ABSTRACT
Whenever a man like Theodore Roosevelt suggests that the disarmament of peaceful nations will not produce peace on earth, a cry goes up that he is spoiling for a fight. Chiefly because Colonel Roosevelt is free from that delusion, we believe that of all Americans commenting on the war his judgment is the ripest. Undefended towns have been bombarded, exorbitant levies made, hostages taken. England may not have been too scrupulous about treaties in the past, but to-day she stands irrevocably committed. If she makes treaties now they may mean something, and that is an incalculable advance for the human race. A precedent would have been established which could react on all the future. The beginnings of world organization would have been tested in fire, and the hope of peace would have taken on at least the shadow of reality.
