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Les diegrsmmes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 maocon msoiution tist chait (ANSI and ISO TEST CHABT No. 2) _^ APPLIED IIVMGE li SS-^ 1653 tast Main Street -— ^ Rrthesler. New rork 1*609 USA r.^ ("6) *82 - 0300 - Phone ^S ("6) 388-5989 - Fo. The Greater Tragedy And Other Things Benjamin Apthorp Gould G. P. Putnam's Sunt New York and London tCbe fmiclietbocltet ttteee 1916 3«>99 4» ■' i'» CorriiiQiiT. 1916 BENJAMIN APTHORP OOULD Vbc mildKiteclin Vtetf, 1U» Dotk PREFACE 11^ ANY of us believe that this year of » '* 1916 is the most important year in the history of the United States. The nation to-day is an adult; it has gone successfully through the dangers of its formative period and growth; it has taken its place as an im- portant member of the society of nations. The war-turmoil of the times makes it im- possible for us longer to delay making choice of the direction of our future development, and upon our decision rests not only our future conditions at home but oiu* position in the world. It is now for us to say whether we choose service or sloth; whether we take our possible place in the promotion of the human race, or content ourselves with enjo3ring our inheritance while w may; whether we elect the part of the worker or of the drone. We iv Preface can do, or we can enjoy. We can use our strength to assume responsibility, or we can take the easy profits which the times afford and spend them on luxiuy. We can devote ourselves to eimobling the soul of our nation or to pampering its body. It would now be futile to argue that as a people we do not know the rights and wrongs of the war or the necessity for our physical safety that militant autocracy be overthrown. Every day brings added proof that the spo- radic instances of pro-Germanism in America are eitner the result of ignorant stupidity or a return for German cash cunningly spent in fomenting dissension among us. If any American picks up this book and questions on which side lie both the interests and the duty of the United States, let him throw it aside. I am not writing for fools. The elections of 1916 are to demonstrate whether my country has lost its soul. The Wilson Administration has from the begin- ning of the war stood for national selfishness. It has shirked service, it has dodged danger, Preface it has sought money and chances to make more money. Its phrases of high purpose have been shown to be a diarrhea of empty words. K anything in this book shall help a single American to realize these facts and to make his choice in support of the ideals which inspired our ancestors and against the gross selfish- ness which is our present danger, I shall feel that it has not been written in vain. February, 1916. B. A. G. CONTENTS rAGB Preface iii The Seasons i The Greater Tragedy ... 4 The Lusitania 11 Idealism and Evolution ... 20 Has Germany Wanted America in the War ? 23 The War Against War -37 Oshkosh County and Flanders . . 47 Responsibility, Methods, Purpose 54 Sir Edward Grey .... 61 The Soul of My Country ... 65 Neutrality 72 The American Legion ... 87 Our National Conscience ... 95 Peace with the German Republic . 99 vm Contents Canadian Friendship . . lo6 J'ACCUSE .... . 109 The Hyphenate . . 131 Machines .... • 139 Isolation .... . 151 At the End . 166 The Two Nations . 176 The Greater Tragedy THE SEASONS Daisies pied and gay, clover lush and sweet again, And the lazy blueness of the dome of high July, Pine woods tall and cool where the raucous ravens meet again, Trysting at the twilight athwart the paling sky;— But Belgium, my Belgium, lies wounded unto death, '. le belfry of Bruges stands stark against the sky. Bells of Bruges calling where no man answereth Save the whispers of the dead who taught men how to die. Sumac red and brave, scarlet berries glistening Where the mountain ash yearns for the parting sun. Harvest stocked and furrow turned, autumn blossoms listening For the keen wind of the north to say their day is done; — « The Seasons But Belgium, my Belgium, hath no wonta to say her sorrow. No voice to moan her misery, no sob to ease her pain, Prone she lies and bleeding, and the coming of the morrow May only wake her conscious to her suflEering again. White, white.whlte the snow-banks liea-shivering While the breezes spin the flakes that whirl and sink to rest. Black, black, black the ringing ice a-quivering, To the stroke of skate that skims across its shining breast;— But Belgium, my Belgium, lies ruined, racked, and rent, Louvain is dust and ashes and Brussels sick with shame. The tyrant tramples on Li^ge, and red with life- blood spent Lies Ypres among her ruins, the shadow of a name. Grass green and sweet , when the Spring caresses it. Fleecy clouds and white, a-drifting o'er the hill, The meadow rich with gold where the mtistard dresses it, Carols from the heavens where the lark hangs still.'— The Seasons 3 And Belgium, my Belgium, again shaU leap to life, And the hearts of men be greatened by the martjrrdom she bore, Paith and Honor triumph, and to justify the strife The beacon of her shining soul be darkened nevermore. Summers, winters, springs, the fadings and the burgeonings. Tempest from the northland and breezes from the plain. And Belgium, my Belgium, our hope and inspira- tion, My Belgium proud and sorrowing, my Belgium and her slain. THE GREATER TRAGEDY mANY are the tragedies engendered of this war, some noble, some sordid, some ghastly, some inspiring. The total of misery and suffering and unhappiness which it has caused is greater than that brought about by any occurrence in the history of mankind. Such huge events, such over- whehning importancies, must breed over- powering emotions and bear fruit in "many a noble deed and many a base." Courage and seJf-sacrifice and steadfastness have gone side by side with pain and agony and suffering; a splendid cheerfulness under ad- versity haa matched the sorrow that knows no ending; generosity and unselfishness have put rapine and greed to shame. Many have been the tragedies that have affected a man, a family, or a regiment, that have been written around individual names 4 The Greater Tragedy 5 and particular viUagw. But there ha« been one tragedy greater then .Ml the othere, mora terrible, more pregnai)' with meaning fr" mankind; one tragedy that were it to rtmain unsolved and uncorrected would threaten the future progress of the world; one tragedy that affects a whole race and is the burden of a whole nation, a whole language, and a whole system or civilization. The nam? of this tragedy is Germany. Like a huge and malignant growth that has sapped the life-blood of the country, some evil thing has fed upon the nation unti. it has destroyed honor and truth and right- eousness and pity and aU sens^ of the dignity of man and his place in the universe. The corruption has spread until it has infected nearly the whole people; hate seems to be the portion of everyone, and bitterness and falsity are rampant throughout the land. The pity of it, oh, the pity of it! In aU that great and learned empire there has not been one man to raise his voice on nigh to cry shame on the hypocrites ant blasphemers. 6 The Greater Tragedy There hai not been one prophet to look into the future and foretell the disaster and de- gradation that is coming to the nation and to bid the people turn aside while yet there waa time. There has not been one seer to know that the wages of hate is death and sound the alarm before it was too late. There has not been one patriot who dared risk the punishment of the tyrant and seek to awaken the drugged conscience of the people that the country might be saved from the ruin and perdition which it is bringing upon itself. There has not been a single echo from that nobler land that brought forth Goethe and Schiller and Heine, from the land of the folk- song and the Niebelungen Lied. The Rhine still flows between its castled hills, but those who dwell upon its banks have gone more mad than when they listened to the song of the Lorelei; the Black Forest still clothes the slopes of Baden, but the gnomes and kobolds that once peopled its shades have vanished I efore the hideous phantasmagoria that the madness of the nation has evoked. The Greater Tragedy 7 Nuremberg stiU «tand«, but the halls that once rang to the cheery chorus of the sala- mander now refund only to the muttering, of hate. Hate and madness, and madness begotten of hate! Hate that has poisoned the wells in the deserts of Africa; hate that has buried from the inky sky death and destruction upon the unsuspecting mother and the inno- cent child. Hate that has drowned hundreds from the stately passenger ship; hate that has strewn the paths of the deep seaways with the lurking mine. Hate that has wrecked the noble cathedrals which have stood for centuries to inspire the hearts of men with their beauty; hate that has driven the fumes of pitiless poisons into the trenches where Uving breathing men have gasped and died that they might help to save their worid from the unspe Jcable pollution. Hate that has ravished tx e nunnery and chopped the hands from the baby and the breasts from the violated maiden; hate that has burned and piUaged and robbed and reeked with 8 The Greater Tragedy defenseless blood. Hate and madness, and madness begotten of hate! Out of a nation of nearly seventy millions of people there has not been one man to cry them nay. The Cities of the Plain are no more; Sodom and Gomorrah are dust and ashes; and the Germany of the House of Hohenzollem shall pass away and be but a hissing and a byword to men. The name of Germany shall no more conjure up the strains of the Pilgrims' Chorus; it sluill signify the wreck of Louvain and the murders of Aerschot. The hideous spawn of the Krupp works at Essen shall token Germany; not the beneficent discoveries of Ehrlich or the clinic of Freibtirg. Hate and madness, and madness begotten of hate! And not one voice crjring in the wilderness, and none to say, "This thou shalt not!" and "No farther shaltthougol" It is truly said that there can be no public opinion where there is no right of expression, and in this destruction of public opinion the nation has lost it: sotil. Fifty years of des- The Greater Tragedy 9 potism, of bureaucracy, of militarism, of the divine right of HohenzoUems, have kiUed the soul of the nation; Germany is a fright- ful machine, a thing of wheels and cogs and pistons, an automaton, cruel, cold and crush- ing, conscienceless. Such a creation can never continue to operate; it may exist for a day or a year or the best part of a century; but the time shaU surely come, as it is now com- ing to Germany, when something shall event- uate that the mind of the inventor failed to foresee, and then by its very might shaU the whirling metal be utterly destroyed. The whole is greater than the part, and man is greater than his greatest invention; in this lies the hope of the world and the certain fate of Germany. : Hate and madness, and madness begotten of hate ! Not a man to arise as a prophet and a seer, neither out of the cities nor from the plowed fields! Not one to dare and if need be to die for the sake of his own soul and the soul of his country; not a saint, not a martyr. Nearly seventy millions of people, and not It ) 10 The Greater Tragedy one man; nothing but wheels and cogs and the unseeing, unthinking, unpitying beat of the pistons of steel. Tragedy? There has never been such a tragedy since irst out of chaos cosmos began to evolve. Tragedy? There has never issued from the mouths of men a word so tragic as the name of Germany. THE LUSITANIA AT this writing, nearly nine months have passed since the crime of the Lusitania, and the President of the United States still invites the Ambassador of Kultur to dinner. It is hard to say on which nation the shame lies heaviest, — on Germany, which at least had a purpose in its barbarism, or on America which had to fear only the pains and tribu- lations without the actual dangers of war. How impossible the continued relationship seemed to one brought up in the conception of the dignity and duty of America handed down by our ancestors appears from the following review of the situation written at the time of the first German answer of the Lusitania series. It is useful to note how nothing has occurred to avoid the conclusion which then seemed unavoidable except a willingness on the part of our President to la The Lusitania. submit to insult and to accept injury which would then have appeared to us inconceiv- able. "Words," says Talleyrand, "are a means by which thoughts may be concealed," or something to that effect. The German State Department e-i'dently fails to appreciate that the American note in regard to the Lusitania means exactly what it says, and that there is a nation of a hun- dred millions of people with resources of about a htmdred and seventy-five billions of dollars worth of property determined and prepared to back up the meaning c5 the note. Cannot Von Jagow comprehend that a diplomatic communi- cation can say what it means or mean what it says? If not, it may well be that he is about to have a very unpleasant awakening. At the time of Trriting [Jtme, 1915], Mr. Wilson's reply to the latest German answer has not been made public, but it is impossible to imagine that the United States will recede from the position already taken. We Americans assuredly will not submit to having our vessels torpedoed as often as Germany sees fit to do so, and then be content to arbitrate as to the money value of them, and of the American lives lost in them, in order to receive Germany's promise to pay. Money cannot pay for lives lost or national dignity wantonly insulted. Also, Ger- The Lusitania 13 many's promises ate at present quoted quite a bit below par. Vide Belgium. So far as the Lusitania is concerned Germany's reply is quibble and evasion. The fact that the British Admiralty might have used her as an auxiliary cruiser does not alter the fact that she was not so used, but was a passenger vessel running upon an announced schedule. This is a very different matter from the activities of auxiliary cruisers like the Eitel Fritz or the Kronprinz, the business of which is not the carrying of passengers and cargo for pay, but the destruction of hostile commerce. As a matter of fact the Lusitania was not armed, but she had a perfect right to be armed, and such armament would in no way have prejudiced the rights of her passengers so long as it was used only for purposes of defense against an attacking enemy. Germany complains that the Lusitania was not "undefended." As a matter of fact, she was entirely undefended, more is the pity, but it cannot affect the illegality of her destruction in any way. The right of self-defense is of all rights inherent in mankind the most funda- mental, and killing in self-defense has since the inception of law been recognized as permissible and in no sense criminal. The German Government apparently feels that the endeavors of merchant ships to escape destruction by running away is also most repre- r. 14 The Lusitania hensible. Ought they not to welcome such a message from the home of Kultur as a torpedo, and gladly sink to prove the eflScacy of the Prussian submarines? Is not the fact that they would gladly turn tail and put on all possible speed a clear justification for torpedoing them before they know that the submarine is there? Otherwise they might save their crews and their cargoes, to the painful damage of true KultJir. ^ The predominating idea in the German posi- tion is that the illegal methods and the inciden- tal injury to neutrals are necessary if the German submarine campaign is to be successful, and that, therefore, we have no right to com- plain. We ought to be willing to endure these injuries if the German cause is to be helped! It is unjust to ask a pirate to desist from his piracy, because thereby one of his most profitable sources of revenue would be cut off! We entirely and unconditionally agree with Germany that if her long-distance submarine warfare is to be effective to any appreciable decree it will be necessary to sink vessels at sight regardless of the safety of non-combatant crews and passengers. It may also occasionally lead to destruction of neutral vessels. But we do not and we will not admit that this is any reason why Germany should be allowed to con- tinue such warfare. We maintain that Ger- many must give up her use of submarines against The Lusitania 15 commerce because of the practical impossibility of using them without interfering with the rights of netttrals and the rights of humanity. This, makes thej^uestion at issue between Gamany and Am erica cleS ^'Mia" definite. Von Jago# Ki^elradmits that-Tliri;Snnan~methods_ai« "JegirwEenlS^ays r'TSerman coniimanda-s con- iiequently are no longer able to observe the customary regulations of the prize law, which they before always followed." In other words, Germany pleads guilty with a naive nonchalance quite new in diplomatic correspondence, and with a shamelessness that is amazing. It seems, therefore, that one of three things must result: America must back down, Germany must back down, or there must be a breach of relations between the two countries. The first of these is inconceivable; we Americans who are of the same blood and tradition as those who have created the nation know that America could not be what America is if such a thing were possible. The second is highly improb- able; Germany has fed up her home population too consistently on tales of German submarine prowess to dare to abandon the use of them except against vessels of war. The third event- uation is apparently unavoidable. It remains to be seen whether American diplo- macy will be able to steer clear of actual hos- tilities. Even if successful in doing so and if the N I6 The Lusitania diSerencM between the nations be confined to a ceuation of diplomatic reUtiona, it it evident that the unified American aentiment against Germany will be of the utmost value to the Allies. It will mean a solidarity of national en- deavor to assist which will multiply the produc- tion of munitions, and be of enormous value in shortening the length of Germany's possible resistance. The worst day's work for the Ger- man cause since the outbreak of the war was the sinking of the Lusilania. It is most interesting to note reports that both Switzerland and Holland have sent protests to Germany following closely the attitude of the American note. This action shows splendid courage on the part of these two nations, for whUe Germany under present conditions is abso- lutely impotent against the United States, she is far from impotent against either of them, lying as they do on the German frontier. If the outcome shall be to bring them into the war, the result may be of vast importance, as Holland especially offers an opp-i-tunity for the allied armies to strike Germany at a very vulnerable spot. Not only have hese two countries very considerable trained forces, but their geography would make their armies of exceptional value, .