AMERICA'S INTERNATIONAL IDEALS
the sum of our message to Europe in this regard is to be found, not in mere words, but in example. For in the New World there has never been experienced any insurmountable difficulty through the policy of a free interchange and blending of racial ideals; and the result in our component American life is a sufficient proof of the wisdom of supposing that civilization is not made poorer but richer through the free commingling of the contributions of all races and nations. To deny the practical triumph of this policy is to deny American civilization in its totality. America can hardly stand by and see this—one of her most cherished ideals of what a sane civilization means—trampled under foot by an anachronistic race prejudice and a self-defeating racial selfishness.
VI
What are the immediate things that America can do to bring about a new world order in which the outgrown war system shall find no place?
First of all, even at this time we are doing one momentous thing. For, in the very midst of the European war, America has been negotiating with over thirty nations a form of treaty which will be most significant as a means of minimizing, if not of obliterating, the chief causes of war. I refer to those treaties which provide that all disputes of every nature whatsoever, to the settlement of which previous arbitration treaties do not apply in their terms, or are not applied in fact, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjustment have failed, be referred for investigation and report to a permanent international commission. The nations bound by these
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