Until provincialism, of the type which has been so prominent in recent controversies, can be eliminated or controlled, the settlement of the more tragic issues of the time must be undertaken boldly by those who have indubitably grown up, forsaking leading strings and the nursery, the toys of childhood and the irresponsibility of childhood. All the Governments of Europe, in which a few brilliant men are undoubtedly enrolled, have failed now, as they have failed repeatedly before, to perform their elementary duties and save their countries from the horrors of unnecessary war. Generation after generation, the peoples of Europe have been carefully led by their Governments into successive orgies of slaughter, in which the allies of one campaign have been the enemies of the next. The whole course of European history during the last hundred years (we need not go further back: we are not responsible for the dead centuries) has been indeed a subject for Olympian laughter. What has been achieved by the unending succession of wars, with all their attendant miseries and deadly consequences? Merely the necessity for increased armaments, constant watchfulness, perpetual strain—and more war. Could there be a clearer proof of the futility of war? The Governments of Europe have failed because each, in greater or less degree, has embodied the provincialism of its own section of the armed and suspicious world. There have been a few notable exceptions to the general rule of conventional mediocrity: but where have we found the statesman who could break away altogether from the old stupid methods, and by the sheer force of character and principle inaugurate a new era of civilized diplomacy, as Bismarck inaugurated a new era of veneered barbarism? In America, we are beginning to see the value and the fruits of government based on fairness to all nations and justice to all individuals: but neither here, nor in Europe, has the significance of the new statesmanship yet been fully recognized. Europe, indeed, still regards us with more than a little suspicion, contempt, and imperfectly concealed condescension: it has heard and seen Roosevelt, unfortunately, and the lingering impressions of crudity have not been weakened. Will it listen to us now, and realize that the New World has in verity something to offer to the Old in its time of special tribulation? For Wilson, not Roosevelt, stands for the spirit of America, the voice of America, and her chosen contribution to the civilization of the Twentieth Century.