i8 
Land & Water 
May 2, 1 91 8 
I again venture to call dramatic necessity, we are carried 
stage by stage from the moment when the President declared 
"there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight" 
to the last sentence of his speech the other day : "There is 
therefore but one response possible from us : force, force to 
the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and 
triumphant force which shall make right the law of the 
world, and cast every selfish dominion down into the dust." 
Thus was Wilson the peace-maker turned into Wilson the 
war-maker. The "diNanity that shapes our ends" is clearly 
accountable for the transition, and the worid may rejoice 
that it found in the President an instrument amenable to its 
guidance. He stands out to-day as the foremost interpreter 
of the international mind. 
Dealings with Mexico 
The authors of the admirable book to which I have referred 
have done well to interweave with their narrative the almost 
synchronous story of the President's dealings with Mexico, 
for the two things throw light upon one another. If a 
guarantee were needed for the entire sincerity of Mr. Wikon's 
professions it could be found in the record of the Mexican 
transactions. These had given rise to the notion among his 
European critics, and also, I think, among not a few of his 
fellow-countrymen, that he was an impracticable idealist. 
We now know that his Mexican policy and his European 
policy were intimately related. They sprang from the same 
root, and had the same guiding idea. Judged by the stan- 
dards which most conquering Powers have applied to their 
actions, Mr. Wilson would have been«fully justified in making 
war upon Mexico for the purpose of restoring order, if for 
nothing else. There were many Liberal statesmen in other 
countries who found his attitude hard to understand, and in 
some instances openly condemned it, and there is little doubt 
that he would have raised his general reputation as a states- 
man — at least, for a time — if he had pursued a "stronger" 
policy. We now know, however, and by the clearest of 
evidence, that the "impracticable idealism" which kept him 
out of war with Mexico was identically the same with that 
which later on brought him into war with Germany. As in 
the later so in the earlier problem, the question Mr. Wilson 
set himself to answer was how can the American Republic 
hdp — how can it best serve the interests of the rich but 
disordered and miserable country which fate has assigned 
as its neighbour ? 
There were abundant precedents for intervention to which 
Mr. Wilson might have appealed without the slightest 
fear that his credit would suffer. He came to the con- 
clusion, however, that the best service the United States 
could render to Mexico was to respect her integrity and 
independence, and leave her to work out her own salvation. 
To the argument that Mexico was incapable of doing this, 
and that neither her integrity nor her independence was 
worthy of respect he consistently turned a deaf ear ; nor 
was he much more attentive to the various commercial 
interests that were involved. 
As one reads the story in the light of later events, one is 
tempted to believe that some kindJy genius was warning. the 
President of the situation he would shortly have to face. 
For, if he had acted on the lines demanded by his critics, he 
would not only have tied up a considerable part of the 
national resources at a time wlien they were all wanted for 
a far graver enterprise, but he would have seemed to be 
.acting on the accursed principle which underlies the creed 
of Germany, and so deprived the Allies of the enormous 
moral force which the entry of .America into the war has 
conferred on the common cause. Had Mexico been within 
striking distance of German aggression there is not a doubt 
she would have been fonquered, exploited, and enslaved. 
We well regret that Mekico is still in the condition of chaos, 
and may possibly remain so for some time to come. But 
this is as nothing compared with the fact that President 
Wilson has clean hands. 
I cannot refrain from thinking, however, tliat the Presi- 
dent's experience with Mexico may be in some measure 
accountable for what I wiU venture to call a certain limita- 
tion of vision in his view of " the smaller and weaker nations" 
— a limitation he shares with many who have less excuse 
for displaying it. In his public utterances, especially in 
those which refer to the League of Peace, he constantly 
tends to speak of these small nations as though they were 
satisfied with their present smallness and nurtured no designs 
of expansion at the expense of their neighbours — a descrip- 
tion which is true of some of them and possibly of Mexico 
and of other Latin-American States with which the President 
has been brought into more immediate contact. Whether 
or no I am right in assigning this as the cause — and perhaps 
I am totally wrong-there can be no doubt that Mr. Wilson's 
LbTt of mind incUnes him to think of smaU States as needmg 
rather protection than restraint. , . ^ ^. . , , , „ 
Sand again we find him refernng to the nght of small 
States to develop their own hfe in their own way and of the 
duty of great States to protect them '^ th.« "ght^ Unfor- 
tunately however, there are some smal States whose out- 
standing characteristic is the desire to become big ones at 
the expense of their neighbours, and whose notion of l.vmg 
their own hfe in their own way takes precisely that form. 
