affair. It was the only course he
could take without an abrupt departure from our most treasured
traditions of non-interference in Old World disputes. But the sympathy
of America went out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and from
every section of our land money contributions and supplies of food and
clothing poured over to the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was
under the able management of our fellow-countrymen abroad.

Still, the thought of taking an active part in this European war was
very far from most of our minds. The nation shared with the President
the belief that by maintaining a strict neutrality we could best serve
Europe at the end as impartial mediators.

[Sidenote: Complication on the seas imperils American neutrality.]

But in the very first days of the war our Government foresaw that
complications on the seas might put us in grave risk of being drawn into
the conflict. No neutral nation could foretell what violations of its
vital interests at sea might be attempted by the belligerents. And so,
on August 6, 1914, our Secretary of State dispatched an identical note
to all the powers then at war, calling attention to the risk of serious
trouble arising out of this uncertainty of neutrals as to their maritime
rights, and proposing that the Declaration of London be accepted by all
nations for the duration of the war.

[Sidenote: German Government stirs opinion hostile to United States.]

[Sidenote: American policy not inconsistent with American traditions.]

In the first year of the war the Government of Germany stirred up among
its people a feeling of resentment against the United States on account
of our insistence upon our right as a neutral nation to trade in
munitions with the belligerent powers. Our legal right in the matter was
not seriously questioned by Germany. She could not have done so
consistently, for as recently as the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 both
Germany and Austria sold munitions to the belligerents. Their appeals to
us in the present war were not to observe international law, but to
revise it in their interest. And these appeals they tried to make on
moral and humanitarian grounds. But upon "the moral issue" involved, the
stand taken by the United States was consistent with its traditional
policy and with obvious common sense.

For, if, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell munitions to
belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain
munitions