Page:Jay William Hudson - America's International Ideals (1915).djvu/11

 as the custodian and defender of these principles. If any social movement or international complication happens to involve the denial or betrayal of these principles for which America has fought and for which her civilization stands, the American people surely cannot be neutral with regard to such a social movement or international complication. Well, at this present moment these principles of human welfare are being denied, betrayed, prejudiced and imperilled by the European conflict together with its significant and far-reaching influences. Thus America has a decisive message to Europe, not only in behalf of her own ideals, but for the sake of the welfare and progress of human beings everywhere. In standing for these principles America will be exemplifying a new patriotism: a patriotism not merely to a plot of ground which we call our native land, but a patriotism to those truths upon the triumph of which depend the conservation of universal progress and the security of the future of the world.

What are these principles for which the race has struggled? In what way can American life be said to stand for them? How has Europe denied them? And what is America's message to Europe in view of this denial?

One thing for which the race has insistently struggled is the supremacy of reason in human affairs. If man is not yet "the rational animal" he has, at any rate, striven to become more and more rational. Indeed, one could almost define the progress of civilization as a struggle toward reasonableness. Thus the great philosophers have been busy from time immemorial in trying to express