‘From an open sky,’ he continued, ’came the present war.  The older nations, knit by tradition and startled by its imminence, flew to arms at a word from their leaders.  France, who had been our friend, looked to us; but what was our position?  In fifty tongues our citizens cried out that it was to escape war that they had come to America.  Could we tell the Jew that Russia, which had persecuted him to the point of madness, was on the side of mercy?  Could we convince the Teuton that his Fatherland had become suddenly peopled with savages?  Could we say to the Irishman, bitterly antagonistic to England, that Britain was fighting for the liberation of small nations?  Could we ask the Greek, the Pole, the Galician, to go back to the continent from which they had come, and give their blood that the old order of things might go on?

’But, you ask, what of the real American, descended from the men who fought in the War of Independence and the Civil War.  Yes—­what of him?  From earliest boyhood he has been taught that Britain is our traditional enemy.  To secure existence we had to fight her.  To maintain existence we fought her again in 1812.  When we were locked in a death-struggle with the rebellious South, she tried to hurt our cause—­although history will show that the real heart of Britain was solidly with the North.  In our short life as a people we find that, always, the enemy is Britain.  In one day could we change the teaching of a lifetime?  The soul of America was not dead, but it was buried beneath the conflicting elements in which lay her ultimate strength, but her present weakness.

’What, then, was the situation?  Events had outridden our national development.  Whether it could have been avoided or not I do not know.  Whether our education was at fault, or whether materialism had made us blind—­these things I cannot tell you.  I only know that this war found us potentially a nation, but actually a babel of tongues.  Without philosophy and humanitarianism this nation could not go to war—­and in those two things we were not ready.

’I do not belittle the many gallant men who have left these shores to fight with the Allies, but I say that in a world-crisis the voices of individuals cannot be heard unless they speak through the medium of their nationality.  The question from France is not “Will Americans never come?” but “Will America never come?” When the war found the Americanisation of our people unfinished, it became the duty of every loyal man in the Republic to give his very life-blood to achieve solidarity.  Do you think we could not see that the Allies were fighting our battle?  It was impossible for this nation that had shouldered the problems of the Old World not to see it; so we began the education of all our people.  We could have hurled this nation into war at almost any hour by an appeal to national dignity, but our destiny was imperative in its demands.  Not in heat, which would be bound to cool; not in revenge, which would soon be forgotten; but by philosophy and humanitarianism alone could this great Republic go to war.