If undertaken with largeness of spirit, it would become the capital of the world.  And the Old World looks to America to do this service, because it is the one which it cannot do for itself.  Its old historic jealousies and squabbles, from which America is so happily detached, prevent any one power taking up and putting through this work of organization, but America could do it, and do it so effectively that from it might well flow this organization of that common action of all the nations against any recalcitrant member of which I have spoken as a means of enforcing non-militarily a common decision.

It is this world State which it should be the business of America during the next decade or two to co-ordinate, to organize.  Its organization will not come into being as the result of a week-end talk between Ambassadors.  There will be difficulties, material as well as moral, jealousies to overcome, suspicions to surmount.  But this war places America in a more favorable position than any one European power.  The older powers would be less suspicious of her than of any one among their number.  America has infinitely greater material resources, she has a greater gift for improvised organization, she is less hidebound by old traditions, more disposed to make an attempt along new lines.

That is the most terrifying thing about the proposal which I make—­it has never been tried.  But the very difficulties constitute for America also an immense opportunity.  We have had nations give their lives and the blood of their children for a position of supremacy and superiority.  But we are in a position of superiority and supremacy which for the most part would be welcomed by the world as a whole and which would not demand of America the blood of one of her children.  It would demand some enthusiasm, some moral courage, some sustained effort, faith, patience, and persistence.  It would establish new standards in, and let us hope a new kind of, international rivalry.

One word as to a starting point and a possible line of progress.  The first move toward the ending of this present war may come from America.  The President of the United States will probably act as mediator.  The terms of peace will probably be settled in Washington.  Part of the terms of peace to be exacted by the Allies will probably be, as I have already hinted, some sort of assurance against future danger from German militarist aggression.

The German, rightly or wrongly, does not believe that he has been the aggressor—­it is not a question at all of whether he is right or wrong; it is a question of what he believes.  And he believes quite honestly and sincerely that he is merely defending himself.  So what he will be mainly concerned about in the future is his security from the victorious Allies.