The truth of the matter is that the American people utterly fail to realize the seriousness of our situation. In fact, the Government itself did not realize its gravity until from the lips of the French and British commissioners it learned the startling truth. Up to the moment of our entrance into the war the Allied Governments, controlling all the channels of information, had so successfully fostered the impression that they had the Germans on the run, that all of our people, save a handful who were in possession of the facts, looked to see the war end in a sweeping victory for the Allies before the close of the present year. The truth of the matter is that, had we remained aloof, the war would in all probability have ended before this year was over, but _not_ in a victory for the Allies. The almost pathetic eagerness with which the Allied Governments welcomed our proffered aid in money and men is the best proof of how desperate was their plight. Here are the facts: Germany’s submarine campaign is an almost unqualified success. Unless we can successfully and immediately combat this menace, England is in grave danger of being brought within measurable distance of starvation. France is rapidly approaching complete military and economic exhaustion. The drain upon her vitality of nearly three years of war has left her faint and gasping. Though she has inflicted huge losses upon the enemy, her own losses have been enormous, and, with her much smaller population, she is less able to stand them. It is not the slightest exaggeration to say that France is in as crying need of American assistance as were the American Colonies when Rochambeau and his soldiery disembarked upon these shores. Should the Russian Republic be betrayed into making a separate peace--and, at the moment of writing, the Russian prospect is anything but cheering--the Central Powers would have released for use upon the Western Front not less than two million veterans. The war has become, indeed, a race between ourselves and Germany. Can we build food-ships faster than Germany can sink them? Can we raise enough food to feed our allies as well as ourselves? Can we put more men and guns upon the Western Front than Germany can? Upon the answers to these questions depends the duration and decision of the war. If we are to win this war it will be necessary for us to practise self-denials, to endure hardships, perhaps to know sorrows of which we have never dreamed. We must hold back nothing. Our sheltered, ordered, comfortable lives will be turned topsy-turvy. There will be no man, woman, or child between the oceans which this war will not in some way affect. It will impose burdens alike on the rich and the poor, on the old no less than on the young, on women as well as on men. It will entail innumerable sacrifices, many of which will be hard and some of which will seem unjust, yet we must accept them cheerfully.