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 The Building of the Nation 
 
 BY 
 
 NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL LUNCHEON OF THE 
 ASSOCIATED PRESS AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA, NEW YORK, 
 APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN 
 

 ADDITIONAL COPIES MAY BE HAD ON APPLICATION TO 
 
 DIVISION OF INTERCOURSE AND EDUCATION 
 
 CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 
 
 407 WEST II7TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 
 ji. 
 
THE BUILDING OF THE NATION 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Asso- 
 ciated Press: — For the honor of the invitation to 
 be your guest I am deeply sensible, and for that 
 honor I wish first to express my grateful apprecia- 
 tion. It is no small compliment to be permitted to 
 speak at a time like this to a great company of men, 
 drawn from all parts of our nation, representing 
 every shade of opinion, who are single-minded in 
 their devotion to truth and to its interpretation as 
 they see and understand it, and in their devotion to 
 our common America. 
 
 In this presence of men of affairs, so closely in 
 touch with the movement of opinion all over the 
 world, accustomed to guide, to express, to formulate 
 it, there is nothing that I can possibly say that you 
 do not already know. But I remember that it is out of 
 the reflections of individuals, and out of their reaction 
 to the changing course of events that first public 
 opinion and then history is made. 
 
 If any significance be attached to what I shall 
 briefly say in your presence, it can only be because 
 it represents the attempt of one American who feels 
 keenly the responsibility of his country and of its 
 entire citizenship at this moment when the world 
 stands at a crossroads in its path of progress. If 
 we stand at that crossroads irresolute, paralyzed 
 of word and will, history will have one story to tell. 
 
 [3] 
 
If we turn to the right and take the path that leads 
 upward to new achievement and to lasting honor, it 
 will have a very different story to tell. If we should 
 turn to the left and follow the winding and rocky 
 road that leads down to a darkening gloom — we 
 know not where — history will have yet another record 
 to make of the American people and of their capacity 
 to represent civilization. 
 
 Leaders of Civilization 
 
 It is just about twenty years ago since George 
 Meredith, writing to The London Daily News, said 
 that since the benignant outcome of the greatest of 
 civil wars he had come to look upon the American 
 people as the leaders in civilization. That is a proud 
 and ennobling judgment, and we may well search 
 our minds and our hearts to ascertain whether it be 
 true, and whether we are competent for the high 
 honor that so distinguished an observer of his kind 
 proffered to us as his personal judgment. 
 
 The question which I ask in your presence this 
 afternoon is this : Have we an American nation? If 
 so, is that nation conscious of a unity of purpose and 
 of ideals? If so, what is to be the policy of that 
 nation in the immediate future ? 
 
 It must not be forgotten that nations are compara- 
 tively new in human history. There were no nations 
 in the ancient world. Men were grouped in empires, 
 in races, as followers of a religion, as clansmen owing 
 allegiance to a chief, but not in nations as we use the 
 
 [4] 
 
word. There were no nations until the dream of a 
 universal political empire had passed away, until the 
 stately magnificence of Rome had broken into a 
 hundred fragments. It was then and only then that 
 a new organizing force made itself felt in the 
 thoughts and deeds of men. 
 
 This new consciousness of unity was in part the 
 outgrowth of unity of race origin, in part the out- 
 growth of unity of language, in part the outgrowth 
 of unity of institutional life, in part the outgrowth of 
 unity of military and religious tradition. It seized 
 hold of the minds of men in most practical fashion. 
 The result is that from the time of the death of 
 Charlemagne to the time of the present German 
 Emperor the history of the world is the history of 
 nation-building and of the by-products of nation-build- 
 ing. A nation is scientifically defined as a popula- 
 tion of an ethnic unity inhabiting a geographic unity 
 under a common form of government. The excep- 
 tions are quite numerous enough to prove the rule. 
 
