ancing steps rather than the issues of the
European war. Cabarets were crowded and seats for midnight beauty shows
must be secured well in advance or by means of gargantuan tips to
plutocratic head waiters. Much of the materialism was simply external. In
every town American women by the thousand gave lavishly of their time and
strength to knit and roll bandages for the fighters and wounded overseas.
America was collecting millions for the relief of Belgium, Serbia, and
for the Red Cross. The American Ambulance in France was served by men
imbued with the spirit of sacrifice. Thousands of American youths
enlisted in the Canadian forces. The general atmosphere of the country,
however, was heavy with amusement and money-making. Not yet did America
fully realize that the war was a struggle of ideals which must concern
every one closely. In such an atmosphere the idealistic policy of Wilson
was not easily understood.

The President himself cannot escape a large share of the blame for
America's blindness to the issue. During the first twelve months of the
war, when the country looked to him for leadership, he had, purposely or
otherwise, fostered the forces of pacifism and encouraged the advocates
of national isolation. He had underlined the separation of the United
States from everything that went on in Europe and insisted that in the
issues of the war the American people had no interest. In deference to
the spirit of pacifism that engrossed the Middle West, he had opposed the
movement for military preparedness. When, late in 1915, Wilson changed
his attitude and attempted to arouse the country to a sense of American
interest in world affairs and to the need of preparing to accept
responsibility, he encountered the opposition of forces which he himself
had helped to vitalize.

Popular education, especially upon the Atlantic coast, was further
hampered by the personal irritation which the President aroused. Disliked
when inaugurated, he had attracted bitter enmity among the business men
who dominate opinion in New England and the Eastern States. They accused
him of truckling to labor. They were wearied by his idealism, which
seemed to them all words and no deeds. They regarded his handling of
foreign affairs, whether in the Mexican or submarine crises, as weak and
vacillating. He was, in Rooseveltian nomenclature, a "pussyfooter." Hence
grew up the tradition, which was destined to endure among many elements
of opinion, that e