estimated that the citizens of European nations have sustained losses in Mexico in the last three years in excess of $500,000,000. Mexico will be in no condition to respond to these claims for damages. The European nations, on the other hand, when asked by their own citizens to assert these claims, may feel that, with their own resources impoverished by the stupendous world war, they are in no condition to waive all these claims out of deference to the United States. Under these circumstances, is it impossible or even improbable that one or more of these nations may demand that the United States reimburse their citizens for these losses? If so, what reply will the United States make? Without action by Congress no sum can be paid to satisfy these demands, and yet the average Congressman will find difficulty in facing his constituency if he join in appropriating a stupendous sum for this purpose. One or more European nations may decline to accept the inaction of Congress, even as the United States declined to accept the inaction of the French Chamber of Deputies, in 1833, when it refused to make the necessary appropriation to carry out the treaty, under which France agreed to reimburse the United States for the losses which American ships had sustained during the Napoleonic wars. Thoughtful Americans will not ignore the possibilities involved in the situation and they will increasingly appreciate that the immunity, which America once enjoyed to so large an extent from the quarrels of the world, may no longer be its good fortune. Under these circumstances preparedness would seem to be the most vital concern of the United States, and yet it is subordinated to petty issues of domestic and ephemeral importance. Again let it be said, "Where there is no vision, the people perish.' If the United States desires to take part in the League of Peace, to which I have already referred, must it not have an army and navy to contribute to the enforcement of this joint responsibility of civilization? Can the United States enter the councils of the nations with a relatively small army? If it desires to take part in such a league of nations to enforce peace it should be prepared to make good its part of the joint promise. Is the America of today capable of playing such a part? Patriotic self-complacency prompts an unhesitating reply in the affirmative, but the events of the last two years should give the candid American pause for thought. Several years ago the author was in Rome and one evening, as the sun was setting, leaned over the parapet of the Pincian hill and saw the "Eternal City" in the glory of a dying day. The band was playing the Valhalla motif from the Götterdämmerung of Wagner. Before me was the historic city, an epitome of the progress of mankind. There was the Coliseum, that remnant of imperial Rome, standing like a gigantic torso of Michel Angelo. Then I turned to the west and saw the dome of St. Peter's, over which another great authority of today still rules so large a part of mankind. I thought of Republican Rome, and of the Rome of the Cæsars and the Renaissance, the Rome of the Popes and of modern Italy, and with the majestic strains of the Valhalla motif sounding in my ears I wondered whether this were the "twilight of the gods" for this imperial city. Some months later, I read in Trevelyan's History of the Roman Republic these last words of his introduction. He had just traced the progress of the great uprising throughout Italy, and eloquently concluded: This has taught, what clearly cannot be learned from the pages of Ruskin and Symonds or any other of Italy's melodious mourners, that she is not dead but risen, that she contains not only ruins but men, that she is not the home of ghosts, but the land which the living share with their immortal ancestors. America has a glorious past, and an equally glorious future likewise awaits it, if it be only worthy of it. If its people shall have a "vision" of its potential greatness, if the old American spirit, that in times of stress and toil has never hitherto failed it at the end, shall be felt again, then it will be said of America in these dim, uncertain, and portentous days to come, that "she is not dead but risen, that she contains not only ruins but men, that she is not the home of ghosts, but the land which the living share with their immortal ancestors. |