ss to

un in two channels: our fumbling, foolish diplomacy, o

kind" refers to citizens, not to chancelleries. The Declaration was addressed to the world; it was heard in Paris and later in a dozen provinces of Germany, and in Savoy and in Manchester

ly our railroads and steamship lines solicited larger numbers; and the policy of the government added inducements. Free immigration, and free movement, demanded in the Declaration,

nt on in the Mississippi Valley was known along the fjords and in the Volga basin and by the Danube; if sulphur was discovered in Louisiana it first impoverished Sicily-then brought Sicilians to Louisiana; Greeks knew that sponges were to be found off Tampa. And more and more people in America knew

hy, the Tsar, all felt the lash-or Congress hoped they felt it; in the Boer War, England was the victim of semi-official criticism; and whenever possible, we were the first to recognize republics, even if they fail

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starving Midlanders. Their government, like their men of wealth and birth, like their press and parliament, were eager to see America split, and willing to see slavery upheld in order to destroy democracy. But the men and women of Manchester, starved by the Northern blockade of cotton, still begged their government not to interfere with the blockade-and sent word to Lincoln to assure him that the people of Britain were on the side of liberty, imploring him "not to faint in your providential mission. While your enthusiasm is aflame, and the tide of events runs high, let the work be finished effectually. Leave no root of bitterness to spring up and work fresh misery to your children." Nor did Lincoln

ng tragedy, its consequences so dreadful today that we can barely ana

to th

e he addressed those speeches which were made at home; presently he wrote inquiries to the ministers which they were compelled to make public (since publication in neutral countries was certain). Then, after the Soviets of Russia had gone over the heads of the

pe were for a moment united, and they were united by an American declaring the objectives of American life. The moment was so brief that few knew all it meant

he spoke the truth when he said that Wilson's ideals were cherished by the overwhelming majority of the German people; and quite correctly the Germans saw that nothing but American idealism stood between them and a peace of vengeance. The enthusiasm of the victorious peoples was less selfish, but it was equally great; a profound distrust of their leaders had grown in the minds of realistic Frenchmen and Britons, they sensed the incapacity of their leaders to raise the objectives of the war above the level of the "knockout

son Was

cancelled to conform to his pious pretence of ignorance. And Clemenceau and Lloyd George kept him quarreling over a mile of boundary or a religious enclave within a racial minority; they stirred passions; they starved German children by an embargo; they rumored reparations; they promised to hang the Kaiser; they drew Wilson deeper into smaller conferences; they promised him a League about which their cynicism was boundless, and he let them have war guilt and reparations and the betrayal of the Russian revolution and the old European system triumphant. They had fretted him and tried him and they had made their own people forget the passionate faith Wilson had inspired; they made Wilson the agent of disillusion for all that was generous and hopeful in Europe. They could do it because the moment Wilson began to talk to the premiers, he stopped talking to the people. From the moment he allowe

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all fervor that they had gained an armistice and sought peace on the basis of the fourteen points; the people of France and England believed that their own governments had accepted the same points.

oney. We have seen how the years of Harding and Coolidge affected our domestic life; they were not only a reaction against the fervor of the war months; they were a carefully calculated reaction against basic American policy at home and abroad; they b

ermany, that we trembled with fear of the Reds, sneered at British labor until it became respectable enough to sen

. Hoover's temperament makes it difficult for him to speak freely to anyone; the talks with Ramsay MacDonald were pleasurable; the offer of a moratorium was the first kindness to Europe

Good

on was the first intimation of the way Europe felt about American "idealism". It was also the first step toward "non-intervention" in Spain and the destruction of Europe at the hands of Adolf Hitler. When we were rebuffed by Downing Street, we sulked; we did not

h had been in the minds of generations of Germans, was forgotten by the people. In a few years Hitler had overthrown the power of France

and peace between nations, in the matrix of the fourteen points if nothing more. The moment we withdrew from Europe, its nations fell apart, not merely into victo

opportunity again, to speak to Europe, and to ask Europe to answer. As we look back on our ancient triumphs with the peoples of Europe and the sour end to which we let them come, this new chance is heaven-sent, undes