In short, membership in such a party, as
far as possible, should not be based upon occupation or economic status,
but on an honest difference of view from that of the conservative
opposition. This would be a distinctly American solution. In order to
form such a party a campaign of education will be necessary. For today
Mr. Wilson's strength is derived from the independent vote representing
the faith of the people as a whole; but the majority of those who support
the President, while they ardently desire the abolition in the world of
absolute monarchy, of militarism and commercial imperialism, while they
are anxious that this war shall expedite and not retard the social
reforms in which they are interested, have as yet but a vague conception
of the social order which these reforms imply.
It marks a signal advance in democracy when liberal opinion in any
nation turns for guidance and support to a statesman of another nation.
No clearer sign of the times could be desired than the fact that our
American President has suddenly become the liberal leader of the world.
The traveller in France, and especially in Britain, meets on all sides
striking evidence of this. In these countries, until America's entrance
into the war, liberals had grown more and more dissatisfied with the
failure of their governments to define in democratic terms the issue of
the conflict, had resented the secret inter-allied compacts, savouring of
imperialism and containing the germs of future war.
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