But I belong to one of the races that have populated America. I know the imagination of my own people and something of most of the peoples who have sent their best to this land, I have watched the people here, and listened to them and read about them; there has been no degeneration here but progress and invigoration, and I will not believe that the American spirit, distilled from all the best of Europe, will tolerate this surrender of the future, this quite hoggish abandonment of the leadership of mankind that continuing isolation implies. The American people has grown great unawares; it still does not realize its immense predominance now in wealth, in strength, in hope, happiness and unbroken courage among the children of men. The cream of all the white races did not come to this continent to reap and sow and eat and waste, smoke in its shirtsleeves in a rocking-chair, and let the great world from which its fathers came go hang. It did not come here for sluggish ease. It came here for liberty and to make the new beginning of a greater civilization upon our globe. The years of America’s growth and training are coming to an end, the phase of world action has begun. All America is too small a world for the American people; the world of their interest now is the whole round world. I have no doubt of the heart and enterprise of America—if America understands. But does America understand the scale and urgency of the present situation? Is she prepared to act now? This decadence of Europe is urgent—urgent. So far, this Washington Conference has not touched more than the outer threads of the writhing international tangle that has to be dealt with if European civilization is to be saved. So far, these economic and financial troubles which are already at a crisis of disaster in Europe have been treated as though they did not exist. But they are the very heart of the trouble across the Atlantic, and with America, the rich creditor of all Europe and the holder of most of the gold in the world, lie enormous possibilities of salvation. The political situation becomes more and more subordinated to the economic. If America is willing, America is able to reinstate Europe and turn back the decline, _and she is in so strong a position that she can make the effectual permanent disarmament of Europe a primary condition of her assistance_. If she have the clearness of mind to set aside the eloquent apologetics of that one power that is still militant, adventurous and malignant among the ruins, she can oblige the remnant of Europe to get together and settle outstanding differences by the sheer strength of her financial controls. She can demand a “League to Enforce Peace,” and she can enforce it. Will she do that now, or will she let this occasion pass from her—never to return? XVII EBB TIDE AT WASHINGTON Washington, Nov. 28.