^-tfaeaction of the United StsteaJhalLpilot the Swissana~the~DutclLi5lo^ar on the side of hwanity and civiUzation, the direct immediate The Lusitania 17 remit may be of even more help than what we can ounelvea do before we have time to create great armiet and equipment. Alas, Von Jagow and Talleyrand knew better than we that our Administration did not mean what it said, and that like a himgry dog it would be satisfied with a pat on the head and a bone tossed to it to gnaw. A few kind words and a bow, and Mr. Wilson not only was willing to let the Lusitania matter drag on from month to weary month, but stored away in the same pigeon-hole the Arabic, the Hesperian, the Ancona, thePersia, and the others of that shameful catalogue. "I did not kill the Ancona," says Germany; "Austria did that; she did not know that you minded; you had better write to her as you did to me, so that she too may know how you feel about it." "I did not '"Kit the Persia," says Austria, "but perhaps it was Turkey. Turkey does no* read very easily and has but few newspapers; it will probably be a surprise to her to learn that IS The Lusitania you do not like it. Why not have Mr. ,Morgenthau tell her about it?" Everybody knows that the Teutonic Alli- ance is one in making war, and that it is mocking at our blind if tempered and un- productive wrath. We can imagine the\ German diplomats laughing at the way they are dodging round the bush and the ease with which they hoodwink us. So Mr. Wilson, having got nowhere with Germany, turns his foimtain-pen loose on Great Britain, keeping one eye all the while carefully cocked on the Middle West. Ger-^ many knows that Wilson^wnrnoTBght, but I will swallow anything except his own ink. Wilson knows that serious trouble with Great Britain is out of the question, both because the differences between the nations are comparatively trivial and because the aims of the two great English-speaking demo- cracies are the same. It is therefore perfectly safe to yap at England, and may be more satisfying to the Middle West than the sneers and mockery with which Germany retorts. The Lusitania 19 Meanwhile the tides flow over the hulk of the Lusitania, and the bones of ouz mur- dered flesh and blood are whitening on the ocean bed unavenged and unatoned. Our citizens who go abroad must look to the guardianship of Great Britain for their safety, not to the faded glories of the Stars and Stripes or the weight of a passport from Washington. How long, men of America, will you put up with these things? IDEALISM AND EVOLUTION 'T'HERE used to be a great deal of loose *■ talk about President Wilson being an idealist because he wished to avoid the hor< rors of war. I am thankful that to me ideal- ism has a much higher meaning, and signifies a willingness to undertake rather than to avoid. Peace is unquestionably a high idaal, but only when it can be_accQn4m8he^ with- outvie 8iicrihce"""^^yfaat isL,more impOTjant and more inspiring than peace itself. An unworthy peace may be ignore ani3~^egrad- tngi^iXniay-iejlue to cowardice, to selfish- ness, to sQrdidness, or to lack of vision^ to' ai^reciate the essential demands of dviliza- tion. ~ The most important thing in the world is life, but not my life or your life or the lives of a million men. The purposes of the universe are being worked out by an orderly and con- Idealism and Evolution ai tinued evolution, and this evolution demands that the conditions of human life be such aa to permit that steady progress essential to the steady development of life. When it becomes needful to sacrifice your life and my life and the lives of a million men for the good of human life as a whole, a true idealism demands that the lesser be sacrificed to the greater. f~~i am entirely convinced that the orderly f evolution of mankind would be seriously retarded by the physical success of the German Philosophy of Force. Evolution has ah-eady advanced to a point where mankind is able itself to recognize the laws under which it is taking place, and to a great extent is able to guide its own development instead of having to trust to blind and instinctive selection as in the earlier stages of develop- ment. Such appreciation of the laws of the universe carries with it responsibility to give thrte laws full opportimity of action. io me, therefore, a true idealism requires that humankind recognize the danger to its 22 Idealism and Evolut^cn progress in the German KuJU-j, and neces- sitates a willingness on the pnrt of ^11 civi- lized peoples to make whatever sacrifices of my life or your life or the lives of millions of men may be needed to restore to the world its opportunity for orderly development. The duty is not one pertaining to a nation but to a civilization, and nationality is of importance only in offering the units through which this duty can be performed. It fol- lows that I do not consider this war one between nations but between incompatible systems, between progressive civilization and reaction towards barbarism. In such a struggle the selfish interests of the people of any nation are nothing in comparison with the interests of humanity as a whole, and the obligation rests upon enlightened under- standing wherever it exist in the world. It follows that my idealism is as different from the idealism of President Wilson as black is from white. I assuredly would not exchange with him. HAS GERMANY WANTED AMERICA IN THE WAR? HAS Germany tried to provoke the United States into declaring war? Many- things point to this conclusion. It may be well to consider what would be the effects of the existence of such a state of war to help in judging as to whether Germany's insults have been premeditated and intended to cause war. We must all admit that the immediate military effect of the entrance of the United States into the war would be of no ' ipor- tance. So far as armies go, the United States is practically without any, and, however vast the possibilities of creating them may be, it would be a matter of many months to organize, equip, and transport them to the European terrain. There is every probability that before this could be accomplished the 23 24 Has Germany Wanted war will have ended. So far as the navy is concerned, the preponderance of the allied fleets is already so great as to prevent any- thing except sporadic activities on the part of the German navy, and the presence of the American ships would not in any way alter the existing naval conditions. The only marine offense of which Germany is capable is the secret assassin blow of the submarine, and additional warships could do little to mitigate this form of attack. The entrance of the United States into the war would therefore fail to increase the military pressure upon Germany to any marked extent within the probable duration of the war. It is notorious that the stocks of miUtary munitions and supplies in the possession of the American Government are at present negligible in amoimt. It may be quite pos- sible that Germany thinks that belligerency on the part of the United States would cause the munitions now being manufactured in America to be commandeered by the govern- ment and diverted from immediate delivery America in the War? 25 to Great Britain, France, and Russia, thus actually weakening the present attack upon Germany. I cannot believe that this argu- ment is sound, as we are intelligent enough to understand cooperation and to use our resources where they will do the most good. But none the less it is quite conceivable that this idea may be influencing Germany. Berlin still seems unable to understand that the doctrine of frightfulness will not work upon Anglo-Saxons, and that when horrors hitherto unknown are perpetrated against us we do not drop on our knees and pray for mercy but only fight the harder. It may be that German emissaries in America have laid plots for the destruction of pro- perty and lives with the expectation that the United States will be glad to buy immun- ity along with the nations of Europe if the German arms are successful. The taste of the indemnity wrung from France in 1 87 1 is still smacking very sweet to German palates, and the amount of ransom which America could pay if America could be made 36 Has Germany Wanted to pay would be very htscious. Even if Germany should win in Europe, Europe will be almost bankrupt, and the solvency of America would be very pleasant if Germany could force her to become a debtor. Another suggestion is that Germany still believes that she is going to be victorious, and sees only in the United States a danger- ous commercial competitor in the years after the war. It is possible that some Germans think that if America enters the war it will result in our commercial ruin, and that the end of the conflict will show a dominant Germany supreme in both arms and com- merce over a world beaten in war and exhausted by debt and ransom. It appears to me, however, much more probable that the leading men in Germany recognize the fact that ultimate defeat is certain, and that they are already tafc'i.g steps both to save their faces, and to make the blow to German pride as light as possible and to obtain as easy terms of settlement as they can. As to the former, the more nations America in the War? 2^ there are ranged against them, the less will be the disgrace from their point of view in being forced to yield. But much more im- portant will be the restraining influence of America at the time of settlement. Should the United States not join in the war, Ameri- can influence at the close of the war will be quite unimportant, and Gr;rmany will have to meet the demands of her European foes embittered by the length and costliness of the struggle, each with selfish interests to serve in addition to their underlying and altruistic purpose of ridding the world of Prussian militarism. K, on the contrary, the United States is entitled from participa- tion in the war to take an active part in the making of peace, she will be the one Power without any national axes to grind at Ger- many's expense, and the tendency of her trans-Atlantic statecraft will be to incline toward greater temperance in demands than the European nations who will have suffered so jnuch more bitterly. It has always been characteristic of Anglo-Saxons not to kick a8 Has Germany Wanted a man when he is down, but rather to lend him a helping hand to rise again, and this generosity to the vanquished was never shown in more striking fashion than by the American magnanimity to Spain at the end of the Spanish War. We beat her, we as- sumed responsibility for colonies which had proved a costly burden to her, and then paid her a large sum of money for them. Ger- many might very well like to have the result of her defeat as fortunate for her. It is also quite possible that Germany believes that American hatred of war would cause her influence to be exercised to end the war be- fore its great purposes have been finally accomplished. From the foregoing considerations it is clear that it is quite possible that Germany may think that she has something to gain and nothing to lose from American belliger- ency against her. She has absolutely failed in her other endeavors to use the United Stater. At the beginning of the war she attempted to utilize the large number of America in the War ? 29 American citizens of German origin to create a feeling of sympathy for her cause and to win the great assistance that such partisan- ship would have brought her. This attempt was ahnost immediately shown to be hope- less, and the American people made it clear that they were too intelligent to be deceived about the meaning of the war and that their sympathies and individual help had to go out to the cause of democracy and to be against absolutism. Beriin then tried to use these German-Americans as a political club, and by threats of their voting power to force an unneutral favoritism. This insolent and meddlesome endeavor not only proved futile but reacted against its organizers, as was shown among other things by the Chicago mayoralty election. The next Ger- man move was to try to cause friction be- tween the United States and the Entente Powers, especially Great Britain, and to arouse a feeling that American commercial rights were being infringed. It soon became evident, however, that the United States 30 Has Germany Wanted realized that England would do nothing to endanger American lives, that only American property interests were involved, and that England was both able and willing to make financial amends for any financial losses caused by her acts if they were found to exceed the limitations of international law. The futility of trying to cause trouble between the United States and the Entente Powers has become apparent. Since then Germany seems to have under- taken a series of studied insults to the United States, some of them verbal, but most of them expressed by bombs and torpedoes. They began with the notification of the establishment of the German "War Zone" arotmd Great Britain, seemingly an attempt to establish a blockade without making it effective, a thing up to that time recognized as outside the sanction of international law. The neutral most affected by this illegal procedure was of course the United States. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Brit- ish blockade of German ports, although on America in the War? 31 acount of changed conditions of marine warfare conducted in a different manner from blockades in earlier wars, retains the essen- tial quality of effectiveness. It is its very effectiveness which is the comer-stone not only of its legaUty but of the German protests against it. Next came the ill-mannered and false accusation of Von Bemstorff that the United States was committing a breach of neutrality in allowing the sale of munitions by its citi- zens. This was of course puerile, as Von Bemstorff himself well knew, and was a thing which Germany herself had repeatedly done in previous wars where she had been neutral. The American reply was a digni- fied answer to this peevishness, carefully explaining the things which the veriest tyro in diplomacy is supposed to know. Much more serious than these vocal in- sults have been the acts against American lives and American ships. I pass over the case of the Clyde, sunk some time ago, pay- ment for which has been promised, and also If] ■S:l 1 'I 32 Has Germany Wanted the cases of the American ships Evelyn and Carib, sunk by floating mines in the North Sea, responsibility for which might be denied by Germany. But it is impossible for Ger- many to avoid responsibility in the cases of the Gvlflight, the Cushing, the Falaba, and the Lusitania. The technical cases of the Falaba and the Lusitania are much the same. Each was an unarmed British passenger liner carrying American passengers; each was torpedoed and sunk; in neither case was provision made for the safety of passengers; each case re- sulted in the loss of American life. The only differences were that no warning was given th.^ Lusitania while insuflScient warning was given the Falaba; that the Falaba was outward-bound and could not be held to be carrying contraband to England; that it is possible that the German submarine com- mander did not know that there was an American on the Falaba, whereas Germany was well aware that the Lusitania carried many American passengers; and that the America in the War? 33 loss of life on the Lusilania was much greater MJd calculated to arouse American indigna- tion to a much larger extent. Each case was an intended breach of the recognized rule of international law that unarmed mer- chantmen of a belligerent, while subject to stoppage, search, and seizure, may only be destroyed if after capture and search it prove not feasible to take them before a prize court, and then only when the safety of all non-combatants on them has been duly secured. The cases of the Cushing and the Gulflight are from a technical point of view much more serious than the others, as they were Ameri- can ships flying the American flag, the former attacked by bombs from aeroplanes, which fortunately did no damage, the latter by torpedo from a submarine. The Gulfligkt was destroyed and American lives lost. This outrage was committed in broad daylight, the flag being clearly in view and the name and nationality of the vessel screaming in huge letters from her sides. n* t 34 Has Germany Wanted It seemed inconceivable to us Americans who know, love, and respect our country that even our present Administration could evade taking definite action. Our national self-respect required at least three things; first, an apology for what had been done; second, reparation so far as payment could atone for loss of life, as well as loss of property; third, an engagement that such infringements of the rights of Americans should not be repeated. If Germany was unwilling to accede to these demands it was impossible to see how friendly relations could be con- tinued between the two countries. The obligations of the United States were manifold, to the country itself, to the worid of which it forms a part, to the present time with its stress and suffering, to the future years. If we took the profits of greatness but shirked its responsibilities, we should be false to ourselves, and our ignoble selfishness would mark the beginning of our national degeneration; we should be failing our worid, to the progress of which we ought to devote America in the War ? 33 our enlightenment; we should be gt.ilty of permuting in this war the sufferings resultant frcKn barbarisms unprecedented in history- and for the future we should be condoning the abolition of the most humane of the rules of international law which provides for the safety at sea of neutrals and non- combatants. In spite of the many evidences that Presi- dent Wilson desired to maintain peace at almost any price, we Americans of sturdy stock could not think him so lacking in v.s.on and patriotic regard for our national dignity as to hesitate, delay, and shilly-shally. We d.d not then reaUze the impossibility of gettmg a red-blooded American or Anglo- Saxon attitude from him. It was only when the outrages mentioned above were fol- lowed by others, like the Arabic, the Hespe- rum, tbeAncona, thePetrolite, and thePersia to speak only of the most prominent, and when these crimes brought forth nothing more than interminable sentences and a contmuance of sordid and cowardly watch- 36 America in the V\ ar? ful waiting, that we gave up hope from Wil- son. Our answer to him must be in November, 19 16. Meantime it is hard to know whether Germany understood the Wilson psychology better than we ourselves and knew that the only price she would have to pay for her crimes against us was the price of paper and ink, or whether she was either unconcerned as to whether we entered the war or anxious that we should enter. Not even war can now wipe away the shameful stain of the passive acceptance of insult after repeated insult. Mr. Wilson has done injury to our self-respect and our manhood which is irreparable. !■ THE WAR AGAINST WAR 'J^HE reason why ninety out of every hundred citizens of the United States are in f uU sympathy with the Entente Powers IS psychologicaUy of the highest importance. It is not because we Americans are friends of England. Russia, and France and enemies of Germany, but because we believe that France, Russia, and England are right and Germany is eternally wrong. The reason of this belief is not founded on any blood- relationship with England in that the major- ity of us come of British stock. Indeed before this war there was a general opposi- tion to Great Britain among the mass of our people, due in great measure to the fact that withm our historical memory England stood for what Germany to-day represents, the forcible extension of boundaries and the seizure of colonies, and that in opposing 3? 