8 The Strenuous Life 



and risk, busying ourselves only with the wants of 

 our bodies for the day, until suddenly we should 

 find, beyond a shadow of question, what China has 

 already found, that in this world the nation that has 

 trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated 

 ease is bound, in the end, to go down before other 

 nations which have not lost the manly and adven 

 turous qualities. If we are to be a really great peo 

 ple, we must strive in good faith to play a great part 

 in the world. We can not avoid meeting great 

 issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is 

 whether we shall meet them well or ill. In 1898 

 we could not help being brought face to face with 

 the problem of war with Spain. All we could de 

 cide was whether we should shrink like cowards 

 from the contest, or enter into it as beseemed a 

 brave and high-spirited people ; and, once in, whether 

 failure or success should crown our banners. So it 

 is now. 



We can not avoid the responsibilities that con 

 front us in Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the 

 Philippines. All we can decide is whether we shall 

 meet them in a way that will redound to the national 

 credit, or whether we shall make of our dealings with 

 these new problems a dark and shameful page in our 

 history. To refuse to deal with them at all merely 

 amounts to dealing with them badly. We have a 

 given problem to solve. If we undertake the solu- 



