"THE WORLD MUST BE MADE SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY!

"Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

"We are sincere friends of the German people. We have no quarrel with them. We have no feelings towards them but of sympathy and friendship.

"It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was a war determined as wars in the old unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and little groups of ambitious men were accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools. (We shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate relations of mutual advantages between the German people and us-however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.) We have borne with their government through all these bitter months because of that friendship-exercising a patience and forebearance which would otherwise have been impossible.

"We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations make them.

"It is a fearful thing, gentlemen of the Congress, to lead this great peaceful people into war (into the most terrible of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance). But the right is more precious than peace and we shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest to our hearts. For DEMOCRACY, for the rights of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations. For a CONCERT of free peoples that shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."

ACT VI

SCENE 1.

(A large Hall in some City of Europe)

Delegates from all nations meet in response to a call to consider the adoption of the Constitution of the United Nations of the World.)

SCENE 1.

The Peace Conference, Paris, France

(As a Prologue to this act a collection of gems and choice maxims taken from several authors who spoke and wrote prior to the signing of the Armistice may be given by characters representing the several nations in an imaginary convention supposed to have been called together for the purpose of adopting an International Constitution for the United World Republic.)

The President-Gentlemen of the World Convention: We have met for the purpose of forming a Union of Nations of the earth, whose object shall be to establish justice among all men and above all to form such a partnership of nations with such good will and intent of purpose that such a calamity as the world war just ended shall never be tolerated again.

The first act in the greatest tragedy in history ended with victory for the Allies and America, on the battlefield where the blood of America, with that of the Allies has commingled and streamed to every ocean of the planet. This has given every nation in this great world struggle a Declaration of Independence written in the blood of its noblest citizens.

This struggle has given the participants even more than a Declaration of Independence, it has cemented them into a Union of Confederated Nations that has brought them up to the point of forming a more per

fect union, a fundamental law embodied in a written constitution similar to that of the United States of America.

That as the Allied Powers were organized and won by military force, the same nations under such a constitution can win self-government by following the principles of the Prince of Peace. The struggle for this victory is now on and must be far advanced toward its goal by the consummation of such a union, which shall be known under a Written Constitution as the UNITED NATIONS OF THE WORLD.

As the immortal Washington said in the convention that drafted the Constitution of the United States of America: "Let us adopt a Constitution that will stamp wisdom and dignity on these proceedings and hold up a light which sooner or later will have its influence. Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is with God."

The Secretary may now call the roll of Nations. (They may be seated in groups as by Continents and called upon in that order, the Nations from each Continent responding respectively.)

The Secretary:

THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE

GREAT BRITAIN. 1. ENGLAND

We must see

Let us begin with the hearts of men. peace brought about not merely by agreements between nations, but a change in the hearts of men. The war has carried us down deep to the bedrock of honesty and sincerity. To secure peace in the future there must be created as a basis . . . a strong, healthy, sound PUBLIC OPINION which will see that governments are kept in order.

There must be a passion born for peace stronger than has been the passion for war. This war must be a creative power. This passion for peace should

be burnt into millions of minds and hearts that this state of affairs shall never be tolerated again.-Lord Bryce.

2. AUSTRALIA

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new;

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be:

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew

From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central

blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the people plunging through the thunder storm;

Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furl'd

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal

law.

-Alfred Tennyson (1842).