New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 44

With all my heart I would beg Unionists in England to reflect conscientiously upon this very significant state of affairs in America:

A non-Catholic Bible used to be read in the public schools of America down to the year 1888. A Catholic agitation against this Bible reading was begun in 1885, and in 1888 the custom was finally abolished. From that date to this there has been no religious instruction of any kind in the public schools of America.

Bigotry and intolerance won that victory. The Catholic Church, in its folly, destroyed religious teaching in the schools of the country.

Catholics themselves are now looking back on that agitation with religious repentance and political regret.

The result of this abolition is that Catholics and non-Catholics who believe in the importance of religious instruction, and who see the pagan effect of purely secular instruction, do not send their children to the public schools.

"These schools, for which Christians are heavily taxed, are in the possession of the Hebrews. If nothing is done to alter the existing state of things Americans themselves a.s.sure me that in five-and-twenty years America will be a pagan country. But a fight is to be made to avert this disaster at the Const.i.tutional Convention to be held next month.

"What we have to do," my Irish friend told me, "Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is to appeal for schools representing Catholic and non-Catholic teaching. Instead of the various churches fighting against each other they must fight together, helping one another to get the schools they demand. Only in this way can we save civilization."

This is how the Irishman, breathing the free air of America, and in America rising to positions of extraordinary power and responsibility, views the foundational question of religion; while England allows herself to be dragged at the heels of the frothing fanatic who has actually dared to raise the unholy battle cry of "Rather the Kaiser than the Pope."

Let the Unionist Party hesitate before it seeks to revive this hideous, utterly irrational and most unchristianlike spirit at the very heart of the British Empire. The sower of hate is the reaper of death.

TO MELOS, POMEGRANATE ISLE.

By GRACE HARRIET MACURDY.

(Destroyed by Athens, 416 B.C., because of her refusal to break neutrality.--Thucydides V., 84-116; Euripides, "Trojan Women.")

O thou Pomegranate of the Sea, Sweet Melian isle, across the years Thy Belgian sister calls to thee In anguished sweat of blood and tears.

Her fate like thine--a ruthless band Hath ravaged all her loveliness.

How Athens spoiled thy prosperous land Athenian lips with shame confess.

Thou, too, a land of lovely arts, Of potter's and of sculptor's skill-- Thy folk of high undaunted hearts As those that throb in Belgium still.

Within thy harbor's circling rim The warships long, with banners bright, Sailed bearing Athens' message grim-- "G.o.d hates the weak. Respect our Might."

The flame within thy fanes grew cold, Stilled by the foeman's swarming hordes.

Thy sons were slain, thy daughters sold To serve the l.u.s.ts of stranger lords.

For Attic might thou didst defy Thy folk the foeman slew as sheep, Across the years hear Belgium's cry-- "O Sister, of the Wine-Dark Deep,

"Whose cliffs gleam seaward roseate.

Not one of all my martyr roll But keeps his faith inviolate, Man kills our body, not our soul."

What America Can Do

By Lord Channing of Wellingborough.

Lord Channing, who makes the following suggestion to American statesmen, was born in the United States of the well-known Channings of Boston. His father was the Rev. W.H. Channing, Chaplain of the House of Representatives during the civil war and a close friend of President Lincoln. Lord Channing has been for twenty-five years a member of the British Parliament, and for the last three years a member of the House of Lords, having been created first Baron of Wellingborough in 1912. He is President of the British National Peace Congress.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

As a member of the British Legislature for a generation, and a lifelong Liberal, and having also the closest ties of blood with America, and a proud reverence for her ideals, I would wish, with the utmost respect, to offer some comments on one specific aspect of present affairs, as they affect America, which does not seem to have been marked off with the distinctness its importance calls for.

This is the greatest crisis in the history of the world, and attention concentrates itself on the att.i.tude of the greatest neutral State.

It is unthinkable that America can divest herself of responsibility for the final outcome. This seems as clearly recognized in America as in Europe.

To us in England this war is a life or death struggle between two principles--Pan-Germanism on the one side, with its avowed purpose to impose its hegemony and its rigid system of ideas and organization on the rest of the world, not by consent, but by irresistible military force; on the other side the claim of the other nations, large and small, to maintain inviolate their freedom and individuality, and to think and work out for themselves their own political and economic future in their own way.

The one principle would seem the flat contradiction of all that America stands for, the other principle would seem to be precisely the essential idea of free self-government and democratic evolution, in which are rooted the very life and being of America.

For this reason there is instinctive and profound sympathy on the part of the great majority of native Americans with the cause of England and her allies.

This sympathy is not merely the tie of blood or the unity of ideals.

Reason has convinced Americans that the supreme principles and highest interests of America will be best safeguarded if the Allies win.

They dread instinctively what might happen if Pan-Germanism absorbed the smaller nationalities, crushed the great free countries like France and England, and dominated the whole world with the "mailed fist," not only Europe and the Far East, but South America and the Pacific. Perhaps the hint of Count Bernstorff that Canada may be treated like Belgium, and the Monroe Doctrine like other "sc.r.a.ps of paper," may also have thrown some light for Americans on a "Germanized" future! And a cast-iron system of commercial and industrial monopoly dictated by German needs cannot attract.

America Can't Stand Apart.

That is one side that American statesmen have to consider. There is, of course, another.

The United States visibly form the greatest force the world has yet seen to bring together, to unite, to a.s.similate, in the development of their vast territories, measureless resources, and complicated industries, all that is best from all the other great nations, welding slowly but surely, through free inst.i.tutions, these new elements into instruments for the fuller realization of the generous and n.o.ble ideals for which America stands. Perhaps an eighteenth or even fifteenth part of the population is of German origin, a percentage not far from equal to that contributed by the United Kingdom and Canada.

There is thus not only the broad question of avoiding war with Germany, whose people have so large a share in the life of America, a war doubly unwelcome at all times because of the innumerable links of science, invention, professional training, of commerce, and of personal friendship; but there is also the local question of peace and good-will in the daily work of America as between huge sections of her population.

These visible facts not unnaturally give great weight to the argument for neutrality. No wise man on this side of the Atlantic will try to ignore them, or take exception to the dignity and correctness with which the American Executive has dealt with the grave problem before it.

Neutrality has, of course, its limits and conditions, logical and moral.

Those limits and conditions, the possibility of their infringement in such a way as to make some change of policy imperative, are matters solely for the United States.

The point the present writer wishes to press is on a different plane, and is precisely this:

America does not and can not stand wholly apart from supreme European decisions.

America is as responsible as Europe for the great extensions, definitions, the strengthening and modification of international law.

America stands forth as the apostle of arbitration, to widen the area within which disputed points may be determined amicably. America stands also as the chief signatory of the great world conventions which have settled new rules for the conduct of war, to mitigate its horrors, especially for non-combatants.

America has taken a n.o.ble part in framing machinery for securing peace and justice, and in moving forward the landmarks of civilization as against savagery, and of human mercy as against cruel terrorism.

Can America safely or wisely divest herself of the duty thus placed upon her, logically and morally, by her partic.i.p.ation in this, the n.o.blest work of our age?

And is it wise or is it safe to indefinitely postpone the discharge of this duty?

By the events of the last three months the whole of this new charter of humanity has been challenged and is at stake.