In the first place a vast commerce of some $2,000,000,000 a year was suddenly either demolished or dislocated. The day after England declared war on Germany traffic between America and Europe was paralyzed. Merchantmen were impressed into military service; freight and passenger vessels were afraid to leave the ports; and millions of tons of merchandise were being piled up in American ports with no foreign market in sight. The Southern States were prostrated by the slump in the cotton market. The stock exchanges closed their doors. Trade depression threw an army of working men out of employment, and the falling off in the fiscal revenue was so great that the Government was driven temporarily to impose a number of direct taxes on the people. Thus the economic safety of this nation was threatened.

Moreover, nearly thirty million American citizens claimed close kinship with the belligerents on the other side of the continent and the conflict had for them something of the character of "a civil war by proxy." Perhaps in no other country were the right and wrong of the war more passionately debated. As the great battles raged in Europe, millions of American citizens seemed to forget everything save their blood relatives in the trenches. The meager news from Europe told them that the old homesteads back in the lands of their fathers, the accumulated earnings, the heirlooms and even the tombs of their ancestors were being sacrificed to the god of

war.

Gray-haired fathers and mothers of American citizens were driven from their homes like so many cattle, and even from the land of their birth. Great industries were swept off the map, and brothers and sisters became wanderers without food or shelter. Then from the trenches came heart-rending stories of carnage in which so many kinsmen were slaughtered that the god of war had rivers of blood in which to slake the world's militaristic thirst for gore. And three thousand miles from these dreadful battlefields-here among a free people-thirty million kinsmen looked daily into the eyes of men and women whose blood relatives in Europe were slaughtering their relatives, and preserving neutrality in America became the most important problem of the hour.

The United States was the only great neutral nation left to help bring order out of chaos and the responsibility of this unique position was emphasized strongly at the beginning of the war. This nation occupied "a sort of provisional judgment seat" and the warring nations appealed to it for sympathy and moral support and waited eagerly for verdicts of guilt or acquittal. There was almost a scramble among the combatants to win America's approval or good-will. Behind this competition to gain the ear of the United States there was, says a contemporary writer, a two-fold purpose: "First, that decent respect for contemporary opinion which is making it more and more impossible for any nation to go to war without at least an attempt to show that its cause is

just; and second, a consciousness that, while American neutrality was accepted in all lands as a static factor, American resources and benevolence and diplomacy might have no small influence in the course of the war and the views of peace.

Therefore, America was called upon to maintain a just neutrality at any cost save that of honor in order to hold the mad half of the world to some ethical standard and to compose the differences between the warring nations when the accumulated fighting strength of the world had spent its energies.

These extraordinary conditions were giving birth to new issues more perplexing than any that had confronted the nation since the Revolutionary War. How to maintain neutrality, how to hold the world to some standard, how to mobilize our national resources, how to keep the lines of trade open, how to maintain honor and convince the American people that national honor has been maintained, these are the new issues that arose immediately.

In order, therefore, to approach these new problems with courage and intelligence, President Wilson with a calmness that was steadying to the nation reminded the American people that the supreme duty of the hour was to place America first in their thoughts. And "America First" became the watchword of the administration and served to anchor the American spirit and keep men sane.

CHAPTER XIV

AMERICA FIRST

The shock was so sudden that no one had attempted to think through the possibilities of such a conflict. But now that it had burst upon the world, men everywhere were half dazed when the catastrophe that had been declared impossible was indeed a reality. In this great crisis all eyes were turned to the chief executive of the nation. What would he do-what could he doto give America the right direction?

The nations of Europe had decided what they would do; and their decision gave America a demoralization of business, with stock exchanges closed, railroads helpless, markets congested, factories shut down and labor unemployed. It gave "civil war by proxy,"-citizens arrayed against citizens, mobs in the streets, and a panicky condition that affected men's reason. Moreover, it turned the current of government from old accustomed channels into strange and untried areas. In the midst of this sudden confusion, even before America could think, every nation of Europe turned quickly to this country for help and sympathy and consolation, and added to the con

fusion by attempting to place its interest first in the hearts of American citizens. What, then, was the first duty of Americans?

It is very apparent now that the supreme duty of the hour was for America to find herself first. And while the passions of men were stirred by the events on the other side of the globe and their hearts were filled with despair over the demoralization at home, President Wilson exhibited sagacity, resolution, and patience which has rarely been equaled. His first act was to remind the people of this nation that their first thoughts should be for America, and "America First" became a shibboleth with which to unify the patriotism of this nation.

On the day before England declared war against Germany he called the newspaper correspondents together and urged them to be careful and "not to give currency to any unverified news, to anything that would tend to create or add to the excitement." And then he added, "I think you will agree that we must all at the present moment act together as Americans in seeing that America does not suffer any unnecessary distress from what is going on in the world at large."

This appeal was coupled with an assurance that the financial situation throughout the country was sound, that bankers and business men were already thinking of America first and were cooperating "with the government with a zeal, intelligence, and spirit which make the outcome secure." He appealed to the American people