Lord John Russell's words: 'Her Majesty could not see with indifference a
military occupation of Holstein'--and then see what England shirked; and
read that scathing sentence spoken to her ambassador in Russia: 'Then we
may dismiss any idea that England will fight on a point of honor.' We had
made you no such guarantee. We were three thousand miles away--how far
was Denmark?

"And another thing. On August 6, 1919, when Britain's thanks to her land
and sea forces were moved in both houses of Parliament, the gentleman who
moved them in the House of Lords said something which, as it seems to me,
adds nothing to the tribute he had already paid so eloquently. He had
spoken of the greater incentive to courage which the French and Belgians
had, because their homes and soil were invaded, while England's soldiers
had suffered no invasion of their island. They had not the stimulus of
the knowledge that the frontier of their country had been violated, their
homes broken up, their families enslaved, or worse. And then he added: 'I
have sometimes wondered in my own mind, though I have hardly dared
confess the sentiment, whether the gallant troops of our Allies would
have fought with equal spirit and so long a time as they did, had they
been engaged in the Highlands of Scotland or on the marches of the Welsh
border.' Why express that wonder? Is there not here an instance of that
needless overlooking of the feelings of others, by which, in times past,
you have chilled those others? Look out for that."

And should an American say to me:

"I have the will to friendship. What can I personally do?" I should say:

"Play fair! Look over our history from that Treaty of Paris in 1783, down
through the Louisiana Purchase, the Monroe Doctrine, and Manila Bay; look