he United States might well be sufficient,
when thrown into the balance, to tip the scales in favor of a
comparatively pacific settlement of international complications. Under
such conditions a policy of neutrality would be a policy of
irresponsibility and unwisdom.

The notion of American intervention in a European conflict, carrying
with it either the chance or the necessity of war, would at present be
received with pious horror by the great majority of Americans.
Non-interference in European affairs is conceived, not as a policy
dependent upon certain conditions, but as absolute law--derived from the
sacred writings. If the issue should be raised in the near future, the
American people would be certain to shirk it; and they would, perhaps,
have some reason for a failure to understand their obligation, because
the course of European political development has not as yet been such as
to raise the question in a decisive form. All one can say as to the
existing situation is that there are certain Powers which have very much
more to lose than they have to gain by war. These Powers are no longer
small states like Belgium, Switzerland, and Holland, but populous and
powerful states like Great Britain, Italy, and France. It may be one or
it may be many generations before the issue of a peaceful or a warlike
organization is decisively raised. When, if ever, it is decisively
raised, the system of public law, under which any organization would
have to take place, may not be one which the United States could accept.
But the point is that, whenever and however it is raised, the American
national leaders should confront it with a sound, well-informed, and
positive conception of the American national interest rather than a
negative and ignorant conception. And there is at least a fair chance
that such will be the case. The experience of the American people in
foreign affairs is only beginning, and during the next few generations
the growth of their traffic with Asia and Europe will afford them every
reason and every opportunity to ponder seriously the great international
problem of peace in its relation to the American national democratic
interest.

The idea which is most likely to lead them astray is the idea which
vitiates the Monroe Doctrine in its popular form,--the idea of some
essential incompatibility between Europeanism and Americanism. That idea
has given a sort of religious sanctity to the national tradition of
isolation;