The first essential to working out successfully any scheme whatever for world peace is to understand that nothing can be accomplished unless the powers entering into the agreement act in precisely the reverse way from that in which President Wilson and Secretary Bryan have acted as regards the Hague conventions and the all-inclusive arbitration treaties during the past six months. The prime fact to consider in securing any peace agreement worth entering into, or that will have any except a mischievous effect, is that the nations entering into the agreement shall make no promises that ought not to be made, that they shall in good faith live up to the promises that are made, and that they shall put their whole strength unitedly back of these promises against any nation which refuses to carry out the agreement, or which, if it has not made the agreement, nevertheless violates the principles which the agreement enforces. In other words, international agreements intended to produce peace must proceed much along the lines of the Hague conventions; but a power signing them, as the United States signed the Hague conventions, must do so with the intention in good faith to see that they are carried out, and to use force to accomplish this, if necessary. To violate these conventions, to violate neutrality treaties, as Germany has done in the case of Belgium, is a dreadful wrong. It represents the gravest kind of international wrong-doing. But it is really not quite so contemptible, it does not show such short-sighted and timid inefficiency, _and, above all, such selfish indifference to the cause of permanent and righteous peace_ as has been shown by us of the United States (thanks to President Wilson and Secretary Bryan) in refusing to fulfil our solemn obligations by taking whatever action was necessary in order to clear our skirts from the guilt of tame acquiescence in a wrong which we had solemnly undertaken to oppose. It has been a matter of very real regret to me to have to speak in the way I have felt obliged to speak as to German wrong-doing in Belgium, because so many of my friends, not only Germans, but Americans of German birth and even Americans of German descent, have felt aggrieved at my position. As regards my friends, the Americans of German birth or descent, I can only say that they are in honor bound to regard all international matters solely from the standpoint of the interest of the United States, and of the demands of a lofty international morality. I recognize no divided allegiance in American citizenship. As regards Germany, my stand is for the real interest of the mass of the German people. If the German people as a whole would only look at it rightly, they would see that my position is predicated upon the assumption that we ought to act as unhesitatingly in favor of Germany if Germany were wronged as in favor of Belgium when Belgium is wronged.