The great adventure Author:Theodore Roosevelt Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V SOUND NATIONALISM AND SOUND INTERNATIONALISM THE tremendous thrust of the Allies during the last three months, in which the hard-fighting soldier... more »s of the American army have borne so distinguished and honorable a part, has meant grave military disaster to Germany. Therefore it has resulted in a renewal of the German peace offensive. No man can prophesy in these matters; but the Germans may yet continue the war for a long time; and therefore we should prepare to have in France an army of four million fighting men (not including non-combatants) for the battle front next spring. But the Germans seem likely to try to make peace instead of continuing the war and are apparently seeking to cover their retention of some of their ill- gotten substantial gains by nominal and theoretical support of some glittering proposal about a league of nations to end all war. Theythereby hope to keep part of their booty by appealing to what is vaguely called internationalism, and getting the support not only of sentimentalists who do not like to look unpleasant facts in the face, but also of the good people who are appalled and puzzled and panic- stricken by the horror Germany has brought on the world, and who, instead of bracing themselves to put down this horror by their own hardened strength and iron will, clutch at any quack remedy which false prophets hold out as offering a substitute for such action. Therefore it is well at this time for sober and resolute men and women to apply that excellent variety of wisdom colloquially known as "horse-sense" to the problems of nationalism and internationalism. These problems will not be solved by rhetoric. Least of all will they be solved by competitive rhetoric. Masters of phrasemaking may win immense, although evanescent, applause by outvy...« less