Gubernatorial Messages 759 



which, whether it will or not, must inevitably play 

 a great part for good or for evil in the affairs of 

 the world at large, the people of New York wish it 

 understood that they look at all questions of Ameri- 

 can foreign policy from the most thoroughly na- 

 tional standpoint. The tropic islands we have taken 

 must neither be allowed to lapse into anarchy nor to 

 return under the sway of tyranny. War is a grim 

 thing at best, but the war through which we have 

 passed has left us not merely memories of glory 

 won on land and sea, but an even more blessed heri- 

 tage, the knowledge that it was waged from the 

 highest motives, for the good of others as well as 

 for our own national honor. Above all, we are 

 thankful that it brought home to all of us the fact 

 that the country was indeed one when serious dan- 

 ger confronted it. The men from the East and the 

 West, from the North and the South, the sons of 

 those who wore the blue and of those who wore the 

 gray, the men of means and the men who all their 

 lives long had possessed only what day by day they 

 toiled to earn, stood shoulder to shoulder in the 

 fight, met the same dangers, shared the same hard- 

 ships and won the same ultimate triumph. 



In our domestic affairs, the State is to be con- 

 gratulated on the gradual return of prosperity. 

 Though temporarily checked by the war this return 

 has been on the whole steady. The capitalist 

 finds constantly greater business opportunities; the 

 wageworker, in consequence, is more steadily em- 

 ployed; the farmer has a better market. 



