'Mr. Chairman--Mr. Watson--Gentlemen,' said Van Derwater. He stroked his chin meditatively, and looked calmly about as though leisurely recalling a titbit of anecdote or quotation. 'Our friend from overseas has not erred on the side of subterfuge. He has been frank--excellently frank. He has told us that this Republic has become a jest, and that we are responsible. I assume from several of your faces that you are not pleased with the truth. Surely you did not need Mr. Watson to tell you what they are saying in England and France. That has been obvious--unpleasantly obvious--and, I suppose, obviously unpleasant.' He smiled with a little touch of irony, and leaning forward, flicked the ash from his cigar on to a plate. 'Mr. Watson,' he resumed, 'has asked what we have done with America's soul. That is a telling phrase, and I should like to meet it with an equally telling one; but this is not a matter of phraseology, but of the deepest thought. Gentlemen, if you will, look back with me over the brief history of this Republic. There are great truths hidden in the Past. 'In 1778 Monsieur Turgot wrote that America was the hope of the human race--that the earth could see consolation in the thought of the asylum at last open to the down-trodden of all nations. Three years later the Abbe Taynals, writing of the American Revolution, said: "At the sound of the snapping chains our own fetters seem to grow lighter, and we imagine for a moment that the air we breathe grows purer at the news that the universe counts some tyrants the less." Ten years after that the editor Prudhomme declared: "Philosophy and America have brought about the French Revolution." 'I will not weary you, gentlemen, with further extracts, but I ask you to note--_and this is something which many of our public men have forgotten to-day_--that at the very commencement of our career we were inextricably involved with European affairs. Entangling alliances--no! But segregation--impossible!' For an instant his cold, academic manner was galvanised into emphasis. His listeners, who were still smarting under Watson's words, and had been restless at the unimpassioned tone of Van Derwater's reply, began to feel the grip of his slowly developing logic.