Pains were taken by Mr. Villard to convince the public that the object of the committee was to avert “the greatest calamity which could befall the civilized world”--a war between Great Britain and the United States, than which nothing seemed less likely. Its members disclaimed anything like “improper interference in the concerns of another nation.” They evidently did not consider that summoning Ireland and England to appear as plaintiff and defendant before a self-constituted tribunal three thousand miles away was in the nature of an interference. “I meddle with no man’s conscience,” said Cromwell broad-mindedly, when he closed the Catholic churches, and forbade the celebration of Mass. The humour of selecting a group of men and women in one corner of the world, and delegating to them the unofficial task of settling public affairs in another, was lost upon Americans, who, having been repeatedly told that they were to “show the way,” conceived themselves to be showing it. When Great Britain and Ireland settled their own affairs without asking our advice or summoning our aid, there were hyphenated citizens in New York and elsewhere who deeply resented such independent action, and who have shown ever since a bitter unfriendliness to their own kith and kin. Even Mr. Cosgrave’s burst of Gaelic eloquence before the League of Nations, which should have melted a heart of flint, was powerless to allay their ill-temper. If well-meaning counsellors could be persuaded that there are phenomena upon which they are not all qualified to give advice, they might perhaps forbear to send delegations of children to the White House. This is a popular diversion, and one which is much to be deplored. In the hour of our utmost depression, when our rights as a free nation were denied us, and the lives of our citizens were imperilled on land and sea, a number of children were sent to Mr. Wilson, to ask him not to go to war. It was as though they had asked him not to play games on Sunday, or not to put Christmas candles in his windows. Three years later, another deputation of innocents marched past the White House, bearing banners with severely worded directions from their mothers as to how the President (then a very ill man) should conduct himself. The language used was of reprehensible rudeness. The exhortations themselves appeared to be irrelevant. “American women demand that anarchy in the White House be stopped!” puzzled the onlookers, who wondered what was happening in that sad abode of pain, what women these were who knew so much about it, and why a children’s crusade had been organized for the control of our foreign and domestic policies.