.

Atlantic. It did not disclose the use which the United States intended to make of her power on this side of the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but there was no promise in it of what America was going to do with the implied and partial protectorate which she apparently was trying to set up on this side of the water; and I believe you will sustain me in the statement that it has been fears and suspicions on this score which have hitherto prevented the greater intimacy and confidence and trust between the Americas. The States of America have not been certain what the United States would do with her power. That doubt must be removed. And latterly there has been a very frank interchange of views between the authorities in Washington and those who represented the other States of this hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and hopeful, because based upon an increasingly sure appreciation of the spirit in which they were undertaken. These gentlemen have seen that if America is to come into her own, into her legitimate own, in a world of peace and order, she must establish the foundations of amity so that no one will hereafter doubt them.

I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished. These conferences have enabled me to foresee how it will be accomplished. It will be accomplished in the first place by the States of America uniting in guaranteeing to each other absolutely political independence and territorial integrity. In the second place, and as a necessary corollary to that, guaranteeing the agreement to settle all pending boundary disputes as soon

as possible and by amicable process; by agreeing that all disputes among themselves, should they unhappily arise, will be handled by patient, impartial investigation, and settled by arbitration; and the agreement necessary to the peace of the Americas, that no State of either continent will permit revolutionary expeditions against another State to be fitted out on its territory, and that they will prohibit the exportation of the munitions of war for the purpose of supplying revolutionists against neighboring governments.

You see what our thought is, gentlemen, not only the international peace of America but the domestic peace of America. If American States are constantly in ferment, if any of them are constantly in ferment, there will be a standing threat to their relations with one another. It is just as much to our interest to assist each other to the orderly processes within our own borders as it is to orderly processes in our controversies with one another. These are very practical suggestions which have sprung up in the minds of thoughtful men, and I, for my part, believe that they are going to lead the way to something that America has prayed for for many a generation. For they are based, in the first place, so far as the stronger States are concerned, upon the handsome principle of self-restraint and respect for the rights of everybody. They are based upon the principles of absolute political equality among the States, equality of right, not equality of indulgence. They are based, in short, upon the solid eternal foundations of justice and humanity. No man can turn away from these things without turning away from the hope of

the world. These are things, ladies and gentlemen, for which the world has hoped and waited with prayerful heart. God grant that it may be granted to America to lift this light on high for the illumination of the world.

THE WORLD WAR AND AMERICAN

ADDRESS

PREPAREDNESS

DELIVERED AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, JANUARY 29, 1916

MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS:

I esteem it a real privilege to be in Cleveland again and to address you upon the serious questions of public policy which now confront us. I have not given myself this sort of pleasure very often since I have been President, for I hope that you have observed what my conception of the office of President is. I do not believe that, ordinarily speaking, it is a speech-making office. I have found the exactions of it such that it was absolutely necessary for me to remain constantly in touch with the daily changes of public business, and you so arranged it that I should be President at a time when there was a great deal of public business to remain in touch with. But the times are such, gentlemen, that it is necessary that we should take common counsel together regarding them.

I suppose that this country has never found itself before in so singular a position. The present situation of the world would, only a twelvemonth ago, even after the European war had started, have seemed incredible, and yet now the things that no man anticipated have happened. The titanic struggle continues. The difficulties of the world's affairs accumulate. It

was, of course, evident that this was taking place long before the present session of Congress assembled, but only since the Congress assembled has it been possible to consider what we ought to do in the new circumstances of the times. Congress can not know what to do unless the Nation knows what to do, and it seemed to me not only my privilege but my duty to go out and inform my fellow countrymen just what I understood the present situation to be.

What are the elements of the case? In the first place, and most obviously, two-thirds of the world are at war. It is not merely a European struggle; nations in the Orient have become involved, as well as nations in the west, and everywhere there seems to be creeping even upon the nations disengaged the spirit and the threat of war. All the world outside of America is on fire.

Do you wonder that men's imaginations take color from the situation? Do you wonder that there is a great reaction against war? Do you wonder that the passion for peace grows stronger as the spectacle grows more tremendous and more overwhelming? Do you wonder, on the other hand, that men's sympathies become deeply engaged on the one side or the other? For no small things are happening. This is a struggle which will determine the history of the world, I dare say, for more than a century to come. The world will never be the same again after this war is over. The change may be for weal or it may be for woe, but it will be fundamental and tremendous.

And in the meantime we, the people of the United