This
war is our answer and our reward!
America in the Settlement.
So far as can be judged from authoritative words of President Wilson and
ex-President Roosevelt, America does and will claim a right to share in
the final settlement of the terms of a permanent and stable peace.
If that claim is sound, if the efforts of America to create better
machinery for securing peace and for generously and humanely vindicating
the liberties and happiness of nations and of the individuals who make
them up do entitle America to a voice, and a potent voice, in the work
of mending and remaking the world after this terrific catastrophe, then
I would submit with all respect that it is really idle to wait till all
the recognized principles of what has been held to be right or wrong as
between nations, and what has been held to be right or wrong in the
methods of conducting war have gone overboard, without one word of
protest; we must save the world first, if we are to have a real chance
of remaking it on lines which are worth having.
Nothing but good could come from immediate action by the American
Executive to assert as they, best of all nations, could assert, now and
at once in terms uncompromising, unanswerable, that the ground taken up
by international consent in the past generation must be held now and
hereafter, and accepted as an essential basis of the final settlement.
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