i6 
LAND & WATER 
April 5, 1917 
national mitlook upon tlic war. He fli.d not libel the 
national outlook. He spoke once more as the repre- 
sentative of tlie real Americanism. He was influenced 
by two things, the knowledge that his people desired 
peace for humanitarian and also material reasons and 
txvause they feared rouiplications it the war rontintied. 
Doubtless, too, he had passionate visions of a " war- 
less " world with himself as its godfather. He would have 
been neither htiman nor an intellectual l.iberal had it 
been otherwise. Also as A quasi-pacifist he probably 
belie\ed the warring people "^ere more ready for peace 
than their Cfovernments allfivved it to appear and that his 
pamphleteering might encourage them to make them- 
selves felt. But he is not pro-German if he happens 
in that respect -to have interpreted current Teutonic 
yearnings better than the determination of the Allied 
peoples. His address to the Senate can be regarded 
as the most unneutral document that he has produced. 
He enunciated principles which our rulers could accept 
logically but the acceptance of which by the rulers of 
Germany would mean confession of defeat. " Peace with- 
out victory " simply meant' that he was urging the Allies 
not to use their victory ruthlessly. • Most of the rest of 
his speech was devoted to showing Germany that he was 
out of svmpatln- with her ]>racticed policies. But. it 
may be "objected, his reference to freedom of the seas 
was Teutonic doctrine. It is difficult to see how it can 
be so interpreted when read in juxtaposition with the 
enunciation of the Peace League scheme. 
The Peace League 
So far as the United States is concerned it is rnore 
than doubtful whether,, for years at any rate, this or 
any other Government will be able to make effective 
American participation in a Peace League. Century old 
.traditions about the avoidance of entangling alliances 
with Europe and about the glorious isolation of the 
hemisphere do not fall ,o,ve!awght even before the reper- 
cussion of such a conflict as the present. Already the 
Senate and a large section of public opinion is in anns 
against the idea. But that makes the President's peace 
.dream none the less signili'cant. It was a bold and 
imaginative eftort to crvstalUze constructively what Mr. 
Wilson belie\ed to be the feeling of the country, that 
war is the abomination of desolation, a thing to be shuniied 
at all costs. Having carefully followed public opinion 
' in his actual war diplomacy he took the liberty when 
dealing with schemes for the future to go a little ahead of it. 
He believed that he could educate it. 
The rupture with Germany and its aftermath of 
anxious and apparently purposeless waiting must be 
judged in the same way. The President dismissed 
Count von Bemstorff because he had no choice after the 
Sussex note. He was ubiquitously applauded for his 
'decision. Nobodv liked the possibilty of getting on 
..the other cheek "a blow like that projected by the 
Prussian proclamation of January 31st. Then came a long 
and inexplicable delay. The California was sunk and 
nothing happened : the Turino was sunk and nothing 
liappened : the American Ambassador in. Berlin was 
insulted and nothing happened. American vessels were 
hold in port in deference to the Prussian blockade. It 
was semi-oflicially stated that if the war came it would 
only be a state "of war, a kind of "denatured" war, 
a war of limited liability in which the I'nited States 
would merely take steps to protect her violated interests. 
Such a war" may still come. If it comes and still more 
if it is avoided, it will be alike because the President is still 
true to his Liberal conception of Government. He knows 
that the people do not yet want to fight. He knows 
that they are suffering under an incubus of provincial 
obscurantism and individualistic materialism. He knows 
that the West is still not vitally interested in the war ; 
that Prussian aspirations seem unreal to those whose 
horizon is always the prairies and the mountains and never 
the seas, and that in places where Ulysses might have 
planted his oar the idea of bloodshed on behalf of those 
who have been foolish enough to go down to dangerous 
waters, probably in the " floating palaces " of alien 
steamship lines, ">;eems strangely impossible. He knows 
in fact that the voices of those who clamour for war and 
bora+e his b.g.gard tendencies represent the American 
democracy no" more than Lord Roberts and his group 
represented ours four years ago. If your readers want 
( old facts instead of generalizations, let them ponder the 
election returns of last November. They will find that 
President Wilson was carried back into power, by a small 
margin, it is true, but against an undivided ojjposition 
nopmaliy vastly stronger than his party by the appeal 
of the cries " Hi^ kTpt us out of the war "and " Peace and 
]irosperity with Wilson, war and misery with Hughes." 
An unedifying state of affairs perhaps. But can we quar- 
rel with it ? What would have happen^ in August, 1914. 
hadXiermany had the sense to leaVe*>'BeIgium inviolate, 
had our co-operation with France and Russia been pos- 
tulated by nothing more solid than a \-aguely apprehended 
expediency and by equally vague references to the need 
of seBving humanity, 'ihe President's leadership might 
have been at fault. A Roosevelt with his Sense of large 
issues, his cospomolitanism, and liis .compelling character 
might have been the betlicr man for the crisis. That is 
a question which political psychologists may be allowed 
to wrangle over. The immediate pwint is that the 
President has not, according to his lights, done so badly 
as his critics on both sides of the waiter think. He has 
represented consistently the opinion of his country. 
He has led it in the right direction, albeit slowly. Take 
his Peace League address to the Senate with its realiza- 
tion of tjic world responsibilities of the United States, 
of her direct interest in the issues if not so much in the 
issues of the war, and compare it with the above- 
mentioned proclamation of August, 1914. 
Mtich of course remains to be done. Unless Prussian 
pirates again apply the goad of sheer and spectacular 
savagery and stir public opinion, it is quite possible 
that whether peace is preserved or a " state of war " 
declared, people at home will be disappointed by the upshot 
of the crisis. If so. they should not blame the President. 
Tlic fault lies rather with the geograj^hical position of the 
United States and with the traditions of aloofness that it 
has engendered, and with the accident that Liberalism 
is in the ascendancy here, the.sante kind of Liberahsm 
that took us, after some days of shameful hesitation, 
unjM-epared into the war. " If the Allies go down." 
Ml", Wilson is reported to have said<#t the beginning of 
the conflict " it will be all over with the ideals that have 
made my career worth while." The remark may be 
apocryphal ; but there can be little dpubt that it repre- 
sents the view that has steadily underlain his official 
neutrality. It is a view that will probably get freer play 
in the future, always with the limitations imposed by the 
fact that as a Mid- Victorian Liberal of Wordsworthiau 
tendencies, Mr. Wilson feels bound to represent in his 
policies and not outstrip in actualities the . will of a 
country which the echoes of the war are only just causing 
to turn on its transatlantic couch. The President, there 
is reason to believe, realizes very clearly what is at stake 
in Europe for the world and for the United States, but 
he realizes also that, autocrat -as he is, his power is based 
on his ability not to lead but to interpret and shepherd 
into something useful the conflicting ideals and traditions 
of a people still largely \Vorld ignorant. 
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