sides.  In Napoleon’s days France and Great Britain, according to the international lawyers, attacked American commerce in illegal ways; on strictly technical grounds this infant nation had an adequate cause of war against both belligerents; but the ultimate consequence of a very confused situation was a declaration of war against Great Britain.  Though an England which was ruled by a George III or a Prince Regent—­an England of rotten boroughs, of an ignorant and oppressed peasantry, and of a social organization in which caste was almost as definitely drawn as in an Oriental despotism—­could hardly appeal to the enthusiastic democrat as embodying all the ideals of his system, yet the England of 1800 did represent modern progress when compared with the mediaeval autocracy of Napoleon.  If we take this broad view, therefore, we must admit that, in 1812, we fought on the side of darkness and injustice against the forces that were making for enlightenment.  The war of 1914 had not gone far when the thinking American foresaw that it would present to the American people precisely this same problem.  What would the decision be?  Would America repeat the experience of 1812, or had the teachings of a century so dissipated hatreds that it would be able to exert its influence in a way more worthy of itself and more helpful to the progress of mankind?

There was one great difference, however, between the position of the United States in 1812 and its position in 1914.  A century ago we were a small and feeble nation, of undeveloped industries and resources and of immature character; our entrance into the European conflict, on one side or the other, could have little influence upon its results, and, in fact, it influenced it scarcely at all; the side we fought against emerged triumphant.  In 1914, we had the greatest industrial organization and the greatest wealth of any nation and the largest white population of any country except Russia; the energy of our people and our national talent for success had long been the marvel of foreign observers.  It mattered little in 1812 on which side the United States took its stand; in 1914 such a decision Mould inevitably determine the issue.  Of all European statesmen there was one man who saw this point with a definiteness which, in itself, gives him a clear title to fame.  That was Sir Edward Grey.  The time came when a section of the British public was prepared almost to stone the Foreign Secretary in the streets of London, because they believed that his “subservience” to American trade interests was losing the war for Great Britain; his tenure of office was a constant struggle with British naval and military chiefs who asserted that the Foreign Office, in its efforts to maintain harmonious relations with America, was hamstringing the British fleet, was rendering almost impotent its control of the sea, and was thus throwing away the greatest advantage which Great Britain possessed in its life and death struggle.  “Some blight has been at work in our Foreign Office for years,” said the Quarterly Review, “steadily undermining our mastery of the sea.”