a power for order merely, not
an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.

"And the paths of the sea must, alike in law and in fact, be free. The
freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and
co-operation.

[Sidenote: Question of limiting armaments.]

"It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armament
and the co-operation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at
once free and safe. And the question of limiting naval armaments opens
the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of
armies and of all programs of military preparation. * * * There can be
no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great
preponderating armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be
built up and maintained.

[Sidenote: How peace must be made secure.]

"Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely
necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of
the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged
or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable
combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If the peace
presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the
organized major force of mankind."

[Sidenote: Entente peoples welcome President Wilson's views.]

[Sidenote: The German note to Mexico.]

If there were any doubt in our minds as to which of the great alliances
was the more in sympathy with these ideals, it was removed by the
popular response abroad to this address of the President. For, while
exception was taken to some parts of it in Britain and France, it was
plain that so far as the peoples of the Entente were concerned the
President had been amply justified in stating that he spoke for all
forward-looking, liberal-minded men and women. It was not so in Germany.
The people there who could be reached, and whose hearts were stirred by
this enunciation of the principles of a people's peace, were too few or
too oppressed to make their voices heard in the councils of their
nation. Already, on January 16, 1917, unknown to the people of Germany,
Herr Zimmermann, their Secretary of Foreign Affairs, had secretly
dispatched a note to their Minister in Mexico, informing him of the
German intention to repudiate the _Sussex_ pledge and instructing him to
offer to the Mexican Government New Mexico and Arizona if Mexico would
join with Japan i