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no advantage accrue through military decision. Such an ending will find few precedents in history.1 It is the part of democracy to create precedent.

If this stoutly remains our aim, we shall open the door to a new world-outlook as inspiring as that disclosed by the Renaissance, by our own Revolution, or by the Emancipation Proclamation. Deeds, not words, must decide. Yet we are leading the way from obstructive nationalism with its oppressions and rivalries forward to the open fields of a broad humanity. From the first impulse to go to the rescue of Belgium, on to the last grapple with a dynastic state, the purpose of democracy everywhere has been unflinching and must be continuous. . . .

The new morality inheres in the four imperatives proclaimed by President Wilson on February 11, 1918. He insists

1. that Each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular cause, and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring peace that will be permanent;

2. that Peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about

from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but

3. that Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and 4. that All well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.

1 The Treaty of Ghent, closing the War of 1812, may be a case in point.

On a basis such as this, international order must rest; modern civilization will be content with nothing less. The acceptance of these principles would mark the end of the medieval era in world-politics. It would square international relations with the advances already achieved by science, ethics, and religion within the social order.

THE NEW INDEPENDENCE DAY 1

WOODROW WILSON

This, then, is our conception of the great struggle in which we are engaged. The plot is written plain upon every scene and every act of the supreme tragedy. On the one hand stand the peoples of the world - not only the peoples actually engaged, but many others, also, who suffer under mastery but cannot act; peoples of many races and in every part of the world — the people of stricken Russia still, among the rest, though they are for the moment unorganized and helpless. Opposed to them, masters of many armies, stand an isolated, friendless group of Governments, who speak no common purpose, but only selfish ambitions of their own, by which none can profit but themselves, and whose peoples are fuel in their hands; Governments which fear their people, and yet are for the time being sovereign lords, making every choice for them and disposing of their lives and fortunes as they will, as well as of the lives and fortunes of every people who fall under their power - Governments clothed with the strange trappings and the primitive authority of an age that is altogether alien and hos

1 From address delivered at Mount Vernon, July 4, 1918, as published in the New York Times, July 5, 1918.

tile to our own.

The Past and the Present are in deadly grapple, and the peoples of the world are being done to death between them.

There can be but one issue. The settlement must be final. There can be no compromise. No halfway decision would be tolerable. No halfway decision is conceivable. These are the ends for which the associated peoples of the world are fighting and which must be conceded them before there can be peace:

I. The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that can separately, secretly, and of its single choice disturb the peace of the world; or, if it cannot be presently destroyed, at the least its reduction to virtual impotence.

II. The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.

III. The consent of all nations to be governed in their conduct toward each other by the same principles of honor and of respect for the common law of civilized society that govern the individual citizens of all modern States in their relations with one another; to the end that all promises and covenants may be sacredly observed, no private plots or conspiracies hatched, no selfish injuries wrought with impunity, and a mutual trust established upon the handsome foundation of a mutual respect for right.

IV. The establishment of an organization of peace which shall make it certain that the combined power of

free nations will check every invasion of right and serve to make peace and justice the more secure by affording a definite tribunal of opinion to which all must submit and by which every international readjustment that cannot be amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly concerned shall be sanctioned.

These great objects can be put into a single sentence. What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.

These great ends cannot be achieved by debating and seeking to reconcile and accommodate what statesmen may wish with their projects for balances of power, and of national opportunity. They can be realized only by the determination of what the thinking peoples of the world desire, with their longing hope for justice and for social freedom and opportunity.

I can fancy that the air of this place carries the accents of such principles with a peculiar kindness. Here were started forces which the great nation against which they were primarily directed at first regarded as a revolt against its rightful authority, but which it has long since seen to have been a step in the liberation of its own people as well as of the people of the United States; and I stand here now to speak speak proudly and with confident hope of the spread of this revolt, this liberation, to the great stage of the world itself! The blinded rulers of Prussia have roused forces they knew little of- forces which, once roused, can never be crushed to earth again; for they have at their heart an inspiration and a purpose which are deathless and of the very stuff of triumph!

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And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,

And wallow in fields that are gory.

It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;

When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

Carry on! Carry on!

There isn't much punch in your blow,

You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!

You haven't the ghost of a show.

It's looking like death, but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there's a man of God's choosing;
The man who can fight to Heaven's own height
Is the man who can fight when he's losing.

No other poem more forcefully expresses the spirit of the present

war.

From "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man." Copyright, 1916, by Barse and Hopkins, New York. Used by permission of the publishers.

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