the busy mart for half a continent, a competitor not to be despised by any, not even by this mighty city Quebec; called by her admirers a bit of the Middle Ages set down in the present, does not, upon the heights where fought and died Wolfe and Montcalm, sit idly contemplating her own beauty and charm, and so fail to hear at her door the insistent knock of trade or omit to answer the call of commerce. The fields of the Old Province are recovering their former fertility—and if it be said that some of her people are not sufficiently alive to material and financial progress, it may not be forgotten that it is not always those who are careful and troubled about many things, who receive the Master's approval: it was Mary who had chosen the better part—and she but sat and listened. My own Province of Ontario—Ontario, the Queen Province ​—it was no vain boast when the Speaker of her Legislative Assembly spoke of her as the first Province of the first Dominion of the first Empire the world has ever seen—Ontario, with her orchards and vineyards, her splendid farms and her noble forests, her flocks and herds upon a thousand hills, her busy cities and towns, her educational institutions second to none on the continent (boasting as she does of her universities, her common schools are not neglected), supports a happy and prosperous people from the peach groves of the Peninsula to where at Coe Hill and Copper Cliff and Cobalt and Gowganda, a beneficent Providence before the dawn of time, when the world was in the making, hid deep in the womb of the rock, copper and nickel, silver and gold and iron for the use of the twentieth century Canadian. Manitoba, small in extent but great in influence—whose name is a household word wherever the English language is spoken whose wheat fixes the highest standard for a world's market. And Canada's latest progeny, the twin sisters of the plain, with rolling prairie and flowing river, but whose soil needs to "be tickled with the hoe to laugh into a harvest"—with ear listening for the tramp of the coming millions, their arms are open wide to receive from the millions of the earth, men who desire to win a competency or a livelihood through honest toil—though indeed they have no room in all their ample bosom for the tramp or the laggard or the criminal. They welcome with especial joy the returning Canadian, who, having sought in the West and South his fortune, learns now that the plains of the Dakotas are not to be compared with ​the new-found plains of his own land, and he comes home—home—bringing with him not seldom neighbour or friend of another nationality to share the opportunities of this new and golden West. British Columbia, no longer resenting the epithet, "Sea of Mountains," since Rossland and Crow's Nest have produced their millions—the Highlands of the West, with her lovely valleys of fruit, her mighty trees and her harbours where a world's fleet might serenely float—a paradise for the sportsman, abounding in fish and game, but offering a home where labour must find compensation.

And to the North, it is no longer but the Call of the Wild luring the adventurous—hard-headed business man finds his account in the cities of the Yukon, the gold hunter is no longer the single-handed pioneer wielding the solitary pick or rocking the lonely cradle—her rivers and plains are exploited by thousands and capital finds there its due reward.

Surely the lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage.

But I am reminded that not expanse of territory or riches can make a nation great:

So (imitating indeed the ancient Greek of twenty-five centuries ago) wrote one who, born in a free State and spending much of his youth in the study of antiquity, gave most of his mature manhood to the service of Britain among the people of the East—he knew the people of England, of modern Europe and of India by personal converse, the people of the olden time through the written record. And who can gainsay this judgment of this Judge and Scholar?

Does the Canadian measure up to this standard? Do we our duties know?

Our duty is to make the most and the best of ourselves and of our opportunities—to live the life of a patriot and good citizen. Boasting were easy, self-flattery is the most seductive of all vices, and I would strive not to fall into the mistake of closing my eyes to the truth because it may be displeasing. No people is perfect, and mine own may be no nearer perfection than others; but this I say fearlessly and confidently, that Canadians are as a whole alive to their responsibilities, and that they do not forget.

In commerce, our ships are found in every sea, the product of our factories in every mart; our railways stretch from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes far toward the realm of ice and snow; the forest and mountain solitudes of our giant land are being exploited and the plains made to blossom as the ​rose. Our wheat is a staple in Liverpool, our cattle supply the markets of the Old World; cheese, butter, fruit from Canada are all of the best and recognized as of the best. Never has Canada placed her foot in a market to withdraw it except where forced to do so by hostile tariff.

