This must have gratified certain despots; for one cause of the War, not
the cause, was undoubtedly the preference on the part of various
autocrats, to face an external war rather than the rising tide of
democracy within the nation. Temporarily, they have been successful,
but surely only for a brief time. The victory of democracy will vastly
accelerate the growth of the spirit of brotherhood throughout the world.

The terrible waste of the War must of itself produce a reaction of the
people on kings and castes in all lands. The suffering that will follow
the War, in the period of economic readjustment, will accentuate this.
Surely the _people_, in England, France, America, Italy, Russia, and
among the neutral nations, will strive that no such war may come again.
Even in Germany, when the people find out what they have paid and why,
inevitably they must struggle so to reform their institutions that no
ruler or class may again plunge them into such disaster for the selfish
benefit or ambitions of that ruler or class. How our hearts have warmed
to Liebknecht!

The realignment of nations must work to the same end. War, like
politics, makes strange bed-fellows. Germany and Austria, for centuries
rivals, and, at times, enemies, we behold united so completely that it
is difficult to imagine them disentangled after the War.

France and England, long regarding each other as natural enemies, are
fused heart and soul. Strangest of all, we have seen England struggling
to win for Russia that prize of Constantinople, which for generations it
has been a main object of British diplomacy to keep from Russian grasp.
Most impressive of all, has been the new consciousness of unity and
common cause among the nations of the earth, and the groups within all
nations, standing for democracy.