ss and partnership
between nations, even as democracy implies cooperation between
individual citizens. Therefore President Wilson laid down the doctrine
that American citizens enter Mexico at their own risk; that they must
not expert that American blood will be shed or the nation's money be
expended to protect their lives or the "property" they have acquired
from Mexican dictators. This applies also to the small capitalists,
the owners of the coffee plantations, as well as to those Americans in
Mexico who are not capitalists but wage earners. The people of Mexico
are entitled to try the experiment of self-determination. It is an
experiment, we frankly acknowledge that fact, a democratic experiment
dependent on physical science, social science, and scientific education.
The other horn of the dilemma, our persistence in imperialism, is even
worse--since by such persistence we destroy ourselves.

A subjective judgment, in accordance with our own democratic standards,
by the American Government as to the methods employed by a Huerta, for
instance, is indeed demanded; not on the ground, however, that such
methods are "good" or "bad"; but whether they are detrimental to Mexican
self-determination, and hence to the progress of our own democracy.

II.

If America had started to prepare when Belgium was invaded, had entered
the war when the Lusitania was sunk, Germany might by now have been
defeated, hundreds of thousands of lives might have been spared. All
this may be admitted. Yet, looking backward, it is easy to read the
reason for our hesitancy in our national character and traditions.
We were pacifists, yes, but pacifists of a peculiar kind. One of our
greatest American prophets, William James, knew that there was an issue
for which we were ready to fight, for which we were willing to make the
extreme sacrifice,--and that issue he defined as "war against war." It
remained for America to make the issue.

Peoples do not rush to arms unless their national existence is
threatened. It is what may be called the environmental cause that drives
nations quickly into war. It drove the Entente nations into war, though
incidentally they were struggling for certain democratic institutions,
for international justice. But in the case of America, the environmental
cause was absent. Whether or not our national existence was or is
actually threatened, the average American does not believe that it is.
He was called upon to abandon