38 The War Against War \ these earlier ambitions we had ourselves come into conflict with her. Broadly, our sympathy rests upon the spiritual relationship in ideals, ambitions, and inspirations which binds us to the Entente cause and most especially to France and England. This spiritital relationship makes the endeavors of German agents to win our regard and to use our powers of assistance entirely hopeless. Un 'ierlying this sympathy, and largely the cause of it, is the belief which we firmly hold, although in most of our minds it may not be clearly defined, that the allied nations are fighting for peace, and that Germany is jhting for war. Of all the great nations of toTlUi/, iu Guiiiiiny alone has war for war's sake been glorified; in Germany alone has a military caste been established as superior to all other members of the nation; in Ger- many alone has the foul philosophy of Nietzsche, Treitschke, and Bemhardi borne fruit. Therefore, if war as a noble and glorious^ institution is to be banished from the world, j Germany must be completely overwhelmed, 1 The War Against War 39 «md he falsity of this philosophy be demon. St ated xn mothers' tea« and widows' lamen- ^^ons. The allied nations a:, prf^y ^^g war. upo5^, and dvili^^'^ Jeve that owmg to a failure to make a just distmction between cause and effect we hive aIlow«i this hatred of war to lead ^i^" aconit^on of military weakn^s which i^ abnost cn:xunal. So long as the gZZ d^tnne of the glo^ of war prevails in^ ^t be ready to oppose it successfully 0->ng to our milita^r weakness and the weakness of the present Administratis we have also submitted to outrages against us n Mexico and elsewhere which would have seemed to us intolerable had we been n pos:t:on to have compelled an end to them. We have nothing against the people of Gennany. Many of their qualities^f^^ many we greatly admire. So far as the people are conc«.ed we have no del t 40 The War Against War see them humiliated. But we believe that the people of Germany have allowed them- selves to be so dominated by the military caste that they represent militarism to the world, and that only by their utter humilia- tion can the institution of war be humiliated. They must be made to pay a bitter penalty for the fact that they have permitted them- selves to stand for the glorification of war. This they ought long ago to have prevented, even at the cost of revolution. I should be proud to call myself a pacifist if the word had not been so grossly misused. True pacifism differs from the unworthy, dishonorable, and degraded pacifism of men like Bryan and Henry Ford as day from dark- ness. Peace with h(mOTjs_^eJiigh«t ideal of a stat^^aS; pe^e at~^y price_5 the m^ jarthg po ltroon. The real pacifist is the man who seeks to accomplish a righteous end by peacefiil means, not the coward who refuses to accomplish it unless it can be done by peace. The true pacifist will not at war if justice cannot be attained by peace, y The War Against War 41 more homble; there are prices too high to pay for peace. No decent man thinks twice ^^^^^^^L^'^^I^^^rUUh^^i.t^ his naSon^^lwice if its honor and the pro- motionglugtic^ ^eittoen^ aee in war. The need for great armament aid pre- paredness in the United States depends prid- P^y upon the outcome of this war upon war. I hold at shameful that at the present time we are not sharing in the burden of this most hotyofwars. I believe that at the outbreak of the conflict w.oughttohavedn,pped every Pursmt that interfered with preparation^ to render whatever services might be needed by the alhed nations, and that we ought to have become one of the aUies. I think that even now while Germany is stiU fighting on foreign sod and defeat has not yet been demonstrated, neither moneynor effort should bewared byusinaccomplishingpreparedness. When Germany has been completely over- 43 The War Against War thrown and lies prostrate, a very different condition will prevail. All of the world which counts will have become essentially democratic, for nothing is more certain that a republican form of government will follow the defeat of Germany and Austria. Even in victorious Russia the change in conditions resulting from the war will have advanced the people a long way toward democracy. The fundamental truth cannot be too often reiterated, that unjust and aggressive wars are never instituted by democracies, but are invariably occasioned by the desire of I' rulers to advantage theniselves in power at / the cost of the blood of their people. With/ this democratization of the great nations,! the danger of great war will have passed away, and small armies will be sufficient tol wage the small wars which will undoubtedly \ still be necessary to police the little half-/ civilized nations. So far as navies are concerned, there is only one which matters in the world to-day, and it is wholly needless that there should The War Against War 43 be more than one. For nearly a hundred years this navy has been used to protect the seas and to promote justice, and we have every right to expect that it always wiU be soused. I hope that the time may yet come when all the world will unite in the support of this navy which has been and must be used primarily for world advance. No na- tion for many years will be able to compete with the navy of Great Britain; no just nation need wish to compete with it. Great Britain is to-day a truedemocracy, and this is a guaranty that her navy-tnirnot be un- justly used. "For what we are about to? recei^^pQiank God and the British fleet,"] is a common grace in England, and ever^ decent nation, did it but know it, has ahnost as much cause to give thanks for the British fleet as England herself. It is very certain that we in the United Statesowe to the British fleet and to the law and order which it has maintained upon the seven seas our safety and prosperity. If our own navy is as power- ful as that of Japan, for the sake of iUustra- 44 The War Against War tion, it will be plenty strong enough for our needs, provided that this strength is main- tained as a high standard of efiSdency. A year from now, when the war against war has been won, I believe that it will be wholly unnecessary to have a huge increase in the American standing army. But the question is very different whether the nation can afford not to have a reserve of the whole citizenship made moderately effective by a brief compulsory universal training in the fundamentals of soldiering. An attendance of perhaps three months the first year, one month the second year, and two weeks for each of the following three years would accomplish a great deal. Modem sanitary science has done away with the danger of disease in military camps, and such compul- sory service will bring about the enormous advantage of physical and moral discipline incident thereto, as well as ftunish the skeleton of an organization of units which can be rapidly and economically mobilized in time of need. It can be made to accom- The War Against War 45 pUsh the almost ideal condition of compulsory training in time of peace coupled with volun- tary enlistment in time of war. Its greatest value will, however, in my estimation, be the added efficiency which such discipline will bring to the nation in time of peace rather than added safety in time of war. No one who has not seen it would credit the difference which a couple of months of such training makes in a body of men, and I do not think that in future the nation can allow its young men to lack these advantages in physical and mental powers, any more than it can allow its chil- dren to grow up ilUterate. The productive power of the country in the pursuits of peace will be hugely increased by such healthful discipline of its young manhood, and the homogeneity of the nation, now so sadly lacking, will be geatly promoted thereby. All these matters are predicated upon the issue of this great war against war. Until it is finaUy won, until great war in the future is made impossible by the success of war for the sake of mankind and the defeat of war 46 The War Against War for war's sake, it is the duty of every nation to devote itself to preparation so that if needed it may be ready to throw its whole ri^t into the war. If the lamentable and tmea^egt ed io a ue ^this'wa'gBouId be nuga- tory, should be a stalemate, these prepara- tions must be continued until victory shall be assured in the next war which in such event will be inevitable. Deknda est Car- thago. The German system and the German autocracy must be utterly routed and put out of existence even should it require the flower of the manhood of the world to ac- complish it. Until then peace will not mean peace, but only a temporary suspension of war. With the overthrow of Germany, the anachronism of great war will have passed away forever from the world. OSHKOSH COUNTY AND FLANDERS AKY friends, betake yourselves to the 111 countryside about you. The fields stretch broad and rich, the young wheat IS glorious in its greenness, the noble trees of the timber lots hold sw^t-scented shade beneath their boughs, the cattle and the sheep graze along the roadsides, and over the clover comes the sleepy drone of the bumblebee. It seems as if peace and kindly nature had made a bond indissoluble, and that aU the change that can ever corns to the land wiU be the rotation of the seasons. Yet as you look upon these fruitful farms and the trim farmhouses, meUow in the sunshine, think on those others fields of Poland and of Belgium and of GaUda, fields where the sun shines as lovingly, but where there is no peace nor the orderly tillage of straight furrows. It is not the plowshare 47 l: 48 Oshkosh County and Flanders that has made those hollows but the icream- ing shell; those woodlands are torn and twisted by shrieking iron, and in place of the perfume of the spring flowers comes the stench of rotting horses and the pollution that once was brave young manhood. De- vastation and desolation and the heaps of ruins and the charred rafters where the houses used to stand; over all either the loneliness of desertion or the din of great guns and the confusion of armies of determined men. To-day the great corporation which is called the World has reached a point where these two scenes are inseparably joined together. It matters not that there may be a thousand leagues of salt sea-ridges throb- bing between them ; it is of no avail that many a stolid man woui! ^ain deny his responsibil- ity and say that what happens so far afield concerns him not. What is happening on the battlefields of Europe does concern us; it is our fight that is being fought, our fight and the fight of every man in the world to whom freedom is dear and liberty more than Oshkosh County and Flanders 49 •n empty name. The men in thoM distant trenches are daring and dying for the Uttle farmhouse in the back-country of America, and for ten million other farmhouses aU over every continent of the earth. This is the great question which is at issue in this strife, the question of the right of the individual tiller of the soil or artisan to order his own life and foUow out his own pursuit of happiness. When this war has been won, we shall be able to drive militarism into the darkness of oblivion where it belongs, and the millions of white farmhouses in Europe as in America shaU send their sons to the care of their fertile field instead of seeing them herded to the agonies of the trenches. There is one huge and mastering idea of which we must never for a moment lose sight, that this war is the last struggle of tyranny and despotism to overthrow on any great scale the growing forces of democracy. Those acres of ripening crops on the roUing hills and plains, those farmhouses surrounded by the dreamy cattle, are the symbol of the 50 Oshkosh County and Flanders democracy for which our brothers are fighting. Their peace and their safety are at stake even though not yet has the banner of the Imperial German eagle been planted on American soil. How long a shrift, think you, would this farmland which you love be given if the forces of Britain and of France were to go down to defeat? How long would it be before the arrogant taskmasters of Prussia would seek to impose their will and levy their tribute upon these American farms? How long could you continue to exercise your right of self-government if the Philos- ophy of Force and the doctrine of the Right of the Krupp Gun to Rule were allowed to prevail? This is a war such as never before has been fought in the history of the world, not only in its bigness, not only in the numbers of its armies, but because for the first time on a great world-scale is being fought the battle of democracy against despotism, the battle of the people of the world against the rulers, the battle of the right to live in peace against Oshkosh County and Flanders 51 the right to make war. Should despotism win, this war wiU be but a prelude to other and greater wars, as has been the case since the birth of mankind; should hereditary and self-continuing dynasties prove victori- ous they will again seek to increase their power and their riches at the expense of the people of the world. So long as the German doctnne that the citizen exists for the benefit of the state shall be permitted to prevail, so long shaU war and its accompaniments contmue; when the kinder democratic axiom that the state exists but for the citizen is adcnowledged in aU the great countries of the world, then shall great wars cease, and m peace shall the lands of the earth have their chance to be fruitful and to multiply. Blind, blind, blind are those leaders who cannot see beyond the horrors of the strife Itself the purpose that is being accomplished. It IS for them whom they represent that this huge conflict is being carried on. for the tillers of the soil, for the workmen at their benches and their lathes, for aU whose industry is 52 Oshkosh County and Flanders serving the cause of civilization. If, in this last and greatest effort, the failure of auto- cratic nilers to continue an outworn feudalism shall be absolute, it will mean for the whole world a new freedom and a new safety. No matter how great the sacrifice, no matter how heavy the toll of our bravest and our best,we shall achieve a new condition in the world, and the old and evil system of the right of military might and the authority- of emperors shall forever pass away. Your king and country need you! Yes, but more than your king and more than your country, your world and your twentieth century and your ideals of freedom need you. When you give your life to this noble cause, it is not only to Canada or Great Britain or the United States that you give it; you give it to the whole world, to America and Europe and Asia, even to the people of Germany who will be better and happier under the happier and better conditions which will result for that land as for all others when the present madness has passed away. This Oshkosh County and Flanders 53 war is not a war between nations, however much national ambitions and selfishnesses have been injected into it ; it is a war between systems and ideals; it is between a future bright with hopes of happiness and opportu- nities for educated and self-respecting people and the corruption which has survived from the tyrannies of the past ; it is a war between war enthroned and deified on the one side and peace ennobled on the other. We must make the sacrifice now; we who love peace must fight the bloodiest of wars. We must fight for the salvation of our honor and our self-respect, for our liberties and our freedom, for the peace and happiness of our children and the children of our children's children. Our brothers are fighting as truly for those farms in your peaceful countryside as if they too lay in Flanders, and as if al- ready their woodlands were splintered by the bursting shell and their cattle lay bloated and foul where the fumes of barbarous poisons have blighted another fair and innocent land. RESPONSIBILITY, METHODS, PURPOSE IN judging the moral justification for the war, three things must be considered: the responsibility for bringing on the war, the methods by which it is carried on, and the purpose or cause sought to be attained by it. All of these affect the position of the United States if it be granted, as I believe it should be, that the moral side of the question of our attitude ought to outweigh our selfish or our financial interests. It is important to note that o£5cially the United States has concerned itself only with the second of these considerations, and has ignored both the first and the third. If it enters into the war against Germany, if it becomes involved hi serious disputes with Great Britain or with France, it will be en- tirely on account of the methods by which Responsibility, Methods, Purpose 55 these nations have made war, and the con- sequent injury to the United States. The world outside of the belligerents has carefully considered both the responsibility for the war and the methods used, and has come in regard to both to an almost \mani- mous condemnation of Germany. But I do not think that it has nearly so clearly reasoned concerning the purpose of the war, and this to my mind is by far the most important matter, and should have controlling influ- ence in deciding the course of nations not already involved. The responsibility for the war concerns the past. Jacta est alea. But even if we accept in full the theory that Germany willed the war, that it was the deliberate intention of the C rman rulers to bring it about, that doing so was an unspeakable crime, an im- morality for which no punishment could be too severe, it does not follow that for this sin the United States ought to take part in the war. Punishment can never be worth while except as a means for preventing a repetition 56 Responsibility, Methods, Purpose of the evil, as a deterrent example. This responsibility may be auch as to make us regard Germany with horror and aversion; it is no reason why we should ourselves tm- dergo the penalties of war. On this count the Kaiser and his crew may well be left to the shame of their blackened consciences, to the ghastly phantoms of the dead that must haunt their pillows. It were Quixotic for us to feel that we must as a nation punish at such cost to ourselves. The methods of the war concern the pre- sent only, except in so far as the example of such methods shall serve as a guide for the future. It is the world of to-day that is suffering from barbarisms and inhumanities; it is the trade of to-day that complains of undue restrictions and financial hardships. It is we ourselves who are affected, not our children's children. These methods may be such as to justify a protest against Great Britain and Prance on the part of the United States; they undoubtedly have been such as to demand active participation in the war Responsibility, Methods, Purpose 57 against Germany if the honor of the nation and the safety of its citizens are to be main- tained, and if we hold we owe any duty to humanity and the decencies of law and order. The methods of the war are what we see before us, what we read of in the papers, what appeal to the man in the street, what affect our pocket-books and excite our imaginations. The duty we owe to ourselves demands that these methods be legal, and the endeavors of President Wilson to accom- plish this legality are undeniably justified, however much Americans like myself may deem them tardy, weak, and wholly insuflS- cient to the occasion. The purpose of the war concerns the future. It is an attempt by Germany to impose upon the world a dynastic autocracy, a doctrine of might, a philosophy of force. It seeks that the world of the future shall be ruled by fear rather than by justice, by will rather than by right. It is an assault upon the theory of democracy, to the development of which the world has devoted the best part of two 58 Responsibility, Methods, Purpose centuries. It affects not only us of to-day but the generations to come. Every nation in the worid is concerned in this purpose as much as the belligerents. When we say that England is fighting the battle of the United States, we glimpse, however hazily and indistinctly, this purpose behind the war. When we shudder at the blasphemous Kaiser citing God as his ally, it is because an instinctive appreciation of this purpose horrifies us at such an association. I hold that Germany's ptupose, her attack on the principles of democracy and all that the United States has stood for from the be- ginning, has done to the nation an injury incomparably greater thai that caused by the barbarity and illegality of her methods, hugely more damaging than the loss of a few hundred American lives or a few million American dollars. This purpose has struck at our ideals, at our traditions, at all that raises us above the well-fed cattle or the comfortable sheep. Were the cause of Ger- many to prevail, the United States would Responsibility, Methods, Purpose 59 cease to exist, for the world could not con- tain a dominant Germany and an idealistic America. Even could the carcass of our country continue to live, its soul,,its identity, would die, and it could no longer serve as an inspiration to lesser peoples. Yet against this purpose of Germany, against this attack on the soul of the world, against this endeavor to poison not only ourselves but our future generations, the Government of the United States has not said one word. None of its protest has been based'upon the higher and more commanding necessity of maintaining the orderly evolu- tion of nations. Nothing