We had, in the interval, spoken once to all the world. On the day the Japanese moved into Manchuria we had, in effect, notified the British that we chose not to accept the destruction or dismemberment of a friendly nation. The cynical indifference of Sir John Simon was the first intimation of the way Europe felt about American "idealism". It was also the first step toward "non-intervention" in Spain and the destruction of Europe at the hands of Adolf Hitler. When we were rebuffed by Downing Street, we sulked; we did not attempt to speak to the people of Asia, or try to win the British public to our side. We had lost the habit. We were not even candid in our talks with the Chinese whose cause we favored because we had Japan (and American dealers in oil and scrap iron) to appease. In 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected leader of a Germany which had been out of communication with us for a generation. The United States which had been in the minds of generations of Germans, was forgotten by the people. In a few years Hitler had overthrown the power of France on the Continent, challenged Communism as an international force, and frightened the British Empire into an ignoble flutter of appeasement. To that dreary end our failure of communication had tended. We were the one power which might have held Europe together--in a League, in a mere hope of friendship and peace between nations, in the matrix of the fourteen points if nothing more. The moment we withdrew from Europe, its nations fell apart, not merely into victors and vanquished, but into querulous, distrustful, and angry people, each whipped into hysteria by demagogues or soothed to complaisance by frightened ministers. The obligation to address Europe is no longer a moral one. For our own security, for the cohesion of our own people, for victory over every element that works to break America into hostile parts--now we have the golden opportunity again, to speak to Europe, and to ask Europe to answer. As we look back on our ancient triumphs with the peoples of Europe and the sour end to which we let them come, this new chance is heaven-sent, undeserved, as if we could live our lives over again. And it is nearly so--for if we want to have a life to live in the future, if it is still to be the confident, secure life of a United America, we must speak now to Europe. CHAPTER VIII The Science of Short Wave What we say to Europe is to be an incitement to revolution, a promise of liberation, a hope of a decent, orderly, comfortable living, in freedom; but it must be as hard and real and un-dreamlike as the Declaration, which was our first word to the people of the world.