32 sublime maxim attributed to our Saviour: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The people of the United States and their lawful representative, the Government, are therefore under the imperative obligation to do in Nicaragua as they would have others do unto them. If, in this country, justice is administered, wise laws exist and schools are fostered to bring up youth in such a state of vigor that it can live of its own initiative, it is but just to desire and to ask that Nicaragua and the rest of Central America should be blessed with similar conditions of life and prosperity. Were it so, the Spanish race would lose all cause for distrust.
In the United States the law is paramount; the just man finds honor, the sentiments of the great Washington are embodied in the hearts of the citizens; property and life are respected, while individual liberty is assured to the extent necessary for the welfare of all. Let us, then, desire for ourselves a similar measure of progress, and that the United States might assist us, willingly and in good faith, as it is now doing, for neither President Taft nor Secretary Knox has done any act prejudicial to our country. Let us wish that violence might find no place among our people; that ignorance and vice might not seize the public offices and that relations between the United States and Central America might rest upon the mutual foundation of progress and liberty.
It may be thought that these aspirations are, at least to a large extent, utopian.
Selfishness, the most powerful of human incentives, always appears in opposition to the realization of such wishes in the ideal way; and it is precisely for this reason