Thousands of square miles of devastated territory would not have
been spoiled. A hundred billions of dollars for equipping and
carrying on the war would never have been spent. All this is not
an idle dream; it is the calm statement of what would probably
have happened if President Wilson, after the Lusitania outrage,
had dared to break with Germany. History will hold him
accountable for those millions of lives sacrificed, for the
unspeakable suffering which the people of the ravaged regions had
to endure, for the dissolution of Russia, which threatened to
throw down the bases of our civilization, and for the waste of
incalculable treasure. President Wilson's apologists assert that
the country was not ready for him to take any resolute attitude
towards Germany in May, 1915. They argue that if he had attempted
to do so there would have been great internal dissension, perhaps
even civil war, and especially that the German sections would
have opposed preparations for war so stubbornly as to have made
them impossible.
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