But when the statesmen of the peace conference refused to abide by the principles proclaimed during the war, and upon the basis of which the armistice was concluded, they made impossible America's participation in the treaties. At Manchester, in December, 1918, President Wilson declared that the United States would never enter into any league that was not an association of _all_ nations for the common good. How could it be otherwise? A formidable number of millions of Americans who fought Germany without hesitation because Germany stood for militarism and autocracy and imperialism do not believe they are called upon to sanction and enforce a sordid materialistic peace that makes some races masters of others. For the sake of idealism and for the United States they fought against kith and kin, or alongside of those they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be the oppressors of their race. But can we expect our compatriots of German or Irish or Slavic origin to support a European and world order based upon the permanent inferiority and subjection of the races from which they sprang? Some unthinking Americans hotly answer in the affirmative, and revive the epithet of hyphenate. But in doing so, they reveal themselves to be very poor Anglo-Saxons. A sense of justice and an ability to put oneself in the other man's place are the Anglo-Saxon qualities _par excellence_. Being of pure British blood myself, I cannot help looking with contempt upon parvenus who are _plus royalistes que le roi_. The American of German or Irish origin who speaks and works for Anglo-Saxon race supremacy is a strange creature. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem" is sacred to the decent-minded man. The pride I have in my ancestry and the sense of partnership I feel in the history of my race enable me to respect others for thinking of Germany and Ireland as I think of England. Insisting that they foul their own nests is a poor test for recruits to Anglo-Saxon solidarity. Americans who maintain that it is our duty as good citizens of the United States to work for, or at least not to speak against, the material advancement of Great Britain because of kinship are appealing to a racial group and are as guilty of hyphenism as the propagandists of any other racial group. The reader interrupts me with the protest, "But you cannot put our comrade in arms, Great Britain, whose language and civilization we share, in the same position toward American citizens as Germany, our recent enemy!" Precisely so. I agree. But why? The blood argument I accept, but nearly fifty million Americans reject it. We must make the distinction one of ideals.