New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 41

Germany has proved its love of peace for forty-four years under the most trying circ.u.mstances. While all other States have expanded themselves by conquest, Russia in Manchuria, England in the Transvaal, France in Morocco, Italy in Tripoli, Austria in Bosnia, j.a.pan in Korea, Germany alone has contented itself with the borders fixed in 1871. It is purely a war of defense which is now forced upon us.

In the face of these attacks Germany has until now (the end of August) proved its military superiority, which rests upon the fact that the entire German military force is scientifically organized and honestly administered.

The violation of Belgian neutrality was an act of military necessity, since it is now proved that Belgian neutrality was to be violated by France and England. A proof of this is the acc.u.mulation of English munitions in Maubeuge, aside from many other facts.

According to the course of the war up to the present time, European peace seems to me nearer than ever before. We pacificists must only understand that unhappily the time was not yet sufficiently developed to establish peace by the peaceful way. If Germany, as everything now seems to make probable, is victorious in the struggle not only with Russia and France but attains the further end of destroying the source from which for two or three centuries all European strifes have been nourished and intensified, namely, the English policy of world dominion, then will Germany, fortified on one side by its military superiority, on the other side by the eminently peaceful sentiment of the greatest part of its people, and especially of the German Emperor, dictate peace to the rest of Europe, I hope especially that the future treaty of peace will in the first place provide effectually that a European war such as the present can never again break out.

I hope, moreover, that the Russian people, after the conquest of their armies, will free themselves from Czarism through an internal movement by which the present political Russia will be resolved into its natural units, namely, Great Russia, the Caucasus, Little Russia, Poland, Siberia, and Finland, to which probably the Baltic provinces would join themselves. These, I trust, would unite themselves with Finland and Sweden, and perhaps with Norway and Denmark, into a Baltic federation, which in close connection with Germany would insure European peace, and especially form a bulwark against any disposition to war which might remain in Great Britain.

For the other side of the earth I predict a similar development under the leadership of the United States. I a.s.sume that the English dominion will suffer a downfall similar to that which I have predicted for Russia, and that under these circ.u.mstances Canada would join the United States, the expanded republic a.s.suming a certain leadership with reference to the South American republics.

The principle of the absolute sovereignty of the individual nations, which in the present European tumult has proved itself so inadequate and baneful, must be given up and replaced by a system conforming to the world's actual conditions and especially to those political and economic relations which determine industrial and cultural progress and the common welfare.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

_See Page 565_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARTHUR VON BRIESEN

_See Page 548_]

The Verdict of the American People

By Newell Dwight Hillis.

_Dr. Hillis, who occupies the pulpit of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, made famous by the pastorate of the late Henry Ward Beecher, delivered the following remarkable sermon on the European War on Sunday, Dec. 20, 1914, choosing as his text the words: "From whence come wars? Come they not from your own l.u.s.ts?"_

Nearly five months have now pa.s.sed by since the German Army invaded Belgium and France. These 140 days have been packed with thrilling and momentous events. While from their safe vantage ground the American people have surveyed the scene, an old regime has literally crumbled under our very eyes. Europe is a loom on whose earthen framework demiurgic forces like Frederick the Great, Bismarck, and Napoleon once wove the texture of European civilization. Now the demon of war has, with hot knife, shorn away the texture, and a modern Czar and Kaiser, King and President, with Generals and Admirals, are weaving the warp and woof of a new world. One hundred years ago the forces that bred wars were political forces; today the collision between nations is born of economic interests. The twentieth century influences are chiefly the force of wealth and the force of public opinion. These are the giant steeds, though the reins of the horses may be in the hands of Kings and Kaisers. In Napoleon's day antagonism grew out of the natural hatred of autocracy for democracy, of German imperialism for French radicalism.

Today Germany is not even interested in France's republican form of Government, nor is France concerned with Germany's imperial autocrat.

But all Europe is intensely concerned with the question of economic supremacy or financial subordination.

Ever since Oliver Cromwell's day England has been the mistress of the seas, and Germany is envious and believes that she has a right to supplant England in this naval leadership. France has long been the banker of Europe, and Germany covets financial leadership. From whence come wars? Come they not from men's l.u.s.ts? Now that long time has pa.s.sed, it is quite certain that neither Napoleon nor Bismarck nor William II. understood the future. It is a proverb that yesterday is a seed, today the stalk, and tomorrow is the full corn in the ear.