Small States of this character-and there are several of them— 
are among the chief troublers of the peace of the worid ; 
and it would be difficult for Powers wliich were once small 
ones themselves, and have grown great by conquest to 
make a rule forbidding the present smaU Powers from follow- 
ing their own example, and the first attempts to enforce 
such a rule would certainly lead to some embarrassing re- 
minders, and perhaps to some bitter taunts. But here again 
the Wstory of the United States has been very different from 
that of the other great Powers. She would be immune— or 
almost immune— from the taunts to which the others would 
be exposed And this perhaps may also accoxmt, in part, 
for the fact that Mr. Wilson shows a tendency to overlook 
the difficulty. No doubt the difficulty would be largely 
overcome if it were the lot of the United States to exercise 
a dominaring influence in the League of Narions. And this 
we may very well believe to be her destiny. "Amenca," 
asserted President Wilson, in May, 1915. "was created to 
unite mankind." .,, , , ^ , 
That the rights of great nations are entitled to respect only 
when they are translated into corresponding duties to man- 
kind is a principle wliich the guiding minds of the British 
Empire are prepared to accept. Our people have long 
been famihar with "the White Man's Burden," and all that 
Mr. Wilson has said about America as the uniter of nations is, 
if I mistake not, only a wider application of the principle 
which underlies that phrase. He speaks a language we 
understand, and he will find us ready to join hands with 
him, and with his countrymen, in united effort to realise his 
great ideal of international service. It is not enough that 
an aUiance should exist between America and Great Britain. 
It is essential that it should be guided by a clear and lofty 
principle of action. This principle Mr. Wilson has supplied, 
and he has stated it in a form which expresses the best 
elements of our own political aspirations. The effect has been 
not only to increase our confidence in the outcome of the 
war, and to give us a new assurance that we stand upon the 
rock, but to open out a great prospect of future service to 
humanity in which America and Great Britain will be joined 
hand to hand. Only when nations are united on the highest 
ground can we say that they are united at all. It is to the 
highest ground that Mr. Wilson has raised our aUiance, and 
so long as we stand there together this alliance will remain 
indissoluble. 
I have spoken of President Wilson's mind as having evolved 
its present character. It is a war-mind evolved from a 
peace-mind, the most dangerous sort of mind for an enemy 
to encounter. But we should make a mistake if we were to 
assume that Mr. Wilson's evolution will be arrested at its 
present stage. It will unquestionably go on to further 
developments. What precisely these will be it is, of course, 
impossible to say ; but we may be sure that they will follow 
the general course of his evolution up to date. This has 
taken the form of making clear and explicit in liis later 
policy what was hidden and implicit in his earlier pxjlicy. 
In forecasting the line of his future influence we should do 
well, therefore, to ask which of his present principles contains 
the largest implications, for he is certain to develop them 
as time goes on. My own choice would be for the principle^ 
contained in his saying that America's purpose in going to 
war is "to make the world safe for democracy." Making 
the world safe for democracy involves much more than is 
apparent at first sight. The first requirement is, of course, 
the overthrow of autocratic domination ; for it is certain 
that, so long as democracy is entangled with autocracy in a 
common system of international relations, autocracy will call 
the tune and war will be a perpetual menace to mankind. 
For the time being we need think of nothing else ; but when 
this has been accomplished we shall have to go much further 
if Mr. Wilson's ideal of a world "safe for democracy" is to 
be made good. 
I beheve that Mr. Wilson is fully prepared for this, and that 
he will develop his principle when the time is ripe. Punch, 
in a famous cartoon, unconsciously hit the nail, when it 
exhibited the White House with a closed door, on which the 
words were written : " The President is thinking." Yes, he 
was thinking to some purpose, and he is thinking still. So 
are we. 
