And what a theme! It demands a volume from any pen capable of doing it justice. For the present purposes, however, I approve strongly of a compilation which shall express the reasoned opinions of writers representing the allied nations, while it is a real pleasure to turn for a few minutes from the day's anxieties and consider the one great force which supplies the leaven to a war-sodden world. Are men to live in freedom or as slaves to a soulless system?--that is the question which is now being solved in blood and agony and tears on the battlefields of the Old World. The answer given by the New World has never been in doubt, but its clarion note was necessarily withheld in all its magnificent rhythm until President Wilson delivered his Message to Congress last April. I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Wilson's utterance will become immortal. It is a new declaration of the Rights of Man, but a finer, broader one, based on the sure principles of Christian ethics. Yet, mark how this same nobility of thought and purpose runs like a vein of gold through the rock of valiant little Belgium's defiance of the Hun, of President Poincare's firm stand, and of Mr. Lloyd George's unflinching labors in the Sisyphean task of stemming the Teutonic avalanche. Prussia's challenge to the world came with the shock of some mighty eruption undreamed of by chroniclers of earthquakes. It stunned humanity. Nowhere was its benumbing effect more perceptible than in these United state, whose traditional policy of non-interference in European disputes was submitted so unexpectedly to the fierce test of Right versus Expediency. And how splendidly did President, Senator, Congress and the People respond to the test! Never for one instant did America's clear judgment falter. The Hun was guilty, and must be punished. The only issue to be solved was whether France, Britain, Italy and Russia should convict and brand the felon unaided, or the mighty power of the Western World should join hands with the avengers of outraged law. Well, a purblind Germany settled that uncertainty by a series of misdeeds which no nation of high ideals could allow to pass unchallenged. I do believe most firmly that President Wilson gave the criminal such chances of reform as no court of law in the world would grant. But, at last, his patience was exhausted. Whether the enslavers of Germany thought, in that crass ignorance of other men's minds they have so often displayed, that America meant to keep out of the war at all costs, or were merely careless of consequences so long as the immediate end was attained, is now immaterial. From the welter of Teutonic misdeeds and lies arises the vital, the soul-inspiring spectacle of a union of all democracies against the common foe.