Once it seemed as though we should be a mere appanage (commercially) of this greater community to the South—the gods decided otherwise. The Reciprocity treaty, procured with so much trouble, was denounced; and Canada had necessarily to seek other markets. Much suffering ensued—I know whereof I speak—but no word of weak complaining was heard—the United States had a right to do as they did, and hard hit as Canada was, she recognized that right. But she had then to seek new markets—and, what was more difficult, must adapt her output to the new markets. Time and again was the attempt made to procure more favourable consideration for her products from the authorities at Washington. As often was the attempt a failure—and, unless all signs fail, it will not be made again. While welcoming any advance, a high-spirited people will not risk a new rebuff. And the manner in which my country has gone through her years of trouble and anxiety, of penury and care, till now, with her new avenues of trade well beaten and her commerce thoroughly established, she can look the whole world in the face and challenge admiration, is known to all who keep track of the world's commercial and industrial history.

Mistakes have been made as of course—people ​who do not make mistakes, do not make anything else—but neither man nor nation can afford to waste time in regrets and compunctions about the past—the present is ours, and that is all that is ours—and I much mistake the temper of my countrymen if they are not determined to make the very most of that golden present. We treasure no resentment—wisdom will never let us stand unnecessarily with any man or nation on an unfriendly footing. Wholly recognizing that every nation of necessity has, and should exercise, the right to make a customs tariff to suit itself, my people say they, too, will do what is right in their own eyes. We did not seek a tariff war with Germany, but we did not wince or falter when it came.

It is not enough that a country should offer opportunities for acquiring wealth, whether by lucky strike or by industry and economy, if that were to be the prey of the first comer with strong hand or successful fraud—nor can that be called a happy land in which the assassin or private foe lurks at every corner and slays with impunity.

Canada has ever held life and property in respect. Lynching is unknown even in the wilds and mining camps of our great West and North; and, so far as I ever heard, there have been only two cases of white-capping. In each case, the amateur practitioners had a term in prison to teach them to leave the law to its proper officers.

There is an inbred respect for law—and as one engaged in the administration of the law from day to day, I can confidently say this respect is deserved—(I am, of course, not speaking of myself). Crime except amongst those recently arrived from other ​countries is rare. For example, in my own experience, of those who have been convicted before me of murder but one was a Canadian; the others, a negro, a Bulgarian, an Italian, a Macedonian, an English-man. We have the thief and the perjurer, the thug and the burglar, like all other peoples; but I say, without fear of successful contradiction, that the percentage of such among our native Canadians is very low indeed.

When the Lord appeared to the Israelite shepherd, He said to him: "Amos, what seest thou?" and Amos answered: "A plumb line." Our people have seen a plumb line and adopted that as a symbol in their administration of the law. The plumb line of exact justice may, and does, waver to the one side or the other, moved by the breath of prejudice or sympathy, but it ever seeks the vertical, the upright. The absolute perpendicular we may not always attain, but the endeavour is always for it.

In the field of political and constitutional rights, those we now enjoy have not been attained without labour—in many cases even danger. It has not been given to Canadians to wrest their rights from an oppressor as the result of successful rebellion. Whether it be an advantage that rights should be obtained or national life begun by successful armed and violent resistance to constituted authority, I leave to the philosophic statesman to discuss—that has not been the way in which we have obtained our rights—rather by a gradual recognition of the fact that we Englishmen on this side of the Atlantic are entitled to all the rights and privi​leges enjoyed by those on the other. But the history of 1837 in Upper and in Lower Canada, the lives of Gourlay and Mackenzie and Papineau, and their contemporaries, show that whenever it was believed that rights were being withheld, there were those who were willing if necessary to seal their faith with their blood. Many a noble man bore a musket as loyalist in these troubled times, and some whose memory I reverence were on the other side. I would not, then, be considered here as passing judgment upon the merits of those I have named, or approving or disapproving of the rebellion of 1837 in Upper or in Lower Canada—that is, moreover, a controversial question into which I have no right to enter. Who was right and who was wrong—or whether both sides were right and both wrong—must be left to history to decide; but however the answer turn out, the rebel and the loyalist both showed the courage of his convictions and armed himself to fight for what he believed to be right.

It was well said by the philosopher of New England, "Only such persons interest us, Spartans, Romans, Saracens, English, Americans, who have stood in the jaws of need, and have by their own wit and might extricated themselves, and made man victorious."

Those who founded and guided our nascent country wholly fulfil Emerson's conditions.

It were to take up too much of your time if I were to speak of the early French settlers, of the life and death struggle, frequently repeated, with the ferocious and wily aborigines, of the devoted missionary ​and priest armed but with the Cross, carrying the bread of life to the pagan enemy, the coureur de bois more Indian than the Indian, the hunter and trapper, the courtly Governor and Council, garbed in the silken raiment and graced with all the courtliness of the ancien régime, the Seigneur with his mediæval rights and privileges and the sturdy habitant, descendant of Norman peasant but with the best blood of Europe in his veins—not blue blood, indeed, but rich red blood, making and sustaining a man to be depended upon in every contingency.

Nor may I speak of those further East, in "Acadie, home of the happy," of those

living in seeming a life all idle and dully prosaic, yet looked at by eye of the poet so full of the truest of romance, there in that "forest primeval," where

while

I prefer rather to speak of what lies nearer home and more affects Canada as I know it.

At the time of the Revolutionary War, many whose loyalty to their Sovereign and to their flag was more potent than attachment to the land of their birth or desire to retain their worldly goods, came to the wilds of the Northland—these United Empire Loyalists whose history is all too little known, martyrs to principle—wrong-headed, if you like, or nobly right, as may be thought —endured suffering and want, cold and hunger, because they could not forswear their allegiance. "Endured," did I say? Nay, all their own physical suffering was little in comparison with the torture of soul with which they were forced to witness the tenderly nurtured wife, born to be the happy mistress of a wealthy home, and the babe which had been cradled in silk, subjected to hardships which would have tried a veteran—a stoic. Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of their principles—and that, I am free to admit, may in this land be a matter of opinion, in mine there is but one—their conduct in sacrificing all to principle is deserving of nothing but admiring approbation. Two champions there are to whose ward I leave the fair fame of these heroes when but their tale is fairly told—one, the Union soldier, who gave up all and took his life in his hand that the flag he loved might continue to float ​over a united people; the other, also a soldier, who, leaving his wife and little ones in the care of the faithful black, followed the banner of his State. Now, no better or more loyal citizen of the United States than he; and yet—and yet—

Over the face of his dead lies an old silken rag, smoke-stained and bullet-torn; but it is with reverent and loving hands that he lifts it, for his dead is the "lost cause," and that rag was once the battle flag of Robert E. Lee.

But a few years passed away after these United Empire Loyalists made their new home, when trouble broke out with their separated brethren to the South. The Mother Country, sorely pressed on all sides, was verifying the proud boast of her ancient King—

She could not at once do all for the defence or the rescue of her imperilled child; and Canada had in great part to depend upon herself in her hour of need. How she bore herself may be read in history—and no Canadian—as no American—reads that history with shame—though, indeed, he must with sorrow, that the wholly unnecessary and inexcusable fratricidal strife was ever waged.

​Of the troublous times, a quarter of a century thereafter, in 1837 and 1838, I have already said a word, and shall not enlarge.

Then we had peace for thirty years. In 1866 a horde of outlaws invaded our shores. Our freemen flew to arms—farmer, clerk, tradesman and student vied with each other as to who should be the most alert. An English officer tells with wonder and admiration of mere boys of the University company breaking out in indignant tears when ordered to leave the ranks on account of their extreme youth. The University of Toronto has on her campus and in her halls, memorials of her dead—who went to meet death, and met it, for Canada.

But "Exegerunt monumentum aere perennius," and so long as Canadian heart continues to beat, so long as Canadian soul shall live, so long will the memory of these slaughtered undergraduate lads be kept green.

The fiasco of 1870-1871 found gallant Quebec as ready to meet the invader as her sister province had been a few years before. Quebec had not, thank God, to mourn sons slain in her defence—but the sons were ready even for that sacrifice.

Two years before, the half insane Riel raised the standard of revolt at Winnipeg—and Canadian troops again proved their mettle, in traversing forest and swamp in wet and cold and all the privations men can suffer. They did not need to fight, but Wolseley's expedition in 1869-70 bears testimony to the endurance and valour of our people.

And in that last and worst struggle in our North-West, not twenty-five years ago, when Indian and ​half-breed went on the warpath and a blow must be struck quick and hard, Fish Creek and Cut Knife tell of the volunteer from the plough and the counter, the farm and the desk.

Not on the plains of our Fatherland alone—not only does Chateauguay call to Ridgeway and Ridgeway to Battleford; but in other lands have our people quitted them like men. From the walls of Kars, where, during the Crimean War, the Canadian Williams for weary months after hope had fled all others, withstood the Russian to Paardeberg, won by Canadian dash and valour, the Empire has not had a stricken field whereon Canadians did not fight.

Some there are within these walls who can say, like him who addresses you, that in the dark days of the Empire, when her sun was suffering an eclipse, and it seemed almost as though that sun might set forever, they awaited with dread the next cable despatch lest it might contain amongst the valiant slain the name of a brother—there may be some who can say, like that brother, that a dear friend laid his tall length along the South African karroo pierced by the enemy's bullet through that staunch and gallant heart which had brought him from his own beautiful Nova Scotia to the defence of our common mother.

The monument of those who died is rising upon the Queen's Park Avenue in Toronto—it was not needed.

Canadians can hold their own, too, in other fields than those of war. I do not speak of her jurists—that were to be guilty of praising my own order —but not further to speak of her commerce, agricul​ture and manufactures, no tariff can exclude the work of her writers—her poets and novelists. In the field of philosophy, of science, medicine, surgery, she is not unknown. New York and Baltimore, London and Harvard, Liverpool and Oxford, all have seen, and still hold, her sons, and count them not below their best.

Canada has been built up largely without the assistance of any other people. She owes practically everything to herself except that greatest blessing of all—peace. For peace we can never be sufficiently grateful.

It has been the reign of peace almost continuously prevailing which has enabled us to become what we are—I mean peace internationally—our internal disturbances have done no real harm such as external warfare would almost necessarily have caused.

Until within the present century, there appeared no possibility of any enemy assailing us except from the immediate South—and it is a matter for sincere gratitude to Providence that for nearly one hundred years there never arose dispute so acute—(though some have been acute)—misunderstanding so great—(though misunderstandings there have been)—that brother needed to rise against brother, children deriving from the same mighty loins to imbrue their hand in each other's blood. Neither sympathizer of 1837 nor invader of 1866 truly represented this Republic: and the United States of America has not coveted the territory dividing her from the Pole.

With the present century has come in the fear—half-veiled, indeed—that another nation may desire our land; and we are called upon to prepare. If need ​be, I hope and I believe that Canadians will be found as ready and as devoted in the twentieth century as in the nineteenth—if that dread possibility become a certainty and Canada must fight to remain Canada and British (absit omen) she will not be found recreant—the land where died Montcalm and Wolfe and Brock and the boys from the University of Toronto, has produced their like, and they will not be found wanting.

What of the future?

In material wealth, Canada’s future is secure—her forests and mines and plains must of necessity make her rich, if but her career be not checked by some external force—and that I do not dread. In education, in the sense for justice and right, in all that makes life worth living, there is likewise nothing to fear. The heart of the people is sound and their instincts will, on the whole, prevent them going far astray.

How will her destiny be best served?

Here I must speak with diffidence, though none the less with a strong conviction, which I believe to be well-founded.

Until within a very few years there did exist amongst us a number of citizens, some of them of influence, who, secretly, if not openly, held the view that it was the manifest destiny of Canada to become part of the greater union of States. Some here and there to be found rather desired it. With the exception of a very few indeed—and, in the open, with the exception of one man, who is not a Canadian (by birth at least), such a feeling does not now exist.

Into the merits of the Venezuela Message, I have ​not the right and certainly not the desire to enter—whether justified or not, in matter or in manner, is for history, when all the facts are known, to say. I know that it has been strongly asserted that that message was written in the interest of peace alone, and that the great President, Grover Cleveland, believed that it was the most certain if not the only way to preserve peace between the two great English-speaking nations. But however that may be, it is certain that after that message and, I think, largely because of it, all sentiment for union with the United States ceased to exist, at least so far as any open expression is concerned.

There is no fear or hope (put it each one as he will) that Canada will ever form part of the American Union—there must be two, not one, great English-speaking nations upon this continent. I am assuming—as indeed the contrary is to me inconceivable—that the nation which showed the world an example of self-abnegation in the case of Cuba may be trusted never to grasp a territory occupied by those who will not freely and gladly receive it or force an unwilling people to unite their destinies with those of the Union.

Nor do I think that ever we will cease to belong to the British Empire.

Canada, unless all our history prove misleading and the future wholly belies the past, must continue a part of that nation upon whose flag the sun never sets. Daniel Webster nearly seventy years ago spoke of that Empire even then as “a power to which Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared—a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose ​morning drumbeat following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." And since then what an advance!

Whether, indeed, we shall continue to be in a manner apart from the stream of world-politics, leaving international relations largely in the hands of our brethren across the sea—or whether we shall enter into a closer relationship with our fellow-subjects in the British Isles and so with those in the other Dominions and Commonwealth under the same flag, thereby ceasing to occupy the position of daughter and taking that rather of sister, is upon the knees of the gods—or rather of God.

One thing is certain.

There will be by the Mother Country no intermeddling with our purely domestic affairs—any more than there will be intermeddling by Canadians or Australians or New Zealanders or South Africans with the purely domestic questions of England or Wales or Scotland or Ireland. The desire is wanting—it has been recognized that people of our race must govern themselves whether they govern themselves well or ill—this is of the genius of our people and the right can never be surrendered.

But we cling to British connection with a sincere affection and a whole heart—the tie which binds us is not simply the legal and constitutional bond and not alone the silver cord of sentiment, but also the heartfelt conviction that there exists no single agency for good in the world at the present time to be compared with the British Empire. Great is Britain and she has made great mistakes; but with all her faults, she ​stands in the very forefront in the struggle for right and freedom. I do not belittle the tremendous influence for good wielded by this Union—Portsmouth and Pekin and Cuba can speak—and I look forward to the Union increasing her already great international power, and taking her rightful place in the politics of the world. And yet without detracting from the importance of this Union, not only in its history, but in its present practice, I am sure that Canadians, at least, do not admit that Britain lags to the rear in all that is just and right.

So we have made our choice, an irrevocable choice: our statesmen vie with each other in showing loyalty to the Crown and all classes are ardent supporters of British connection. Even the school children throughout our broad land, in shrill sweet treble are singing:

The future of Canada is indissolubly united with that of Britain, and the patriot's eye must ever turn in her direction. It is impossible not to recognize that dark clouds are ever forming, any of which may, some of which almost inevitably will, break over her head.

Her desire and her dearest aim is Peace—by and in peace she must gain in wealth and in power. She ​may well dread war—dread—not with a coward's fear—that she never felt and cannot feel—but with a well-grounded anticipation of loss in treasure and in blood. War cannot increase, it may diminish, her prestige—and every possible motive exists why she should do all in her power to avoid war.

I need not speak of the horrors of war—the word itself is enough.

I hesitate to say what now presses to my lips—and am emboldened to say it only by the fact that in two gatherings within this Union in which I was the only Canadian, I said it in almost the words I shall now employ—and without rebuke.

The cynical philosopher said, "The finest nations in the world—the English and the American—are going all away into wind and tongue." In the first part of this saying, Carlyle showed himself the philosopher; in the latter, but the dyspeptic cynic. Since that saying, the world has witnessed the Cuban expedition and that up the Nile; the old blood is still regnant; "noblesse oblige" still the motto of the two peoples.

No man and no nation can venture to advise this mighty Union. What the United States will or should do, is to be determined by the United States alone—and any advice would be sheer impertinence. But many a heart, not American, was glad when this nation acquired territory not on the North American Continent—knowing that this of necessity meant that the United States with or without her desire must now take some greater part in world-politics—take her share of "the white man's burden." And when she began to build a navy commensurate with her great​ness and importance in the world some saw with the eye of faith two twin fleets sailing forth together under the flags which float over kindred freemen—these fleets bearing the single mandate, "There shall be no more war." My Sovereign, who amongst all his titles, treasures most that which is unofficial, Edward the Peacemaker, has his due influence in preserving peace; the President of the United States, perhaps as much, possibly still more. Some there are, however, who recognize only force. But when such a fleet shall sail with such a mandate, there will be no more war—or only one. They who are mad enough to disobey the command of the Admirals of that united fleet will bitterly rue their temerity—and their disobedience will be the last.

It may indeed be that this vision is doomed not to become a reality—it may be that the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes will never float together over a mighty Armada fitted out for the preservation of peace—and it may indeed be that there will never be a treaty of paper and ink between the two nations. But to my mind it is impossible that they will not continue to remain united by what is stronger and more abiding than a parchment roll—"for the letter killeth and the spirit giveth life"—it is certain as the immutable laws of morals that peoples of like origin, of like tongue, of like institutions and of like aspirations, shall stand and march, and if need be fight, side by side. And it must be that peoples with their history and traditions shall thus be and continue side by side for right and justice and peace among the nations of the earth.