On this perception of the higher common interests of
self-defense do I build the possibilities of a western coalition. But a
time may come when Russia will be compelled to join it and to complete
thereby the union of the whole of Europe; it may come sooner than the
conversion of Russia to western ideas could be effected by natural
evolution; it may come through the yellow peril, the menace of which has
been brought nearer to us by the accursed policy of England.
Let Japan organize the dormant forces of China, as it seems bent upon
doing, and the same law of eastern aggressiveness which is at the bottom
of the present war will push the yellow mass toward Europe. Russia, as
comparatively western, will have to bear their first onset; for this she
will require Occidental assistance, and in the turmoil of that direful
conflict--or, let us hope, in order to avoid it--she will readily give
up all designs against her western neighbors, and she may become really
western by the necessities which impel her to lean on the west.
But this may or may not happen. What I see before me as a tangible
possibility is the great western block. It is the only principle of
reconstruction after war that contains a guarantee of a permanent peace;
it is the one, therefore, which the pacifists of all nations should
strive for, once they get rid of the passing mentality of conflict that
now obscures the judgment of the best among us.
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