to make up its mind about the character of this
struggle. In Europe most of the great wars of the past were waged for
dynastic aggrandizement and conquest. No wonder when this great war
started that there were some elements of suspicion still lurking in the
minds of the people of the United States of America. There were those
who thought perhaps that kings were at their old tricks--and although
they saw the gallant Republic of France fighting, they some of them
perhaps regarded it as the poor victim of a conspiracy of monarchical
swash-bucklers. The fact that the United States of America has made up
its mind finally makes it abundantly clear to the world that this is no
struggle of that character, but a great fight for human liberty.

They naturally did not know at first what we had endured in Europe for
years from this military caste in Prussia. It never has reached the
United States of America. Prussia was not a democracy. The Kaiser
promises that it will be a democracy after the war. I think he is
right. But Prussia not merely was not a democracy. Prussia was not a
state; Prussia was an army. It had great industries that had been
highly developed; a great educational system; it had its universities;
it had developed its science.

All these were subordinate to the one great predominant purpose of
all--a conquering army which was to intimidate the world. The army was
the spearpoint of Prussia; the rest was merely the haft. That was what
we had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves of
Europe. They knew what it all meant. It was an army that in recent
times had waged three wars, all of conquest, and the unceasing tramp of
its legions through the streets of Prussia, on the parade grounds of
Prussia, had got into the Prussian head. The Kaiser, when he witnessed
on a grand scale his reviews, got drunk with the sound of it. He
delivered the law to the world as if Potsdam was another Sinai, and he
was uttering the law from the thunder clouds.

But make no mistake. Europe was uneasy. Europe was half intimidated.
Europe was anxious. Europe was apprehensive. We knew the whole time
what it meant. What we did not know was the moment it would come.

This is the menace, this is the apprehension from which Europe has
suffered for over fifty years. It paralyzed the beneficent activity of
all states, which ought to be devoted to concentrating on the
well-being of their peoples. They had