u and to me to live through one of the great, searching
crises of human history. The world has never seen a struggle so
gigantic. We have been patient for more than two years with a certain
nation across the sea--patient clear up to the border of what has
seemed to some of our neighbours like a lazy acquiescence in
lawlessness. We have seen that nation referring contemptuously to her
own treaties as mere scraps of paper, and then openly disregarding her
solemn obligations.

We saw the outrage perpetrated upon Belgium, an outrage which men who
know their histories better than I know mine are saying will go down as
the greatest crime in the annals of the race. We saw the drowning of
hundreds of helpless women and children in the sinking of the
_Lusitania_ without warning and in flat defiance of international law.
We saw the judicial murder of women like Edith Cavell and of men like
Captain Fryatt. We have seen the Zeppelins engaged in the dastardly
business of hurling down bombs upon unfortified towns for the killing
of old women and little children--heretofore when decent nations have
gone to war men have fought with men. We have seen thousands of
helpless Armenians butchered by the Moslem allies of that so-called
Christian power,--it is all but universally believed, with its own
connivance and under its direction. We have witnessed a frightful
record of brutality and outrage, investigated and established by the
competent testimony of such men as James Bryce and Cardinal Mercier.
We have seen the sinking of hospital ships loaded with wounded men and
the sinking of relief ships carrying provisions to the famine-stricken
children of Belgium, no matter what flag they flew, or what cargo they
bore.

We have had our own rights as a neutral trampled upon by that
government with the arrogant assumption that her necessities knew no
law. And now to crown it all we have detected the official
representatives of that country with protests of friendship upon their
false lips actually plotting with Mexico and seeking to extend that
plot to Japan with the unholy purpose of destroying the peace between
this country and its neighbours.

The men of our country who have red blood in their veins and the sense
of justice in their hearts are saying, "How long, O Lord, how long!"
War is a terrible thing and no honest man ever speaks lightly of war.
But there are things which are worse than war. The loss of all
capacity for moral i