Nevertheless, it is not so far off as in ourdarker moments we fear. If
this world War ends justly; which means if it ends so that the people
dwelling on any territory are affiliated with the government to which
they naturally belong and with which they wish to be affiliated, the
dream will be brought appreciably nearer. If the War ends unjustly,
which means if it ends with the gratification of the ambitions of
aggressive tyranny, the dream will be put remotely far off. If a peace
is patched up meantime, with no solution, it will mean Europe sleeping
on its arms, and the breaking out of the war with multiplied devastation
within twenty years. That is why these blithely undertaken peace
missions and other efforts at peace without victory, even when not
cloaks for pro-German movements, are such preposterous absurdities or
else play directly into the hands of tyranny.

At best, however, the dream is a long way ahead. Men dislike to give up
power, nations equally. It will take a long process of international
moral education to induce the nations to renounce their arbitrary
powers, their right to adjust all their own quarrels, and lead them to
enter voluntarily a federation under a world court of Justice. This,
nevertheless, is the hope of the world, toward which we should work with
all our might.




VII

AMERICA'S DUTY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS