ty of the British monarchy lies in such a courageous severance
of its destinies from the Teutonic dynastic system. Will it make that
severance? There I share an almost universal ignorance. The loyalty of
the British is not to what kings are too prone to call "my person," not
to a chosen and admired family, but to a renascent mankind. We have
fought in this war for Belgium, for France, for general freedom, for
civilization and the whole future of mankind, far more than for
ourselves. We have not fought for a king. We are discovering in that
spirit of human unity that lies below the idea of a League of Free
Nations the real invisible king of our heart and race. But we will very
gladly go on with our task under a nominal king unless he hampers us in
the task that grows ever more plainly before us. ... That, I think, is a
fair statement of British public opinion on this question. But every day
when I am in London I walk past Buckingham Palace to lunch at my club,
and I look at that not very expressive facade and wonder--and we all
wonder--what thoughts are going on behind it and what acts are being
conceived there. Out of it there might yet come some gesture of
acceptance magnificent enough to set beside President Wilson's
magnificent declaration of war. ...

These are things in the scales of fate. I will not pretend to be able to
guess even which way the scales will swing.

VIII

THE PLAIN NECESSITY FOR A LEAGUE

Great as the sacrifices of prejudice and preconception which any
effective realization of this idea of a League of Free Nations will
demand, difficult as the necessary delegations of sovereignty must be,
none the less are such sacrifices and difficulties unavoidable. People
in France and Italy and Great Britain and Germany alike have to subdue
their minds to the realization that some such League is now a necessity
for them if their peace and national life are to continue. There is no
prospect before them but either some such League or else great
humiliation and disastrous warfare driving them down towards social
dissolution; and for the United States it is only a question of a little
longer time before the same alternatives have to be faced.

Whether this war ends in the complete defeat of Germany and German
imperialism, or in a revolutionary modernization of Germany, or in a
practical triumph for the Hohenzollerns, are considerations that affect
the nature and scope of the League, but do not affect i