Government was only temporary, and by the end of 1916 it was plain that our neutral status had again been made unsafe through the ever-increasing aggressiveness of the German autocracy.

Fearing we might be drawn into the war if it did not soon come to an end, the President began the preparation of his note, asking the belligerent powers to define their war aims. But before he had completed it the world was surprised by the peace move of the German Government a note sent through neutral powers on December 12, 1916, to the Governments of the Allies, proposing negotiations for peace.

While expressing the wish to end this war, the greater portion of the note was couched in terms that gave small hope of a lasting peace.

Boasting of German conquests, the note implanted in neutral minds the belief that it was the purpose of the Imperial German Government to insist such conditions as would leave all Central Europe under German dominance.

upon

Moreover, the German proposal was accompanied by a thinly veiled threat to all neutral nations.

The Kaiser ordered the neutrals to exert pressure on the Entente to bring the war to an abrupt end, or to beware of the consequences.

On the 18th of December the President dispatched his note to all the belligerent powers, asking them to define their war aims. There was still hope in our minds that the menace of future German aggression and dominance might be removed, by

finding a guaranty of good faith in a league of nations.

From this point, events moved rapidly. The powers of the Entente replied to the German peace note. Neutral nations took action on the note of the President, and from both belligerents replies to this note were soon in our hands.

The German reply was evasive. Refusing to state to the world their terms, Germany and her allies merely proposed a conference. They adjourned all discussion of any plan for a league of peace until after hostilities should end.

The response of the Entente Powers was frank. Our great concern in Europe was the lasting restoration of peace, and it was clear that this was also the chief interest of the Entente nations.

The aims of the belligerents were now becoming clear. From the outbreak of hostilities the German Government had claimed that it was fighting a war of defense. But the tone of its recent proposals had been that of a conqueror.

Against the German peace to further German growth and aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan for a European peace that should make the whole Continent

secure.

At this juncture the President read his address to the Senate, on January 22, 1917, in which he outlined the kind of peace the United States of America could join in guaranteeing.

I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of

the world; that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful.

I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to 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 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.

Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If the peace presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the organized major force of mankind.

If there were any doubt in our minds as to which of the great alliances was the more in sympathy with these ideals, it was removed by the popular response abroad to this address of the President. It was plain that so far as the peoples of the Entente were concerned the President had been amply justified in stating that he spoke for all forward-looking, liberal-minded men and women. It was not so in Germany. The people there who could be reached were too few or too oppressed to make their voices heard in the counIcils of their nation. Already, on January 16, 1917, unknown to the

people of Germany, Herr Zimmermann, their Secretary of Foreign Affairs, had secretly dispatched a note to their Minister in Mexico, informing him of the German intention to repudiate the Sussex pledge and instructing him to offer to the Mexican Government New Mexico and Arizona if Mexico would join with Japan in attacking the United States.

In the new year of 1917 the Imperial German Government abruptly threw aside the mask. On the last day of January, 1917, Count Bernstorff handed to Mr. Lansing a note, in which his Government announced its purpose to intensify and render more ruthless the operations of their submarines at sea.

There was no possible answer except to hand their Ambassador his passports.

On the same day, February 3, 1917, the President addressed both houses of our Congress and announced the complete severance of our relations with Germany. At the same time, however, he made it plain that he did not regard this act as tantamount to a declaration of war. Here for the first time the President made his sharp distinction between government and people in undemocratic lands.

In this address of the President, and in its indorsement by the Senate, there was a solemn warning, but it was soon evident that our warning had fallen on deaf ears. The tortuous ways and means of German official diplomacy were clearly shown in the negotiations opened by them

through the Swiss Legation on the 10th of February. In no word of their proposals did the German Government meet the real issue between

us.

By the 1st of March it had become plain that the Imperial Government was determined to make good its threat. The President then again appeared before Congress to ask the approval of the representatives of the nation for the course of armed neutrality upon which, under his constitutional authority, he had now determined.

No "overt" act, however, was ordered by our Government until Count Bernstorff had reached Berlin and Mr. Gerard was in Washington. For the German Ambassador on his departure had begged that no irrevocable decision should be taken until he had had the chance to make one final plea for peace to his sovereign. If he kept his pledge and urged an eleventh-hour revocation of the submarine order, he was unable to sway the policy of the Imperial Government.

And so, having exhausted every resource of patience, our Government on the 12th of March finally issued orders to place armed guards on our merchant ships.

There remained but one element to confuse the issue. One other great autocracy, the Government of the

Russian Czar, had been a stronghold of tyrannies reaching far back into the past, and its presence among the Allies had seemed to be in disaccord with the great liberal principles they were upholding in this war.

But now at this crucial time for our nation the free men of all the world were thrilled and heartened by the news that the people of Russia had risen to throw off their Government and found a new democracy. The conviction was finally crystallized in American minds and hearts that this war across the sea was no mere conflict between dynasties, but a stupendous civil war of all the world; a new campaign in the ageold war, the prize of which is liberty. Here, at last, was a struggle in which all who love freedom have a stake. Further neutrality on our part would have been a crime against our ancestors, who had given their lives that we might be free.

"The world must be made safe for democracy."

On the 2d of April, 1917, the President read to the new Congress his message, in which he asked the Representatives of the nation to declare the existence of a state of war, and in the early hours of the 6th of April the House by an overwhelming vote accepted the joint resolution which had already passed the Senate.

TH

HE President of the United States on January 22, 1917, in the words, "Perhaps I am the only person in high authority amongst all the people of the world who is at liberty to speak and hold nothing back," proposed a Monroe Doctrine for the world. This was in the now celebrated "peace without victory" address to the Senate. The President also said, "I feel confident that I have said what the people of the United States would wish me to say," and later in the same address he asserted, "I fain would believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere."

As president of the United States, Mr. Wilson's words may unquestionably and properly be regarded in foreign countries as expressing the policy of the United States Government. As the head of the government of a state occupying an important place in the world, when many other states are engaged in war, the claim to be speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere is not wholly presumption.

It can also certainly be claimed that a president of the United States in 1917 has an equal right with a president of the United States in 1823 to state what American policy is, and if in 1917 the policy of 1823

is reaffirmed, then such policy would be worthy of even greater consideration in international affairs.

President Wilson on January 22, 1917, proposing a concert of powers, government by consent of the governed, freedom of the seas, and limitation of armament, advocated that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world; that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful.

Clearly, then, this recently announced American policy is for the period after the war to enlarge the scope and operation of the Monroe Doctrine. The realization of this fact is evident in foreign opinion. On January 24 Bonar Law, chancellor of the exchequer, in a speech at Bristol, said of the address of President Wilson, "What President Wilson is longing for, we are fighting for." On January 26 it was announced from Petrograd, that Russia "can gladly endorse President Wilson's communication." The part relating to the freedom of the seas found particular response in Russia. From other countries came statements that the ideals of the address were approved, but that the task in

volved was appalling, considering the present condition of the world.

As the United States has been the supporter of the Monroe Doctrine in the past, it must doubtless be its supporter after the war. It would be reasonable to conclude that the President, speaking on January 22, 1917, was speaking of the probable attitude of the government of the United States toward the doctrine. The principles of the doctrine would therefore be involved in the American ideas for the settlement of world difficulties. The doctrine in its new form would cease to be narrowly American and would have a world basis. If it means merely that each state should be allowed unhampered opportunity for development, such an ideal would meet little formal opposition. If it means that the United States should be recognized as controlling the destinies of the American continent there would doubtless be opposition. Even if expanded into the doctrine of America for Americans or some form of Pan-Americanism there might be question of world-wide approval. The doctrine may therefore be passing even now to a wider field of influence.

It should be said, however, that the United States is no longer sole arbiter as to the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, as it once was, because under a large number of treaties this government has agreed to refer differences even when relating to the Monroe Doctrine to investigation by a commission. Indeed, under these treaties disputes of every nature whatsoever are to be referred

to a commission. Such treaties are operative with nearly all the great states except Germany and Japan, and with most of the smaller powers.

Again, it may be said that it is to be presumed that these so-called Bryan treaties were made to be observed. The commissions to be established in accordance with the terms of these treaties are international rather than American. Therefore under the treaties by which the United States is already bound and has been bound since 1913, the Monroe Doctrine, if the subject of a difference with a treaty power, must be referred to an international commission. For the parts of the world now under these treaties the doctrine has had since 1913 something of the aspect which President Wilson's address may be forecasting for an area much larger than the Americas.

Of these treaties there are in fact now ratified twenty or more, and about half as many more have been negotiated. If thus for half the states of the world the Monroe Doctrine may now be subjected to international standards of judgment, its purely national and American character may be said already to have been waived. The next step - the recognition by the world of the general principles underlying the doctrine as likewise sound for world policy-would not now be a long step for the United States.

When the Monroe Doctrine was originally published in Europe it met with approval from liberal statesmen, who hailed it as shedding "joy, exultation, and gratitude over all free