Napoleon was a practical man, but he could not see the shock in the seed. When Napoleon said, "One hundred years from now Europe will be all republican or all Cossack"--Napoleon was quite wrong. Forty years ago Bismarck said that he had reduced France to the level of a fourth-cla.s.s nation, and that henceforth France did not count; while as for the Balkan States, "the whole Eastern question is not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier"--Bismarck was quite wrong. The present Kaiser has no imagination. A man of any prevision of the future might have foreseen that any attack upon England would settle the Irish question; that any treaty with Turkey would force Italy, as Turkey's enemy in the late Italian-Turkish war, to break with Germany; any man with the least instinct for diplomacy might have known that the twentieth century man is so incensed by an enemy's trespa.s.s upon his property, that Belgium would have resisted encroachment, and so cost Germany the best three weeks of the entire war. If the history of great wars tells us anything, it tells us that the first qualification of the statesman and diplomat is an intuitive knowledge of a future that is the certain outcome of the present. There has been no foresight on the part of the makers and advisers of this war. Years ago, when the Austrian Emperor visited Innsbruck, the Burgomaster ordered foresters to go up on the mountain sides and cut certain swaths of brush. At the moment the man with his axe did not know what he was doing, but when the night fell, and the torch was lifted on the boughs, the people in the city below read these words written in letters of fire, "Welcome to our Emperor." Today the demon of war has been writing with blazing letters certain lessons upon the hills and valleys of Europe, and fortunate is that youth who can read the writing and interpret aright the lessons of the times.

The people of the republic now realize for the first time what are the inevitable fruits of imperialism and militarism. One of the perils of America's distance from the scenes of autocracy is that our people have come to think that the forms of government are of little importance. We hear it said that climate determines government and that one nation likes autocracy and another limited monarchy, that we like democracy self-government, and that the people are about as happy under one form of control as another. This misconception is based upon a failure to understand foreign imperialism. Superficially, the fruits of autocracy are efficiency, industrial wealth, and military power. But now, after nearly five months of constant discussion, our people understand thoroughly the other side of imperialism. The 6,000,000 of German-Americans living in this country, with their high type of character, millions who have left their native land to escape service in the army, the burdens of taxation involved in militarism, and the law of lese majeste, should have opened our eyes long ago. During the last five years I have lectured in more than one hundred cities on the New Germany and the lessons derived from her industrial efficiency, with the application of science to the production of wealth, but I did not appreciate fully the far-off harvest of militarism. And, lest an American overstate the meaning of militarism, let me condense Treitschke's view. He holds that the nation should be looked upon as a vast military engine; that its ruler should be the commander of the army; that his Cabinet should be under Generals; that the whole nation should march with the force of an armed regiment; that the real "sin against the Holy Ghost was the sin of military impotence; that such an army should take all it wants and the territory it needs and explain afterward." Manufacturers are essentially inventors of cannons and guns and dreadnoughts, incidentally self-supporting men. Bankers are here to finance the army and incidentally to make money. Physicians are here to heal the wounded soldiers. Gymnasiums are founded to train soldiers.

Women are here to breed soldiers, and militarism is the path that will bring Germany to her place in the sun. The youth is first of all to be a soldier and incidentally to be a man. No one has indicted Germany's militarism in stronger language than the distinguished German-American, Carl Schurz. In words that burn the great statesman expressed his hatred of the imperialism and militarism against which he helped to organize a revolution that led to his flight to this country. Of late Americans have been asking themselves certain questions.

The American Ideal vs. the German.

What will be the result if Germany is allowed to seize any smaller State whose territory and property she covets? Is all Europe to become an armed camp? What is the meaning of this German professor's article in The North American Review, written two or three years ago, in which he says that once she is victorious the Monroe Doctrine will go and the United States will receive the "thrashing she so richly deserves"? Must we then go over to the military ideal? If Germany supports 8,000,000 soldiers out of 66,000,000, must we withdraw from productive industry 12,000,000 men for at least two or three of the best years of their young life? Must we start in on a programme of ten dreadnoughts a year instead of building ten colleges and universities for the same sum of money? Of late Americans who love their country have been searching their own hearts. Merchants. .h.i.therto busied with commerce are asking themselves whither this country is drifting. Is Germany to compel us to become a vast military machine? This military question is a subject of discussion on the street cars and in the stores, at the dining room table. No articles in paper and magazine are so eagerly read and a.n.a.lyzed. The American ideal is not a military machine, but a high quality of manhood. To make men free, with the gift of self-expression; to make men wise through the public school and the free press; to make men self-sufficing and happy in their homes, through freedom of industrial contracts; to make men sound in their manhood through religious liberty for Jew and Gentile and Catholic and Protestant--these are our national ideals. America stands at the other pole of the universe from imperialism and militarism. So far from being willing to desert the political faith of the fathers, this war has confirmed our confidence in self-government. Liberty to grow, freedom to climb as high as industry and ability will permit, liberty to a.n.a.lyze and discuss the views of President, Congress, Governor--these are our rights. In a military autocracy there can be no liberty of the printing press. If a man criticises the Kaiser, he goes to jail; in this republic, if Horace Greeley criticises Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln does not send the great editor to jail, but writes the latter, "My paramount object is to save the Union," and vindicates himself at the bar of the nation. An American editor or citizen would choke to death in Germany. He could not breathe because of the mephitic gases of imperialism and militarism. For a long time some of us did not realize what was involved, but now we do realize the difference between the fruits of democratic self-government and the fruits of military imperialism.

