rite these words, after the Italian
retreat, a second revolution seems possible. For three years one has
thought inevitably of 1789, and of the ensuing world conflict out
of which issued the beginnings of democracy. History does not repeat
itself, yet evolution is fairly consistent. While our attention has been
focused on the military drama enacted before our eyes and recorded in
the newspapers, another drama, unpremeditated but of vastly greater
significance, is unfolding itself behind the stage. Never in the history
of the world were generals and admirals, statesmen and politicians so
sensitive to or concerned about public opinion as they are today. From
a military point of view the situation of the Allies at the present
writing is far from reassuring. Germany and her associates have the
advantage of interior lines, of a single dominating and purposeful
leadership, while our five big nations, democracies or semi-democracies,
are stretched in a huge ring with precarious connections on land, with
the submarine alert on the sea. Much of their territory is occupied.
They did not seek the war; they still lack co-ordination and leadership
in waging it. In some of these countries, at least, politicians and
statesmen are so absorbed by administrative duties, by national rather
than international problems, by the effort to sustain themselves, that
they have little time for allied strategy. Governments rise and fall,
familiar names and reputations are juggled about like numbered balls in
a shaker, come to the top to be submerged again in a new 'emeute'. There
are conferences and conferences without end. Meanwhile a social ferment
is at work, in Russia conspicuously, in Italy a little less so, in
Germany and Austria undoubtedly, in France and England, and even in our
own country--once of the most radical in the world, now become the most
conservative.

What form will the social revolution take? Will it be unbridled,
unguided; will it run through a long period of anarchy before the
fermentation begun shall have been completed, or shall it be handled, in
all the nations concerned, by leaders who understand and sympathize with
the evolutionary trend, who are capable of controlling it, of taking
the necessary international steps of co-operation in order that it
may become secure and mutually beneficial to all? This is an age of
co-operation, and in this at least, if not in other matters, the United
States of America is in an ideal p