The world has just passed through an agony of pain compared to which the French Revolution was a mere incident. The shock has been so great that it has killed the last spark of hope in the breasts of million of men. They were chanting a hymn of progress, and four years of slaughter followed their prayers for peace. “Is it worth while,” so they ask, “to work and slave for the benefit of creatures who have not yet passed beyond the stage of the earliest cave men?” [...]

The American public gives too much credit to what may be called, and what is called in Europe, our effort to guide the world aright. America’s great world political position is not due primarily to our moral leadership but primarily to our wealth and economic position. It is not to our moral teachings that the rest of the world responds, but to our material power. If we were a poor and weak nation the world would today care no more about what we thought than did the world before the Great War. [...]