The last five months have brought a new realization to American citizens as to the rights and liberties of small States. In the republic the sin of trespa.s.s is one of the blackest of sins. Here we hold to the sanct.i.ty of property. A man's home is his castle, a citadel that cannot be invaded even by the power of the State. So deep is the American hatred of trespa.s.s against property rights that imperialism finds it impossible to understand this. Here the individual is a king of kings in his native right, and takes out an injunction against the city that wishes to trespa.s.s upon his property. This antagonism manifests itself in the laws that safeguard the small shopkeeper against the big firm, and the small manufacturer against any company with its billion dollars of capital. This antagonism to the sin of trespa.s.s has lent a peculiar sanct.i.ty to treaties between Canada and the United States. We have one hundred millions of people, and Canada nine millions. We need many things that Canada has, but it is intellectually unthinkable that "we should take what we want and explain afterward," or that we should violate our treaty guaranteeing neutrality to Canada. Our frontier line is three thousand miles long. There is not a fort from Maine to Victoria. If we adopted Germany's position we would have to build one thousand forts, withdraw two million young men from the farm, factory, store and bank, and load the working people with taxes to support them.

In a free land, and in G.o.d's world, there should be a place for the poor man and for the small nation. In the olden time there was a king who had herds and flocks, and a poor man who had one pet lamb. It came to pa.s.s that a stranger claimed the right of hospitality at the rich man's palace, and the king sent out and took the poor man's one lamb and gave it for food to the stranger. And, soon or late, the time will come when history will tell the story of Germany's taking little Belgium, and conscience, like a prophet, will indict the militarism that seized the one lamb that belonged to the poor man. This episode is not closed. The German representative who says that Belgium is a part of Germany may be right in terms of future government and war, but the incident has just begun in the memory of the soldiers who never can forget that they first broke their sacred treaty, and then, when the Belgian defended his home as his castle, butchered the man, who died with a sacred treaty in his hand. Why, all over this land, teachers, fathers, editors, authors, have found it necessary to say to the young men and women of the republic, "Do not sign your name to an obligation unless you intend to keep it."

Keep your faith. Remember that your word given should be as good as your bond. "Swear to your own hurt, and change not." All this is inevitable, as the result of Germany's trespa.s.s upon the property and the homes of Belgium. In some European lands the State is everything and the individual nothing. In this republic the individual is first, and the State is here to safeguard his rights and see to it that no one trespa.s.ses upon his property. The time will come when the nation that breaks its treaties and sows to the wind shall of that wind reap the whirlwind. It is an awful thing for a nation to make it inevitable that hereafter when other people sign a treaty with that country, that our representatives shall say: "Before we sign this treaty with you, we wish to ask one question. Later, if it is to your interest to break this treaty, is this doc.u.ment to be sneered at as a sc.r.a.p of paper? Or does this treaty mean the faith of a nation that will die rather than break its word, given before the tribunal of civilized States?"

The Death of the Tribal G.o.d Idea.

This great war and one or two of the leaders thereof have killed the old tribal idea of G.o.d. In the twentieth century it seems almost ludicrous to find that the conception of the ancient Hebrews is still held by some rulers. Be the reasons what they may, of late there has been a strange recrudescence of the tribal G.o.d idea. This is the twentieth century, not the tenth! Think of a man sending his soldiers into Belgium, saying, "Make yourselves as terrible as the Huns of Attila, and the Lord our G.o.d will give you victory." Just as if G.o.d were not the G.o.d of the whole earth, a disinterested G.o.d, a G.o.d who makes His sun to shine and His rain to fall upon all His children, without regard to race or clime or color. Why, it is as artless as the way the old Hebrew peasant called on G.o.d to blast his enemy's field, and drown his children with floods, and smite his herds with the plague. The tribal idea of G.o.d belongs with the ox cart, the medicine man, the cave dweller. This is an era of science.

