It is as clear as daylight that the expedition to Mexico is a German trap; hence the United States have every reason for awaiting the end of the European war before committing themselves further in that direction. On the other hand, _now that the Allies have gripped Germany by the throat, the Government of Washington should avail itself of this exceptional opportunity for carrying out with the utmost speed the destruction of that criminal and parasitic organization which the Germans have contrived to plant in the soil of the United States_. To arrest the ringleaders who have been guilty of inciting to treason and crimes against the common law, _whatever their social position or wealth may be_; to suppress the associations which are nothing but agencies of the Berlin government—these are tasks which the Americans have every motive for accomplishing without delay. Obviously, too, when the United States shall have wakened up to the truth, they will acknowledge it to be at once their interest and their duty to give the Allies all material succour, since nothing but their complete victory over Germany can safeguard for the future the independence of the United States. In the financial sphere the United States can offer the Allies immense facilities for raising loans, which would be particularly opportune. Mr. Guthrie, Vice-President of the French-American Committee at New York, has explained as follows the method, at once delicate and ingenious, whereby the United States could and should, according to him, give their financial support to France. “The historian Perkins,” says Mr. Guthrie, “states that the expenses incurred by France in liberating America amounted to 772 million dollars. Of this enormous outlay, which ruined the Royal Treasury, not a stiver was ever repaid to France. She never claimed it, and to-day she would proudly refuse to be repaid, reminding us that, in the treaty of alliance of 6th February, 1778, she stipulated that she should receive no indemnity for her help and her sacrifices.... The generosity of that treaty was unprecedented in the history of the world.... Would it not be supremely just if the American people, a hundred and thirty-four years after the battle of Yorktown, recognized that service—I will not call it debt—by offering the French people commercial credit to the amount of the principal, that is to say 772 million dollars, to be repaid at France’s convenience? It would be only the equivalent of a contribution of seven and a half dollars from each citizen of the United States, much less than the tax that was voluntarily and cheerfully paid by the French people to help us in the eighteenth century. Would it not be noble and glorious, honourable alike to head and heart, if the great American bankers could have proclaimed to the world that they had fixed the figure at 772 million dollars in gratitude for the past?” (see _Revue du XVIII. siècle_, janvier-avril, 1916).