Germany, The Next Republic? Part 20

THE WILSON WILL

The United States enters the greatest war in history at the psychological moment with a capable and determined president, a united nation and almost unlimited resources in men, money and munitions.

There is a tremendous difference between the situation in the United States and that in any other European country. During the two years I was in Europe I visited every nation at war except Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. I saw conditions in the neutral countries of Holland, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain. The one big thing which impressed me upon my arrival in New York was that the United States, in contrast to all these countries, has, as yet, not been touched by the war. Americans are not living under the strain and worry which hang like dreadful dull clouds over every European power. In Switzerland the economic worries and the sufferings of the neighbouring belligerents have made the Swiss people feel that they are in the centre of the war itself. In France, although Paris is gay, although people smile (they have almost forgotten how to smile in Germany), although streets are crowded, and stores busy, the atmosphere is earnest and serious. Spain is torn by internal troubles. There is a great army of unemployed. The submarine war has destroyed many Spanish ships and interrupted Spanish trade with belligerents. Business houses are unable to obtain credit. German propaganda is sowing sedition and the King himself is uncertain about the future. But in the United States there is a gigantic display of energy and potential power which makes this country appear to possess sufficient force in itself to defeat Germany. Berlin is drained and dead in comparison. Paris, while busy, is war-busy and every one and everything seems to move and live because of the war. In New York and throughout the country there are young men by the hundreds of thousands. Germany and France have no young men outside the armies.

Here there are millions of automobiles and millions of people hurrying, happy and contented, to and from their work. In Germany there are no automobiles which are not in the service of the Government and rubber tires are so nearly exhausted that practically all automobiles have iron wheels.

Some Americans have lived for many years with the idea that only certain sections of the United States were related to Europe. Many people, especially those in the Middle West, have had the impression that only the big shipping interests and exporters had direct interests in affairs across the ocean. But when Germany began to take American lives on the high seas, when German submarines began to treat American ships like all other belligerent vessels, it began to dawn upon people here that this country was very closely connected to Europe by blood ties as well as by business bonds. It has taken the United States two years to learn that Europe was not, after all, three thousand miles away when it came to the vital moral issues of live international policies. Before Congress declared war I found many Americans criticising President Wilson for not declaring war two years ago.

While I do not know what the situation was during my absence still the impression which Americans abroad had, even American officials, was that President Wilson would not have had the support of a united people which he has to-day had he entered the war before all question of doubt regarding the moral issues had disappeared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AUTHOR'S CARD OF ADMISSION TO THE REICHSTAG ON APRIL 5TH, 1916.]

In the issue of April 14th of this year the _New Republic_, of New York, in an editorial on "Who willed American partic.i.p.ation?" cast an interesting light upon the reasons for our intervention in the Great War.

"Pacifist agitators who have been so courageously opposing, against such heavy odds, American partic.i.p.ation in the war have been the victims of one natural but considerable mistake," says _The New Republic_. "They have insisted that the chief beneficiaries of American partic.i.p.ation would be the munition-makers, bankers and in general the capitalist cla.s.s, that the chief sufferers would be the petty business men and the wage-earners. They have consequently considered the former cla.s.ses to be conspiring in favour of war, and now that war has come, they condemn it as the work of a small but powerful group of profiteers. Senator Norris had some such meaning in his head when he a.s.serted that a declaration of war would be equivalent to stamping the dollar mark on the American flag.

"This explanation of the great decision is an absurd mistake, but the pacifists have had some excuses for making it. They have seen a great democratic nation gradually forced into war, in spite of the manifest indifference or reluctance of the majority of its population; and they have rightly attributed the successful pressure to the ability of a small but influential minority to impose its will on the rest of the country. But the numerically insignificant cla.s.s whose influence has been successfully exerted in favour of American partic.i.p.ation does not consist of the bankers and the capitalists. Neither will they be the chief beneficiaries of American partic.i.p.ation. The bankers and the capitalists have favoured war, but they have favoured it without realising the extent to which it would injure their own interests, and their support has been one of the most formidable political obstacles to American partic.i.p.ation. The effective and decisive work on behalf of war has been accomplished by an entirely different cla.s.s--a cla.s.s which must be comprehensively but loosely described as the 'intellectuals.'

