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Show "If the Answer Is Peace, You May Be Sure That America Will Help" By AMBASSADOR A. B. HOUGHTON, Address in London. -T IS natural for us to assume that those who have suffered so much from wr.r should seek a settlement which so far as is humanly possible should bo free from conditions leading directly to war. To that end and in that spirit we have helped. But we have never forgotten that tj,ere was a limit beyond which we could not go. The full measure of American helpfulness can be obtained only when ,jie American people are assured that the time for destructive methods jud policies has passed and that the time for peaceful upbuilding has come. They are asking themselves if that time has ia fact arrived. And that question they cannot today answer. The answer must be given to ti,em. It must come from the peoples of Europe, who alone can make the decision. If the answer is peace, then you may be sure that America will help to her generous utmost. But if which God forbid that answer shall continue confused and doubtful, then I fear that those helpful processes which are now in motion must inevitably cease. We are not as a people interested in making speculative advances, tfe can undertake to help only those who try to help themselves. And in aring this we are not thinking specifically of any one nation, but rather 0f s situation in which all are alike involved. Now with the working out of that problem in its details the American Ameri-can people have no will nor desire to meddle. They recognize that into it Wnrs enter with which they are only indirectly concerned. Their eeo- graphieal position alone frees them from considerations which other nations must regard. They offer no advice. But I may say to you that they hope and that they fervently pray that a peace may soon be reached not a peace of mere contrivance and arrangement based primarily on force, for that would merely be the prelude to another war, but a peace which contains the elements of permanency a peace which will deserve and receive the moral support of mankind because it is just. |