has been said to show that it would not regard with equanim- ity the victory of the German cause so long as in achieving it the German methods did not interfere with American lives or properties. I believe that my country ought to prove that it is willing to share in the sacrifices demanded by the preservation of the ideals for which it has stood, and to help to bear the burden Germany has imposed upon the 6o Responsibility, Methods, Purpose world. I regret beyond power of expression that President Wilson has not made it clear that America stands for more than the pro- tection of its existing rights. Even the sacrifice of the lives of our young men would not be in vain if before their glazing eyes should pass the vision of duty owed to their world and to the dignity of their common manhood. The Lusilania and the Arabic, Belgium and Armenia, have called us in clarion tones to abandon our slothful ease and vindicate our liberties; much louder and more resonantly, although perhaps less dis- tinctly, comes the call of mankind and of the generations to come that we make the great sacrifice to secure to them the conditions of freedom of individual development to which they are entitled. SIR EDWARD GREY 'T'HERE has been considerable dissatis- *■ faction in certain quarters with Sir Edward Grey's conduct of the Foreign Office during the war. No Briton fails to render him justice for his splendid services to man- kind during the events which led up to the war. All this criticism, when analyzed, amounts to declaring that Sir Edward is too civilized to suit warfare; that he refused to allow Great Britain to attack Bulgaria until that nation had definitely put itself in the wrong; that he has not displaced justice with expe- diency, or lied and threatened reprisals and frightfulness. War at best is quite uncivil- zed, however necessary it may occasionally prove for the protection of civilization; the cause of civilization requires that even in war the return to barbarism be as slight as 6l 6a Sir Edward Grey powible. It is far better for this world and for England to accept greater lasses than to consent to sacrifice high honor to the military needs of the moment. This of course does not mean that Great Britain might not have anticipated events by preparing for then>, and that it would not have been wise last, summer to have had a half a million troops in Serbia, but these matters are primarily mili- tary rather than diplomatic. It is at the end of the war that the civili- zation of Sir Edward Grey will be most needed. The recent speech of Mr. Rundman has not been repudiated by England as it deserves. He proposed that commercial re- prisals be made against Germany after the end of the war such as should prevent Ger- man trade from again becoming a serious competitor of British trade. This stand at once dethrones the British cause from the high plane it occupies, and serves to fill the ammunition pouches of those who assert that this is a commercial war and not one involving the principles of freedom. Sir Edward Grey 63 The liorld ha* no quarrel with the people of Germany; it has an unending quarrel with the syitem the people of Germany have aUowed to be imposed upon them. After the war has been won, these people will in any event suffer under a legacy of hate and a burden of debt which v iU bring them heavy punishment; it is most mportant that there thaU be no artificial ai d needless obstacles to the rehabilitation of the new democracy, which must necessarily xme to them as the one recompense for what they shall have suffered in their defeat. The people cannot be exterminated and no cme wants to exter- minate them except in tho passion of imme- diate hate; any such afUa-math of the war as that advocated by Mt. Rundman wiU only serve to breed future urars and to nega- tive the great world advanoj which we hope to see accomplished by this war. The sons of Freedom have not died 1,0 promote vin- dictiveness and a narrow nationalism. It is in these matters and in the settlement of the terms of peace that the restraint and 64 Sir Edward Grey the civilization of Sir Edward Grey will be most vitally required. Let tis hope that no political upsets will occur which at that great jimcture shall deprive the world of his temperate wisdom. May the British Empire retain in the termination of the war the same high sense of national honor and probity demonstrated at its inception and in the British methods of carrying it on. THE SOUL OP MY COUNTRY j^ANKIND differs from the brutes in appreciating the worth of things intangible, of values other than the creature comforts of food and warmth. Civilization measures the degree to which a people de- votes itself to these intangibles. The basis of this appreciation is unselfishness, a will- ingness to sacrifice some of the eating and warmth for the psychological satisfaction of art, poetry, music, and Uterature, or the even less concrete forms of charity, public service, and the love of liberty. Selfishness is, next to cowardice, the qual- ity most vile in man, and the greatest foe to the development of civilization. The civilizing influence of Christianity has been due to the Golden Rule, which is simply a command to be unselfish. And now that civilization has become something which I 6s 66 The Soul of my Gjuntry affects the world as a whole rather than each of the nations of which it is composed, na- tional tmselfishness becomes even more im- portant than individual tmselfishness. This war is entirely attributable to the failure of the nations to apply the Golden Rule to themselves. The selfish German Junkers sought by war to increase their wealth and power, and used the national selfishness of their coimtry as the means to accomplish it. No motto can be more tm- Chiistian than Deutschland iiber AUes, and, imless we carefully limit its application, America First is nearly as bad. The fact that the German people more, perhaps, than any other, recognizes the value of co- operation — a synonym for immediate un- selfishness — within the coimtry makes it extraordinary that it should so utterly have failed to practice it among nations. From the turmoil and misery of war, Europe has learned the need for individual unselfishness. The spirit of service is there supreme, in Germany, fighting for an evil The Soul of my Country 67 cause, as much as in those nations fighting for truth and liberty. Europe has a clearer understanding than before of the value of abstract things Uke honor and good faith, a better knowledge of the real meaning of life and the insignificance of death. France has regained her lost and tortured soul, and looks clear-eyed to the future, for which her high self-denial shall be an inspiration. England has cast away her fat and easy content; the nation has looked upon its dead and is put- ting aside childish things. Russia is aroused to new and loftier ideals, and will never again drowse in the drugged and poisoned sleep of the past. And even Germany is cleansing her national soul by self-sacrifice for a readier acceptance of the n^w and nobler democratic ideals which will be her only recompense for the bitterness of defeat, and the hatred of the world which the worship of her false gods will have brought to her. Europe will be poorer in purse, burdened with loss and saddened by multitudinous death, but richer in sentiment and ideals. So, too, with 68 The Soul of my Country Canada, Australia, and the other lands which have dared and bled. What of the United States, what of the soul of my country? We have not starved or bled for our principles; we have profited in wealth from the war. We have fattened on the needs of the world ; we have capitalized death; we have squeezed dollars out of blood and misery. The clarion caU came to us to take our stand immovable for international honor and justice, to heed the cry of demo- cracy wantonly attacked, to make internation- al law a fact, rather than a figment, to be true to the traditions of our history, even at the possible cost of war. But to this call to the service of mankind, to this cry that we, too, show that we are willing to sacrifice a part of our eating and our warmth for the great intangibles, our government turned a deaf ear. The selling of our cotton, the marketing of our wheat, was its concern. If this be the meaning of America First, may we never adopt the motto. Many believe that it is no more than a demand for The Soul of my Country 69 national selfishness, that we Germaniae our- selves. But if it mean that we must raise America up in emulation of the virtues of other nations until it surpasses them, u' it mean the highest devotion to the intangibies of existence rather than to the eatings and the warmth, if it mean that America must by us be made first in greatness of soul, not depth of pocket, and that aU our power must be dedicated primarily to the service of man- kind, to the practice of the Golden Rule among nations, then ought we proudly to adopt it. The history of the United States has been that of a people which more than any other has believed in idealism. We first demon- strated the feasibility of modem democracy and showed that, however imperfectly we may have worked it out, none the less it contains more than any other form of govern- ment the germs of happiness for the peoples of the world. We have prided ourselves on our ability, through the universal education which we oflfer, to take into our melting-pot 70 The Soul of my Country the races of the world and to remake them into Americans. We have proved the sin- cerity of our belief in liberty by war with England, by civil war, and by war with Spain, when we thought thatliberty was endangered. Even those who to-day exercise the most corrupting influence among us, the Bryans, the Hearsts, and their like, dare not speak except in the form and phrases of idealism. Should they discard their sycophancy and PecksnifSsm and preach aloud the selfishness of their hearts, they would be ho-it^d from the st^e. But now, while all the rest of the world is growing poorer, we are growing richer. Others are practicing self-denial; we are giving ourselves up to self-indulgence. The danger is that in our sleek comfort we become callous, that with our display, our luxuries, our Broadways, we lose the idealism which alone can justify our national existence. It is high time for us to show that we are not becoming degenerate, fat, and cowardly. The naUon needs to prove that the love of The Soul of my Country 71 liberty is still ours, and that we utterly and absolutely repudiate the present Administra- tion and its substitution of phrases and self- laudation for the sacrifice and the gunpowder of our ancestors. Ws cannot keep our na- tional soul unpolluted without the self-respect that comes from a willingness to demonstrate that the intangibles still have meaning for us and that smug words and glib periods will not suflSce us when our world cries for deeds and self-sacrifice. The soul of my country will become atrophied and will die if we content ourselves with the eatings and the warmth; we must show that honor and faith and freedom mean as much to us as to England and France and martyred Bel- gium. We must have the vision to see the great and high intangibles, and the coura;je for their sake to give up sales of cotton and margins on war stocks. We must prove that our melting pot has melted, and that the pro-Germans among us are merely the scum of impurity which gathers around its lip. NEUTRALITY A NEUTRAL nation is a nation which is not at war. A nc tral person is a citizen of a neutral nation. Neutrality has therefore nothing to do with partisanship. I am a neutral, although I loathe and detest all that Germany represents in this war and admire and respect the pur- pose and fortitude of France and Great Britain, and say so at every <^portunity in my loudest tones. Under iateroational law there has gradu- ally grown up a generally accepted imder- standing of what a neutral nation should do and should prevent. But it should be clearly appreciated that a f ailttre by a nation to observe its neutral proprieties is not necessarily a breach of duty ; it merely affords the bdligerent offended a grievance which it may jostifiaUy consider a casiu belli if it 72 Neutrality 73 so desirea. A neutral owes no duties to a belligerent other than the general dutie. which it owes to humanity and civUization; iU maintenance of neutrality is entirely for its own sake. No matter how flagrant a breach of neutraUty may be, the offended belligerent is under no obligation to declare war on account of it; no matter how strictly neutraUty may be observed it does not pre- vent a beUigerent from declaring war. The rules for neutrals serve only to indicate what the consensus of world opinion considers a justifiable cause for war. The only force to compel war for unneutral acts or to pre- vent war when neutraUty is maintained is the force of pubUc opinion. That this force is often quite insuflScientto causeor to prevent war is evident. No one thinJs that Serbia's rei^y to the Au.:tna^. tiltimatum justified war, or that Belgii-.i irote neutrality; pubUc opinion of the worlj *as r.bso'atey against the invaders of these nations, 'out it was powerless to save them. Everyone knows that Greece was in honor bound to enter the 74 Neutrality war in Serbia's support, but public opinion of the world was unable to force Greece to enter it. It is therefore clear that until a world league shall have been established obligated to enforce international law, obedience to the international rules for neutrals depends only on the desire of the neutral itself. When there is no force superior to the will of a nation, that will is supreme, and its exercise is tempered only by the probability of the contemplated acts being considered as a casus belU by some other nation similarly exercising its sovereign will. The whole question reduces itself thus to one of morals and not of law, for morals is merely another name for public opinion. The accepted international rules govern- ing the course of a nation desirous of pre* serving its neutrality are very few, consisting mainly of certain things which the nation as an entity must refrain from doing, such aa selling its navy or lending its credit to a bel- ligerent, and certain things which it must Neutrality 75 prevent within its territorial juriadiction, •uch u the establishing of recruiting stations by a belligerent or the use of one of its ports as a naval base. Any activity of its dti- eens outside of these matters is not a breach of neutrality or of international law, even though it may be contrary to the national laws a nation may have established for the governance of its citizens in their relation to foreign war. In short, no belligerent is obliged to con- sider any act of a neutral a casus belli; no maintenance of neutrality can prevent a belligerent from declaring war if it so desires. NeutraUty is not in itself a thing that is noble or praiseworthy. It may under certain circumstances be wise and advisable or even right. But its wisdom or its righteousness depends upon each particular case, and no generalization can serve as a guide. It is never admirable, but often excusable. The present neutrality of the United States is neither. Non-partisanship on the part of the people MiCROconr (esoiution test chart (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No, 2) _^ TIPPLED IM/IGE In ^^"m '6^3 Eos' Moin Str«et K-jS ??frf*!V^ f^** ''°''*' '*609 USA r-^S ("6> *83 - 0300 - Phone —a ;716) 288 - 5989 - To. 76 Neutrality of a civilized nation is an impossibility where the war is one of importance, and would be a confession of ignorance and selfishness unworthy of thinking persons. An appeal for such non-partisanship, often mistermed personal neutrality, is shameful and degrad- ing. The most intense partisanship on the part of the people is in no way incompatible with the technical neutrality of the nation as an entity, which is merely a refusal to inter- vene and to utilize its military organization on behalf of one of the belligerents. Neutrality is obse. /ed by a nation broadly on the following grounds: First. Because it is not concerned in the question at issue between the belligerents. Second. Because it is afraid to intervene. Third. Because the issue at stake is of less consequence than the cost of intervention. Fourth. Because selfish considerations show that it can profit in wealth by refusing to intervene. Fifth. Because it can accomplish more good as a neutral than as a belligerent. Neutrality 77 It is of course needless to argue to any inteUigent person that the United States is not concerned in the question at issue in the European War. The matter has been thrashed out so thoroughly that we recognize that both in the abstract and in the concrete it concerns us vitally. In the abstract, it is a conflict between democracy and feudalism, between peace and militarism, between the doctrine of industrial development by work and intelligence and the doctrine of the for- cible appropriation of the fruits of the labor of others, between responsible government and imposed government, between progress and reaction, between the acknowledgment of the obligation of international law and the denial of its superiority to expediency, between all that has been accomplished in the spiritual evolution of civilization during the last hundred and fifty years and the barbarism of a conqueror of the Middle Ages, between faith-keeping and faith-break- ing, between Abraham Lincoln and Napo- leon. On the concrete side, the war is to 78 Neutrality decide whether within a few years the United States will have to fight the Gennan Empire, whether the Monroe Doctrine is to be torn to shreds and Brazil seized by Germany, whether for our physical safety it will be necessary for us to devote a very large part of our resources to the creation of a huge navy and a vast army, whether we must submit not only to taxes burdensome to an unparal- lelled degree, but also to the diversion of a large part of our manhood from productive industry. On both abstract and concrete grounds it would be impossible for us to view German success with toleration. Few Americans would be willing to admit that we are maintaining neutrality because of fear. The nation is too proud and too great to acknowledge such a thing. We are also too intelligent not to know that Ger- many cannot in this war destroy the British fleet, and that so long as the British fleet is intact Germany is impotent to do us military injury. We have seen what Germany has done to Belgium, to Poland, to Serbia, and Neutrality 79 to Northern France, and we can readily understand how fear should be a controlling influence in making nations like Switzerland, Hdland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, and Roumania preserve their neutrality. Circumstances will very probably become so insistent that even fear will not suffice to prevent some of these countries, notably Greece, Roumania, and Holland, from ultim- ate intervention; but in the meantime fear is a human and proper reason for keeping them out of the war. They are vulnerable to the terrorization of the German met»">ds. We in America are not vulnerable. The issues at stake in this war are so huge that it would be puerile to say that they are not worth the cost of intervention by the United States. The whole future course of the development of the world, of which we form a not inconsiderable imit, is at issue. Moreover, our very invulnerability, due to our geographical position and to the suprem- acy of . British navy, makes the cost to us of in..jrvention controllable by ourselves 8o Neutrality and not by Gennany. Were we in the war, it would be wholly for us to decide to what extent we should participate. We could if we wished content ourselves with a merely passive belligerency, such as that carried on by Japan since the fall of Tsing Tau, at the same time rendering services to the Entente by the mobilization of our financial and in- dustrial resources. Or if, on the other hand, we should decide to undertake an active share in military operations, we could be assured of all the time needful to