In these United States, there has been little attempt to transcend race-limitations, so far as concerns the aliens within our borders, and those hyphenated-Americans who have rushed with virulence into a wordy warfare, intent, not on establishing the truth, but on giving publicity, _ad nauseam_, to their own special, and specially obnoxious, prejudices. The American nation, and every individual in it, has a clear right to hold and express a definite opinion: but it must be an opinion formed in conformity with the American character and the American freedom from entanglements of inherited and unreasoned bias. No other opinion is worth, here and now, a moment’s consideration; and no other opinion should dare to voice itself in this country, which has ties with almost all the peoples of the world—ties of blood and friendship, but not of bloodshed and hysteria. America alone, of the great Powers of the world, is in a position to exercise free and calm reflection and to form a free and just judgment. The value of her decision has already been made manifest, through the efforts of every country involved in the war to influence American sentiment and gain American good will. A peculiar responsibility therefore rests upon us to avoid the banalities of the various special pleaders, and to form our judgment soberly and in good faith, nothing extenuating, and setting down naught in malice. And one of the first thoughts that should occur to us, one of the most significant and pregnant thoughts, is that which I have expressed in my first paragraph. Europe is a house divided against itself: but each nation in Europe has proclaimed the sanctity of its cause; each nation conceives that it has, or is entitled to have, the special protection of Providence; each nation is sending its men to death and claiming patient sacrifice from its women. What does this mean? Is there such little sense of logic in the world that it is impossible to distinguish right from wrong, so that nation may rise against nation, each convinced of its own probity, and each unable to attribute anything but evil motives to its adversaries? Can self-delusion be carried so far that black and white exchange values according to the chances of birth and environment? Have Christianity and civilization achieved this remarkable result, that the peoples of the world are like quarrelsome children in a disorderly nursery?