on the life of the
moment, which alone seems sure. The future promises so little that even
the most hopeful pause on its threshold, hesitant, and scarce daring to
penetrate its mystery.

The war showed the impotence of the present order to assure even a
reasonable measure of human happiness and well-being. Of what profit the
material benefits of a civilization that takes a toll of thirty-five
millions of lives and that wrecks the economic machinery of a continent
in four short years? Yet the failure of the revolutionary forces to
avail themselves of the opportunity presented by the war proved the
unreadiness of the masses to throw off the yoke of the old regime and to
lay the foundations of a new order. The world rulers painted a picture
of liberated humanity that led tens of millions to fight with the
assurance that victory would make that hope a reality. The workers
yearned for the social revolution and for the establishment of the
co-operative commonwealth with its promise of equality and fraternity.
But the events that staggered the world between 1914 and 1920 shattered
both ideals.

Now that the terrible conflict has ceased, we pause and reflect.
Millions are weary, millions are old, millions are broken, millions are
disappointed, and the weary ones, the old ones, the broken ones and the
disappointed ones have lost their vision and have abandoned their faith.
Yet life sweeps on--its unity unimpaired, its continuity unbroken, its
force unchecked, its vigor unabated. Multitudes have been born since the
end of the Great War, and other multitudes, who were babes in arms when
the Great War began, are growing into young manhood and womanhood. The
war, with its hardships and its fearful losses, is history. The present,
merging endlessly with the future, makes of each day a to-morrow in
which hundreds of millions of those who now inhabit the earth will live.

How?

That is the question which the world to-day faces. The answer is in our
hands.

2. _Economic Needs_

Humanity has always been face to face with the bread and butter problem
because people must have food and clothing and a roof over their heads
or pay the penalty in physical suffering. Under the present world order,
for lack of these simple economic requirements, millions of
poverty-stricken workers perish each year, of slow starvation and
exposure in Paris, London, Chicago, Tokyo; of famine in China, Egypt and
India.

Some issues present themselv