One of the most regrettable effects the World War will have is the baffling fact that the United States is gradually getting to be the most hated nation of the world. This questionable privilege was, until recently, reserved for Germany; but, for two main reasons, it is being slowly transferred to us. These two reasons are: the inordinate cupidity of our "captains of industry"--as they are called by our servile press--and the vacillating policy of our Government. Perhaps the second reason has done more toward the development of that hatred than the first, because the first is a universal evil, lacking in no civilized nation, the only difference being that the cupidity of our capitalists does not shy from any measures, no matter how utterly despicable and selfish, and their cupidity is more grasping and grabbing than that of any other capitalistic group in the world.

Ever since the beginning of the war, President Wilson has been persevering in one principal error: he wanted, as the popular saying goes, to sit on two chairs; 2and therefore has been in the best position to find himself on the ground between them. Just now he is promoting the policy of military preparedness in Congress, and the strongest motive he is able to advance for it is that the United States is in danger of a German attack after the war. This is, of course, ninety-nine per cent scarecrow; but even if we are willing to admit that it is not a mere screen hiding the real reason, that is, capitalistic avidity for new and greater profits, and the making secure those already acquired, would it not be better by far to make sure now that such an attack could not come about? Would it not be far better if the United States would openly join the Allies in their fight against the hydra of militarism, rather than to try to get ready to repulse a possible attack alone by itself? As things are now, the propaganda for military preparedness has only one result: it causes an increasing distrust and hatred of the United States, both of which are too common now to need such artificial nurturing.

Our policy of military preparedness will inevitably engender an alarm and nervousness in neighboring countries, especially the Latin-American republics, 3if for no other reason than that the most zealous propagandists of the militarist insanity are those very individuals and newspapers who were the loudest in calling for military intervention in Mexico. Not only the hundred-year peace with Canada--on whose frontier there is now not a single fortress, not a single sentinel, not a single warship on the Great Lakes--will be endangered, but all the republics in Central and South America will feel that their independence is in danger. Even now the United States is being hated in those countries whose self-appointed guardian it has become through the Monroe doctrine; the military preparedness will make the United States in the Western Hemisphere what Germany has been in Europe: a permanent threat to peace. Our treatment of Columbia from which, under President Roosevelt's administration, a part of its territory was taken away and made into an independent republic, Panama, after Columbia had refused to surrender the right of sovereignty in her own territory; our economic absorption of Venezuela; the Harvester trust's tyranny in Yucatan; the humiliation of Haiti--all these are things which have not helped to secure for the United States the sympathy of the Latin-American republics.

Our unfortunate relations with European powers are sufficiently well known. That the Yankees are hated in Germany is only natural; circumstances have been developing in a way that made this inevitable. The war industries that have grown up in this country overnight have become one of the principal sources of war material for the Allies; because the Allies' control of the seas has cut Germany off from that source. The protests of the United States against the submarine warfare, the Count Dumba affair, the calling home of both attaches of the German legation--all these are things that have in no way helped to mitigate that hatred. Just now the tension between the United States and Austria, because of the incomparably strong note in the matter of the "Ancona," has reached a stage in which the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries becomes a probability. That breach would not be limited to the Dual Monarchy: Germany would inevitably become a party to the whole affair. Notwithstanding all this, if our Government wished to act openly and aboveboard. it would not be addressing such sharp notes to Vienna, but would send them to Berlin, where they belong. It is Berlin that is the center of the hostility toward the United States, the place where the policies of war are being decided and which directs the submarines whose barbarous 5actions make President Wilson so excited and nervous. The Teuton coalition does not care whether Vienna accepts the conditions of the Washington Government or not; it can change the flags on its submarines to Bulgarian or Turkish colors, and the same story can be repeated till doom's day.

But the fact that we are hated by the Central Powers does not mean that we enjoy the friendship of the Allies. Certainly not that of England. Wilson's Government, submitting to the pressure of the dirty, greedy slaughterhouse tycoons of the Chicago stockyards, does all it can to break the Allied blockade in order to enable these meat-packing barons to sell their products for the enormous prices which they bring in the Central Powers. And this naval blockade is now the most substantial, nay, the only efficient weapon the Allies have against the militaristic combination arrayed against them. If Wilson's administration is of the opinion that they will allay Germany's hostility by sending a stiff note to London, they are badly mistaken. Our seeming neutrality and our opportunistic vacillating politics have only one result: they have made enemies for us in both camps. The American Government has done nothing to stop the cheating 6with fraudulent American passports; but as soon as the Allies try to do something in this matter, Washington lets out a howl of protest against attempted violation of the rights of American citizens.

Until very recently, the United States was deluding itself with the gratifying belief that at least in France it had a true friend; but most recent reports prove otherwise. Our meat barons, of whom Armour particularly is conducting a constant siege of the White House, have done a great deal to damper that traditional friendship by their thievery. Recently a whole shipload of rotting meat was sent back from a French port to America. Other reports tell about a public exhibition of military footwear in Paris, carrying the imprint "Made in U.S.A.," and that footwear has paper soles. Eighty thousand pairs of such shoes have been purchased at a high price so that the soldiers in the trenches might not go barefooted. Similarly scandalous stories are being told about ammunition. Some of them tell about many explosions on transport ships which were engineered by the shippers themselves in order to conceal defective cargoes. Such instances of business dishonesty, combined with and aggravated 7by the inexcusable inconsistency of its Government, makes the United States an object of hatred throughout the world. Sooner or later the time will come when we shall pay dearly for all this.