 As the centuries have followed one another it is not 
 difficult to see how the several nations have endeav- 
 ored to possess themselves of territory that is a 
 geographic unit. They have sought natural boun- 
 daries, whether of high mountains, or of broad 
 rivers, or of the sea itself. One war after another is 
 to be explained in terms of a nation's definite pur- 
 pose to possess itself of a geographic unity as its 
 home. There has been by no means equal care 
 taken by the nations to establish and to protect an 
 
 [5] 
 
ethnic unity. A strong people has usually felt con- 
 fident that it could hold an alien element in subjection 
 and yet preserve national integrity and unity of spirit. 
 So one after another of the greater nations of the 
 world has, in seeking for geographic unity, insisted 
 on incorporating in its own body politic alien and 
 often discordant elements and holding them in stern 
 subjection. The examples are too familiar to be 
 recited here. 
 
 Nemesis of Nation Building 
 
 This process of nation-building has gone on until 
 the nation has come to be conceived as an end in 
 itself, as superior to law, to the conventions of mor- 
 ality, and to the precepts of religion. A form of 
 patriotism has been developed all over the world 
 which finds in the nation itself the highest human 
 end. The logical result, and indeed the almost 
 necessary result, of this type of thinking is the war 
 which is now creeping over the world's civilization 
 and destroying it with the sure pitilessness of an 
 Alpine glacier. 
 
 This war is the nemesis of nation-building con- 
 ceived as an end in itself. Unless a nation, like an 
 individual, have .some purpose, some ideal, some 
 motive which lies outside of and beyond self-interest 
 and self-aggrandizement, war must continue on the 
 face of this earth until the day when the last and 
 strongest man, superb in his mighty loneliness, shall 
 look out from a rock in the Caribbean upon a world 
 
 [6] 
 
that has been depopulated in its pursuit of a false 
 ideal, and be left to die alone with none to mourn 
 or to bury him. 
 
 In the history of nations the story of our America 
 has a place that is all its own. The American nation 
 came into being in response to a clear and definite 
 purpose. A theory of human life and of human 
 government was conceived and put into execution 
 on a remote and inaccessible part of the earth's sur- 
 face. The moving cause of the American nation 
 was the aspiration for civil and political liberty and 
 for individual freedom which was already stirring in 
 the minds of western Europe in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. This aspiration gained in 
 force as the art of printing multiplied books and as 
 the periodical press came into existence. The high- 
 minded, the courageous, the venturesome were drawn 
 across the wide ocean toward the west, carrying with 
 them for the most part the liberal ideas and the 
 advanced thought that were steadily increasing their 
 hold upon the people of western Europe. Great 
 Britain, Holland, France, were responding in steadily 
 increasing measure to the same ideals that led the 
 the Puritan to Massachusetts Bay and the Cavalier 
 to Virginia. 
 
 America Not Yet a Nation 
 
 On this Atlantic shore distances were great and 
 communication difficult. In addition there were 
 social, economic and religious differences that kept 
 
 [7] 
 
the struggling colonists apart. The result was that 
 there grew up here not a nation, but the material out 
 of which a nation could be made. There is a sense, 
 a deep and striking sense, in which the same remains 
 absolutely true today. There is not yet a nation, but 
 the rich and fine materials out of which a true nation 
 can be made by the architect with vision to plan and 
 by the builder with skill adequate to execute. 
 
 When a common oppression forced the separate 
 colonists together they still sadly lacked that devo- 
 tion to a unity higher than any of its component 
 parts which would have saved so much loss and so 
 much suffering during the days of revolution and of 
 the first steps toward a National Government. An 
 enormous step forward was taken when the National 
 Government was built. In the adoption of the 
 Constitution of the United States, the cornerstone 
 was laid for one of the most splendid structures in all 
 the history of nations. Then quickly followed sharp 
 political divergence. There were those who would 
 lay stress upon the new national unity; there were 
 still more who thought it important to emphasize the 
 separate elements out of which that unity had been 
 composed. The judicial logic of Marshall and the 
 convincing eloquence of Webster were the chief uni- 
 fying and nation-building forces in the generation 
 that followed. Meanwhile sharp differences of eco- 
 nomic interest were manifesting themselves, and the 
 fatal question of slavery pressed forward both as an 
 economic and as a political issue. The new nation, 
 
