of the German legation at Bucharest, then recently evacuated by departing German officials, there was dug up, in the presence of a member of the United States legation and of the Roumanian prefect of police, fifty infernal machines charged with high explosives, and six test tubes containing cultures of anthrax and glanders bacilli; these were in boxes wrapped in white paper, and bore in red wax the official seal of the imperial German consulate at Kronstadt, and had evidently been concealed there by the German diplomats before their hasty departure. They had been brought to Roumania when that country was neutral and was still under treaty of amity with Germany.

Floating mines, poisoned wells and poisoned candy, the murder of hostages and the destruction of hospitals and hospital ships, mark the means and methods in this twentieth century war. And the representatives of the great imperial German nation holding responsible diplomatic posts abroad are revealed as deliberately advising the sinking of ships of a neutral nation "without leaving a trace."

It is needless to multiply examples. The fact is established beyond room for debate that the ideals that actuate a great part of the people of the world, who hope for the wider enjoyment by mankind of the blessings of enlightened government, are not shared by the autocratic governments of the central powers.

It has become a question whether the central powers shall dominate the world. It has become a question of enslavement of mankind by imperialistic militarism, or the freedom of the nations and the peoples of the earth.

If, at first, the conflict seemed to concern the immediate participants alone, or at least only indirectly to affect distant outsiders, it soon became apparent that it was to be a struggle for a new Europe, and even for a new world; not a new Europe or a new world with simply a change of boundary lines and a hoisting of a new flag over conquered territory, but in the profoundest sense a new world filled with a new hope and founded on the essential and the vital rights of selfgovernment.

So, though not clearly seen at the outset, the war resolved itself into a war of principles. It became a war in which all the nations were interested as though it was their own war. Some of them, by reason of propinquity, or weakness, like Switzerland, and Holland, and Denmark, however conscious that the outcome might ultimately be the destruction of their own independence and their right to live, yet could not take a part in the awful conflict. But others, like the great and rich United States, were confronted with the alternative of an ignoble and cowardly peace, or a war for liberty's sake.

The entrance of the United States in this war was preceded by a declaration by President Wilson of the principles on which an enduring peace might be established and by a notice to all the world that our nation was interested in how the plans for the foundation of peace among the nations should be devised. "It is inconceivable," he said, "that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise." They would be prepared, and could not in honor and did not wish to withhold the service they could thus render, and would "add their power to the authority and the force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world." He then outlined the principles on which such a peace should be founded, a peace "worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged." He indicated the kind of peace that would keep the future safe against war, a peace of equality among nations, recognizing the principle that governments must rest upon the consent of the governed. And after having stated other principles that should be given expression in the adjustments to follow the war, he used this language:

May I not add that I hope and believe that I am, in effect, speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and homes they hold most dear.

This was a new note in international politics. It was echoed and found favor in many lands, in humble cottages

even more than in palaces. It crystallized the thought so well expressed by Lord' Bryce that this is a "war of democracy." It revealed a vision of national powers dependent upon the rights of individuals and of agreements among nations resting on the rights of man. It brought to all the world a realization of the practical possibility of limiting wars.

A few months later the president appeared before congress to announce that the time had come for us to take our part. in the war itself. On that solemn occasion, in asking the concurring action of congress to committing a great and peaceloving people to a conflict in distant lands, he delivered one of the noblest utterances ever made by an American statesman. The United States was to give up its traditional policy of isolation and send her young men to this monstrous war in Europe. It was a spiritual consecration to the cause of humanity, in a contest that was to decide the destiny of the human race. For the first time in history a nation was to go to war to vindicate its ideals. As the president said:

We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and freedom of the nation can make them.

So it was our own president who made clear the moral aspect of the war. His magic sentences electrified the world. His vision revealed the truth to all, even to those who had been viewing the war simply as a conflict for territory or for trade. The original participants had their national and racial considerations for going into the war. Claims by their statesmen that they were fighting for principle came from sources not impartial and, therefore, however true in substance, had not always been accepted by the world as the whole truth. But with the declaration of President Wilson, the conflict was put upon the highest level, and the issue that had been there from the beginning, but that had been dimly seen and only appreciated by the few, was made the focal point.

Since then many nations have followed the lead of the United States. International policies have been elevated above mere questions of expediency and selfish advantage, and' whatever the outcome of the war, a gain has been made in the

injection of the question of what is right into a discussion between nations. The leading statesmen of the allied countries one after the other have given utterance to noble sentences expressive of the sincere desire to secure, as an outcome of this war, safeguards against the possibility of a future return to German methods, and protection against militarism. In the success of the allies lies the hope of securing those reforms in international law that continued peace will require.

Let us hope with President Wilson that

"We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states."

and the Reasonableness of Its Plan

By WILLIAM D. WHEELWRIGHT

Chairman Oregon Branch of League to Enforce Peace

One of the great publicists of the day has said: "If by a pacifist is meant a man who demands an instant peace, regardless of its terms, without thought for the present or hope for the future, then no one is a pacifist who is not a lunatic. But if by a pacifist is meant a man who desires a speedy and just and a permanent peace, then everyone is a pacifist who is not a criminal."

The League to Enforce Peace is not a society of criminals or lunatics. Its members deserve in no way the denunciation of those who would heal the hurt of the daughter of the people lightly by crying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace;" it recognizes the existence of hurts so grievous that for the complete restoration of the sufferer they must not be lightly healed, and that a condition of permanent health (which is the peace of body, mind and soul, both individual and national) can not be attained until the deep-seated cause of the disease be extirpated, even at the hideous cost of war and its unspeakable miseries. They have no mission with regard to the present war beyond joining with an indignant world in its high resolve that the sword of righteousness now drawn shall not be sheathed until the final and complete overthrow of that power which is now attempting its complete subjugation.

With this introduction, I deem it safe to say that the league, for the better understanding of whose aims I have been asked to write this paper, is emphatically a peace society devoted to the cause of the world's peace, but now committed to the cause of the world's war. As there is no way to the delectable mountains from which the towers of the celestial city may be seen, save through the dark valley of the shadow, so it may be said now that there is no way to a world peace (which can be found only in the world's liberty) except by the hard and bloody path of war.

And although this is a peace society, and although I hope to show that it has a raison d'etre even at this time, the world's