"Woodrow Wilson is not so far wrong if he means the planning of war might be prevented if the people asserted the right to know everything about the foreign policies of their countries. But the President seems blind to the fact that a handful of men have made it their secret and uncontrolled business to direct the fate of the European democracies. With the press at one's command one can easily drive a poor people to a mania of enthusiasm, when they will carry on their shoulders the criminals who have led to the brink of disaster."
[Illustration: "THE NEW OLD PRESIDENT. LONG LIVE AMERICA! LONG LIVE PEACE! LONG LIVE THE AMMUNITION FACTORIES!"]
Dr. Haas was beginning to understand that the anti-American campaign in Germany which the Navy started and the Foreign Office encouraged, had had some effect.
Everything the United States does from now on will have a decisive influence in the world war. The Allies realise it and Washington knows it. Mr. Lloyd-George, the British Prime Minister, realised what a decisive effect American ships would have, when he said at the banquet of the American Luncheon Club in London:
"The road to victory, the guaranty of victory, the absolute assurance of victory, has to be found in one word, 'ships,' and a second word, 'ships,' and a third word, 'ships.'"
But our financial economic and military aid to the Allies will not be our greatest contribution towards victory. The influence of President Wilson's utterances, of our determination and of our value as a friendly nation after the war will have a tremendous effect as time goes on upon the German people. As days and weeks pass, as the victory which the German Government has promised the people becomes further and further away, the people, who are now doing more thinking than they ever have done since the beginning of the war, will some day realise that in order to obtain peace, which they pray for and hope for, they will have to reform their government _during the war_--not after the war as the Kaiser plans.
Military pressure from the outside is going to help this democratic movement in Germany succeed in spite of itself. The New York World editorial on April 14th, discussing Mr. Lloyd-George's statement that "Prussia is not a democracy; Prussia is not a state; Prussia is an army," said: