Page:Jay William Hudson - America's International Ideals (1915).djvu/7



MAGINE Napoleon in the full tide of any of his successful campaigns stopping to explain to some neutral Power why he had destroyed some architectural treasures in the wrath of war!" exclaims a newspaper writer in a recent article. And yet, as this writer proceeds to state, European nations now at war have taken the trouble to make persistent appeals to the American people for their good will and justification. From the very first, not only the rulers, but the enlightened scholars of the various countries, have done their utmost to persuade the public opinion of the United States of the righteousness of their cause, the nobility of their ideals. This literature of justification, consisting not merely of tracts and magazine articles, but of hundreds of books, has grown so astoundingly voluminous that it is doubtful that any single person could read it through in his lifetime. Indeed, this war among the authors of the various nations who are trying to justify their respective countries is being waged on almost as great a scale as the war waged by means of guns and ships and aeroplanes. This war of ideas has been waged so earnestly and to such length that one American newspaper wittily asks, "Why not stop the war and let the German and English authors fight it out?"

However, this appeal of the warring nations of Europe to the American people is a phenomenon of incalculable significance both to America and to the world. First of