BOOK IV
THE TECHNIQUE OF A NATION'S GETTING ITS WAY WITH OTHER NATIONS
I
FOURTH OF JULY ALL THE YEAR ROUND
It would be very convenient for the other nations in the world to-day if America—being the biggest, the freshest and the most powerful after the war and having the other nations for the time being most dependent on it, could be the one that they felt most deserved to lead them and have its way with them.
It is almost the personal necessity of forty other nations to-day that America should be a success, that America instead of instantly disappointing the other nations, should instantly prove itself worthy of the leadership they would like to place in her hands. "America's success is the world's success," people keep saying. This has a prettified and pleasant sound—in speaking of a great, or rather of a big, nation.
But what of it? What is the fact? What do we wish we could believe is the fact? What is there—either in our own interests or the interests of others that can really be done and done now about the fact—if it is a fact—by any real person or body of persons in America? As a practical and not a Fourth of July institution,—or rather as an institution for celebrating the Fourth of July all the year round, the Air Line League looks upon direct action to be taken by the American people to meet the world's particular situation at this time, as follows:
If America is to get its way—the way, as we like to think, of democracy and freedom, with other nations, there are certain things about us the other nations want to know.