"The American nation is entering this war under the influence of a moral verdict reached, after the utmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community. They gradually came to a decision that the attack made by Germany on the international order was sufficiently flagrant and dangerous to justify this country in abandoning its cherished isolation and in using its resources to bring about German defeat. But these thoughtful people were always a small minority. They were able to impose their will upon a reluctant or indifferent majority partly because the increasingly offensive nature of German military and diplomatic policy made plausible opposition to American partic.i.p.ation very difficult, but still more because of the overwhelming preponderance of pro-Ally conviction in the intellectual life of the country. If the several important professional and social groups could have voted separately on the question of war and peace, the list of college professors would probably have yielded the largest majority in favour of war, except perhaps that contained in the Social Register. A fighting anti-German spirit was more general among physicians, lawyers and clergymen than it was among business men--except those with Wall Street and banking connections. Finally, it was not less general among writers on magazines and in the newspapers. They popularised what the college professors had been thinking. Owing to this consensus of influences opposition to pro-Ally orthodoxy became intellectually somewhat disreputable, and when a final decision had to be made this factor counted with unprecedented and overwhelming force. College professors headed by a President who had himself been a college professor contributed more effectively to the decision in favour of war than did the farmers, the business men or the politicians.

"When one considers the obstacles to American entrance into the war, the more remarkable and unprecedented does the final decision become.

Every other belligerent had something immediate and tangible to gain by partic.i.p.ating and to lose by not partic.i.p.ating. Either they were invaded or were threatened with invasion. Either they dreaded the loss of prestige or territory or coveted some kind or degree of national aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. Even Australia and Canada, who had little or nothing to gain from fighting, could not have refused to fight without severing their connection with the British Empire, and behaving in a manner which would have been considered treacherous by their fellow Britons.

But the American people were not forced into the war either by fears or hopes or previously recognised obligations. On the contrary, the ponderable and tangible realities of the immediate situation counselled neutrality. They were revolted by the hideous brutality of the war and its colossal waste. Partic.i.p.ation must be purchased with a similarly colossal diversion of American energy from constructive to destructive work, the imposition of a similarly heavy burden upon the future production of American labour. It implied the voluntary surrender of many of those advantages which had tempted our ancestors to cross the Atlantic and settle in the New World. As against these certain costs there were no equally tangible compensations. The legal rights of American citizens were, it is true, being violated, and the structure of international law with which American security was traditionally a.s.sociated was being shivered, but the nation had weathered a similar storm during the Napoleonic Wars and at that time partic.i.p.ation in the conflict had been wholly unprofitable. By spending a small portion of the money which will have to be spent in helping the Allies to beat Germany, upon preparations exclusively for defence, the American nation could have protected for the time being the inviolability of its own territory and its necessary communications with the Panama Ca.n.a.l. Many considerations of national egotism counselled such a policy. But although the Hearst newspapers argued most persuasively on behalf of this course it did not prevail. The American nation allowed itself to be captured by those upon whom the more remote and less tangible reasons for partic.i.p.ation acted with compelling authority. For the first time in history a wholly independent nation has entered a great and costly war under the influence of ideas rather than immediate interests and without any expectation of gains, except those which can be shared with all liberal and inoffensive nations.

"The United States might have blundered into the war at any time during the past two years, but to have entered, as it is now doing, at the right time and in the clear interest of a purely international programme required the exercise of an intellectualised and imaginative leadership. And in supplying the country with this leadership Mr.

Wilson was interpreting the ideas of thoughtful Americans who wished their country to be fighting on the side of international right, but not until the righteousness of the Allied cause was unequivocally established. It has taken some time to reach this a.s.surance. The war originated in conflicting national ambitions among European Powers for privileged economic and political positions in Africa and Asia, and if it had continued to be a war of this kind there never could have been a question of American intervention. Germany, however, had been dreaming of a more glorious goal than Bagdad and a mightier heritage than that of Turkey. She betrayed her dream by attacking France through Belgium and by threatening the foundations of European order. The crucifying of Belgium established a strong presumption against Germany, but the case was not complete. There still remained the dubious origin of the war. There still remained a doubt whether the defeat of German militarism might not mean a dangerous triumph of Russian autocracy.

Above all there remained a more serious doubt whether the United States in aiding the Allies to beat Germany might not be contributing merely to the establishment of a new and equally unstable and demoralising Balance of Power in Europe. It was well, consequently, to wait and see whether the development of the war would not do away with some of the ambiguities and misgivings, while at the same time to avoid doing anything to embarra.s.s the Allies. The waiting policy has served.

Germany was driven by the logic of her original aggression to threaten the security of all neutrals connected with the rest of the world by maritime communications. The Russian autocracy was overthrown, because it betrayed its furtive kinship with the German autocracy. Finally, President Wilson used the waiting period for the education of American public opinion. His campaign speeches prophesied the abandonment of American isolation in the interest of a League of Peace. His note of last December to the belligerents brought out the sinister secrecy of German peace terms and the comparative frankness of that of the Allies.

His address to the Senate clearly enunciated the only programme on behalf of which America could intervene in European affairs. Never was there a purer and more successful example of Fabian political strategy, for Fabianism consists not merely in waiting but in preparing during the meantime for the successful application of a plan to a confused and dangerous situation.

"What Mr. Wilson did was to apply patience and brains to a complicated and difficult but developing political situation. He was distinguished from his morally indignant pro-Allies fellow countrymen, who a few months ago were abusing him for seeking to make a specifically American contribution to the issues of the war, just as Lincoln was distinguished from the abolitionists, not so much by difference in purposes as by greater political wisdom and intelligence. It is because of his Fabianism, because he insisted upon waiting until he had established a clear connection between American intervention and an attempt to create a community of nations, that he can command and secure for American intervention the full allegiance of the American national conscience. His achievement is a great personal triumph, but it is more than that. It is an ill.u.s.tration and a prophecy of the part which intelligence and in general the 'intellectual' cla.s.s have an opportunity of playing in shaping American policy and in moulding American life. The intimate a.s.sociation between action and ideas, characteristic of American political practice at its best, has been vindicated once more. The a.s.sociation was started at the foundation of the Republic and was embodied in the work of the Fathers, but particularly in that of Hamilton. It was carried on during the period of the Civil War and was embodied chiefly in the patient and penetrating intelligence which Abraham Lincoln brought to his task. It has just been established in the region of foreign policy by Mr.

Wilson's discriminating effort to keep the United States out of the war until it could go in as the instrument of an exclusively international programme and with a fair prospect of getting its programme accepted.

In holding to this policy Mr. Wilson was interpreting with fidelity and imagination the ideas and the aspirations of the more thoughtful Americans. His success should give them increasing confidence in the contribution which they as men of intelligence are capable of making to the fulfilment of the better American national purposes."

During 1915 and 1916 our diplomatic relations with Germany have been expressed in one series of notes after another, and the burden of affairs has been as much on the shoulders of Amba.s.sador Gerard as on those of any other one American, for he has been the official who has had to transmit, interpret and fight for our policies in Berlin. Mr.

Gerard had a difficult task because he, like President Wilson, was constantly heckled and ridiculed by those pro-German Americans who were more interested in discrediting the Administration than in maintaining peace. Of all the problems with which the Amba.s.sador had to contend, the German-American issue was the greatest, and those who believed that it was centred in the United States are mistaken, for the capital of German-America was _Berlin_.

"I have had a great deal of trouble in Germany from the American correspondents when they went there," said Amba.s.sador Gerard in an address to the American Newspapers Publishers a.s.sociation in New York on April 26th.

"Most of them became super-Amba.s.sadors and proceeded to inform the German Government that they must not believe me--that they must not believe the President--they must not believe the American people--but believe these people, and to a great extent this war is due to the fact that these pro-German Americans, a certain number of them, misinformed the German Government as to the sentiments of this country."

James W. Gerard's diplomatic career in Germany was based upon bluntness, frankness and a kind of "news instinct" which caused him to regard his position as that of a reporter for the United States Government.

Berlin thought him the most unusual Amba.s.sador it had ever known. It never knew how to take him. He did not behave as other diplomats did.

When he went to the Foreign Office it was always on business. He did not flatter and praise, bow and chat or speak to Excellencies in the third person as European representatives usually do. Gerard began at the beginning of the war a policy of keeping the United States fully informed regarding Germany. He used to report daily the political developments and the press comment, and the keen understanding which he had of German methods was proved by his many forecasts of important developments. Last September he predicted, in a message to the State Department, ruthless submarine warfare before Spring unless peace was made. He notified Washington last October to watch for German intrigue in Mexico and said that unless we solved the problem there we might have trouble throughout the war from Germans south of the Rio Grande.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMBa.s.sADOR GERARD ARRIVING IN PARIS]

During the submarine controversies, when reports reached Berlin that the United States was divided and would not support President Wilson in his submarine policy, Amba.s.sador Gerard did everything he could to give the opposite impression. He tried his best to keep Germany from driving the United States into the war. That he did not succeed was not the fault of _his_ efforts. Germany was desperate and willing to disregard all nations and all international obligations in an attempt to win the war with U-boats.

Last Summer, during one of the crises over the sinking of a pa.s.senger liner without warning, Mr. Gerard asked the Chancellor for an audience with the Kaiser. Von Bethmann-Hollweg said he would see if it could be arranged. The Amba.s.sador waited two weeks. Nothing was done. From his friends in Berlin he learned that the Navy was opposed to such a conference and would not give its consent. Mr. Gerard went to Herr von Jagow who was then Secretary of State and again asked for an audience.

He waited another week. Nothing happened and Mr. Gerard wrote the following note to the Chancellor:

"Your Excellency,

"Three weeks ago I asked for an audience with His Majesty the Kaiser.

"A week ago I repeated the request.

"Please do not trouble yourself further.

"Respectfully,

"JAMES W. GERARD."

The Amba.s.sador called the Emba.s.sy messenger and sent the note to the Chancellor's palace. Three hours later he was told that von Bethmann-Hollweg had gone to Great Headquarters to arrange for the meeting.

Sometimes in dealing with the Foreign Office the Amba.s.sador used the same rough-shod methods which made the Big Stick effective during the Roosevelt Administration. At one time, Alexander Cochran, of New York, acted as special courier from the Emba.s.sy in London to Berlin. At the frontier he was arrested and imprisoned. The Amba.s.sador heard of it, went to the Foreign Office and demanded Cochran's immediate release.

The Amba.s.sador had obtained Mr. Cochran's pa.s.sports, and showed them to the Secretary of State. When Herr von Jagow asked permission to retain one of the pa.s.sports so the matter could be investigated, the Amba.s.sador said:

"All right, but first let me tear Lansing's signature off the bottom, or some one may use the pa.s.sport for other purposes."

The Amba.s.sador was not willing to take chances after it was learned and proved by the State Department that Germany was using American pa.s.sports for spy purposes.

In one day alone, last fall, the American Emba.s.sy sent 92 notes to the Foreign Office, some authorised by Washington and some unauthorised, protesting against unlawful treatment of Americans, asking for reforms in prison camps, transmitting money and letters about German affairs in Entente countries, and other matters which were under discussion between Berlin and Washington. At one time an American woman instructor in Roberts' College was arrested at Warnemuende and kept for weeks from communicating with the Amba.s.sador. When he heard of it he went to the Foreign Office daily, demanding her release, which he finally secured.