organize, equip, and train armies of such size as we should deem advisable. The selfish considerations of money iirof t are totally insufficient to justify our neutral- ity. Our pride should be too great to allow us to take all the advantage and suffer none of the burden of the war. Our virility, our manhood, should forbid us to be willing to skulk behind the protection of Great Britain and France as we are doing. We know that the Entente is fighting our battle, and that if it is beaten we shall be compelled ourselves Neu'. -ality 8i to fight whether we want to or not. We cannot plead poverty or smallness as our excuse. I cannot believe any considerable part of our people so degraded and lacking in the conception of honor as to wish to let others fight for them while they devote themselves to the making of money. Such a stand is incompatible with the American character and with every tradition of oiu- history. It is our duty to be supporters of civilization, not its emasculated beneficiaries. The one remaining possibility of justifying our neutrality is the assertion that we can accomplish more good as a neutral than as a belligerent, and upon examination this claim too falls to pieces. It is quite true that worthy action by us at the 'oeginning would probably have enabled us to preserve our neutrality while obtaining advantages for civilization of inestimable worth. The lack of vision, the timidity and possibly the stupidity of our Administration prevented this accomplishment, and the opportimity is forever gone from us. We could have crys- 82 Neutrality tallized not only the opinion of our own people but that of all the neutral peoples of the world against the German assatilt on civilization. We could have nipped in the bud the German doctrine of frightfulness, and prevented all calculated commission of atrocities. We could have made it early evident that ultimate success of the German purpose was impossible, and thus not only have prevented the entry into the war of Turkey and Bulgaria, but have made Ger- many realize that the longer the struggle lasted the worse would be the plight of the Central Empires, and that the only chance of preserving their existing imperium lay in an immediate peace on the best terms obtainable. But instead of this, Mr. Wilson maintained a long silence, ultimately broken by representations based entirely on national selfishness, principally money selfishness, and totally ignoring the paramount question of the demands of civilization. The Germans have given the United States slap after slap in the face, but Mr. Wilson has only sput- Neutrality 83 tered, and even in his sputterings has com- plained only of the affront to the face slapped, not of the outrage of such slappings existing m a twentieth-century world. As a result, the voice of America, which might have inspired respect, is now regarded only with disdain, and all chance of important accom- plishment by the moral force of our Ad- ministration has vanished. This pusillanimity and short-sightedness has also destroyed aU the force of the argument at first so often made that the United States was needed at the end of the war as the one great neutral to settle the terms of peace. We no longer have any influence which can affect these terms, and they will be made by the victori- ous Entente Powers, and not by any neutral. The world wiU have to trust to the wisdom and restraint of men like Sir Edward Grey that these terms be such as to insure lasting peace, not to the guidance of America. Nor is there any truth in the statement that we are doing more to aid by making munitions as a neutral than we could do as 84 Neutrality a belligerent. There has been only a partial mobilization of our resources for this purpose, induced merely by the desire to gain profits. Were we in the war, there would be a national patriotic mobilization, and with our char- acteristic powers of organization under such stimulation we should soon be turning out ten shells where to-day we are producing one. The destination of these munitions would be where they could do most good, and they certainly would not be hoarded by us to provide for our own future needs a year hence but would be apportioned to the troops needing them as these troops were ready for action. The question of whether these soldiers were Americans or belonged to one of our allies would be of minor importance in this regard. To think we would act otherwise would be to admit that we are fools. No one now fears revolution on the part of the hyphenate if we go to war. It is too thoroughly discredited to count except so far as it can in secret hatch criminal plots Neutrality 85 It .'l never come and deal assassin blows, out into the open. The one valid argument against American intervention is that it would prevent the admirable work which has been carried on by our diplomatic representatives in the war- ring nations, and embarrass the adminis- tration of our charities among the victims of Germany. However unfortunate this may be, it cannot for a momem, be held of sufficient weight to counterbalance the reasons which demand that we should intervene. It is of the highest consequence that the American people should recognize the fact that neutrality is never noble, is often base and cowardly, in this case is soul-destroying, deadly to our influence and reputatira abroad, and to our pride and self-respect at home. The very fact that Mr. Wilson has constantly assumed that neutrality is per se something admirable has in the past led many Americans astray; now that they are beginning to see the shame he has brought upon our citizen- ship in other respects they are also perceiv- 86 Neutrality ing the falsity of this assumption. What freeman could hesitate in choosing between Constantine of Greece and the noble Veni- celos? Let us be able to say with Rupert Brooke who last spring died in the /Egeaa in the flower of his youthful genius: And Nobleness walks in our ways again, And we ' 've come into our heritage. THE AMERICAN LEGION rjURING our Civil War there were tens ■*-' of thousands of Canadians enlisted in the northern armies. The assistance of these men was gratefully accepted, but in no case was it possible to identify or distin-^uish what they did as the aocomplishm =t of Canadians. They were all merged into the United States army, and became merely units of the different United States regiments which they joined. In this war in like manner thousands of Americans have enlisted in the armies of the Entente. There is hardly a Canadian regi- ment which has not in it a sprinkling of Americans; Americans gained imdying glory in the heroic Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry; they are scattered all through the British armies and are found in the armies of Prance, more especially in the famous 87 88 The American Legion Foreign Legion and in the aviation corps. Occasionally some conspicuous happening, such as the gallant death of Johnny Poe, brings for a moment to the notice of the world the presence of these Americans among the fighting men, but for the most part they are entirely merged in the nationality of the forces which they have joined. Now for the first time the Canadian author- ities, with a fine courtesy and a splendid ap- preciation of the high motives which have made so many Americans refuse to stay pas- sive in this struggle between freedom and tyranny, have permitted the organization of a battaUon of the Canadian Overseas Forces to consist in its persoimel both of enlisted men and oflScers entirely of those of United States origin. This battalion is now fully organized and recruited, and it will be but a short time before there are other similar battalions. These men are known as the American Legion. The authorization of these purely Ameri- can forces shows both a confidence in the The American Legion 89 bravery and ability of battalions so consti- tuted to give a worthy account of themselves, and a generous wilUngness that they may receive as Americans full credit for whatever they are able to do. I have seen these men, many of them veterans of the Spanish War and the Philippines and the expeditions to Cuba, under the command of a man who has served in both the army and the navy of the United States, straight, serious, and earnest. I have looked in their eyes, and I have no fear that they will not uphold the traditions of American soldiers. Upon enlisting these men take an oath of aUegiance to the flag under which they are to serve, Umited in time to the duration of the war and six months thereafter. After the expiration of this time, they are free from any duty or obligation to the British Empire. I cannot but think that when it becomes known in the United States that this Ameri- can Legion exists, it will not be by tens but by thousands that Americans will come to Canada to offer themselves for this service. \ti>: 90 The American Legion However blind our Administration is to the Kght of these high times, there are milKons of our citizens who have the vision to see and the wit to understand what this struggle means for the world and for civilization. They know that in the face of a cataclysm of this kind it is childish to say that it does not concern us, and cowardly to avoid pajring the debt which we owe to the world. For many of us in the United States, Canada has been put on the map by the action taken in this war. The obligation for Canada to participate was only a moral one; the Canad i a n government is free and entirely uncontrolled by the government of Great Britain. There was no legal require- ment that a single Canadian soldier or a single Canadian dollar should go overseas to the relief of the mother country, any more than that a United States man or dollar should take part. But the moral and eco- nomic ties that bind the British Empire to- gether are so strong that there was not a moment of hesitation. The men in control The American legion 91 of affairs knew that this was Canada's war as much as England's war, and they did not delay in promising Canadian aid. I myself believe that it is the United States' war even more than it is Canada's war, because we not only have more to lose if Germany should triumph, but our greater size and importance in the world carry with them greater respon- sibilities and greater duties. There can be no red-blooded American who can feel other than admiration and re- spect for Canada and the splendid way Cana- dians have come forward to carry their share of the burden. The inspiration of seeing a people small in numbers and developed re- sources boldly throwing themselves into this maelstrom of war by the side of their brothers must needs arouse in us a feeling nearly alrif^ to envy. They stood not upon the order of their going; they did not evert and extrude and discuss; they did not count the cost or the loss. Their empire, their world, their civi- lization, their century needed them; the answer was simple, they must go, and they 92 The American Legion have gone and they are going and they will go. WhaX wonder, then, that with this noble example of courage and willingness to serve close before our eyes, many of our citizens are going to Canada to join this American Legion, there to find again the self-respect they look for in vain in Washington? They are welcomed as brothers; from the moment they set foot upon Canadian soil their ex- penses are borne by the tax-payers of Canada ; they receive the same pay as the native- bom Canadian volunteer, their families are entitled to the same allowances and the same distribution of the patriotic funds that are being raised to take care of the dependents of the Canadian soldiers. The Germans love to say that these men are mercenaries, that they ars fighting for the pay that they receive. Individualism is almost unknown in Germany, and the conception of a man reasoning out for hin'- self his duty to mankind and sacrificing him- self to his ideals of what he ought to do is The American Legion 93 incomprehensible to those who have for years been taught to obey the commands of the authorities above them. But we who know the American character cannot be told that the Americans who make up this Legion that bears our name are in it because the pay of a Canadian private is a dollar and ten cents a day. There may be something of the spirit of adventure, there may be a curiosity to see for themselves how men can comport themselves in Ms greatest exploit of history, but mostly these men are Canadian soldiers because they have seen their duty to their world and theii race and have not shirked it. They have given proof of a loftiness of individualism that in the end is certain to triumph over an autocracy, no matter how orderly and efficient it may appear to be. No law can be made in the United States which can prevent our citizens from think- ing and deciding for themselves. The only conceivable circumstance under which our government could prevent our eager and 94 The American Legion inspired young manhood from going to Canada and under the British flag giving the service which they ought to be giving uuder their own would be a universal con- scription in time of war. Until that time comes, I and every other American citizen have every right to teU our feUows of the opportunity to serve mankind offered by this American Legion and of the steps to be taken to become a member of it. However much it may displease the President of the United States to see these men going abroad to render the service he has sought to escape, he is powerless to prevent them from going, —just as powerless as he is to prevent me fcom saying these things as loudly and as eloquently as I know how, wherever I may be, at home in the Uni^ States, or where under the democratic Canadian flag a true and proud American may well feel even more at home than in his own land in this January of the year 1916. OUR NATIONAL CONSCIENCE •yHERE has cever been an election in the United States so important as that of this year. It wiU make it clear whether we Americans who believe that at heart our nation is the same as it has been during the years of its history are right, or whether truth Kes with the croakers who declare that with the new immigration diluting our blood and the new luxury sapping our manhood we have ceased to be the America of old. It will prove whether we have lost our national conscience and our national soul. We know that the Great War is a plain struggle between might and right. We know that the Wilson Administration has been afraid to choose between them. If the people of my country support this Administration, they will show that Mr. Wilson has succeeded in destroying the soul of his country. 95 96 Our National Conscience !Pi Where a great moral issue is involved it always takes time to make the mass of the people see it and tinderstand it. It took twenty years to bring the people to a point where they knew that the Civil War liad to be fought, and even then they gasped at the temerity of Lincoln in issuing the Proclama- tion of Emancipation even though they knew that slavery was the underlying issue of the war. They stood four years of Buchanan just as we are standing four years of Wilson. But the people would have no more of Buchanan, and if they are the same people who made the United States in i860 they will have no more of Wilson. If we are men and not sheep, we will have no more of Wilson. If we have red blood rather than water in our veins, we will have no more of him. If we believe in the prin- ciple of democracy and that it is worth maintaining and fighting for in the world, if we hold that our citizenship should be an aegis of protection rather than a badge of shame, if we insist that righteousness and Our National Conscience 97 moral worths are more to be desired than wealth and temporary self-indulgence, we wiU have no more of Wilson. If we want to be able to qualify for something higher than the guardians of a harem, we wiU be rid of Wilson. If we have any appreciation of shame, any dislike of national degradation, any understanding of national honor, we will throw Wilson out of the office he has dese- crated. If the spirit of 1776 and of 1861 is not dead in our bosoms, we, the hundred million of Americans of 1916, wiU elect some Lincoln to undo the shame of this Buchanan of to-day. Must we wait for the Ust of our shames to become even longer before we sweep the bloody mist from before our eyes and see clearly? Have not our souls been seared enough by the branding flame of Belgium, of Mexico, of the Lusitania? Let every man from the Pacific to the Atlantic who loves America for what it has been raise up his voice and shout it abroad that we will have no more of Wilson. Let such a cry of 98 Our National Conscience indignation arise that it shall call the veiy ghosts of our ancestors forth from their graves to see that the sons whom they have begotten carry in their veins the heroic blood of their fathers: Dishonor not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call fathets did beget you; Be copy now to men of grosser mold And teach them how to war. Alas for my country if it has lost its soul! But until next November shall prove me a liar, I deny it, I deny it, and again I deny it. PEACE WITH THE GERJiAN REPUBLIC j^ANY observeni beKeve that the end of the war wiU be brought about by revolution in Germany and Austria-Hungary rather than by the advance of the troops of the AUies into the territory of the Central Empires. Such revolution would of course be the result of the miUtary losses and eco- nomic hardships of the Teutons, and would be a victory for the Entente just as much as a passage of the Rhine. Ahnost every student of the situation is convinced that even should revolution not be a condition precedent to the allied victory, it is certain to f oUow such a victory. It must happen, because it is the omy practicable method of achieving the greatest purpose of the war. the democrati- zation of the Central Empires and rendering them thereby immune to militarism and .99 100 Peace with the no longer a menace to the world. There cannot be real peace so long as the dynasties of Hapsburg and Hohenzollem exist. Had there been for the last half-century a free press in these empires, these dynasties would long since have fallen. The possibility of duping the people so long lay only in the power of keeping them ignorant; the inborn impulses toward freedom make it impossible to keep a populace that is informed and not illiterate content with despotism. Such a freedom of the press would like- wise have made it clear to the people that even should the ambitions of the German war lords be completely successful, no benefit to the people in any way commensurate with the cost of the war could restdt. Sven should Germany succeed in establishing a hegemony over Europe, with close commer- cial relations of the territory stretching from the Belgian North Sea through the Central Empires, through the Balkans, through Turkey and Asia Minor to the Persian Gtilf, wherein would Hans and Fritz who are spend- German Republic loi ing their blood and their savings in the at- tempt to accomplish this dream be better off? No indemnities could by any possi- bJlity be imposed upon a vanquished Entente which could reimburse Germany for her expenditures, no trade advantages which would foUow could make existence easier for living Hans and Fritz, nothing can bring dead Hans and dead Fritz back to life again. The high Junker lords, the great manufac- •^rers, bankers, and ship-owners, would doubt- less profit hugely in wealth, but not Hans and Fritz. And where the former are but one, Hans and Fritz are a thousand. To-day even these beneficiaries of the Pan- German dream recognize that it is but a drear- and can never be turned into reality. Hans and Fritz do not yet realize either its impos- sibility or that even if it could be done they would be no better off, but that all the profit would go to their masters. Once Hans and Fritz open their eyes and understand, there will be an end to this war and with it an end to Hapsburgs and HohenzoUems. The loa Peace with the I I length of the war depends upon the intelli- gence of Hans and Fritz, and how much more bloodshed