The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1917.

Evening Star, Issue 16348, 14 February 1917, Page 4

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1917.

A Washington message to the London ' Times' advises that America and "the nation is growing Germany. "impatient with Prc-

"sident Wilson's wait- " ing policy, and that so intense is public " feeling that it would -welcome an overt "act precipitating war." We have every respect for the opinions of this correspondent, as they havo at all times been marked by a sense of responsibility, and have not hesitated to show where British officialdom has blundered in its dealings with Washington. But we doubt whether, at this present hour, he is better qualified than Mr Wilson to interpret tho feelings of the great majority of the American people. The President owes his re-election as President not to the crowded States of tho east, where pro-Ally sentiment has been consistently healthy if not numerically strong, but to the western and middle-west States. He secured their support partly on his domestic recoid, but chiefly because he had kept them out of the war. Jt is useless to ignoro the facts, which are and always have been—apart from what, for want of a better term, are called "'the' intellectuals" distinctly opposed to championing the cause of the Allies by the way of war. America and Americans, speaking generally, not only do not want war, but, with tho exceptions named, are not greatly stirred, oven if they havo any definite knowledge, over tho causes and objects of the war. "The people of the United States," said tho New York 'Evening Post' recently, "are not ashamed of "the role the nation has played in respect "to tho European war. They do not be"lieve the Allies have been 'fighting onr '' battles.' . . . They -know that our

participation in the war, from howevei

"strong compulsion, would be a world "calamity." This view, adds yet another correspondent, whose special duty it was to travel through many States in order to discover as far as possible the actual condition of public opinion in relation to Mr Wilson and the war—"this "view seems accurately to reflect the "present state of mind of the great bulk " of tlie people of this country." Whatever our opinion of Mr Wilson and his policy may be, wo conclude that there is no sure ground for the assertion that the President does not continue to reflect accurately the wishes of his fellow-citizens in respect to the war. That the American Press, now as in the past, have grown urgent and assertive that he should take definite action is most probable; but that a man of President Wilson's temperament will be moved so much as by a hairs breadth from the path he has mapped out for himself is not probable. Obviously such a conclusion is not complimentary to the President. Stated in other terms, it means that Mr Wilson is not moved by the ordinary passions and sentiments that impel men to action, and that the standpoint he has taken and maintained in relation to the war is distinctly nonmoral. And this exactly is w-hat is meant. We are but ono, among a host of authorities better qualified than ourselves to speak, who, from the hour tliat President Wilson remained cold and unmoved before the heart-breaking appeal of stricken Belgium, have consistently maintained that his failure to i-ise to tbe greatness of his opportunity was, next to the fact of the war itself, the greatest disaster that has fallen upon the race. " The moral side of the " war," says M. Olomenceau, "has escaped "Mr Wilson. The pages of history will " vibrato eternally with the story of Belgium's martyrdom. Mr Wilson does not "realise this." "President Wilson's do- " tachment of mind," says another writer, "is abnormal and non-moral." It is not necessary to labor the proof in support. The simple every-day facts are too manifest. President Wilson did not protest against the the invasion or Belgium; the subsequent diabolical atrocities; the aerial bombings of open towns; the horrors of the Wittenberg Camp; tho cold-blooded, dastardly, and cowardly murders of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt; tho murder of Americans on the high seas or the sinking of hospital ships. He is not, therefore, a man who is likely to let himself be forced into action by popular clanio?.

We are not over-anxious that another great nation should be drawn into tho war : but we confess to a feeling that is r.ot wholly free from impatience and irritation when we see tho practically autocratic, if temporary, ruler of tho greatest, Republic talking morality to his own countrymen; protesting that the causes of the. ■war ore -unknown to him and the objects of the .belligerents are tho same j remaining deaf to the wail of agony that ceaselessly comes across the seas, and yet simultaneously more than eager "to take "tha Hun oßb of quarantine and provide "him with a clean bill of health," to use Mr Garvin's picturesque phraseology, if only he will reaffirm his submarine assurances of May 4, 1916. For Mr Wilson. German, infamies on. land and sea have been committed in vain. He is ready to .give Germany "a certificate of moral Equality" and negotiate with her as ono civilised Power With another, provide*! «he will repeat some formula which not improbably will ho more honored in the breach than tho observance. Meanwhile American eeamen are being held as guarantees for American humanity towards Gtrrnan seamen, pressure is being brought to -bear upon a departing Ambassador

to Wure German interest*, while the British. Admiralty is warned tliat it is no ionger 6afc to return wounded Germans in British hospital ships, as they would run a very great risk of being sunk by German submarines. That war between America and Germany is possible wo cannot deny; but it .will need something more than has yet been inado apparent to compel the President to take the decisive step. Meantime, as a Washington message sarcastically implies, the President's fears not impossibly may be dissipated by the success of the British Navy in coping with Germany's stibmarine campaign.