"I hesitate to discuss any phase of the great conflict now raging in
Europe. By today's mail, for example, I received long, personal letters
from Lord Haldane, from Lord Morley, from Lord Weardale, and from Lord
Bryce. Another has just come from Prof. Schiemann of Berlin, perhaps the
Emperor's most intimate adviser; another from Prof. Lamasch of Austria,
who was the Presiding Judge of the British-American arbitration in
relation to the Newfoundland fisheries a few years ago, and is a member
of the Austrian House of Peers. Still others are from M. Ribot, Minister
of Finance in France, and M. d'Estournelles de Constant. These
confidential letters give a wealth of information as to the intellectual
and political forces that are behind the conflict.
"You will understand, then, that without disloyalty to my many friends
in Europe, I could not discuss with freedom the causes or the progress
of the war, or speculate in detail about the future of the European
problem. My friends in Germany, France, and England all write to me with
the utmost freedom and not for the public eye; so you see that my great
difficulty, when you ask me to talk about the meaning of the struggle,
arises from the obligation that I am under to preserve a proper personal
reserve regarding the great figures behind the vast intellectual and
political changes which really are in the background of the war.
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