Introduction




I have seldom yielded so willingly to a request for my written
views as I do in this instance, when my valued friend, the master
journalist, Melville E. Stone, has asked me, on behalf of the Book
Committee, to write an introduction for "The Defenders of Democracy."
Needless to say, I comply all the more readily in view of the fact
that the book in which these words will appear is planned by the
ladies of the Militia of Mercy as a means of increasing the Fund
the Society is raising for the benefit of the families of "their
own men" on the battle-line.

And what a theme! It demands a volume from any pen capable of doing
it justice. For the present purposes, however, I approve strongly
of a compilation which shall express the reasoned opinions of writers
representing the allied nations, while it is a real pleasure to
turn for a few minutes from the day's anxieties and consider the
one great force which supplies the leaven to a war-sodden world.
Are men to live in freedom or as slaves to a soulless system?--that
is the question which is now being solved in blood and agony and
tears on the battlefields of the Old World. The answer given by
the New World has never been in doubt, but its clarion note was
necessarily withheld in all its magnificent rhythm until President
Wilson delivered his Message to Congress last April. I have
no hesitation in saying that Mr. Wilson's utterance will become
immortal. It is a new declaration of the Rights of Man, but
a finer, broader one, based on the sure principles of Christian