ting. Either they were
invaded or were threatened with invasion. Either they dreaded the loss
of prestige or territory or coveted some kind or degree of national
aggrandisement. Even Australia and Canada, who had little or nothing
to gain from fighting, could not have refused to fight without severing
their connection with the British Empire, and behaving in a manner
which would have been considered treacherous by their fellow Britons.
But the American people were not forced into the war either by fears or
hopes or previously recognised obligations. On the contrary, the
ponderable and tangible realities of the immediate situation counselled
neutrality. They were revolted by the hideous brutality of the war and
its colossal waste. Participation must be purchased with a similarly
colossal diversion of American energy from constructive to destructive
work, the imposition of a similarly heavy burden upon the future
production of American labour. It implied the voluntary surrender of
many of those advantages which had tempted our ancestors to cross the
Atlantic and settle in the New World. As against these certain costs
there were no equally tangible compensations. The legal rights of
American citizens were, it is true, being violated, and the structure
of international law with which American security was traditionally
associated was being shivered, but the nation had weathered a similar
storm during the Napoleonic Wars and at that time participation in the
conflict had been wholly unprofitable. By spending a small portion of
the money which will have to be spent in helping the Allies to beat
Germany, upon preparations exclusively for defence, the American nation
could have protected for the time being the inviolability of its own
territory and its necessary communications with the Panama Canal. Many
considerations of national egotism counselled such a policy. But
although the Hearst newspapers argued most persuasively on behalf of
this course it did not prevail. The American nation allowed itself to
be captured by those upon whom the more remote and less tangible
reasons for participation acted with compelling authority. For the
first time in history a wholly independent nation has entered a great
and costly war under the influence of ideas rather than immediate
interests and without any expectation of gains, except those which can
be shared with all liberal and inoffensive nations.
"The United States might
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