for seeing to it that the democratic nations shall come to the council table prepared must rest upon somebody. The fact that this is undertaken by a government or by a group of men does not at all signify that they want peace without victory. France, which has commanded the admiration of the world by the unity of her people in support of this war, almost as soon as it began established a bureau in her state department to study the foundations for a future peace.

Now, the movement of which we are a part has not a dishonorable record in this field. As soon as men got their breath after the shock of the outbreak of the war in August, 1914, groups of thoughtful men and specialists began to get together to discuss, on what was then neutral soil, the question of how to safeguard the coming world against such disasters. The League to Enforce Peace was organized as the result of their deliberations. The president of the United States is urging its main contention as the fundamental feature of American foreign policy. The allied nations have pledged themselves to its support. Small neutral nations of Europe have espoused it. The pope has declared in its favor. Even the central powers have been compelled, by the public sentiment of the world and perhaps of their own people, to give it lip service.

But the formulation of our four proposals does not release us from further responsibility. The original proposals were frankly put forth as a tentative and minimum program. It will be the duty of our league to have, when the war ends, a program ready for our peace plenipotentiaries prepared in view of the vast movement of thought and events that has taken place in this and other countries during these long and stirring years of war, and to be able to relate and harmonize that program with the many difficult problems that will come up in the great settlement. We are bound, as we believe, by our existence and history, to continue the vitally important work we have begun of preparing for a just, permanent and guaranteed peace.

III.-The Purpose of the War

A third function which naturally follows on the second, is that of educating the public regarding the purpose of the war

to simplify and explain the words of the president regarding it, and even in hours of passion that may seize the country to prevent the people from forgetting what it is we are contending for. A leading member of the cabinet, in the days immediately preceding our entrance into the war, said that, if we went in, it would be solely for the purpose of making the right kind of peace; that it was important, therefore, that from the very beginning this fact should be held before the eyes of the country, and that he hoped the League to Enforce Peace would fulfill this important national function.

Everybody wants peace-not an immediate peace, not a dishonorable peace, not a peace that will mortgage the world to autocracy and militarism, but a just, a thoroughgoing, a final peace such as can be attained only by the destruction of Prussian militarism. Such a peace is all that nonaggressive nations ever fight for. Every person of experience knows that in a world crisis like this, the man, or the organization, that can best embody and interpret to the people the things that are in their own hearts, becomes the leader to whom they listen and whom they gladly follow.

Now, it is absolutely true, as was pointed out in a resolution of our executive committee passed immediately after the entrance of the United States into the war, that the object of the war as stated by the president, "to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth enforce peace and justice in the life of the world," is the very object for which our league was organized. What better platform, then, can a man desire from which to utter truths that at this time need to be spoken than that which our league offers? We have the men among our officers and members who are seizing every opportunity, at great sacrifice of time and money, to speak at patriotic meetings and conventions that they may have the privilege of interpreting to the people the meaning of this world crisis. To do so is our special responsibility.

IV.-Win-the-War Activities

A fourth function, while not peculiarly and exclusively our own, we are privileged to share on not less than equal terms with other patriotic organizations. It is that of taking part

in "win-the-war" activities as occasions offer. Believing, as we do, that the war must be won before the objects of our league can be accomplished, it is logical and fitting that we transmute our conviction into deeds. It is, I think, in recognition of this fact that the secretary of the treasury chose the League to Enforce Peace as the channel through which to address all patriotic organizations in the country, inviting their participation in the second campaign for the sale of liberty bonds.

Mr. Taft's prompt reply pledging our wholehearted cooperation is in complete harmony with the spirit and purpose of the league. Nor is there a more effective way of establishing in the minds and hearts of the people the program for which we are contending than to present it to them in actual operation, as is being done through the participation of our country in the war, and through the active and wholehearted support of that participation by our league.

In view, then, of the essential and honorable functions which our league has to perform, I am sure that you will agree with me that a spokesman of the league makes a most serious error when he prefaces his remarks with an apology for the word "peace" in our title, or by making it apparent in any other way that he feels under the necessity of justifying his presence and his message. If he fulfills one of the logical and peculiar functions of the league, his message will be the complete justification of his presence on any platform and of the organization which he represents. He will justly feel that it would be an impertinence and a cause for offense to organize a meeting at this time to talk merely about peace, whether under the auspices of our league or any other organization; that it would be poor tactics to ask people at any meeting to listen to an address on the league that did not relate it closely to the great struggle that is now on, or to adopt a resolution which declared that the most important question now before the country was the obtaining of a permanent peace. If our league has not something to do in the winning of this war that no other agency can do so well, I, for one, should ask for a leave of absence in order to engage in some work that has to do directly with the defeat of Germany.

Let our branches in every state and county perform the supreme functions which I have outlined, and our league will quickly be recognized throughout the country as one of the most important and essential nonofficial organizations of the time. The word "enforce" will then take the same dominant place in our title that the great democratic armies of the allies are taking in a civilization that loves peace, but to attain it is willing to tread the red path of war.

Patriotic men in every state and community have been volunteering, for the period of the war, to devote their time to the service of the nation through the Red Cross, the Council of National Defense, and the food administration. Already a few men of national reputation, seeing the rare possibilities of usefulness that the league offers, are volunteering to give their whole time without compensation to its work. Why should not other men of acknowledged leadership in every state and in every community also adopt the league as their opportunity for patriotic war service to nation and to humanity, both now and during the reconstruction period after the war?

Hoping that this letter will meet your need, and apologizing for its length, I am, very faithfully,

W. H. SHORT, Secretary.

To William D. Wheelwright, Chairman Oregon Branch, League to Enforce Peace.

By RICHARD WARD MONTAGUE

DEMOCRACY ALONE WILL FIT INTO THE NEW WORLD ORDERAUTOCRACY AN ANACHRONISM

The statesmanlike quality of the program of the League to Enforce Peace is well shown in that it proposes not to make a new heaven and a new earth and shape mankind to it, but to avail itself of the political, and for that matter the military, material now at hand wherewith to secure and enforce a durable peace-one, let us add, which shall bear the same relation to a "German peace" as silver bears to German silver. The nation is among the most ancient and most indestructible of political institutions. It is plainly the part of wisdom, therefore, to utilize it as the unit of a world organization. Thus there will be brought into play, in the operation of the new system, a whole series of loyalities, of inveterate associations and affections, of political habitudes and relationships, which in the more ambitious and elaborate reorganizations that have been proposed, would have to be scrapped, to be replaced by artificial and unhistoric political forms. Nationalism as an aggressive, unmoral force, the nationalism which recognizes no good save power, and no law save the lex talionis, is in modern times a grievous evil, whatever fateful part it may have had to play in the original development of order out of the social chaos. But there is no more reason why lust of blood and conquest should be the moving spirit of the nation than of the family, which is an institution generally regarded as worth preserving; and much the same reasons apply in favor of the preservation of the nation if it can be purged of its greed and informed with extra-tribal morality.

The problem, then, is how to constitute the nation so as to make it a fit member of the federation of the world, how rid it of the grasping and murderous traits which, it must be confessed, have so deeply stained the history of nations as to give some reason for thinking them a necessary part of nationality.