strength are not calculable. We wish to live in peace with America and avoid a rupture. Who wantonly, by thoughtless action, brings about a rupture, sins against the Fatherland."

Reverting again to the other view-point, we find in the London Daily Chronicle these thoughts of a dignitary no less important than Viscount Bryce: "I doubt whether we in England have yet fully realized either the magnitude of the service which the United States government and its representatives abroad have rendered in protection of British subjects in the belligerent countries or the noble spirit that has animated them in that service. Their embassies and legations have become enormous business offices, manned mainly by voluntary workers. The looking after our prisoners of war in Germany alone has become a gigantic task. One thing more deserves to be noted: It is the wonderful zeal that has been shown in relieving distress and suffering in Belgium. The liberality shown by the people of the United States is indeed beyond all praise.”

Alfred G. Gardiner, editor of the London Daily News, cabled to America as follows: "The United States is the greatest potentiality on earth, and we are too rich in experience to-day to ignore a potentiality because it has not been realized. We have seen our own nation, a nation as peaceful in its purposes as the United States, turn itself into a nation of armed men in a few months. And what England has done, America can do.

"Do not let us forget that she fought the most stubborn war in history and the most noble warnoble alike in its motives and in the grave, regretful spirit in which it was waged. America comes into the world's system to secure herself against war and the effects of war. That security cannot be had by one nation alone, however well armed, nor can it be had by the skillful balancing of one group of nations against another group. It can be had only by the common force as its guarantee. That force must depend, not on nations, but on mankind. We cannot get rid of force.

"What we can do, and what President Wilson will use the power of the United States to accomplish, is to change the purpose for which that force is used. It has been the instrument of war between nations. He will make it the instrument of peace to defend the community of nations. The sword America forges will be used, not to make war, but to make war on war and to lay the foundation of world security.

"What does this mean to Europe? It means that Europe is offered a way out of the pit-that the new world comes in at last to redress the balance of the world."

XV

Waterloo.-Shall America Lead the

W

Nations?

ATERLOO. American tourists have ever found this, the field of the world's greatest battle, to be an objective point. Of how much greater interest is Waterloo to-day! If not upon its rolling surface the actual fighting is going on, it has played nevertheless a conspicuous part in the history of the present world

war.

The invading and retreating armies have crossed and recrossed here where the Little Corporal made his last stand one hundred years ago.

To this field the Yankee Major had planned a visit. The museums and monuments are still open for visitors although the tourists are few and far between. For Major Winchell this was to be a day not only of sightseeing but one remarkable for meditation and inspiration, pondering upon the past, the present and the future.

On the first day of February, Staff-Captain Blanchard and the Major took the tram to Waterloo.

The historic battle-field is located about fourteen miles south of Brussels. Byron wrote:

There was a sound of revelry by night
And Belgium's capital had gathered there
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spoke again
And all went merry as a marriage bell,

But hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell.

Ah! then and there was a hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness.
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated; who would guess
If ever more might meet these mutual eyes,
Since upon that night so sweet such awful morn
should come.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,

The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling to arms; the day,
Battle's magnificently stern array !

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when

rent

The earth is covered thick with other clay and

pent,

Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial

blent.

The Major here tells of his meditations on that memorable day: "We passed through some of those quaint old Belgian towns and I pictured in my mind the mobilization of troops on that eventful June day in 1815. We could see them sweeping along the very same roads. The Staff-Captain pointed out this spot or that spot of historic interest. One place especially interested me. It was the ◆ house in which Victor Hugo wrote his immortal 'Les Miserables.' I pondered upon the conditions to-day. Yes, there is still the same-the poor, the unhappy, the outcast of the type of Jean Valjean, living to-day. Will Society ever be organized so that Man, the supreme handiwork of God, may be redeemed from his broken condition ? Can he never rise higher than the dollar or the machine gun? Has our boasted civilization failed?

"Not many miles in every direction from where we were riding are the greatest centres of learning. Millions upon millions have been spent to equip the minds of the young men of all countries with higher education. Why should a barbarous war be carried on in the light of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? These were the questions I asked myself; questions that thousands ask. Is there no way by which such wholesale destruction of life and property can be overcome? Cannot the genius of our civilization discover that panacea whereby man may redeem his race from deliberate, organized machine murder and self-destruction?

"My answer is 'Yes,' when the right foundation