Excerpt from America's Aims and Asia's Aspirations Our position on the globe has cast us for the most important part in the meeting of East and West. Admitting all the errors that may be charged against us, our record sustains our geographical right to play that part, and it justifies the hope that, ultimately, we may play it well. We have neither selfish interest to serve nor any desire to arouse suspicion in Asia, either among any of the Asiatic peoples themselves or among European peoples whose presence and objects in Asia con form to the necessities and favorably react to the tests of mod ern civilization. Such being the case, there is every reason to expect that American intelligence will survive the shocks of selfish and in temperate special pleading, however and wherever originating. Our friends - and they are universal - will assist us to over come the wiles of those who would divorce from us the spouse of our national soul, the grateful spirit of Asia. All the Asiatic peoples are our friends. To the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Filipinos we have extended a generous, friendly, helping hand, and one cannot go all the way with all one's friends unless each friend is willing to go all the way with the others. Friendship requires honorable concessions based upon justice and prudence. Life in its simplest form is a complex thing. No man among the billions who have lived has succeeded in understanding himself. How much more difficult it is to understand others! And nations being man multiplied, sometimes by many mil lions, how vastly more difficult it must be to weigh and measure their varying and contradictory moods and tenses! How dan gerons to attempt snap judgments even with the aid of an unbiased mind! The problems of Asia reach down to the roots, ascend to the highest and most remote branches, and touch the tenderest fibers of our physical, our political, and our spiritual life. There is no species of knowledge or speculation that has not its root in the aged soil of Asia. From our belief in God to our facility in the manufacture and the employment of gunpowder, Asia has been the world's teacher. In the num bers of her people, their ingenuity, and their matchless indus try, prudence will recognize a huge force that justice may utilize and injustice dare not, and cannot, destroy. There fore are we fortunate in our unreserved, impartial Asiatic friendships, and thus comes the strongest impulse to conserve our Asiatic good-will, remembering always that neither indi vidual man nor race among men can know the goal or the road marked out for us by the Maker of all the continents. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.