Whatever is true is universal, not racial. If the heart beats and the blood circulates in a German soldier's veins, the blood flows in the veins of the people of England and France. If the earth goes around the sun in Berlin, the earth goes around the sun in Petrograd and Edinburgh.

If there are seven rays in the sunbeam, why, the discussion is closed, and it is a universal fact. And if Jesus was right when He said, "G.o.d is our Father, and all the races are our brothers, and the world has been fitted up by G.o.d as an Eden garden for His children," then no man or ruler should ever adopt the view of the peasant and the cave man, and try to make the Eternal G.o.d a tribal G.o.d. The unconscious humor in the statements of one or two men as to their tribal G.o.d idea has added to the gayety of nations. But when any view is laughed at, it is doomed.

From the very moment that the doctrine of election, that made G.o.d love a few aristocrats and pa.s.s the non-elect by, became a matter of joke in the comic papers, that theory was dead. Not otherwise is it with this idea of a tribal G.o.d. When Barry Paine begins to say,

Led by William, as you tell, G.o.d has done extremely well,

the tribal idea has been relegated to the theological sc.r.a.p-heap. The peasant's view must go. In this age men must be citizens of all countries and of the universe. G.o.d is a sun Who shines for the poor man's hut as truly as for the rich man's palace. The Judge of all the earth is also the Father of all the races, and He will do men good and not evil.

In view of the events of the last few months, all Americans now realize as never before the futility of war as a means of settling disputes.

Indeed, it may be doubted whether any war has ever settled any question.

Defeat did not convince the South that they were wrong in their idea of State rights or slavery. If the South has given up both ideas today it is because time, events, and social progress have changed their view, not because the sword convinced them. Bismarck's victory at Versailles and von Moltke's at Sedan did not settle the dispute with France. To keep one billion dollars of indemnity Germany must have spent five billions on forts and armies in the government of Alsace and Lorraine.

Germany's apparent victory simply put Germany's trouble with France out at compound interest, and left the next generation of Germans to pay several billions of dollars of accrued debt through hatred. Plainly it is folly not to reconst.i.tute the map of Europe. The frontier lines of the geographer should exactly coincide with the racial lines. The German race, with their peculiar ideals, ought not to try to govern the French race. It is an expensive experiment. It is an impossible experiment. The plan is doomed to failure in advance. And when the day of payment comes it is quite certain that the questions at issue will not have been settled by regiments of soldiers. They must finally be settled by an appeal to some court of arbitration that will do justice and love mercy; that will insist upon the rights of the smaller States, and make it impossible for the great ones of the earth to trespa.s.s upon the property and the liberties of brave little peoples.

Imperialism Confuses Men's Judgments.

Out of the smoke of battle another lesson is written for all who have eyes to read. In view of the mistakes made by men who have absolute power it is now certain that exemption from criticism is a bad thing for any man, and that endless adoration destroys the ruler's power to think in straight lines. There never lived a man who was not injured by perpetual compliments. Strong men are willing to pay cash for criticism.

Flattery will conceal the weakness, and they know that pitiless criticism will expose the danger and perhaps save them. No man is so unfortunate as the man who is put on a throne lifted up beyond the reach of plain truth telling. It is doubtful if so many blunders were ever made by statesmen and diplomats as were made at the beginning of this war. Just think of one Government being wrong in all these particulars at the same time! Lincoln said, "You can't fool all of the people all of the time." Yes, that may be true in a republic, but you certainly can fool all the diplomats and Generals and do it all the time--during July and August, in any event. Call the roll of the diplomatic blunders, and the list is long. First, England will be neutral and Ireland will keep her from going to war; second, Italy will be our ally; third, Belgium will be neutral and allow us to trespa.s.s upon her property and her homes; fourth, France is unprepared and Paris will fall within three weeks; fifth, an alliance with Turkey, despite her polygamy and butcheries in Armenia and the civilized world's hatred for her cruelties, will help us; sixth, j.a.pan will hold Russia in check; seventh, the Czar will be attacked by Bulgaria, Italy, and China. It seems incredible that any ruler and group of diplomats could be so entirely wrong, all the time, on every question, for a whole Summer! Was there no man as diplomat who had the wisdom to see that an attack upon England would end the disputes in Ireland? And bind together Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India into a new United States of Great Britain? Was there no statesman with enough prevision of the future, and with courage to tell the people in Wilhelmstra.s.se that the certain result would be the United States of Balkany, to stand henceforth as a barrier between Germany and the Bosphorus? Was there no one to remind Berlin that Italy had just completed a war with Turkey and that any treaty with Turkey meant inevitably the breaking of friendship with Italy? Alas! for the man who is elevated to a throne, in whose presence men burn incense, pour forth flattery that he may breathe its perfume, sing songs of praise that he may slumber!

