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306 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE

AN INTERVIEW WITH

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

BY EDWARD MARSHALL

(October 18, 1914)

United States of Europe.

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, firmly believes that the organization of such a federation will be the outcome, soon or late, of a situation built up through years of European failure to adjust government to the growth of civilization.

He thinks it possible that the ending of the present war may see the rising of the new sun of democracy to light a day of freedom for our transatlantic neighbors.

He tells me that thinking men in all the contending nations are beginning vividly to consider such a contingency, to argue for it or against it; in other words, to regard it as an undoubted possibility.

Dr. Butler's acquaintance among those thinking men of all shades of political belief is probably wider than that of any other American, and it is significant of the startling importance of