One of the first things which seemed to appeal to President Wilson was the fact that not only public opinion of Europe, but of America, sought a spokesman.  Unlike Roosevelt, who led public opinion, unlike Taft, who disregarded it, Wilson took the attitude that the greatest force in the world was public opinion.  He believed public opinion was greater than the presidency.  He felt that he was the man the American people had chosen to interpret and express their opinion.  Wilson’s policy was to permit public opinion to rule America.  Those of us who spent two years in Germany could see this very clearly.

The President announced the plank for his international policy when he spoke at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, at Washington, shortly after the war began.

[Illustration:  First page of the author’s passport.]

“The opinion of the world is the mistress of the world,” he said, “and the processes of international law are the slow processes by which opinion works its will.  What impresses me is the constant thought that that is the tribunal at the bar of which we all sit.  I would call your attention, incidentally, to the circumstance that it does not observe the ordinary rules of evidence; which has sometimes suggested to me that the ordinary rules of evidence had shown some signs of growing antique.  Everything, rumour included, is heard in this court, and the standard of judgment is not so much the character of the testimony as the character of the witness.  The motives are disclosed, the purposes are conjectured and that opinion is finally accepted which seems to be, not the best founded in law, perhaps, but the best founded in integrity of character and of morals.  That is the process which is slowly working its will upon the world; and what we should be watchful of is not so much jealous interests as sound principles of action.  The disinterested course is not alone the biggest course to pursue; but it is in the long run the most profitable course to pursue.  If you can establish your character you can establish your credit.

“Understand me, gentlemen, I am not venturing in this presence to impeach the law.  For the present, by the force of circumstances, I am in part the embodiment of the law and it would be very awkward to disavow myself.  But I do wish to make this intimation, that in this time of world change, in this time when we are going to find out just how, in what particulars, and to what extent the real facts of human life and the real moral judgments of mankind prevail, it is worth while looking inside our municipal law and seeing whether the judgments of the law are made square with the moral judgments of mankind.  For I believe that we are custodians of the spirit of righteousness, of the spirit of equal handed justice, of the spirit of hope which believes in the perfectibility of the law with the perfectibility of human life itself.