In concluding our survey of the nations and the stake of each country in the war, there is one reflection that must be obvious to all thinking men. This little fire of last August has become a world conflagration.

The nation that first sent out her armies was Germany. There is a high-water mark of battle in every war, and after that, the invading waves begin their retreat. The high-water mark of Napoleon's was Austerlitz and the waves ebbed away at Waterloo. The high-water mark of the civil war was Gettysburg, and the tide ebbed out at Appomattox.

Belgium's defense cost Germany the three most important weeks of the war, and her high-water mark was when she was within twenty miles of Paris. Occasional eddies and returns of the tide there may be, but nothing is more certain than that there are ten nations and six hundred millions of men that had rather die than have militarism imposed upon themselves and their children. Americans who admire German efficiency, the German people, and want to see German science preserved, and feel an immeasurable debt to Martin Luther, do not want Germany destroyed. But Germany will not listen to England, nor France, nor America. There is only one voice that can reach Germany--it is the voice of the German-Americans in this country. They are six million strong. They are among the most honored and esteemed folk in American life. Their achievements are beyond all praise. The Germans have built Milwaukee and have done much for St. Louis. The Germans have been great forces in Cincinnati and Chicago and New York. What wealth among their bankers!

What prosperity among German manufacturers! What solidity of manhood in these German Lutherans! Was there ever a finer body of farming folk than the German landowners of the Middle West? The republic owes the German-American a great debt as to liberty through men like Carl Schurz.

Take Martin Luther and German liberty of thought out of the republic and this land would suffer an immeasurable loss. Many of these German-Americans own great estates and have investments in the Fatherland. Today these six million German-Americans have the centre of the world's stage. This war is a conflagration that will probably burn itself out. But if the six million German-Americans organize themselves and hold great meetings of protest in New York and Brooklyn and Chicago and Milwaukee, in St. Louis and Cincinnati; if German-American editors and bankers and business men united their voice, they would be heard.

German-American Man of the Hour.

And do they not owe something to this republic? Having come to the kingdom for such a crisis as this, should they not use their influence with the Fatherland? Having escaped conscription and years of military service, with heavy taxation and enjoyed the liberty of the press; having become convinced that militarism does not promote the prosperity and manhood of the people, why should they not as one man ask the Fatherland now to present their cause to arbitrators? To no body of American citizens has there ever come a more strategic opportunity, or a responsibility so heavy. Some of the most thoughtful men in this land believe that the destiny of Germany rests now largely with the leaders of the 6,000,000 German-Americans in our country. But no matter what the outcome, let no man think that G.o.d and justice are not fully equal to this emergency. The great vine of Liberty was planted by Divine hands in the Eden garden. Just now men are feeding the blossoms of the tree of life to their war horses and splitting the boughs of that tree into shafts for their spears. The storm roars through the branches, but the storm will die out. Better days are coming. It may be that the convulsion of war will do for Europe what the earthquake did for the rude folk of Greece--cracked the solid rock and exposed the silver veins that gave the wealth with which rude men built Athens, with its art, its literature, its law and its liberty. Take no counsel of crouching fear, G.o.d is abroad in the world. With Him a thousand years are as one day.

When a long time has pa.s.sed let us believe that self-government will be found to be the most stable form of government, and that these golden words, Liberty, Opportunity, Intelligence, and Integrity, will be the watch-words not only of the republic, but of all the nations of the earth.

Interview With Dr. Hillis

_From the Brooklyn Eagle._

A frank declaration that he was opposed to Germany in the present great war was the answer returned today [Dec. 21, 1914] by the Rev. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis to the protests against his sermon at Plymouth Church last night, in which he scored militarism and the Kaiser.

Not only did Dr. Hillis come out with the statement that he had said and meant all to which exception was taken in his sermon, but, in an interview today in his study, in the Arbuckle Inst.i.tute, he a.s.serted as well that he had told but little of what he had come to believe about Germany. This position, he said, was that America and all the world must hope for German defeat, and must see that Germany was in the wrong.

"I was for Germany five months ago," said Dr. Hillis. "I have been lecturing for five years about the lessons we might learn from Germany.