THE

HE Monroe Doctrine does not prevent us from taking our part in the fight against military autocracy in Europe. Will the Monroe Doctrine help or hinder us from becoming effective in a partnership of nations for international progress after the war? The question is important, and we give special prominence in this issue of The World Court Magazine to a notable group of articles on the origin, history and possible development of the doctrine in international affairs (pages 395425). If the nations are to find a world principle in what heretofore has been popularly held to be an American doctrine of exclusion, it is none too early for Americans to understand it. Our contributors present a survey of the subject which will be very helpful to many persons. A bibliography of special value to students is printed in pages 444-447.

From the campaign of "patriotism through education" fostered by the National Security League we select part of a vigorous address by Shailer Mathews, emphasizing the fight for moral internationalism.

Mr. Conn's statement of "The Case of Italy" in the war is very informing.

To our World Court record of suggested plans for a Council of International Conciliation is added that of the Secretary-General of the American Institute of International Law (page 426).

Attention may be called to the important contribution by Walter Alison Phillips, British scholar, setting forth vital difficulties which history shows that leagues to enforce peace have encountered.

The text of President Wilson's Reply to the Pope speaks for itself.

IN the diplomacy of the war PresiIdent Wilson clearly outdistanced all compeers with his reply to the peace proposals of the Pope. The reply is a marvellously true expression of the war mind and peace purpose of the people of these United States. It sets an advanced standard for responsible statesmen of our Entente Allies to surpass if they can. There is no glossing of the thing we intend to defeat, namely, that irresponsible, militaristic philosophy and policy which makes the present German Imperial government intolerable to the rest of the world to-day.

Words of praise for the form and content of the reply seem tame beside the words of the President. Take a few minutes to reread them, in connection with the text of the Pope's proposal, on pages 441-443 of this magazine. It is well worth while to so read over again these pivotal world-war documents in order to gain a fresh impression, untinged by the confusion of comment that one may read about them separately. For confusion is no small part of the diplomatic game as played by autocracy, and the President cuts through it to basic issues of life or death among civilized nations not merely in Europe but throughout the world.

In fact President Wilson again appeals to the ultimate force of public opinion, in Germany as elsewhere, to so exercise paramount authority over armed force that confidence in the faith of nations may be restored

and covenanted peace may be possible. German reaction may call this "impudent interference" in German domestic affairs by a "despot," otherwise an "unworthy professor who imagines himself the biggest world-blesser and statesman," but Liberals everywhere recognize that Mr. Wilson has spoken the truth without fear or favor. And truth is mighty. It points the only way to a peace worth fighting for.

By resolution the new American Alliance for Labor and Democracy asserts that "in all history no Government has ever stated its aims on entering a war or while such war is being fought with anything approaching the definiteness, clarity and candor" revealed by the utterances of President Wilson, culminating in the reply to the Pope. These aims, they insist, are entirely consistent with the great ideals of democracy and internationalism, embracing a generous nationalism on which alone can anything like a great and worthy internationalism be established. And to make such general statements convincing the resolutions specify:

Since the United States entered the war the President has upon three notable occasions clearly and explicitly set forth the American aim, the objects which must be obtained by any peace to which the United States can agree. We refer especially to the war messages of April 2, 1917, the note to Russia on May 26, and the reply to his Holiness the Pope, dated August 27, 1917. The war objects stated by the President in these historic documents were as follows:

1. Recognition of the rights and liberties of small nations.

2. Recognition of the principle that government derives its just power from the consent of the governed.

3. Reparations for wrong done and the erection of adequate safeguards to prevent their being committed again.

4. No indemnities except as payment for manifest wrongs.

5. No people to be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. 6. No territory to change hands except

for the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty.

7. No readjustments of power except such as will tend to secure the future peace of the world and the future welfare and happiness of its peoples.

8. A genuine and practical cooperation of the free peoples of the world in some common covenant that will continue their forces to secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with one another.

TH

HE progressive interest of this country in the Great War marches with our increasing growth in international spirit. Absorbed in our own affairs we gazed remotely across the ocean when the "big show" began in 1914. With the home-coming of detained tourists and the later return of journalists and relief workers who had seen something of the unspeakable hideousness of war, we found ourselves weighing the moral worth of the belligerents and forming definite opinions. It came slowly, our realization that we must take sides for principle's sake, not to speak of consistency's sake, with the peoples fighting for democracy.

Even with our minds made up, our long training in isolation made it seem impossible that we should throw aside the traditions of more than a hundred years and actually participate in the struggle. Rooting from the side lines still seemed a more agreeable occupation than mixing in. It was when our eyes were opened to see that the fight was our fight, if we were to regard ourselves as one of the forward-looking peoples, that the illumination of a real international

America was

spirit first touched us. spirit first touched us. founded for ideals and has fought for ideals, but hers has been a lonely battle array. Now she knows the joy of sharing ideals and the suffering and the solemn joy that follow in the train of their attempted fulfillment.

Once started, how quickly the war spirit has enveloped us! First the departure of the prospective officers of the Reserve Corps to their training camps. They were admirable young men, but it was hard to connect them with real war. They were still in camp when transports slipped swiftly out of "a North American Port," their rails crowded with regulars and their gun crews on instant duty, silhouetted against the glowing sunset sky. It was but a few days later that General Pershing and his men were fêted in Paris. American soldiers, our soldiers, were actually on the historic fields of far-off France!

Then came the dramatic lottery of the colossal draft and the departure for further training of the Borderbronzed regiments of the National Guard.

While these lines are being written the first instalment of Washington's

and New York's and Philadelphia's contributions to the National Army are marching through the city streets, ununiformed, untrained, taking their initial step toward battlefields where they will fight side by side with the soldiers of almost a score of peoples united in a common cause.

Every one of these thousands of young men, every spectator who watches the swinging lines, is filled now as never before in America's history with a sense of comradeship with

other nations. We are working with them and fighting with them. In our farewells we have begun to know something of their suffering which will culminate in pain and glory when our soldiers are on the battle line and are seen on our streets bearing their honorable wounds. In the after days of peace we shall have our place at the international council table around whose board will sit our comrades in arms, the steadfast, libertyloving nations of the world.

APART from their political and

military significance, the various commissions that have visited this country from war-torn Europe have rendered a signal service to the cause of internationalism. France has gained soldiers from us, England has won the cooperation of our destroyers, Italy soon will be burning our coal, Belgium continues to need our wheat and each of our allies has made reciprocations of value to some aspect of the war situation. But to the body of our population -to the people who feel somewhat apart from the interplay of politics, to those whose conversational small change is of bills, not billions, to the uninformed man for whom "tactics" spells an evolution of the Home Defense League and not the ordering of armies the presence of the commissions brought a human, a personal element that made the war and its participants more an actuality than before. These visitors, passing slow

ly in automobiles and acknowledging the cheers of the crowds, were men who had seen and suffered and were trying to save.

The basis of internationalism is friendship and of friendship is interest. Who of the onlooking throngs failed of this basic interest when the sight of the hero of the Marne fired his imagination? What observer did not feel his faint objection to seeing the flag of our former enemy flying in our streets melt into the warmth of honest welcome as he studied the surprised and grateful expression with which Mr. Balfour regarded his reception? What American would not assert that Marconi, the practical idealist, belongs to us to all the nations of the earth-as well as to Italy? Was there any onlooker who was not touched by the representatives of the stout little country that saved Europe for democracy? Or who did not thrill at the sight of our guests from the newest republic