If so, the ideals of Pan-Americanism might acquire new international values, inspiring a real American community of interests. On the foundations already laid in the Pan-American Union, in the Central American Court and Bureau, and in the present treaty relations of the ABC powers, the structure of an American League of Nations to insure justice

might be erected. Indeed, the principles of international law and order might be expressed in at least three such leagues, all possibly coordinated for international welfare in the PanAmerican Union. Such an organization would possess life and power only in proportion as it represented a vital underlying sympathy, and not merely a diplomatic fiction.

The fathers who proclaimed in 1823 that Europe must not seek to control America were for the most part equally ready to concede that the United States should not interfere in Europe. But even before that day a due regard for the dignity and liberty of the republic had compelled them to attack the Barbary States by sea and land, and, first among nations, to put an end to the payment of tribute to those pirates. Nevertheless, our sires plainly deemed it enough to become, as Hamilton said, "the Arbiter of Europe in America," without trying to realize Pownal's prediction that they would "change the system of Europe." Perhaps we were proud enough of ourselves to believe that the object lesson of our existence and growth was in itself sufficiently dynamic.

The logic of events has ended our dream of isolation and placed us openly and undeniably among the

great world-powers. It has been inevitable that, soon or late, some stroke of fate would test our fitness for our new duties, and our ability to interpret those duties in the light of our political beliefs.

The Great War has brought us to such a crisis, and President Wilson has nobly defined the terms upon which this nation ought to help make the world safe for democracy. It is significant that he summed up those terms in the phrase of a "Monroe Doctrine for the world":

"I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigues and selfish rivalry and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When we unite and act in the same sense and with the same purpose, all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common protection.

"I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom of the seas which in international conference after conference representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced disciples of

liberty, and that moderation of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.

"These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others. And they are also the principles and policies of forward-looking men and women everywhere, and of every modern nation, and of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail."

In the days of Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams it was just to compare the political systems of Europe and America as diametrically opposed to each other. The idea of the one was predominantly feudal and autocratic; of the other, predominantly democratic. The contrast of systems can no longer be identified with continents. The world-clash, however obscure some of its sources may have been, has become, since the birth of New Russia and the advent of the United States, a struggle between progressive and reactionary systems of political control.

The United States is now taking the same stand in behalf of oppressed and misgoverned nationalities against the Central European alliance that it took in Monroe's day against the Holy Alliance in behalf of Spain's revolted colonies. Our Government has just issued an official statement, entitled: "How the War Came to America." It reaffirms our historic policy of minding our own business, but demonstrates that it has now become our business to defend not only the basal principles of the Monroe Doctrine, but our traditional policies of freedom of the seas and judicial settlement of international disputes, from the danger of complete subversion.

While the United States may fight

this battle without entering into formal alliances for war, it cannot hope to secure the objects for which it contends after the war is over, unless it enters a league of nations formed to maintain peace with justice under law.

"If," said President Wilson, "the peace presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the organized major force of mankind," and it must be a peace to which democracies rather than autocrats assent. The fact is that a Monroe Doctrine for the world was inherent in the Monroe Doctrine for America. If freedom for the people in Buenos Aires, Panama and Mexico was once successfully asserted as an international ideal, that ideal could not be limited by American boundary lines. As the Holy Alliance well knew, if that doctrine of democracy were not crushed, it would surely cross the ocean and be eventually proclaimed in Berlin, Vienna and Petrograd. That day of doom for rulers by divine right is coming, and

N the eve of the present conflict our position toward other nations might have been summarized under three heads:

I. The Monroe Doctrine. - We had pledged ourselves to defend the New World from European aggression, and we had by word and deed. made it clear that we would not intervene in any European dispute.

II. The Freedom of the Seas.-In every naval conference our influence had been given in support of the principle that sea law to be just and worthy of general respect must be based on the consent of the governed.

III. Arbitration. As we had secured peace at home by referring-interstate disputes to a Federal tribunal, we urged a similar settlement of international controversies. Our ideal was a permanent world court. We had already signed arbitration treaties not only with great powers which might conceivably attack us, but even more freely with weaker neighbors in order to show our good faith in recognizing the equality of all nations both great and small.

The outbreak of war in 1914 caught this nation by surprise, and in the first chaotic days we could see no clear issue that affected our naticnal policy. The President's pro

clamation of neutrality was received by us as natural and inevitable.

The preservation of a strict neutrality in order that later we might be of use in the great task of mediation dominated all the President's early speeches.

But in the very first days of the war our Government foresaw that complications on the seas might put us in grave risk of being drawn into the conflict. And so, on August 6, 1914, our Secretary of State dispatched an identical note to all the powers then at war, calling attention to the risk of serious trouble arising out of the uncertainty of neutrals as to their maritime rights, and proposing that the Declaration of London be accepted by all nations for the duration of the war.

The Declaration had not been indorsed by any power in time of peace, and there was no legal obligation on Great Britain to accept it. Her reply, however, was disappointing.

Great Britain recognized as binding certain long-accepted principles of international law and sought now to apply them to the peculiar and unforeseen conditions of this

war.

Controversies soon arose between Great Britain and this nation. But,

painful as this divergency of opinion sometimes was, it did not seriously threaten our position of neutrality, for the issues that arose involved only rights of property.

And this controversy led to a clearer understanding on our part of the British attitude toward our ideal of the freedom of the seas. They were not willing to accept our classification of the seas as being distinct from the Old World. We had confined our interest to matters affecting rights at sea and had kept carefully aloof from issues affecting the interests of European nations on land. They explained that they had refused to ratify the London Declaration because they could not afford to decrease the striking power of their navy unless their powerful neighbors on land agreed to decrease their armies.

That this attitude of England deeply impressed our Government is shown by the increasing attention given by the United States to the search for ways and means of insuring at the end of the war a lasting peace for all the world. The address of our President, on May 27, 1916, before the League to Enforce Peace was a milestone in our history.

He outlined the main principles on which a stable peace must rest, principles plainly indicating that this nation would have to give up its position of isolation and assume the responsibilities of a world power.

In the meantime, although our neutral rights were not brought into question by Germany as early as by

England, the German controversy was infinitely more serious.

For any dissension that might arise no arbitration treaty existed between the United States and the German Government.

It was therefore obvious from the first that any controversy with the German Government would be exceedingly serious; for if it could not be solved by direct diplomatic conversations, there was no recourse except to war.

In the first year of the conflict the Government of Germany stirred up among its people a feeling of resentment against the United States on account of our insistence upon our right as a neutral nation to trade in munitions with the belligerent powers. Our legal right in the matter was not seriously questioned by Germany. But upon "the moral issue" involved, the stand taken by the United States was consistent with its traditional policy and with obvious common

sense.

For, if, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell munitions to belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain munitions from neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated the largest reserves of war supplies in time of peace would be assured of victory.

To write into international law that neutrals should not trade in munitions would be to hand over the world to the rule of the nation with the largest armament factories.

But our principal controversy with the German Government, and the one which rendered the situation at once

acute, rose out of their announcement of a sea zone where their submarines would operate in violation of all accepted principles of international law. Our indignation at such a threat was soon rendered passionate by the sinking of the Lusitania. This attack upon our rights was not only grossly illegal; it defied the fundamental concepts of humanity.

Evidence of the bad faith of the Imperial German Government soon piled up on every hand. And meanwhile in this country official agents of the Central Powers-protected from criminal prosecution by diplomatic immunity-conspired against our internal peace and placed spies and agents provocateurs throughout the length and breadth of our land.

While expressing a cordial friendship for the people of the United States, the Government of Germany had its agents at work in Latin America and Japan. They bought or subsidized papers and supported speakers there to rouse feelings of bitterness and distrust against us in those friendly nations, in order to embroil us in war. They were inciting to insurrection in Cuba, in Haiti, and in Santo Domingo; their hostile hand was stretched out to take the Danish Islands; and everywhere in South America they were abroad sowing the seeds of dissension, trying to stir up one nation against another and all against the United States.

In their sum these various operations amounted to direct assault upon the Monroe Doctrine. And the German offensive in the New World, was becoming too serious to be ignored.

So long as it was possible, the Government of the United States tried to believe that such activities were the work of irresponsible and misguided individuals. It was only reluctantly, in the face of overwhelming proof, that the recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and of German Military and Naval Attachés was demanded.

In the meantime the attacks of the German submarines upon the lives and property of American citizens had gone on; the protests of our Government were now sharp and ominous, and this nation was rapidly being drawn into a state of war.

But the presence of a faction of German public opinion less hostile to this country was shown when their Government acquiesced to some degree in our demands at the time of the Sussex outrage, and for nearly a year maintained at least a pretense of observing the pledge they had made to us. The tension was abated.

Moreover, two other considerations strengthened our Government in its efforts to remain neutral in this war. The first was our traditional sense of responsibility toward all the republics of the New World. They, too, preferred the ways of peace.

The second consideration was the hope that by preserving untroubled here the holy ideals of civilized intercourse between nations, we might be free at the end of this war to be the restorers and rebuilders of the wrecked structure of the world.

All these motives held us back, but we soon had reason to believe that the recent compliance of the German