American goods to mid-Europe, she and the Allies would have lost the war.

While Theodore Roosevelt led the pro-Ally movement in the United States, there were still powerful interests, either unconvinced or hostile. Ireland was openly in revolt. German-Americans and their press were naturally inclined to sympathize with the Central Powers. And manufacturers believed that their immense profits from war-contracts would be increased if they added the Teutonic belligerents to their customers. Count Bernstorff, the German Ambassador led an unblushing propaganda which was evidently well financed.

On May 7th, 1915, there occurred an event which, like the sinking of the Maine, constituted by general admission a casus belli. A German submarine deliberately sank the Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland and more than a hundred American lives were lost. Advertisements warning American citizens not to sail in the vessel and rejoicings in her fate when it was accomplished, like the medal struck in celebration of the victory over a British merchantman, were plaint proof of Germany's responsibility, as Government and as nation. Whether the United States would have supported the President, then and there, in a declaration of war, is a question, at once hypothetical and stoutly debated. What

Woodrow Wilson did was to hold his hand. Days before the crime, he had coined the phrase, "too proud to fight." At the news of the Lusitania, he repeated it.

That this neutrality was provocative to many critics, is a matter of history. What is not so clearly realized is that Wilson's neutrality was constructive rather than negative. It was not merely that he wished to keep the country out of war. He hoped that he might be able, as a neutral, to hasten peace. His position closely resembled that of the Vatican as determined by the shrewd policy of Pope Benedict XV. Both the Pope and the President were roundly accused of favoring Germany. If both of them were to quote another of Woodrow Wilson's controverted phrases-neutral in mind", it was a diplomatic neutrality in which mediation was the aim.

On 18th December, 1916, the President asked the Combatants to state their respective aims. His note has been severely criticized, yet again owing to a misunderstanding, the dispatch did not say that the two groups of belligerents were fighting for the same ends but that they professed to be so fighting. The Allied and the German cases were taken, for that moment, at their face value and Germany was thus deprived of any shadow of excuse for refusing the

intervention of the United States. Yet she declined any approach to an explicit reply. On 22nd January, 1917, Woodrow Wilson again addressed Germany, this time by way of a speech to the Senate. Once more, he employed a phrase which caused the ears of the Allies to tingle. He advocated "a peace without victory", adding "only a peace between equals can last." On this phrase, he insisted that he must put his own interpretation, which interpretation, however, he did not explain in terms as clear as the phrase itself. Now that we have knowledge of what is meant by a victory without peace, Woodrow Wilson's calculated indiscretion suggests the sagacity, not indeed of his words, but of the foresight which led to such words being used. A complete conquest of Germany has not ended militarism in Europe. But if, in 1917, Germany could have been induced to abandon her aggressive aims and her territorial plunder, a real tranquillity in Christendom might have been achieved.

The choice before Germany was now clear. She could obtain a fair liquidation of her terrible adventure and avoid defeat; or she could defy the United States. It was the latter course that she pursued. On 31st January, 1917, she outlawed all neutral commerce to countries in Europe at war with herself, and on 3rd February, 1917, Wilson broke off

relations. It was not a declaration of war but a suspension of diplomacy.

Again, Wilson has been denounced for his peaceful procrastination. But he was acting as, two centuries ago, Sir Robert Walpole acted when he delayed war with France. "Ah," said he, "when he heard the chimes that greeted hostilities, "they are ringing their bells now but soon they will be wringing their hands.” Pitt also sought to hold the dogs of war in leash. And Lloyd George was only convinced of war at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour. A President who failed to exhaust every avenue of peace before saying the ultimate word that means war would be forever bloodguilty.

In the interval between the departure of the German Ambassador, von Bernstroff, and the actual declaration of hostilities, there occurred another disputable interlude. The President sought Congressional authority for an armed neutrality. To be explicit, this meant that guns would be furnished to merchantmen and that, with or without naval assistance, American ships would force their way through to their destination. Congress was at the moment expiring and the measures were killed by a filibuster, on the part of the men, still, bent on peace. The assumption was that they were intended only for use against Germany. But it is impossible to ignore the

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theory that, had the proposals been carried, immediate and automatic hostilities against Great Britian might have been the result.

In April, 1917, all doubts were dispelled, and from that date until the Armistice was Woodrow Wilson's greatest period. A single suggestion from the White House would be enough to arrest every automobile in its mad career and even suspend every usual industry from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. At a stroke, the draft of men was determined, munitions were organized, plates were rivetted into ships, vast loans were subscribed, and immense gifts of money contributed to funds like the Red Cross. Seldom, if ever, has any nation at any moment in its annals risen at so immediate a bound from the doldrums of diplomacy to the enthusiasm of a great crusade. And amid it all, Wilson spoke like an ancient prophet of righteousness.

In two respects, however, his policy provoked dissent. On the one hand, the United States remained at peace with Bulgaria and Turkey. And on the other, there was a long and persistent endeavor to rescue Austria-Hungary and her young Emperor by means of a separate peace. Neither policy pleased the hot heads. But for both policies, there were reasons which time has justified. By intervention, in Turkey, no conceivable advantage, naval or military, would have been