In
the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at
present, if a man can view his own country and all other countries
from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust
him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same
dispassionate view of his wife and his mother. However broad and deep
a man's sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no
fear that they will be cramped by love of his native land.
Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do
good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that
the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than
the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the
family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from
patriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of
other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of the
national honor as a gentleman is of his own honor, will be careful to
see that the nation neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a
gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong
him. I do not for one moment admit that political morality is
different from private morality, that a promise made on the stump
differs from a promise made in private life.
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