The first inclination of America was to be neutral.  She was far removed from the scenes of strife and knew little of the hidden springs and causes of the war.  Excepting in the case of a few of her public men; her editors, professors and scholars, European politics were as a sealed book.  The president of the United States declared for neutrality; that individual and nation should avoid the inflaming touch of the war passion.  We kept that attitude as long as was consistent with national patience and the larger claims of humanity and universal justice.

As an evidence of our lack of knowledge of the impending conflict, a party of Christian men were on the sea with the humanitarian object in view of attending a world’s peace conference in Constance, Germany—­Germany of all places, then engaged in trying to burn up the world.  Arriving in Paris, the party received its first news that a great European war was about to begin.  Steamship offices were being stormed by crowds of frantic American tourists.  Martial law was declared.  The streets were alive with soldiers and weeping women.  Shops were closed, the clerks having been drafted into the army.  The city hummed with militarism.

Underneath the excitement was the stern, stoic attitude of the French in preparing to meet their old enemy, combined with their calmness in refraining from outbreaks against German residents of Paris.  One of the party alluding to the incongruous position in which the peace delegates found themselves, said: 

“It might be interesting to observe the unique and almost humorous situation into which these peace delegates were thrown.  Starting out a week before with the largest hope and most enthusiastic anticipation of effecting a closer tie between nations, and swinging the churches of Christendom into a clearer alignment against international martial attitudes, we were instantly ‘disarmed,’ bound, and cast into chains of utter helplessness, not even feeling free to express the feeblest sentiment against the high rising tide of military activity.  We were lost on a tempestuous sea; the dove of peace had been beaten, broken winged to shore, and the olive branch lost in its general fury.”

Describing conditions in Paris on August 12, he says: 

“We are in a state of tense expectation, so acute that it dulls the senses; Paris is relapsing into the condition of an audience assisting at a thrilling drama with intolerably long entr’acts, during which it tries to think of its own personal affairs.

“We know that pages of history are being rapidly engraved in steel, written in blood, illuminated in the margin with glory on a background of heroism and suffering, not more than a few score miles away.

“The shrieking camelots (peddlers) gallop through the streets waving their news sheets, but it is almost always news of twenty-four hours ago.  The iron hand of the censor reduces