Mr. Gerard's work in bettering conditions in prison camps, especially at Ruhleben, will be long remembered. When conditions were at their worst he went out daily to keep himself informed, and then daily went to the Foreign Office or wrote to the Ministry of War in an effort to get better accommodations for the men. One day he discovered eleven prominent English civilians, former respected residents in Berlin, living in a box stall similar to one which his riding horse had occupied in peace times. This so aroused the Amba.s.sador that he volunteered to furnish funds for the construction of a new barracks in case the Government was not willing to do it. But the Foreign Office and the War Ministry and other officials shifted authority so often that it was impossible to get changes made. The Amba.s.sador decided to have his reports published in a drastic effort to gain relief for the prisoners. The State Department granted the necessary authority and his descriptions of Ruhleben were published in the United States and England, arousing such a world-wide storm of indignation that the German Government changed the prison conditions and made Ruhleben fit for men for the first time since the beginning of the war.

This activity of the Amba.s.sador aroused a great deal of bitterness and the Government decided to try to have him recalled. The press censorship instigated various newspapers to attack the Amba.s.sador so that Germany might be justified in asking for his recall, but the attack failed for the simple reason that there was no evidence against the Amba.s.sador except that he had been too vigorous in insisting upon livable prison camp conditions.

I have pointed out in previous chapters some of the things which President Wilson's notes accomplished in Germany during the war.

Suppose the Kaiser were to grant certain reforms, would this destroy the possibilities of a free Germany, a democratic nation--a German Republic!

The German people were given an opportunity to debate and think about international issues while we maintained relations with Berlin, but as I pointed out, the Kaiser and his a.s.sociates are masters of German psychology and during the next few months they may temporarily undo what we accomplished during two years. Americans must remember that at the present time all the leading men of Germany are preaching to the people the gospel of submarine success, and the anti-American campaign there is being conducted unhindered and unchallenged. The United States and the Allies have pledged their national honour and existence to defeat and discredit the Imperial German Government and nothing but unfaltering determination, no matter what the Kaiser does, will bring success. Unless he is defeated, the Kaiser will not follow the Czar's example.

In May of this year the German Government believed it was winning the war. Berlin believed it would decisively defeat our Allies before Fall. But even if the people of Germany again compel their Government to propose peace and the Kaiser announces that he is in favour of such drastic reforms as making his Ministry responsible to the Reichstag, this (though it might please the German people) cannot, must not, satisfy us. Only a firm refusal of the Allies will accomplish what we have set out to do--overthrow the present rulers and dictators of Germany. This must include not only the Kaiser but Field Marshal von Hindenburg and the generals in control of the army, the Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, who did not keep his promises to the United States and the naval leaders who have been intriguing and fighting for war with America for over two years. Only a decisive defeat of Germany will make Germany a republic, and the task is stupendous enough to challenge the best combined efforts of the United States and all the Allies.

Prophecy is a dangerous pastime but it would not be fair to conclude this book without pointing out some of the possibilities which can develop from the policy which President Wilson pursued in dealing with Germany before diplomatic relations were broken.

The chief effect of Mr. Wilson's policy is not going to be felt during this war, but in the future. At the beginning of his administration he emphasised the fact that in a democracy public opinion was a bigger factor than armies and navies. If all Europe emerges from this war as democratic as seems possible now one can see that Mr. Wilson has already laid the foundation for future international relations between free people and republican forms of governments. This war has defeated itself. It is doubtful whether there ever will be another world war because the opinion of all civilised people is mobilised against war.

After one has seen what war is like, one is against not only war itself but the things which bring about war. This great war was made possible because Europe has been expecting and preparing for it ever since 1870 and because the governments of Europe did not take either the people or their neighbours into their confidence. President Wilson tried to show while he was president that the people should be fully informed regarding all steps taken by the Government. In England where the press has had such a tussle to keep from being curbed by an autocratic censorship the world has learned new lessons in publicity. The old policy of keeping from the public unpleasant information has been thrown overboard in Great Britain because it was found that it harmed the very foundations of democracy.