cession so humiliating and so woeful. Judgment at last overtook the
murderers who gloated over the _Lusitania_! But supposing Germany had
won, what then? The first condition would have been the surrender of
the British fleet at Kiel. And we would have no choice; for a starving
nation must sacrifice everything to feed its children. But what would
have happened then? Think of the Emperor William master of the British
and French fleets as well as his own. What would have become of the
Monroe Doctrine next morning? What would have become of the scores he
had to settle about the supplying of munitions to his foes? In face of
the might confronting her, America would have been helpless. New York
would have been given to the flames if America came not to heel. We
saved the great Republic as well as France and ourselves. And now,
having given our sons and our treasure, we are being bled white that we
may pay America for the munitions which we used in her defence. These
payments are earmarked for the payment of American war-pensions! The
world has never seen so grotesque a situation. The protected and the
delivered demand that their protectors and deliverers should pay for
the privilege of protecting and delivering them! What is at the back
of so preposterous a state of things? It is this, that there is the
shadow of a Presidential Election looming ahead, and the cancelling of
the debts guaranteed by Britain would be unpopular. One can quite
realise the use the Irish orators would make of that. We forget that
Anglophobia is still the staple of American history as taught in her
schools. The Boston Tea Party and the War of Independence were due to
British vices and the triumph of American virtues. To cancel the debts
for which such a nation is responsible would be to repudiate the makers
of America! ... What is required, of course, is the right education of
the American democracy. Schools should teach that it is impossible in
so imperfect a world that all the right can be on one side. Yet that
is how history is taught, not only there but here. Our foes also were
always wrong! There will be no peace in the world until the spirit of
spread-eagleism is replaced by that of meekness; until nations and men
realise that we are members one of another, and that we are here to
help and serve each other. Until that new spirit breathes through the
masses of humanity, there will be war. And we shall have to endure.
We w