would rather die a decent man's death."

He went a step nearer to the Burglar, who quickly backed away.

"Come," the Householder continued, "let us bandy compliments no longer.
You are where you have no right to be. You can talk when I get you
before the Judge. I want Peace no more than I want Justice. While there
is a God in heaven and honest freemen still live on earth I will fight
for both."

He took a fresh grip on his club, and the Burglar backed again, ready to
spring.

Through the dead silence of the room there came a loud knocking at the
door. Could it be the big neighbor from across the lake?

Chapter VI

STAND FAST, YE FREE!

I

From the outset of this war two things have been clear to me.

First, if the war continued it was absolutely inevitable that the United
States would be either drawn into it by the impulse of democratic
sympathies or forced into it by the instinct of self-preservation.

Second, the most adequate person in the world to decide when and how the
United States should accept the great responsibility of fighting beside
France and Great Britain for peace and for the American ideal of freedom
was President Wilson.

His sagacity, his patience, his knowledge of the varied elements that
are blended in our nationality, his sincere devotion to pacific
conceptions of progress, his unwavering loyalty to the cause of liberty
secured by law, national and international, made him the one man of all
others to whom this great decision could most safely be confided.

The people of the United States believed this in the election of 1916.
They trusted him sincerely then because "he kept us out of the war"
until the inevitable hour. No less sincerely do they trust him now when
he declares that the hour has come when we must "dedicate our lives and
our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have"
(President's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917), to defend ourselves
and the world from the Imperial German Government, which is waging "a
warfare against mankind."

In the quiet, but never idle, American Legation at The Hague there was
an excellent opportunity to observe and study the incredible blunders by
which Germany led us, and the unspeakable insults and injuries by which
she compelled us, to enter the war.

Our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine was, at first, an obstacle to that
entrance. Believing that European governments ought not to interfere in
domestic affairs on the