Germany says in effect that she will make military sacrifices for the purpose of respecting American neutral right, if America on her side will reciprocally fulfil neutral obligation by insisting on the military sacrifice from _both_ belligerents; so that American rights are not made a means of handicapping one party as against the other; are not invoked in what Germany regards as so one-sided a fashion as to become an arm for the use of one belligerent against the other. Now it is quite within precedent, right and usage, to reply, as in the past, to such a demand by diplomatic punctilio: “America cannot discuss the behavior of one belligerent with the other,” and so forth and so forth. The American government could make excellent debating points and be diplomatically entirely correct. But suppose, instead, it were undiplomatically honest and unprecedentedly bold and said bluntly what every one knows to be the truth: that because of the slowly acquired American conviction of the badness of the German cause—the danger to civilization and ourselves which this country has come to believe inherent in that cause—it is impossible for America to enforce the law—or what America holds to be the law—sharply against England, to take any action which would seriously add to the chances of German victory; to be, in other words, really neutral. Suppose America bold and honest enough to avow the quite simple obvious truth that we are not indifferent as to the outcome of the war and that in the long run our conduct won’t be guided as though we were; that so long as we have reason to believe German policy a menace it will encounter in one form or another (not excluding necessarily even the military form) our active or latent opposition. And then, suppose that on top of that impossibly bold and honest stand this country were further to announce that it can only act effectively for the sea law Germany desires, and otherwise withdraw its opposition, if Germany is prepared to reassure us as to her cause by stating definitely that the terms upon which she is prepared to discuss peace include such things as the evacuation of Belgium and France and indemnification for damage done; the acceptance of the international principles involved in the American claims; recognition of the absolute right to existence of all States great and small; readiness to enter, at least to the extent that others are ready, into European or world arrangements for the guarantee of that right and the mutual discussion and limitation of armaments; together with such minor details as agreement to the appointment of an international commission to enquire into the violation of the laws of war on land and sea and the punishment of the individuals convicted by that commission.