 [8] 
 
which had already made such progress upon the 
 foundations laid by the fathers, fell apart, and only 
 after one of the most terrible and destructive of civil 
 wars were the ruins of the disaster cleared away and 
 the ground prepared for the next step in construc- 
 tion. Here again mistakes were made so numerous 
 and so severe that the unifying and nation-building 
 process was checked and held back for many years. 
 Then two new sets of separating and disintegrat- 
 ing forces began to make themselves strongly felt. 
 First, the economic differences which must of neces- 
 sity manifest themselves over so large and so diverse 
 a territory now revealed themselves with new force — 
 in part as a result of the industrial revolution and in 
 part as a result of purely American conditions, — as 
 involving a class conflict between capital and labor. 
 Soon there were signs that citizenship, with its com- 
 pelling allegiance to the common weal, was to be 
 subordinated in discouraging fashion, not once but 
 often, to the immediate interests and policies of an 
 economic class. 
 
 Echo of Old World Feuds 
 
 Second, the immigration from other countries, 
 which had been for a long time substantially homo- 
 geneous became increasingly and rapidly heterogen- 
 eous. New nationalities, new languages, new racial 
 affinities were drawn upon for the recruitment of the 
 population of the United States. The hopes and 
 the ambitions which loo and 200 years before had 
 
 [9] 
 
been the peculiar property of the people of Western 
 Europe had now spread far away to the East and to 
 the South. With this heterogeneous immigration 
 there came, in no inconsiderable measure, the echo 
 of the Old World animosities and feuds and hates. 
 These did not manifest themselves in any direct 
 sense as anti-American, but they did manifest them- 
 selves with sufficient strength to deprive America of 
 a unity of attitude, of feeling, and of policy in dealing 
 with the international relations which every day 
 grow in importance and in significance. 
 
 So it is that at this moment, with a world war rag- 
 ing about us and a Presidential campaign opening in 
 front of us, with years full of fate stretched out for 
 us to walk in, we are not sure of our national unity 
 of thought and feeling and purpose because of the 
 presence of disintegrating elements and forces which 
 weaken our sense of unity at home and which deprive 
 us of the influence abroad which attaches to unity at 
 home. The grave problem before the American 
 people to-day is that of completing the process of 
 nation-building. It is the problem of setting our 
 house in order. It is the problem of integrating 
 America. It is the problem of subordinating every 
 personal ambition, every class interest and policy, 
 every race attachment, to the one dominant idea of 
 an America free, just, powerful, forward-facing, that 
 shall stand out in the history of nations as the name 
 of a people who conceive the mission and their true 
 greatness to lie in service to mankind. We are the 
 
 [lo] 
 
inheritors of a great tradition. What poets and 
 philosophers have dreamed, that we are trying day 
 by day to do. Our stumblings, our blunders, our 
 shortcomings are many ; but if we keep our hearts 
 clean and our heads clear he who a thousand years 
 from now writes the history of liberty and justice and 
 happiness among men will be able to tell to those 
 far-off generations a proud story of the rise and 
 influence of the American nation. 
 
 We find here everything which is needed for a 
 great nation. The task before us today is to make 
 it. The task before the American people is nothing 
 more nor less than a speedy continuation, and, if it 
 be practicable, the completion of the process of nation- 
 building. It is the problem of the integration of 
 America about those great fundamental principles 
 and purposes which the very name America itself 
 brings to our minds and which this flag stirs to 
 expression on every lip. 
 
