Perhaps an eighteenth or even fifteenth part of the
population is of German origin, a percentage not far from equal to that
contributed by the United Kingdom and Canada.
There is thus not only the broad question of avoiding war with Germany,
whose people have so large a share in the life of America, a war doubly
unwelcome at all times because of the innumerable links of science,
invention, professional training, of commerce, and of personal
friendship; but there is also the local question of peace and good-will
in the daily work of America as between huge sections of her population.
These visible facts not unnaturally give great weight to the argument
for neutrality. No wise man on this side of the Atlantic will try to
ignore them, or take exception to the dignity and correctness with which
the American Executive has dealt with the grave problem before it.
Neutrality has, of course, its limits and conditions, logical and moral.
Those limits and conditions, the possibility of their infringement in
such a way as to make some change of policy imperative, are matters
solely for the United States.
The point the present writer wishes to press is on a different plane,
and is precisely this:
America does not and can not stand wholly apart from supreme European
decisions.
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