T'he Days of a Man 



D917 



opposing 

 sides of 

 the shield 



Breathless 



the same facts before us, he and we were looking on 

 different sides of one shield. He stressed the world 

 disaster sure to ensue from a German victory even 

 though its fruits turned to ashes in the Kaiser's grasp. 

 We feared the imminent demoralization of our great 

 democrac}^, hitherto ideally the world's chief ''City 

 of Refuge" from both actual and frustrate war, as 

 well as the dangers (which proved very real) arising 

 from any victory whatever. 



Logic and feeling might justify either view, for the 

 nation's course surely lay between the devil and the 

 deep sea. 



The Emergency campaign was not what I would 

 campaign j^^ve choscn, being indeed, as John Dewey observed, 

 "opportunist and breathless." But our time was 

 then very short — a week for conference, a week for 

 propaganda — and the stakes were very great. The 

 President having spoken, the question was no longer 

 a living issue. The Federation accordingly passed 

 out of existence, and I soon left for home, declining 

 various invitations to speak on the road, it being 

 neither wise nor reasonable to oppose in any way the 

 established policy of the nation. 



There was now nothing to do but accept the situa- 

 tion and turn all our efforts toward winning the war 

 with the least possible sacrifice of the principles of 

 democracy. In this attempt, as in the other, we led 

 a forlorn hope. It is often said that democratic 

 government is not adapted for war making; con- 

 trariwise, war making is no fit work for democracy. 

 The two cannot permanently exist together, a fact 

 trenchantly emphasized in Marcel Sembat's volume 

 (1913), *' Make a King or Make Peace ! " ^ Democracy 



Another 



forlorn 



hope 



' Faites un Roi ou faites la Paix : 



I 734 3 