and starvation must be inflicted upon them before they will learn to see. In spite of the endeavor of the German authorities to keep Hans and Fritz in ignor- ance and to keep any complaints which they may make from reaching the ears oi the outer world, evidences are multiplying that the seeds of revolution in Germany are fast sprouting. At the outset of the war the socialists were regarded as the danger point, and it is notorious how these socialists were impressed into the most dangerous positions. The effort was made not only to exterminate them as the Turks have exterminated the Armenians, but with a truly Satanic cunning to use their deaths to bolster up the power of the masters who condemned them. It is not likely that figures will ever be obtainable to show the comparative losses of the social- ists and the rest of the population, but every- thing indicates that the war lords have made them the first and heaviest sufferers. German Republic 103 Now there is arising in Germany a crop of republicans, quite distinct from the old social- ists. They oflFer the people much more prospect of accomplishment than could the older Socialism. It was possible for the latter to exist to a large extent along with a dominant absolutism, and much of the lauded eflBciency of the German Government has been due to its practice of an imposed and limited socialism upon the proletariat. It is unable to dominate the new republicanism, which is in its nature incompatible with the Junker autocracy. Each high explosive shell that kills soldiers of the Kaiser is making repubhcans. Each pfennig added to the price of food, each drop m the exchange value of the mark, is making repubHcans. The passage of the Rhine by the troops of Papa Joflfre wiU make repub- licans. The only question is whether enough republicans wiU have been made before the Rhine is passed to end the war. Nothing can be more certain than that there will be a republican Germany, and that it is 104 Peace with the only with this new-bom republic that terms of settlement can be made which the world can accept and which will mean a lasting peace. This war will end once for all the anachronism of militaristic oligarchies or dynasties. So soon as any of the few auto- cracies which will survive tlas war begin to show symptoms of aggressive militarism, they will be abolished before they have a chance to set the peaceful democracies of the world ablaze. This is the great lesson of the last two years. It is to teach it that men have died by millions. We who survive must see to it that their deaths have not been in vain. Again and again it must be repeated, that history teaches that democracies can be trusted not to initiate wars of aggression, that autocracies cannot be trusted. It is for this truth that we fight; it is because this is truth that we shall win. The end of the war must mean the end of the imperial dynasties of the Central Empires or the war will not be ended in fact. And German Republic 105 this faU of Teutonic dynasties wiU cany with it an omen that wiU be thoroughly understood by Slavic and Mongolian dynasties. Other- wise it will not be peace but merely a truce which will result. CANADIAN FRIENDSHIP j^Y attention was recently called to an editorial in a Philadelphia paper en- titled "Canadian Bitterness," in which it was stated that American travelers in Canada have found that their country, its government, and its people are emphaticaUy unpopular, and that this hostmty centers in Toronto. As an American who for some years has Hved in Toronto, and who assuredly has a better opportunity of judging of such sentiments than have casual tourists, I wish categori- caUy to deny the truth of such assertions. There undoubtedly was a time not many years ago when the greater oppc. tunities, successes, and luxuries which the United States then offered caused a certain amount of envy and jealousy which showed itself in spiteful sayings and cutting remarks. With the recent broadening and develop- io6 Canadian Friendship 107 ment of Canadian life, this has largely passed away, although a few instances of it were revived at the time of the reciprocity cam- paign of 1911 by the fooUsh and widely quoted remarks of Champ Clark, W. H. Taft and others,— remarks intended only for home consumption and not meant tor circulation in Canada. Since the war began, I have been greatly impressed by the moderation of the expres- sions of Canadians in regard to the course of the United States. They have been much more ready to find excuses for our failures to respond to the obligations of the Hague Conventions and of common humanity than have I or others of the millions of Americans who feel as I do. It would of course be impossible that Canada, which is paying its debt to civilization in blood and treasure, should not feel sorrow that we in the United States, whose interests in the preservation of democratic government are fundamentally the same, should not be imbued with the same spirit of service which is -ecreating the io8 Canadian Friendship soul of Canada. The people of Canada know, just as we Americans know, that the Entente nations are fighting the battle of the United States as well as their own, and they think as we thi.ik that it is selfish and unworthy that we should be taking all and giving nothing. The real reason why Canadians are far less bitter against the Wilson Administra- tion than are the truest Americans is that they know that the war does not need the United States; we on the other hand know that the United States does need the war if the soul of our country is not to be destroyed and if we are to learn that sacrifice and ser- vice in the cause of mankind will go farther to accomplish true greatness in a nation than selfishness and the open worship of Mammon as the greatest of the gods. J'ACCUSE T^HE greatest tragedies of this war have been the tragedy of a nation, Germany, the tragedy of a people, the Belgians, and the tragedy of a man, Woodrow Wilson. The time has come when the people of the United States should no longer consent to bear this last tragedy upon their shoidders. If there be any truth in the parable of the talents, it will be hard for the people of our nation and our world to forgive Mr. Wilson. He has had the greatest opportunity ever offered to any man in history; the fact that he has buried his talents instead of using them has caused the world unspeakable suffering and injury. The people have been misled as to Mr. Wilson because they have listened to him; because they have taken his words at their face value. For instance, in an address to 109 no J'Accuse the members of the Grand Amy of the Re- public on September 30, 1915, he used words which are in accord with the best tradition and the highest conception of duty of the nation. He said: Per my own part I would not be proud of the extraordinary physical development of this country, of its extraordinary development in material wealth and financial power, did I not believe that the people of the United States wished aU of this power devoted to ideal ends. There have been other nations as rich as we; there have been other nations as powerful; there have been other nations as spirited; bul I hope that we shall never forget that we created this nation, not to serve ourselves, but to serve mankind. . _, I hope I may say without even an implication of criticism upon any other great people in the world that it has always seemed to me that the people of the United States wished to be regarded as devoted to the promotion of particular prin- ciples of human right. The United States was founded, not to provide free homes, but to a.ssert human rights. This flag meant a great enterprise of the human spirit. Nobody, no large bodies of men, m the time that flag was first set up, believed with a very firm belief in the efScacy of democ J' Accuse III i»ey. Do you realize that only so long ago aa the American Revolution democracy was re- garded as an experiment in the worid. and we were regarded as rash experimenters? But we not only believed in it; we showed that our belief was well founded and that a nation as powerful as any in the worid could be erected upon the wiU of the people; that, indeed, there was a power in such a nation that dwelt in no other nation unless also in that nation the spirit of the people prevailed. . . . So I stand here not to welcome you to the nation's capital as if I were your host, but merely to welcome you to your own capital, because I am, and am proud to be, your servant. I hope I shall catch, as I hope we shall all catch, from the spirit of this occasion a new consecration to the high duties of American citizenship. These are noble words, addressed to men who were not too proud to fight nobly for a noble cause more than fifty years ago, how- ever much since that time political chicanery may have degraded the Grand Army of the RepubUc. They accord with other words spoken by Mr. Wilson before his election as President, an . as an American citizen I am proud to believe that unless the American 113 J' Accuse people had become convinced that he held such views and was prepared to carry them out his election would have been impossible. I cannot see how there can be any American worthy of the name who can fail to endorse them without restriction or reservation. But when it came to making effective the purport of these words and to taking action which should prove that he was prepared in deed as in speech to make them fruitful, Mr. Wilson has failed so utterly and so signally that it is impossible to comprehend how he could have had the audacity on September 30, 1915, to utter them, having ah«ady de- monstrated that he regards them as mere platitudes and catchwords to be used for political effect. He assumed the presidency of a nation held by the world in high esteem as embodying more than any other the high ideals of which he prates; he has made it to-day a nation regarded by foreign nations merely with contempt— a pitying contempt on the part of England and France and such nations as are oleeding to preserve for the J' Accuse 113 world the ideals which we first established; a sneering contempt on the part of Germany which is convinced that we will submit to any insults and treat as scraps of paper any obUgations rather than incur the burden of suffering and of debt incident to war. I assume that I am addressing the intel- Hgent majority of our people who have al- ready made up their minds as to which side must win the European War if the advance of the world is not to meet a serious setback. No man with any power of analysis can read the thesis of Mr. James M. Beck and the work of the anonymous author of T Accuse without knowing beyond doubt that on Germany rests the responsibility for the war. No man with any humanity can read the report of the Bryce Commission and the daily papers without knowing that Germany has adopted methods of war so barbarous that they would have been regarded as fan- tasies of a diseased imagination had they been foretold two years ago. No man with any vision can fail to realize that the purpose 114 J'Accusc of Germany is to establish a hegemony over Europe of her dynastic autocracy, and that this is merely the preliminary necessary •tep to the seizure of Brazil and other non- European countries so long coveted by her. No American with any knowledge of world pontics can faU to understand that German victory means that at no distant date the United States will have to wage war with Germany or surrender all claim to be a nation the equal among other great Inations, and that, unless we are far stronger than we now are, Germany will be able to collect from us the billions which her campaigns have cost. However much the American people may feel that they have been shamed by the failure to give protection to American lives, honor, and interests in Mexico, however much they may be convinced that it has not *en as a servant of the people but as the head of a political party that Mr. Wilson has been conducting many of their interests and ar- ranging his Cabinet and the incumbents of offices within his bestowal, it is not by these Sni J'Accusc iij mattm that he will be judged by hirtory. It » h» conduct of American affaire in nh- Uoa to the Great War which i. of governing importance; everything else sinks into com- paxative insignificance. When the war broke out. it found the American people benumbed at its hoiror overwhelmedat the hugeness of thecataclysm' The people were only waiting for the inspired voice of a great leader to direct them along a course worthy of themselves and the needs of the crisis. Party interests were forgot- ten; we were one people, anxious "not to serve ourselves, but to serve mankind" A^d not only the American people looked to Mr. Wilson, but all the nations of the world not mvolved in the conflict looked to the Umted States, the greatest among them, for guidance in the course which they should pursue, for a leadership. Had Mr. Wilson acted worthily he could have led into the service of mankind not only his own people but half of all the people of the world. Mr. Wilson began by his infamous advice ii6 J' Accuse to the American people to be neutral in deed and thought, to try to think that the matter did not concern us. A nobler President, Mon- roe, called on us not to be neutral in thought but to give our fuU sympathy to Greece struggling for freedom in 1823. Everyone now knows, every intelligent person knew at the time, that to be neutral in thought at such a crisis proved a man a fool or a coward. The mere idea of an American president calling upon the American people to be neutral in thought when the very foxmdations upon which our nation has been erected were being attacked, when a calculated endeavor was being made to destroy the essentials of that democracy, the success of which Mr. Wilson so glibly extols, is enough to make any true American sick with shame. Us neutral in thought, when innocent Belgium was being devastated by its sworn protector as never country was desolated since the ear- lier barbarians swept down from the North! Us neutral in thought when innocent women, not by ones but by hundreds, were being J'Accuse "7 violated, when innocent civilians, not by tens but by thousands, 7:ere being nurdered! Us neutral in thougl i, when thjse things were being done, not by uEtutored savages upon equally backward victims in the fast- nesses of Central Asia or in the wilds of Borneo, but upon a people as civilized and as law-abiding as ourselves! Us neutral in thought, while the attempt was being made to extend and make supreme in the world a dynastic imperialism which is to-day a complete anachronism, and to destroy utterly and forever the democracies of Europe which have arisen as a result of the success of our own great experiment! Us neutral in thought, when the only excuse of the devasta- tor was an alleged superiority over all other peoples of the world, a superiority manifested in peace by intolerant braggadocio and brutal manners, and in war by refinements of cruelty hitherto unsuspected and the ap- palling doctrine of f rightfulness! It were better that the people of the United States should perish from off the earth than that tx8 J' Accuse at such a time they should be neutral in thought. Nor was there any internal danger in the country to be avoided by such cowardly personal neutrality. Selfishness could not dictate such advice. Not only was there at the time no pro-German propaganda such as has since then been so carefully cultivated by agents of the Prussian autocracy, but under a wise and patriotic leadership there never would have been such a propaganda. If the oflBcial Government of the United States had made it clear that in its desire to serve mankind it shuddered at ;he deeds of Germany as well as at her ambitions, if the President of the United States had taken a firm stand for world ideals based upon the principles of humanity and the welfare of the human race as well as upon the need to save democratic government in the world, the hideous specter of pro-Germanism would never have raised its head in the country. If at the outset the evil had been branded as what it was, no considerable part of the J' Accuse 119 people could have been led astray into tolera- tion of it. The Germans in the United States themselves would have been compelled at once to visualize the difference in the ideals of the country from which they came and this new land of ours, and would no more have given their aid to Germany than would the expatriates of the Revolution of 1848. The existing cancer of the hyphenate in our land, a cancer sedulously nourished by Prussian emissaries and Prussian gold, is due entirely to Mr. Wilson's attitude.' The truth of this statement is clearly shown by the fact that in Canada, where the proportion of inhabitants of German birth or parentage is even greater than in the Umted States, there is no pro-Germanism. The inspiration there of a government with vjsjon urging the people to accept the sacri- fices necessary for performing the duties imposed upon them by their twentieth cen- tury civilization prevented any but isolated mstances of pro-Germanism from mani- festing themselves. Pro-Germanism was I30 J' Accuse recognized as the shameful thing it is, and in Canada it is neither safe, respectable, nor decent. But the number of German-bom who have had to be interned is negligible, and the number who have volunteered for the army is magnificent. Mr. Wilson's differ- ent course not only has not served mankind but has been the direct cause of the failure of the United States to show itself homoge- neous. He has torn his own country asunder wiien more than ever we needed unitedness. The partial success of the unofficial war which Germany is waging upon us in fo- menting strikes, burning our factories, and blowing up our legitimate industries is entirely the result of Mr. Wilson's policy. Even more evil in effect than this act of commission have been Mr. Wilson's acts of omission. The United States is a signatory to *e conventions of The Hague Tribunal of 1907, by which it was sought to reduce to the concrete of written form part of the vague obligations known as international law, and to obtain for them a definite sanction by the .J, H J' Accuse 131 approving nations. It is perfectly true that the United States specifically stipulated that its adherence to these conventions should not require it to intervene in any European war, and that the invasion of Belgium was not of necessity a casus belli for this country as it was for Great Britain. Furthermore, it may be plausibly argued that the partici- pation in the war of nations which have not adopted these conventions makes it techni- cally possible to claim that the United States was not false to its obligations when it failed to protest. But at such a time there should have been no appeal to technicalities, no endeavor to escape from the duty contem- plated and intended to be imposed by The Hague Conventions. It is only by quibbling that even the technical obligation of the United States can be avoided. Montenegro may not have adopted certain of these Hague conventions; is that any reason why Belgium should not be protected against German invasion at least by the moral support of a United States protest? 