At the invasion of Belgium
we were astonished that America did nothing. At the sinking of the
_Lusitania_ all Europe looked to America. The British mind contemplates
the spectacle of American destroyers acting as bottleholders to German
submarines with a dazzled astonishment. "Manila," we gasp. In England we
find excuses for America in our own past. In '64 we betrayed Denmark; in
'70 we deserted France. The French have not these memories. They do
not understand the damning temptations of those who feel they are
"_au-dessus de la melee._" They believe they had some share in the
independence of America, that there is a sacred cause in republicanism,
that there are grounds for a peculiar sympathy between France and the
United States in republican institutions. They do not realise that
Germany and America have a common experience in recent industrial
development, and a common belief in the "degeneracy" of all nations with
a lower rate of trade expansion. They do not realise how a political
campaign with the slogan of "Peace and a Full Dinner-Pail" looks in the
middle west, what an honest, simple, rational appeal it makes there.
Atmospheres alter values. In Europe, strung up to tragic and majestic
issues, to Europe gripping a gigantic evil in a death struggle, that
would seem an inscription worthy of a pigsty.
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