question; in answering it I always feel that I am giving only a
partial answer. On the one hand there is the record of her two and a
half years of procrastination, on the other the titanic upspringing
of her warrior-spirit, which happened almost in a day. How can one
reconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washington
with the bugle-song to which the American boys march: "We've got four
years to do this job." The cleavage between the two attitudes is too
sharp for the comprehension of other nations.

The first answer which I shall give is entirely sane and will be
accepted by the rankest cynic. America came into the war at the moment
she realised that her own national life was endangered. Her leaders
realised this months before her masses could be persuaded. The
political machinery of the United States is such that no Government
would dare to commence hostilities unless it was assured that its
decision was the decision of the entire nation. That the Government
might have this assurance, Mr. Wilson had to maintain peace long after
the intellect of America had declared for war, while he educated
the cosmopolitan citizenship of his country into a knowledge of Hun
designs. The result was that he created the appearance of having been
pushed into hostilities by the weight of public opinion.

For many months the Secret Service agents of the States, aided by the
agents of other nations, were unravelling German plots and collecting
data of treachery so irrefutable that it had to be accepted. When all
was ready the first chapters of the story were divulged. They were
divulged almost in the form of a serial novel, so that the man who
read his paper to-day and said, "No doubt that isolated item is true,
but it doesn't incriminate the entire German nation," next day on
opening his paper, found further proof and was forced to retreat to