perilous foreign relations which involve the higher dictates of humanity and of right. And between the need of placating the Bryan element in Congress and the failure instinctively and decisively to understand the nature of other governments and peoples, the foreign policy of the Administration has seemed to be feeling its way uncertainly along, and the soul of the Nation is not stirred nor strengthened.

Of

The National weakness of spirit shows itself in the various humiliating and purely political proposals during the present crisis in the Congress of the United States. these the Hay Bill to reorganize the military system of the country is the worst, not only because of its utter lack of vision, but because it is so palpably connected with stratagems and spoils. It is one more revelation that the Congress of the United States is either too ignorant or too reckless or too feeble to care for honor, efficiency, or country, but only for a Constitutional theory, a selfish vote-getting interest, or the exigencies of the support of a political machine.

I am talking about the things that Congress is now working at. It is displaying the same narrow vision in its preparation to meet the immigration overflow after the war. There has been a wealth of discussion as to what is going to happen when the war ceaseswhether capital and labor will profitably flow into the European areas of destruction for the purpose of rebuilding, or whether there will be a rush of immigration to America to escape intolerable burdens of misery and taxation. The truth seems to be that we are not likely to get many English or French or Germans, but very likely to get an increasing multitude from southern Europe, particularly from the Balkan States, from Poland and Galicia and Servia. An illiteracy test would artificially and mechanically restrict this flow, but we have not the slightest reason to believe that it would separate the superior from the inferior, nor clear up the immigration perplexity. The country needs a continuous and sufficient supply of immigrant labor in the right places. An expert Federal immigration commission, working under a reasonable law, with powers of discrimination as to the volume and as to the sort of labor which shall be admitted at any particular period, and as to where it shall go, would seem to be indicated by the needs of the country and the drift of National practice in other fields. But here again Congress gives no sign of National vision.

Of course

it is very important to keep the stupid and inefficient out of this country. We have enough of them. But how about keeping them out of Congress?

assume

And so with the craven attitude with respect to the Philippines. We thought we had that fought out in 1900. I suppose the danger of Philippine imperialism is a bogey of the past. Now the fear seems to be that we are straining democratic theory and National stamina by continuing to responsibility for our wards in the Pacific. And that, anyway, our wards do not need us any more. And even if they do, it is not wise to run the risk of incurring enmities in that part of the world. But still, while we are letting them go, we will hold on to the responsibility for a season-a policy shortsighted, vacillating, compromising, dangerous. How different from the National vigor and aspiration which the country for the moment felt when the Philippines first came to us without our seeking. The Government and the American people together believed then that they were members of a race which grew great in spirit through service and responsibility imposed upon us under circumstances free from taint of aggression or touch of wrong.

But the time would fail me to speak of the hostility of the National representatives to the continuance under public authority of the valuable examination, begun under the Taft Commission on Economy and Efficiency, into the lax and costly administrative methods of the Federal Government. And when it comes to Federal revenue, where is the courage or the insight to tax fearlessly and intelligently the abundant National resources ? Altogether in this country the States gather some twenty-five millions of inheritance taxes every year from a total wealth of nearly two hundred billions. England, with far less total wealth, collects easily two hundred millions from inheritance taxes. A firm grasp of the ordinary principles of taxation, the lowering of the income minimum, the collection by the Federal Government of the entire corporation and inheritance revenues, and the handing back of the larger portion to the States-these plain, practical hints of the men of science seem to be far from the mind or the interest of the Solons of Congress. Taxation and retrenchment at Washington are a game of politics and not of finance.

But we cannot put the entire odium of the degradation of National intelligence and spirit

exerted for a united America, for the sympathetic and friendly union of trade and ideals with sister states to the south; the firm policing of the feebler and more turbulent populations of Central America for their own safety as well as ours. The brightest spot

of internationalism on the face of the earth has been the Philippines and Cuba. And in making it bright, America has been finding her soul. Under the present. Administration there have been ominous signs of spiritual retreat and disaster. The proposed scuttling of the Philippines, the deliberate discussion of the payment of blackmail to Colombia, have been symptoms of the shrinking of the National soul. And the slow response of the spirit of America to the atrocious wrongs committed in Belgium, in Armenia, upon the high seas, and even at our borders in Mexico, has been a startling indication of the subnormal beating of the moral impulse. And yet all the time there have been signs of life and hope.