133 J' Accuse Underlying and infinitely greater than any treaty obligations was the duty of the United States to make a protest based on the broadest grounds of humanity and inter- national safety, based on our duty "not to serve ourselves, but to serve mankind," as Mr. Wilson has so admirably phrased it. Here was an occasion where it lay in his power at no cost to his nation to have done more to serve mankind than has ever before been open to any man in history. The spirit of these Hague conventions, which is the spirit of civilization, demanded action by us, action that clearly need not have been military intervention, but just as clearly should have been an earnest protest against the flagrant violation of these conventions. This duty Mr. Wilson entirely failed to perform. Had this protest, which our honor and our obligation "to serve mankind" demanded, been duly made, its effect would have been of incalculable value. It would have con- soUdated the opinion of the neutral nations and brought them to a realization of their J' Accuse la^ own duties. While perhaps it would have been too late to prevent the violation of Bel- gium, it would undjubtedly have prevented most of the horrors which took place not only there but in other conquered territory, in Serbia and in Poland. It would have pre- vented the institution of the doctrine of frightfulness, which Germany adopted step by step when each successive flagrancy failed to elicit the storm of protest which it merited. It would have forced the whole neutral world, which had its gaze fixed upon the United States, to an immediate recognition of the rights and wrongs of the conflict. It would have made it evident that ultimate defeat of the German cause was inevitable, and wo'jld have made impossible the entrance into the war on the side of Germany of any other nations. It would have concentrated the whole force of world opinion against Germany, and made it necessary that the war should have been ended in the winter of 1914-1915. It is ahnost inconceivable that Germany 124 J' Accuse I! .| I ,1 would have refused to heed such a protest, backed as it would have been by the weight of practically the whole world outside of the warring nations. The danger would have been too great that the deliberate hostile judgment of the United States and the other neutrals would be turned into hostile action. But even if the madness of Germany had proved greater than seems possible and we had been drawn into the war, we should have been injured only in our pocket-books. To do us physical injury Germany would have been impotent, and our participation would have been only to the extent desired by us. The spectacle of a grea{; nation altruistically entering a war from which it could gain no advantage except the moral benefit of the inspiration of high deeds for the service of mankind, would have promoted civilization more than any event in history. Instead of a protest against Germany, Mr. Wilson's first protest, in December, 1914, was against Great Britain, and was based wholly upon financial considerations. The J'Accusc 123 stimulus to American trade caused by the ne- cessities of the Entente Powers had already resulted in a great increase in the volume of sales to Europe, the: e sales being made at enormous profits. But not content with this, Mr. Wilson sought that in addition to these profits such American interests as were not above dealing with Germany should have an opportunity to do so at the war scale of profits. Already Americahad begun to fatten upon the miseries of Europe; this note of Mr. Wilson gave notice that the United States Govern- ment was prepared to aid in squeezing usury out of the gaping wounds of the nations overseas. No distinction was made between incidental profit in helping the right side and indiscriminate profit from both sides. It resulted, as of necessity it must have re- sulted, in encouraging the selfishness of United States business, and repressing the nobler feeling of the American people that at such a time it was utteriy unworthy of our traditions and the soul of our country that we should be money-grubbing in the 126 J'Accusc '< 'f trenches of Flanders, France, and Poland. It was a notice to the other neutral nations that they should look only to their selfish interests and endeavor to make as much money as they cou'd out of the war. It was an assault upon the idealism of our people and a degradation of our country in our own eyes and in the estimation of the world. When the submarine outrages began, Mr. Wilson returned to phrases, ringing and clear. " Strict accm mtability " sounded well, but again it proved oox el praterea nihil; the voice of Jacob but the hand of Esau. It is nine months since the Lusitania, but nothing has been done. The half-hearted, partial and wholly unsatisfactory acceptance by Germany of some of our contentions was clearly due not to Mr. Wilson but to the success of the British measures against sub- marines which have practically driven them from British waters. The Ancona and the Persia show also the insincerity of even this partial acceptance. Throughout all of Mr. Wilson's diplomatic J'Accusc 137 correspondence the thing that causes the deepest shame to Americans is the constant recurrence of the question of money. His diplomacy has been a check-book diplo- macy; his consecration to the high duties of American citizenship has been a bank- balance consecration. This is illustrated by the commercial protests to Great Britain. It is a nice question of law whether Great Britain has illegally caused financial injury to American interests; it is clear that this question most be adjudicated by a property constituted tribunal, and that if it is decided that there have been such illegal financial injuries Great Britain will be both willing and able to make financial reparation. In the meantime, while she is straining to preserve in the world our ideals of freedom and democracy, it is shameful that we should be pestering her with demands for money, and endeavoring for the sake of enabling our traders to make more money to persuade her to relax the pressure which she is bringing upon Germany. »8 J' Accuse ' Mr. Wilson has brought it about that we ore acting with an unparalleled seliishness, and are devoting ourselves to making money out of the travail of Europe. Great profits from foreign sales, easy Wall Street money from soaring war-stocks, have caused an orgy of extravagance in our larger cities. And all the while we are thoroughly ashamed of ourselves, and seek to salve our souls with contributions to the various war-funds. We know that the Entente Powers are fighting our battle, that their men are dying by millions for a cause on the success of which depends our safety and the continuance in the world of our traditions of democratic freedom; thanks to Mr. Wilson we not only are not helping them to fight for us but are charging them like loan-sharks for the privilege of fighting for us. This emasculation of our manhood, this degradation of our nation is directly due to the course pursued by President Wilson. I accuse Mr. Wilson of a weakness and failure of vision which has incalculably in- lii^i J' Accuse tag jured our nation and our world. I reluc- tantly believe that Mr. Wilson has stooped to an unworthy and unsuccessful attempt to play party politics with the destinies of the world I charge Mr. Wilson with respon- sibUity for the shame felt by every true American, for the degradation of our country, and for making it despised by the world. I charge Mr. Wilson with responsibility for the failure of other neutral nations to rise to the needs of the greatest crisis the world has ever known, and for the continuation of the war for at least a year longer than necessary. I charge Mr. Wilson with responsibility for the entry into the war of Turkey and Bulgaria, and all the misery incident thereto. I charge Mr. Wilson with responsibility for the horrors of Armenia, the slaughter of him- dreds of thousands of unarmed Christians, and for the ultimate death or wounds of at least five million htunan beings. Never has such an opportiuiity to serve mankind been offered to a man, never has a man failed so miserably. Never have the talents he p 130 J' Accuse has allowed to tarnish in the ground been so needed. I believe that the American people is nobler than its present Administration. If I did not believe this I should be ashamed to look any foreigner in the face until I had sought self-respect under a flag alien to that which my ancestors helped to set up and which I have always loved and honored. THE HYPHENATE V^HEN are Americans not Americans? Very seldom, I truly believe, even though the instances where they are Ger- mans are so conspicuous and so outrageous that many persons think that the number of them is nearly comcident with the number of Americans of German origin. It would be asking too much to expect the mass of our population of foreign birth to have a clearer insight than the President of our country. It is only a few months since Mr. Wilson pubUcly said that we in America on account of our detachment from the scene of conflict were in a position to judge dispassionately concerning this "quarrel between the nations." ^^ Of course this war is not in any sense a "quairel between nations." It is a conflict between two incompatible systems of ideals 131 ' I '! if .illli 132 The Hyphenate of evolution, of government. National or- ganization serves merely to provide the units by which the contest is carried on, the framework upon which the armies are erected. It is not a contest of race, of blood, of language, of place; it is the newer doctrine of the right of men to live their own lives fighting against the survival of the old idea that men are the property of their rulers. The mass of our foreign population does not realize this fundamental truth any more than does Mr. Wilson, and thinks that it is a quarrel between the Teutonic nations on one side and France, England, and their allies on the other. Our German-bom do not know France and England, they do know Germany. They have friends and relatives fighting against France and England, and it wotdd be extraordinary if their sympathies were not with their kin. This ignorance of what the war means, this natural lack of understanding, is the cause of nearly all the pro-Germanism which exists in the United States. The Hyphenate 133 Should the United States enter the war against Germany, the case would be very- different. Then our hyphenates would have to choose between America which they know and Germany which they know; between the land which they left and the land to which they have come for the sake of the greater liberty and consequent greater oppor- tunity which it offers. I cannot believe t'^t more than an insignificant percentage would under these circumstances fail to show themselves Americans. In Canada the proportion of German blood is even greater than in the United States, but except in isolated instances the hyphen does not exist there. To be sure, the Canadian Government from the beginning spoke with no imcertain voice and has done much to inspire the people and to make them under- stand the great moral issues of the war. The contrast between the course of Canada — an independent nation under no legal obligation to enter the war because Great Britain had entered it— and that of the 134 The Hyphenate i i|i United States, which in the past has tj^pified democracy to the world, is indeed pitiful. Ottawa had vision; Washington was blind. Undoubtedly there are many German spies working in Canada. I am convinced, how- ever, that the number of them who are acting on account of a mistaken patriotism is negligible; they are spies for revenue only, for the money that is being paid them. There are always in evety land men who will •■■■'' 1 themselves for gold; Judases have existed since the birth of man. It is only in Utopia that no men are venal. In like manner in the United States pro- German acts, as distinguished from mere pro-German talk, have been almost entirely paid for with German money. The fact that Von Bemstorff and most of his crew have been tolerated has be(;n the most fruitful cause of the occasional success of the unacknowledged war which is being waged against us. Strikes in otu: factories have been organized and promoted, our industrial plants have been wrecked, explosive works The Hyphenate 135 have been blown up, bombs have been placed in our vessels and in ships canying our goods. But wherever we have been able to trace the perpetrators of these outrages it has been shown that they were paid to carry them out rather than that they acted from false patriotism. Many have talked for Germany without pay; few have committed pro-German crimes against us except for pay. The expulsion of Boy-Ed and Von Papen has not destroyed this traffic in crime; an octopus of thousands of tentacles scarcely feels the lopping off of two. We have not even struck at Von Bemstorff, the head of this octopus; instead, Mr. Wilson asks him to dinner, and, Bryan having departed, gives him something better than grape-juice. I believe I am entirely right in the fore- going estimate of our hyphenated citizens. Many people think that I am wrong, many beheve that even were the issue between Germany and America these men would be Germans. Some even assert that the shame- 136 The Hyphenate ' :l ful course of our Administration has been due to fear of uprisings within our land which would approach revolution in magnitude if we dared to take the definite anti-German position which civilization and honor demand of us. If they are right and I am wrong, I only repeat that it is an added reason why we should be at war with Germany. Our country has grown to its present high estate through its power of digesting the immigration attracted to it by the freedom and opportunity offered by its institutions. We have prided ourselves that after a generation these strangers have become Americans. If it be true that any such proportion of our people as those of German blood not only are not Americans but are incapable of becoming Americans, the future of o«ir land is dark. No price can be coo high to pay to eradicate this cancer if it exist in our body politic; revolution itself would be but a minor ill in comparison to allowing such a gangrene to fester in our nation. America is sick tmto death if we I III. The Hyphenate ^37 have this Gennan menace enp^ted upon us. As I have said before. I do not beheve it; I do not believe that even Mr. Wilson has been paded by fear of Gennan revolt in America. But I do say that the merest possibility of this thing being true, the remotest chance that this poison may have entered our vems and we not know it. demands that we take such action as will enable us to know and^not to guess. Our ancestors fought to estabhsh this nation upon a foundation which they believed would endure and be permanent; if this foundation is attacked and m danger of giving way. it is our duty to shrmk from no sacrifice to strengthen it and reestablish it before the whole structure of our nationhood come toppling down about our ears. We owe this duty to the memory of our ancestors, to ourselves who are enjoy- mg the freedom made possible by them, and to our descendants who are entitled to receive from us undamaged and intact the inheritance of liberty which was entrusted to our guardianship. 138 The Hyphenate In the meantime, even if we do not actively distrust our citizens of German birth, we most assuredly should not trust them. We should watch them constantly, scrupulously. They should be made to feel that the acts of mercenary Germans have thrown upon them a suspicion which they must dispel; that it is to their interest even more than to that of the native citizen that the instigators and perpetrators of pro-German crimes be ap- prehended and punished. Let them know that they are on trial in the Court of Public Opinion, and that if they are there found guilty they will receive but short shrift in case this country enters the war. In that event, there will be only one answer for those hyphenated Americans who show that they are Germans. They Till be shot. America will then have to prove that she still is America, and for traitors within her borders this proof will take the form of the rope or the rifle. MACHINES T^HE wars of history have been fought by men aided by machines. This war is being fought by machines directed and served by men. To-day courage and heroism have as much place and are as nobly exhibited as ever before, but the time has gone when the deeds of individuals can have any appre- ciable influence on the outcome of the conflict. No more will a Black Prince in shining armor charge through the milSe of men at arms, carrying victory in his wake, even although some of the protection worn by the modem soldier is absurdly like the chain mail of medievalism. The trench holder >f Flanders, in gas mask and bullet-proof helmet, with bayonet and en- trenching-tool, looks like a cross between Richard Coeur de Lion and the warriors '39 140 Machines h I'i Tweedledum and Tweedledee of AUce in Wonderland, The great physical lesson of the war is that machines must be fought with machines, not with men. No superiority in men alone can cope with a superiority in metal; no bravery can prevail against preparedness in munitions. The tragic retreat of the Russians in 1915 was the harrowing spectacle of men unarmed waiting for the death of their feUows to give the chance to snatch up the rifle before it had time to cool, in the meantime being exposed absolutely impotent against the hail of the machine- gun. To a lesser degree the same was true on the western front, especially in the lethal neighborhood of Ypres. Against weight of moving metal no sta- tionary metal is proof . The great domes and cupolas of Li6ge, Namur, Antwerp, Maubeuge, Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk, and all the other tragic places crumbled into dust before the might of the great sheL. and high explosives of the Germans. The mass of old Mother Machines 141 Earth alone, twisted into thin tienches and hiding machine-guns and ordnance, has been able to stop the advance. Veixlun stands to-day not because of her great guns or her costly fortifications, but because of the length and intricacy of the ditches far in front which keep the mighty monsters from being able to vent their wrath on the steel and the concrete of the fortress. These ditches can be made in a week and have held for a year; Namur took years to build, but could scarcely stand the attack for a day.' It is the very smaltoess of the trenches which makes them invuteerable,— their small- ness and their length. A heavy shell if it strikes right can of course destroy any trench, or rather break it. But the fact that the continuity of the Une is broken for a few yards does not lessen tl.e power of the trenches on each side of the break, and the attackers are unable to send men forward to occupy the breach. In an hour the trench is reconstructed as good as ever. The only way that the trenches can be m 149 Machines taken is by long and expensive artiUeiy preparation. A huge number of guns must be brought to bear upon a line of trench of considerable length, and a vast number of high explosive shells accurately exploded in it until the trench is practically destroyed for its full length. Most of the defenders have in the meantime withdrawn to the second line, and their own guns are trained upon the line they have left, the exact range of which is of course known to them. The attacking force when it charges to occupy the line of the destroyed trench is exposed to almost unsupportable fire, and even if it gains the ruins is exposed to counter-attack in which it has no advantage. The result is that the offensive must suffer frightful loss for an insignificant advance even if successful in taking and holding the Une attacked, and there are very few places where the value of the land gained, reckoned usually only in yards, is in any way com- mensurate either with the loss of men or with the cost of the munitions expended on it. Machines 143 Nowhere on the western front has either Bide been able to break through for any depth of penetration. In many places the trenches are in the identical spots wheiw they were first dug a year and a half ago; in no place has the change been great enough to alter the general contour of the battle line. Yet for these insignificant changes hundreds of thousands of men have died. It has been clearly demonstrated that no great advance can be made across entrenchments so long as the defenders have three all-important things: first, enough men to man the line with a suflUcient density of soldiery together with reserves sufficient for any necessary counter-attacks; second, enough machine-guns skillfully placed; third, enough artLuery back of the lines. The longer the lines of battle, the worse it is for the side which has the smallest number of men. Since the great shortages of munitions of the Entente Powers at the beginning of the war have been remedied, it is improbable that there will again be a 144 Machines lack of guns or shells on either side that will lead to defeat. The butcher-bill is the one factor which will in the end inevitably defeat Germany, for as soon as the number of available men becomes too small to m ai n ta in the necessary density at all points in the line, the whole line will give way and have to be contracted. A breach at one point must be opposed by men drawn from other points which will in turn become so weakened that they can be penetrated. The spectacu- lar success of the German advance in the Balkans will probably actually result in German collapse some months earlier than it would otherwise have come, because of the extension of the battle line. When the break takes place, it is likely that the Ger- man lines everywhere will have to withdraw to make the drde about Germany far smaller than it now is. This withdrawal will probably be accompanied by losses so great as to make the new and shorter line almost as weak in men as the old long Une. I believe that when this shriveling up of Machines H5 the Gennan ring commences, the process will go fast and far. The time when the balloon of Gennan extension will be punc- tured no one can predict; that it will be punctured the mathematics of man-power makes certain. The machinery of this trench warfare is complex and technical, and requires in its servants the highest skill. The guns vary from the huge 42-centimeter giants that destroyed Li^e an'l Namur, giants that can advance only with slow and ponder- ous steps over prepared roadways, and need foundations of concrete from which to hurl their irresistible destruction, down through other guns of varying calibers to the wonder- ful French seventy-fives. These guns are about three inches in mouth, can spit twenty times a minute, and have marvelous accuracy both with shrapnel and high explosive shells. It is they who really saved civiliza- tion from destruction. Then there is Archi- bald, the anti-aircraft gun, who slings shrapnel only, but can explode it at any height he ■I I f 146 Machines wishes up to twenty-five thousand feet, far higher than any afiroplane can operate. Archibald is the only immodest one among the guns; he is willing to bask in the open, while all the others slink and hide in holes and thickets. Then there are the machine-guns, the spendthrift bullet-throwers, drumming like a maddened flock of woodpeckers, squirting death at all who can be seen. And last of all are the individual rifles, only a few years ago omnipotent in battle, but now relegated to a secondary importance save for the bayonet at their ends by which the final charge is driven home and the last tragedy of death enacted. Besides this array of tubes of varying might there are the strange and twisted instru- ments which like misshapen dwarfs accom- pany their straight-limbed brethren, each with servants for its needs: squat mortars to lob mines for a few score of yards, catapults like those of Roman days to throw bombs into the opposing trenches; hand-grenades Machines 147 that are tossed, machines for erecting barb- wire entanglements, and apparatus for tear- ing them down, machines to burrow far underground beneath the lines of the foe, and mines to blow him to bits, microphones to hear what he is doing, and telescopes to spy him out, searchlights and rocket flares to illuminate him, gas bottles to suflEocate him. Above is the captive observation balloon, bulging like some huge and misshapen insect, wabbling to be free. Almost invisible in the clouds the whirring afiroplane notes and sees. It is ihe aSroplane which is the despair of generals, for no great movement of troops can be hidden from its prying eyes, and no great surprises are possible. Behind the lines, too, the machines ar« working in the wonderful system of transport required by the modem army. Raikoads are built, roads are constructed, and the great power-trucks carry the shells to the ever-hungry guns and the marmalade and bully beef to Thomas Atkins himself. The 148 Machines motor ambulances whirl wounded Thomas back to kind hands and wise doctors. Every- where it is by machines that the work is being done, and everywhere the telephone and the wireless chatter to make sure that all these machines codperate. These machines that I have described have something of an equality on both sides, but they are not the ultimately deciding factor. The machines against which Ger- many is impotent, which will never allow Germany to resume her place in the world until she is purged of her medievalism, lie chained behind the mists of some Scottish harbor. The great Dreadnoughts of Great Britain, sentried by their rruisers and destroyers and all the myriad fleet of every kind of vessel that can serve their needs— these are the machines which Germany dreads and which have sealed her doom. There can be no peace for Germany until ^er own ships can sail the oceans; no matter what happens on land, her ships dare not venture forth until the demands of the Machines 149 Allies are satisfied and the British bulldog growls assent. In vain has the Junkertum sought to negative these great machines by little spiteful barbaric machines of their own; the inhum a n submarine and the baby- slaying Zeppelin are powerless to draw the teeth of the British navy. Germany has put her faith into machines and has sold her soul to machines, yet by machines she is to be humbled to the dust. She believed that machinery was greater than man; she is learning that man is greater than machinery and still governs and controls it even when he seems to be but its slave. Chemistry, physics, mechanics,— machines. Germany thought them greater than the moral inheritances of the centuries. She trusted to knowledge rather than to wisdom, and is being utterly confounded. She builded her machines into gods, and thought them mightier than morality. She finds that truth and honor and faith are still triumphant, and can use as servants the things that she believed were gods,— chemis- ISO Machines try, physics, mechanics,— machines. The machine-worshipper shall end crushed by the god he builded, by tht. Frankenstein which he evolved. ISOLATION President wilson has come out for preparedness, and is eating his words of a year ago. But even now he seems entirely blind to the real cause of the need for preparation, as well as to the means by which it may be obtained actually rather than politically. The same lack of vision which has caused him so to act in the past that Americans blush with shame when they discuss the course of their country with a foreigner is still evident in his latest pronouncements. Can you not see, Mr. Wilson, that the whole world is being made over anew, that the sheep are being separated from the goats among nations? Can you not appreci- ate that certain nations are demonstrating that they are imbued with a spirit of civiliza* tion in the support of which they are willing 151 152 Isolation if need be to perish 7 Can you not understand that great and enlightened democracies do not wage wars of aggression, and that brother democracies have nothing to fear from them? Do you not know that the spirit of a nation is the important thing, that there are moral qualities which are not written down in black and white, which are not to be found in your text-books and your treatises on law, but which are none the less the greatest and the truest influences in this world? Can you not perceive that there is something intangible but infinitely and splendidly existent behind and underlying that international law which to a great extent has broken down because of your failure to give it the support which it was entitled to receive from you? Cannot you, who strain with polysyllabic retchings at the gnats of money rights in trading adventu/«s, you who swallow the camels of German insult and afifront and shout a victory if the Teutons say that they will currycomb and manicure the next camel before they ask Isolation IS3 you to swallow it, cannot you understand that mere words will never get you anywhere? Words are only the messengers of ideas, Mr. Wilson, and no matter how splendid and harmonious may be their liveries, they can accomplish nothing if they have no message to cany. George Washington was undoubtedly great and wise, but his saying that it behoves ns to avoid entangling European alliances, however wise it may have been at the time it was spoken, no longer is true, and is capable of great harm. The conditions existing at that time have completely changed. Then we were a small a. . struggling nation, just beginning to get on our feet, secluded and self-sustaining, and having but little contact with the European world. Since then we have become great and influential, and now play an important part in world economics. The advances in means of communication and transportation have cut to a fraction the width of the oceans, and to-day our interests in every capital are weighty and 154 Isolation We are full-grown; no longer considerable, a child. Moreover, the responsibility which we owe to civilization has increased along with our wealth and population. The world can look with tolerance on a weak and new- bom nation if the selfish problems of national existence demand its full attention; when a nation has attained greatness and strength such selfishness becomes abominable. It may have been true a century ago that we were not greatly concerned with European happenings; he who now makes such a statement knows not what he is talking of. Our concern is to-day vital, and the outcome of this war will affect every citizen of our country. But much more important than the changes here at home are the changes in the European countries with which alliances are possible. In the time of Washington we were just initiating our great experiment in modem democracy; no other nation in the world had dared to adopt it. England Isolation 155 still believed in the old doctrine of aggnmdize- ment by conquest, still held that colonies were properties which could be exploited for the benefit of the motherland, still thought that he should take who had the power and he should hold who could. France was obsessed by the delusion of military expansion which found expression in the Napoleonic struggle. Spain and Holland were dreaming of vanished victories; Italy and Germany had not yet come into being. The leaven of our example was just begin- ning to work in France and England, but had not yet permeated the mass of those countries ; in no others had the ferment even stari^d to effervesce. The conception of something higher than national selfishness did not exist; the idea of international duty was not yet bom. Just as the old robber barons sallied forth from their strongholds to seize what they could for their own benefit, so all the Euro- pean nations still had faith in conquest, and sought alliance only to make more effective 156 Isolation their raids on others or to be more secure against raids on themselves. The beUef in a permanent mutual coflperation between nations for the purpose of promoting peace- ful development was not thought possible even though between persons it was ahtady accepted. An alliance is a coflperation, and to be successful requires that there be an essential unity of purpose or of ideals. An alliance a hundred years ago between monarchical Europe and republican America would have been an absurdity; oil and water wiU not mix. This truth is aptly illustrated by the way in which Italy has broken away from the unnatural Dreibund, the underlying cause of which was that the growth of democracy in Italy made her an impossible partner with autocratic Germany and Austria. These conditions which made alliance impossible for us in the time of Washington no longer prevail. Great Britain is just as democratic as we are; in many ways even more so. The British dominions are in Isolation 137 fact memben of a British Pedeiation; each is self-governing and free, and the ties which have made them with one accord do their full duty in this war are social and ecotn mic, and are based on the essential unity of iboW democratic institutions. Marvel v 1:, and glorious France is to-day probably tb; ..ound- est democracy in the world; nothing is ni..-e impossible than that in France aro»her monarchy or hybrid empire should ever again come into power. Italy is for all practical purposes a democracy, and even in Russia it is the growth of democratic ideals which has rendered impotent the pro- Geraian aristocracy which only a year ago threatened a real danger that Russia would not hold out to the end. The Russian people now know that this is their war, and for this reason their armies are able to come back so splendidly after the crushing defeats and bitter retreats of 1915. These democratic ideals which are now making over anew the major part of Europe differ in no essential from our own ideals. 158 Isolation Liberty tor the individual, respondbiUty of government to the. people, opportunity for peaceful industry, are for them as for us the foundations of their establishments. They have no more ambition to impose by force of arms their imperium upon any unwilling people than have we. They are our Hnd of people, and we ought to get closer to them. On the moral side, therefore, there is no reason why we should not join with the democracies of Europe to promote the truths in which we aU beheve. If we preserve any conception of obligation to the woiIJ, it is by cooperation with those who entertain the same sense of obligation that we can best accomplish our purpose. When we come to consider the selfish question of the material advantages to be gained by such association we axe met with most interesting probabilities. There is little doubt but what after the war the \-ictorious Entente Powers will adopt some system of commercial reprisal against their enemies Isolation 159 which will for a long time make it impossible for Gennany to have a prevailing influence in the markets of the world. However much we may deprecate this, it is too much to expect that the victors will not impose this penance upon the vanquished. Not to do so would be altruism beyond what can be expected from those who have suffered as have the nations at war. This close commercial alliance will throttle the indus- tries of the Central Empires and will have a most injurious effect upon our own trade if we stand outside of it and do not share in it. Personally, I am entirely opposed to tariff restrictions, but these restrictions are going to come, and it behoves us to make the best of them we can. The victorious Entente will after the war be absolutely supreme in the world. They can impose their will upon any nation, upon any combination of nations which could be formed against them. Were these victorious powers autocratic, this supremacy would constitute an indescribable menace; ite Isolation were they imbued with the same idea of military conquest which impelled Germany to bring on this war, the prospect for civiliza- tion would be dark indeed. The safety of progress lies in the fact that they are demo- cratic, that they have the same ideals of evolutionary advance which we have. They are going to undertake the guidance of the march of progress, and they have the power to do so. For our own advantage in commercial prosperity, it is of vital import that we should be within this charmed circle. They will control the seas whether we want them to or not; we are powerless to prevent it. They will be able to erect such tariffs as they choose over the greater part of the population of the world; we cannot stop them. It is clear that our interest lies in joining with them and sharing in the advan- tages which they will enjoy. There is nothing morally wrong in our aligning our- selves with them, for they represent the same aspirations which we represent. They Isolation i6i are what they are because of the example of the success of our own great experiment. Prom all of these considerations, it is clear that Mr. Wilson's talk of the need of great preparedness to maintain an isolation which for us has become obsolete is both foolish and futile. We could not equal the strength of the Entente Powers if we devoted ourselves to nothing else; there will be a solidarity between them bred of common sacrifices for a common cause which will endure for many years. They have no quarrel with us, however much pity they may feel for the lack of vision which has made us stand selfishly aside while they have battled for our high ideals. But it is too much to expect that they will extend to us the commercial advantages which they have the legal right to withhold if we seek only the profit and share none of the burden. No saying could be more wicked and fool- ish than that of Mr. Mann, leader of the minority in the House of Representatives, to lt4/ur lack of military power does not make the blood-money to be paid for the murdered victims of the Lusitania look any the less crimwm to our eyes. We do need a greatly increased army and navy to make our just demands more promptly recognized, to protect ourselves in the ahnost impossible event of a German victory in the war, and above all to enable us to undertake our just share of the responsi- bility of civilization. We do hot need to be armed against the enlightened democracies of the world; we do need to be armed in their support. We do not need preparedness to maintain an isolation which no longer is either possible or proper; we do need it to share in a cooperation of nations which is in accord with our highest aspirations. Let us have a great and an immediate increase Isolation 165 in our military and naval strength, but let us be honest and dignified in making our people understand why it is required, yield- ing neither to undue and foolish fear of nations from which we have nothing to fear, nor to the vainglorious braggadocio of jingoism. We know that we ought to be in this war, that we ought to be fighting Germany, that we ought to be maintaining decency in M€»ico. For these things we ought to have much greater armament, but let us not pretend that we need it for other purposes, some illogical, some unworthy, all political. Poor Mr. Wilson, even when he seeks a thing which is right and necessary, is unable to get away from politics long enough to adc for it in a manly and straightforward way. He larks wit or he lacks courage or he lacks both, and no Niagara of rounded words can conceal this lack from the people. His Ides of March will this year faU on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November. AT THE END II ii \317HAT will thif, < sr mean to the nations "* when at lati it is over? For Germany, it will mean regeneration and freedom, bitter regret, poverty, shame, and an inheritance of hatred by other nations which only long years of usefulness and sanity on the part of the people can dissipate. The new republic will be fettered by tariff restrictions against German goods, and by a burden of debt whidi will be crushing. The sins of the fathers will indeed be visited upon the children, but even for Germany there is the chance that after long years of service the genius of the people may work out a new salvation. For Austria-Hungary, it will mean all that it means for Germany, and dismember- ment beside. The bitterness of shameful responsibility will not be quite so heavy, 166 At the End 167 but the people are by nature less able to recover from the wastage of unsuccessful war. Parts of the old empire will be incor- porated into the new German republic; parts will be annexed to Russia, Italy, and the Balkan states. Hungary will i«sume independent nationhtd. For Bulgaria, it wiU mean an end of king- ship and a failure to attain the present ambitions of territorial expansion. Debt and sorrow, but freedom. Also determi- nation never again to play the cat's-paw. For Turkey, it will mean that Finis is writ large and plain. The Crescent will have waned never to wax again. It will be the end of Moslem nile, but not necessarily the end of Islam. The Cross wiU afain surmount St. Sophia, and the Black Sea wiU be married to the Mediterranean in wedkick that cannot be broken at the whim