standing. These abysses must be
bridged. We must break the fetters of ancient destiny which shackle
these peoples to nationalist wars; which have compelled them, century
after century, to rush blindly upon one another for their mutual
destruction. Unaided, they cannot break their chains. They are calling
for help. But whither can they turn for help?

You alone, Monsieur le President, among all those whose dread duty it
now is to guide the policy of the nations, you alone enjoy a world-wide
moral authority. You inspire universal confidence. Answer the appeal of
these passionate hopes! Take the hands which are stretched forth, help
them to clasp one another. Help these peoples, groping in the dark, to
find their way, to establish the new charter of freedom and union whose
principles they are seeking earnestly but confusedly.

Reflect: Europe is in danger of falling back into the circles of hell
through which she has been toiling for more than four years, drenching
the soil with her blood. In all lands, the peoples have lost confidence
in the ruling classes. At this hour, you are the only one who can speak
to all alike--to the common people and to the bourgeoisies of the
nations. You alone can be sure of an attentive hearing. None but you can
act as mediator to-day (and will even you still be able to act as
mediator to-morrow?). Should this mediator fail to appear, the human
masses, disarrayed and unbalanced, will almost inevitably break forth
into excesses. The common people will welter in bloody chaos, while the
parties of traditional order will fly to bloody reaction. Class wars,
racial wars, wars between the nations of yesterday, wars between the
nations which have just been formed, blind social convulsions, with no
further aim than the gratification of the hatreds, the envies, the crazy
dreams of an hour of life looking forward to no morrow....

Heir of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, take up the cause, not of
a party, not of a single people, but of all! Summon the representatives
of the peoples to the Congress of Mankind! Preside over it with the full
authority which you hold in virtue of your lofty moral consciousness and
in virtue of the great future of America! Speak, speak to all! The world
hungers for a voice which will overleap the frontiers of nations and of
classes. Be the arbiter of the free peoples! Thus may the future hail
you by the name of Reconciler!

ROMAIN ROLLAND.

VILLENEUVE, _November 9