little more shrewd and successful liars than the diplomats with whom
they had to deal in other lands. In other words, their conduct has been
exactly on the plane that Ulysses represented in personal life, afar
back in classic antiquity.

Take an illustration a little nearer home. If you were doing business
on one side of the street and had two competitors in the same line,
across the way, and a cyclone swept the town, destroying their
establishments and sparing yours: you, as an individual, would be
ashamed to take advantage of the disaster under which your rivals were
suffering, using the time while they were out of business to lure their
customers away from them and bind those customers to you so securely
that your competitors would never be able to get them back. You would
scorn such conduct as an individual; but when it comes to a relation of
the nations: during the first two years of the War, from the highest
government circles down to the smallest country newspaper, we were urged
to take advantage of the disaster under which our European rivals were
suffering, win their international customers away from them and bind
those customers to us so securely that Europe would never be able to get
them back. Not that we were urged to industry and enterprise--that is
always right--but actually to seek to profit by the sufferings of
others--conduct we would regard as utterly unworthy in personal life.

If your neighbor were to say, "My personal aspirations demand this
portion of your front yard," and he were to attempt to fence it in: the
situation is unimaginable; but when a nation says, "My national
aspirations demand this portion of your territory," and proceeds to
annex it: if the nation is strong enough to carry it out, a large part
of the world acquiesces.