It may seem fantastic to speak of the Platt Amendment as a method of the National soul. The Platt Amendment is a tether by which the United States allows weaker peoples, for whose conduct she feels herself responsible, the greatest measure of selfgovernment and independence up to a certain point of disorder and danger to ourselves and themselves. We have applied the full principle of it in Cuba, and the nub of it in the case of the police protectorate actually enforced in Haiti, in San Domingo, and now in Nicaragua where we have secured the option upon another canal route. few American marines in the capital of Nicaragua have for more than a year been the source of the most profound peace that the little "Republic" ever knew. And the National sense, not of "manifest destiny," but of duty, has grown stronger as we have observed the service which these simple police protectorates have been able to accomplish.

The

But the sense of National responsibility has paused and paltered at the gates of Mexico. I am not now criticising the method of the Government of the United States in dealing with Mexican affairs. I am talking about the people of the United States and why they have faltered. Mexico is a country

of great area, with a large and proud population having a national ego developed out of all proportion to any human quality or advancement in civilization and self-control.

And from the standpoint of any necessary military aggression we are a feeble folk. And successive groups of native Mexicans are seeking to establish order out of chaos. Let them work at it. It is the line of least resistance, the easier way. That has been the way a large part of the country has looked at it. But already, with respect to Mexico, the soul of the Nation is finding itself, and unless the group about Carranza speedily show themselves worthy of the confidence of the loan markets of the world and otherwise capable of rule, the Platt Amendment, it seems to me, is as sure to be applied to Mexico as it ever was to Cuba. That is the temper of the slowly rising consciousness of the American people.

The soul of the Nation is finding itself. We are a great, cumbersome democracy, working at cross-purposes, busy about many matters. Many newspapers and politicians have deluded us so often that we have ceased listening to them for a long time after they begin to cry "Wolf!" and "Peril!" But the giant is stirring in his sleep. There is a great spiritual reserve in the country, as there was at the time of the Civil War. Then we were a Nation under arms, and when we were first organized we had no great military captains. But we stumbled on until we created our own great captains. And as the war progressed, the army developed a soul of its own. And the time came when, if every general had suddenly been shot in battle, new leaders would have been born in an hour and the soul of that army, like John Brown's spirit, would have gone marching on. This is what America is capable of in a crisis, whether of peace or of war. So now the Nation has taken its stand soberly and unitedly behind the President, or in front of him, in the final declaration to Germany and the world that we think of ourselves by the force of circumstances as 66 the responsible spokesmen of the rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent while those rights seem in process of being swept utterly away in the maelstrom." The American people are slowly girding their loins for any alternative or for any great adventure.

That is what this political campaign is really coming to be all about-the mobilization of the spiritual reserve of the people of the United States, the revitalization of the country through the breaking up of the deeps of National consciousness by the impulse of the terrible war. Is not this the inner meaning

of the war to the world? Germany divined aright the deplorable political and industrial and military weaknesses of Russia, England, and France. But Germany is beating her blind efficiency out against the rock of the spiritual reserve of Russia, England, and France. And it is the spiritual reserve which is the final test of the fitness of a people to survive.

The soul of the American people is in process of finding itself. And, if it finds itself in time, it is going to demand, even in the present campaign, the election of a government and a leadership as big as its own soul. It is a heavy task the two political parties have on hand. And they are so unfitted by tradition and practice to deal with it! It is entirely clear how the Democratic party and politicians will meet it. They must meet it on the record of the acts of the Democratic President and the Democratic Congress. And the country will determine and decide upon Democratic policy and leadership by what the party has accomplished in these critical years, and not by what it promises. Contrary to the predictions of the Republicans, the Democratic party will attempt to prove, and to a considerable extent will be able to prove, that it has been constructive upon some notable issues left over from long discussion in the past; that it has refused to be driven into war, or even to the brink of war, until every attempt had been made to obtain National honor through peace. Preparedness without militarism, prosperity without favoritism, peace without dishonor, is to be the Democratic slogan. And the country will then determine whether, on the whole, the Democratic party has shown itself fit to rule in the new and greater day of National preparation which is upon us; whether it gives promise of facing the fresh issue of a broad Americanism in a spirit and a fashion other than timid, halting, and ineffective.

But with the Republican party the case is not so simple. As in 1912, so in 1916 the struggle is on for the soul of the Republican party. And there is not so much certainty that the soul of the Republican party will find itself as that the soul of the Nation will find itself. But the future usefulness and service of that party depend upon the outcome. On the one hand, there is the same tendency as in 1912 to obscure the issue, to lay the emphasis upon tariffs and full dinner-pails and "tried Republicans" and shibboleths generally, instead of upon ideals.