I do not see any such plant springing from the
European battlefields. It is America's supreme opportunity. And yet it
is the common sense of the situation, and the solution that must satisfy
a rational German as completely as a rational Frenchman or Englishman.
It has nothing against it but the prejudice against new and entirely
novel things.
3
In throwing out the suggestion that America should ultimately undertake
the responsibility of proposing a world peace settlement, I admit that
I run counter to a great deal of European feeling. Nowhere in Europe now
do people seem to be in love with the United States. But feeling is
a colour that passes. And the question is above matters of feeling.
Whether the belligerents dislike Americans or the Americans dislike the
belligerents is an incidental matter. The main question is of the duty
of a great and fortunate nation towards the rest of the world and the
future of mankind.
I do not know how far Americans are aware of the trend of feeling in
Europe at the present time. Both France and Great Britain have a sense
of righteousness in this war such as no nation, no people, has ever felt
in war before. We know we are fighting to save all the world from the
rule of force and the unquestioned supremacy of the military idea. Few
Frenchmen or Englishmen can imagine the war presenting itself to an
American intelligence under any other guise.
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