It is now three months since the American declaration of war against Germany. The work actually accomplished within that time and the spirit in which it has been carried out have brought confusion to the enemy and discredited the prophecies of pessimistic friends who reasoned that America as a factor in the war would remain a negligible quantity for at least a year.

Within these three months the people of the United States have adopted the principle of compulsory military service; over nine and a half million men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty have registered as the force from which an army can be drawn; the headquarters staff of an expeditionary army has arrived in Europe, and every week adds to the already large number of fighting Americans rallying on the firing line under the shadow of the Allied banners.

On the seas American naval vessels are at work in the waters surrounding the British Isles and are stationed along the coast of France. The patrol of the Atlantic route has been entrusted to their care with most satisfactory results. Additional loans of money have been made to the Allied nations; shipments of supplies to Europe have been speeded up; every shipyard is at work upon old and new vessels putting them in order for the transatlantic service, and on American soil the thirty-four camps in which a million men now and more millions later are to be trained for war are materializing almost overnight. One of the most useful things already accomplished is the arming of nearly four hundred vessels for offensive and defensive war against submarines.

In every department of Government activity and national industry

life has become an intense though methodically directed effort to arrive at a given point by the most direct route.

One

The material accomplishment of America in the field of war during the past three months is only exceeded by what has been done in the spheres of diplomacy, politics, and national spirit. The Allied missions to the United States have been met with eager and intelligent understanding and friendship resulting in schemes of practical and mutually helpful co-operation. Congress is slowly but surely enacting the laws needed for the effective control of the country in war time. of the things provided for is the authority given the President to ration the neutral countries of Europe to prevent a surplus of imports being sent into Germany. This will prove of material assistance to the blockade by the Allies, as America has been the country from which most of the supplies have been obtained in days of former American neutrality. Congress has also given authority to the Allied Governments to recruit their nationals now resident in the United States.

The pro-German element has been rendered practically impotent by American public opinion and the stern enforcement of new laws designed for the restraint of enemy aliens. To such a degree is this true that those who have had visions of a revolution against the American Government by the German-American population, or at least a wholesale sabotage in the interests of Germany, confess themselves to have been apprehensive without cause. This war has proved that the "melting pot" of American citizenship still does its work well, notwithstanding the enormous demands made upon it during the past few years.

A quarrel with no other nation would have been so severe a test, for before this war Germany not only had many friends in America, but, what is more significant, had no active enemies; and the same cannot be said of any other important country. A few precautionary arrests have been made of men who were known to be paid German agents, but with the coming of war the temper of the American people towards any disloyalty was such as to intimidate all but the most reckless of those who hoped to hinder the national preparation for war. There have been fewer outrages upon property since war began than there were when the United States was a neutral purveyor to the wants of all who could buy. This is partially due, of course, to the greater precautions taken and to the more effective guarding of public and private property, but if there was to be any serious outbreak of pro-Germanism in the form of actual physical violence it would have come before now and in spite of all police precautions that could be taken. There will be occasional episodes, naturally, but the fate of those responsible will not encourage others to go and do likewise. As Mr. Gerard said on his return from Berlin, the millions of lampposts in America would not be needed on which to hang disloyal German-Americans, although these lampposts were always available, and there were precedents in American history for their use as suggested.

President Wilson, having for three years allowed American public opinion to formulate almost of itself, has now assumed an active leadership along the lines of a strenuous prosecution of the war-aims of America. The pronunciamientos have not only largely assisted in carrying into operation the legislation and policies needed, but he has with marked effect lost no opportunity of impressing upon his

fellow-citizens the seriousness of the task they have undertaken. It is interesting to note that whenever he has spoken extempore he has given utterance to phrases that have led to misunderstanding of his meaning or position. Whenever he has prepared in writing his speech or statement it has received universal endorsement and there has been no quibble as to what he meant. When he said that there was such a thing as a nation "being too proud to fight" he qualified and explained what he meant later on, but the phrase traveled abroad in all its nakedness and gave a wrong impression of the American people as well as of the sentiments of the President, as has since been proved time and again. On another occasion he said that "with the causes of this war we are not concerned." This phrase promptly traveled abroad, without the explanatory text which robbed it of all questionable meaning. Only recently he said to a gathering of Red Cross nurses that America had entered this war "with no special grievance of her own," and there immediately arose a chorus of disapproval of any such statement, for the President himself had set forth but a few days before the very real and very many grievances that had caused America to abandon a long-maintained neutrality. If the full text of what he did say to the assembled nurses is taken into consideration, it throws a very different light upon the thought he had in his mind at the time. He said: "I say the heart of the country is in this war because it would not have gone into it if it had not first believed that here was an opportunity to express the character of the United States. We have gone in with no special grievance of our own, because we have always said that we were the friends and servants of mankind. We look for no profit. We look for no

advantage. We will accept no advantage out of this war. We go because we believe that the very principles upon which the American Republic was founded are now at stake and must be vindicated." No exception can be taken to the above, for no country ever went to war in a nobler or more altruistic cause. Some public speakers have become famous as coiners of phrases that lived and that augmented the reputations of those who uttered them. President Wilson has not been so fortunate in his extempore inspirations, for they have required much interpretation to prevent most unfortunate misunderstandings as to his real meanings.

No such criticism can be made of his prepared speeches or his written communications of any kind. State papers have come from his pen since the war began that will live in history as great documents, and there will be no quibble as to the meaning they are intended to convey. He has voiced the aspirations of the American people, which are the aspirations of a peace-loving democracy, with such clarity, vigor, and completeness as to win the endorsement of his severest critics and bitterest political enemies. Of this character is his latest utterance, exceeded in importance only by the declaration of war itself. His call to the people of Russia to stand by the cause of America and the Allies, as representing and embodying the ideals in the pursuit of which the late Government of Russia was deprived of its power, is a Declaration of Independence for humanity.

This appeal will unquestionably have an enormous influence upon the Russian nation, and in the making of it America has rendered as great a service to the cause of the Allies as any that may be forthcoming. It may be instrumental in turning the scale on the Eastern battlefields and in changing

what has amounted to an armistice most helpful to Germany into a vigorous renewal of war. It is in the making of such a declaration that President Wilson rises to his full height. It is a task for which he is finely equipped, and in the field of noble exhortation he has had more opportunity and practice during his administration than has fallen to the lot of any leader of thought in modern times. Speaking as the First Citizen of a nation of over one hundred million people, he is listened to with earnest attention, not only by his own people, but by peoples and Governments elsewhere, for he is but the mouthpiece of the most wonderfully organized democracy in the world today; organized in such a way that to turn the national purpose in any particular direction it is only necessary to switch the currents of human energy from one objective to another and there is no perceptible halt in the carrying on.

To the Russian people he says: "The day has come to conquer or submit. If the forces of democracy can divide us they will overcome; if we stand together victory is certain, and the liberty which victory will secure. We can afford then to be generous, but we cannot afford then or now to be weak or to omit any single guarantee of justice or security." In this proclamation or address to the Russian people in view of their demand for a war policy of "no annexations and no indemnities," the President of the United States again sets forth the purpose of the American people in entering the war, and he sets forth the achievement that will satisfy that purpose. No clearer or more definite statement of the war-aims of America has yet been made.

At the end of this war "no people must be forced under a sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. No territory must change hands ex