Should Germany make England impotent and France powerless we should become more or less dependent upon German good-will, and it is highly probable, indeed I regard it as a certainty, that before long, in such an event, the Monroe Doctrine would cease to exercise any important influence on world events.  It would become a thing of the past—­a “scrap of paper.”

You see that while I am not neutral to the extreme, while I fervently hope and pray that Germany may not be wrecked and that she may emerge from the war with full ability to maintain her own, I cannot believe that it would be good for her or good for the world in general if she found herself absolutely and incontrovertibly victorious at the end of the great struggle.  In other words, I wish Germany to be victorious, but I do not wish her to be too victorious.

This brings us definitely to the question as to what can be done to stop this war.  Its continuance is infinitely costly of men and treasure; its prosecution to the bitter end would mean complete disaster for one contestant and only less complete destruction for the other, and it would give to the victor, no matter what his sufferings and losses might have been, a power dangerous to the entire world.

How shall it end?  We do not want its end to mean a new European map.  Anything of the sort would include the seed of another European war, to be fought out later and at even greater probable cost, with all the world-disturbance implied in such an eventuation.

What the United States should desire and does desire is an understanding between these nations, of just what they are fighting for, which I almost believe they no longer know themselves, and a conference between them now, a pause to think, which at least may help toward stimulating each side to make concessions, before the ultimate of damage has been done.

Such a conference might be called even without any interval in warfare and induced without definite outside intervention from ourselves or any one else.  I believe it not to be beyond the bounds of possibility that if this course could be brought about importantly enough, a way out of this brutal struggle and carnage might be discovered even now, and I know I am not alone in this belief.

The situation is unprecedented.  No congress such as in former times more than once has settled wars and brought about peace by the give-and-take process could be of avail in the existing circumstances.  Something far higher than such a conference is needed.  This peace must not be temporary.  It must mark not the ending of this war alone but the ending of all war.

Some means must be devised and generally agreed to which, after the re-establishment of peace, will do away with jealousies among European nations, so that the continual increase of armament on land and sea no longer will be necessary, and humanity will be freed from its tremendous burden.

It is not at present possible to point out any concrete means by which these things may be accomplished, but it is not impossible that, when reason shall be returned to the Governments now at war, they themselves may suggest to one another plans and ways and means how this may be effectuated.