What is more serious is that the note to Russia implied not only his loss of the initiative for a negotiated peace but even the desire for it. “The day has come when we must conquer or submit.” This has a very strange ring coming from a President who in his very war-message still insisted that he had not altered in any way the principles of his “peace without victory” note. The note to Russia did not attempt to explain how “peace without victory” was to be reconciled with “conquer or submit,” nor has any such explanation been forthcoming. The implication is that the entire strategy of the negotiated peace has passed out of American hands into those of Russia, and that this country is committed to the new strategy of the “knockout blow.” If this is true, then we have the virtual collapse of the strategy, and with it the justification, of our entrance into the war. Whether American strategy has changed or not, the effect upon opinion in the Allied countries seems to be as if it had. Each pronouncement of America’s war-aims is received with disconcerting unanimity in England, France and Italy as ratifying their own aspirations and policies. Any hint that Allied policies disagree with ours is received with marked disfavor by our own loyal press. When we entered the war, the Allied aims stood as stated in their reply to the President’s December note. This reply was then interpreted by American liberals as a diplomatic programme of maximum demands. They have therefore called repeatedly upon the President to secure from the Allied governments a resolution of the ambiguities and a revision of the more extreme terms, in order that we might make common cause with them toward a just peace. In this campaign the American liberals have put themselves squarely on the side of the new Russia, which has also clamored for a clear and liberal statement of what the war is being fought for. Unfortunately the Administration has been unable or unwilling to secure from the Allies any such resolution or revision. The Russian pressure has elicited certain statements, which, however, proved little more satisfactory to the Russian radicals than the original statement. Our own war-aims have been stated in terms as ambiguous and unsatisfactory as those of the Allies. Illiberal opinion in the other countries has not been slow in seizing upon President Wilson’s pronouncements as confirming all that their hearts could wish. Most significant has been the satisfaction of Italian imperialistic opinion, the most predatory and illiberal force in any Allied country. The President has done nothing to disabuse Italian minds of their belief. He has made no disavowal of the Allied reactionary ratification. The sharp divergence of interpretation between the Allied governments and the Russian radicals persists. In lieu of any clear statement to the contrary, opinion in the Allied countries has good ground for believing that the American government