AMERICA'S INTERNATIONAL IDEALS
chosen group of persons: so no nation can say justly or logically that its fundamental being and responsibilities end with itself. It sins against the social nature of man the moment it adopts courses of action for mere selfish aggrandizement, as over against the welfare of mankind in the large. And yet the European war is the product of precisely this point of view: that a nation can legitimately consider itself as ending with its own national boundary, and that it may be pardoned in doing almost anything it pleases for the sake of a narrow self-interest if it can justify itself by force.
Thus again, America has a most significant message to Europe in a truth which America herself is beginning to exemplify more and more in her international relations. This message is that the ideals of nations must rise above the standpoint of mere selfish interest and must cheer fully and insistently reckon with the fundamental and permanent welfare of other nations. It is not to be pretended for one moment that America herself has fully realized this new international vision in all her acts; but her relations with other nations in recent years have more and more exemplified this new and larger statesmanship. Indeed, truly seen, America's policy of neutrality during the European war has not been merely a policy of self-interest, although it is partly this, perhaps largely this. But there is another reason why America should remain neutral,—a reason which has arisen in the consciousness of a number of the best leaders of American thought. This other reason is that by keeping out of the European conflict America may not only best serve herself, but the nations now at war and the world at large. She is anxious, as the greatest of neutral Powers, to be in a position where she can not only aid Europe
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