In such a sifting of the nations as is now in progress, it is best and wisest, even from the standpoint of patriotism, that the whole truth be stated. The oil of anointing, which was once supposed to sanctify the head of the monarch and give him infallibility, has not fallen upon the head of the President. The guarantees of free speech and a free press were intended to give to the public that opportunity for open discussion, in which a Republican form of government lives and moves and has its very being. If some Americans had not vigorously protested against a policy of barren neutrality in a supreme moral crisis of the world's history, the "very stones in the streets would have cried out against us." Germany is today in an abyss of disaster on account of a rigid censorship of that which Bismarck called "the reptile press," which has blinded a great people and driven them into a gulf of infinite suffering.

America will not learn the great lesson of this crisis unless its people fearlessly recognize the mistakes which have been committed in their name, and that the policy of " peace at any price," to which President Wilson, presumably from the highest motives and in a spirit of pacific idealism, consistently adhered for nearly

three years and until Germany affronted him and the American people by its cruel and insolent challenge, was a mistaken policy and nearly destroyed America's prestige in the commonwealth of nations. It failed to gain for the United States either the friendship or respect of a single nation. As the result has proven, it did not even have the merit of maintaining a real peace. From August the first, 1914, until April the sixth, 1917, the United States, at great sacrifice to its standing as a world Power, insistently cried "peace, peace,' only to find at length that "there was no peace" and could be none as long as Germany was willing to affront the United States and all the world by its ruthless defiance of international decency.

This is written with full recognition of the vigour, with which President Wilson finally lead his country into the lists in defence of humanity and justice.

President Wilson finally faced the inevitable, and if in so doing he reversed a policy, which he had consistently pursued for more than two years and which this book has ventured to criticise, he showed in such reversal the greater moral courage.

His experience was not unlike that of Sir Edward Grey at the beginning of the world war. The

English Foreign Minister was also a pacifist of noble ideals. When Germany treacherously assaulted civilization, Sir Edward Grey could not quickly put by the pacific ideals of his lifetime, and for some days England hesitated on the verge of an abyss, for had England deserted France in its hour of trial, it is possible that the fate of the British Empire would have been sealed. Fortunately for civilization, Germany committed the stupendous blunder of invading Belgium, and this left to Sir Edward Grey, the unwearying friend of peace, no alternative except to commit his great Empire to the ordeal of battle. Men who saw him in those final days, saw tears in his eyes, as he beheld his pacific plans fall as a fragile house of cards.

Similarly President Wilson cherished from the beginning of the great conflict the persistent purpose to save his country for the "processes of peace" and to make it the mediator and not the participant in the world war. To do this, he deemed it necessary for a time to ignore the everlasting right and wrong of the struggle.

All who love America and who realize the part which it could and should play in the great Tomorrow, should by spoken word and printed speech do what in them lies to arouse the Amer

ican spirit, a power which has never failed us in the past and which today is still instinct with immortal life. Only true leadership is needed.

This will explain the quotation from Milton's Areopagitica on the title-page. To America there remains a splendid destiny in this war-ridden world. All that the great Republic, whose instincts are still sound, needs is a leader with such a vision as Washington and Lincoln had. Already the nation has arisen to the clarion call of its President. The best blood of its youth has been freely offered as a sacrifice for past sins of omission. The year 1917 is destined to be for America its annus mirabilis and will hereafter be remembered as that of the "great awakening," as the two preceding years marked the "great infidelity" to our nation's highest ideals.

In the darkest hours of the preceding year, when America seemed to be stumbling towards an abyss of dishonour and disaster, I ventured to quote as a prophecy Milton's vision of a great commonwealth, and now the realization of that prophecy seems to be at hand.

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I

see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused eyesight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance."

The mind of the patriotic American shrinks from grasping the possibilities to his country if America should fail to realize this vision of the great poet of democracy. As these lines are written, approximately ten million American men between the ages of 21 and 31, under the wise call of universal service, are registering their intention to serve their country in the great world war, a potential army greater than any country ever called to service at a given time.

The response to the call for either registration or enlistment is not enough. It is essential that America should go into this war with a feeling of heroic joy in again battling for the noblest principles of liberty and justice. To arouse this spirit, so essential to the successful prosecution of any war, is not an easy task. Weighed down by our traditions of isolation and taught for the last two years and more by the chosen leader of the American people that they had no just relation to or concern in the objects and causes of the world war, it is not unnatural that the great