Page:Jay William Hudson - America's International Ideals (1915).djvu/9

 be justified by the mere glory of its prowess. No, the battle is lifted at last to the higher plane where reason is the only justification for the right, the very reason which, in the logic of its growing supremacy, shall finally supplant force entirely as the court of great issues between peoples.

Third, this appeal to American public opinion is especially significant because it recognizes that America has a unique part in world welfare and world progress. America the conscience of the world! Now, a conscience when appealed to, must answer. It is not passive; it has unequivocal obligations to utter truth and to guide to righteous action. This is America's supreme responsibility at the present time: to answer the innumerable appeals to her sense of fair play and her ideals with an unambiguous message to Europe's warring Powers. Even if America had not been appealed to at all by these Powers, she ought, as the greatest of neutral nations, to realize her grave responsibility and supreme opportunity to do all that she can to aid the world to bring order out of chaos and to see to it that this order shall be a new order, in terms of which the war system shall be seen to be irrational and impossible.

To some minds it seems perilous for the American people to assume any definite responsibilities in the present conflict, since anything that the American people might say or do would seem likely to involve a breach of the neutrality which we have been trying to observe. But this is wholly to misunderstand what neutrality means. America is indeed anxious that her possibilities of service to the warring nations shall not be imperilled by her taking sides in favor of a nation, or group of nations, either through her government or through her