These truths are especially pertinent to the interests of the United States. We are not fighting Europe’s war, but the world’s. We are the only nation in the struggle that has not a special interest at stake. We are the only member of our group of allies that has a right to take the side of the weakest member of that group against the desire of the strongest. If any one member should in a moment of more or less pardonable forgetfulness of the common good advance claims that would be based on a desire to recoup herself for her sufferings, we best of all could demand equal treatment and see that the seed of future discord are not sown. These are principles that every American citizen should understand. CHAPTER X OBSTACLES TO AN ENDURING PEACE By an enduring peace I mean a peace that shall last as long as we can see into the future. It is such a peace as has in it, so far as we can see, no fact that would seem to make for its ruin. If we adopt a peace that has the seed of destruction in its very nature, we cannot hope for relief from the evils of war. We must, under such a condition, take account of war as one of the permanent burdens of civilization, with the full consciousness that it will become increasingly expensive in life and property, and with the result that at recurring periods an intelligent world will drop its peaceful tasks to try to reduce its population to a nullity. From the possibility of such a strife we turn to ask the question: “Can nothing be done to save humanity from such madness?” The answer is very simple: All people are unreasonable to some extent. In connection with the question now under consideration, each of the great states of the world, our own included, has its own special form of unreasonableness, which acts as an obstacle to the formation of a régime of peace. If the immense disaster by which we are depressed could serve as a means of bringing us to a state of entire reasonableness, the present war would be worth all it costs. Whether or not it can lead to such a result the reader must determine for himself. An important obstacle to such a result is the economic competition of nations. Economic competition by individuals has ugly sides, but it is not dangerous in the sense in which national competition is dangerous. When two merchants undersell until one breaks down the business of the other, the victim passes out of sight in the business world, and the current of trade soon goes on as before. When two corporations, however great, engage in a business “war” and one is crushed or absorbed by its competitor, the ripple that was made is soon obliterated, and the victor serves the human wants with which it has to do without serious damage to humanity.