 Feel America in Our Hearts 
 
 We know in our hearts what America means. The 
 problem is to teach it to our fellows ; to share with 
 them an understanding and an appreciation of it ; to 
 unite with them in an expression of it. We wish to 
 build a nation fit to serve ; a nation that does not find 
 its end in its own aggrandizement, however great that 
 be ; a nation that cannot find its purpose complete 
 in amassing all the wealth of Golconda, but that can 
 only achieve its aim by carrying a message to man- 
 
 [II] 
 
kind of what has been found possible on this conti- 
 nent. Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Slav, Latin and 
 Hun, all are here not as aliens but as citizens; not 
 as immigrants but as members of a body politic 
 which is new in conception in human history, as it is 
 new in its own thought of its high purpose. Can 
 America integrate itself at this crisis ; can it show 
 that here is a nation which, out of various and varied 
 ethnic elements, can be brought into a genuine unity 
 by devotion to high principle and by moral purpose 
 before the face of all mankind ? Can we make an 
 America that shall go down the corridors of time 
 with a proud place on the pages of history ? 
 
 We must remember that the greatest empires have 
 fallen as well as risen. We must remember that the 
 most powerful dynasties have passed away as well as 
 come into existence. There is no reason to suppose 
 that our America is going to escape the everlasting 
 law of change. We know its history and its origin. 
 We have seen its rise. We know its present state. 
 Who can predict how many hundreds or thousands 
 of years it will take before the forests will be felled 
 and the streams will be dried, and this great fertile 
 continent of ours, like the plains of ancient Iran 
 where civilization began, will become a desert, fit only 
 for the exploring parties of the archaeologist ? When 
 that time comes, what do we want to have written 
 on the pages of history of those who lived for hun- 
 dreds or perhaps thousands of years on this continent? 
 What do we want to have said about the way in 
 
 [12] 
 
which America met the greatest crisis of the world's 
 so-called modern history in 1916? Do we wish a 
 nation weak, broken to pieces, irresolute, filled with 
 conflicting and discordant voices, or do we wish for 
 a nation unified, strong, sympathetic, and ready to 
 respond to the cause of a common purpose to serve 
 all humanity, even though the rest of humanity be 
 at war with itself ? 
 
 Opportunity Knocking 
 
 The year 191 6 is but one member of an infinite 
 series. Countless aeons have gone before it and 
 countless aeons will come after it. The physical 
 forces of nature will go their way through indefinite 
 time, performing their alloted functions, obeying 
 their peculiar laws and undergoing those manifold 
 changes and transmutations which make up the 
 heavens and the earth. Not so with the reputation 
 and the influence of a nation. Opportunity will not 
 knock forever at any door ; it is knocking now at 
 the door of the American people. If they are able 
 to rise to an appreciation of their own part in the 
 world, of their own controlling principles and policies ; 
 if they are able to put aside every self-seeking, 
 every distracting, every brutal appeal, then no one 
 can tell what light may illumine the page on which 
 the history of our nation will yet be written. 
 
 It is nearly sixty years since Abraham Lincoln in 
 his debates with Senator Douglas made much use of 
 the Scriptural saying that '' a house divided against 
 
 [13] 
 
itself cannot stand ;" and he added, '' I do not expect 
 the house will fall, but I do expect the house will 
 cease to be divided." So Mr. President, I say to-day 
 to this influential company of Americans, we do 
 expect, every one of us, that our house will cease to 
 be divided. We do expect that our America will 
 come to full consciousness of its purpose; that the 
 serene courage of Washington, the constructive 
 genius of Hamilton, the keen human insight and 
 sympathy of Jefferson, the patient wisdom of Lincoln, 
 will not have been in vain in teaching us what our 
 country is and may become. Shall we catch sight of 
 that something higher than selfishness, higher than 
 material gain, higher than the triumph of brute force, 
 which alone can lead a nation up to those high places 
 that become sacred in history, and from which influ- 
 ence descends in a mighty torrent, to refresh, to 
 vivify and inspire all mankind? 
 
 It is as true today as it was in ancient times, that 
 where there is no vision the people perish. We can 
 make an America with a vision. We cannot make 
 it without. 
 
 [14] 
 
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