NATIONS HAVE BECOME CLOSE NEIGHBORS

But great changes have come to the world since the time of
Washington. The use of steam in navigation, the submarine cable
and wireless telegraphy have brought all the world into closer
relations than existed between New England and the Southern States
in the early days of our national life. Our government at
Washington may send messages to European capitals and receive a
reply within ten minutes. The Atlantic has been crossed by
airplane. The nations of the world have become very close
neighbors. The murder of a prince in a little city of central
Europe drew from millions of homes in America their sons to fight
on the soil of Europe. We entered the war because our interests
were so closely bound up with those of the world that we could not
keep out; because "what affects mankind is inevitably our affair,
as well as the affair of the nations of Europe and Asia."

The war did not create this interdependence; it only emphasized
it. But now that we are aware of it, it will probably influence
our lives to a much greater extent than before the war.

WHAT THE WORLD WAS FIGHTING FOR

The nations that were associated against Germany, occupy, with
their dependencies, two-thirds of the earth's surface and include
more than four-fifths of its population. The governments of these
nations declared that they were fighting primarily, not for
selfish interests such as "ports and provinces and trade," but
"for the common interests of the whole family of civilized
nations--for nothing less than the cause of mankind." [Footnote: