(g) American public opinion, however, has been greatly shocked in other ways by the German conduct of the war. The American common people see no justification for the dropping of bombs, to which no specific aim can be given, into cities and towns chiefly inhabited by non-combatants, the burning or blowing up of large portions of unfortified towns and cities, the destruction of precious monuments and treasuries of art, the strewing of floating mines through the North Sea, the exacting of ransoms from cities and towns under threat of destroying them, and the holding of unarmed citizens as hostages for the peaceable behavior of a large population under threat of summary execution of the hostages in case of any disorder. All these seem to Americans unnecessary, inexpedient, and unjustifiable methods of warfare, sure to breed hatred and contempt toward the nation that uses them, and therefore to make it difficult for future generations to maintain peace and order in Europe. They cannot help imagining the losses civilization would suffer if the Russians should ever carry into Western Europe the kind of war which the Germans are now waging in Belgium and France. They have supposed that war was to be waged in this century only against public, armed forces and their supplies and shelters.

These opinions and prepossessions on the part of the American people have obviously grown out of the ideals which the early English colonists carried with them to the American wilderness in the seventeenth century, out of the long fighting and public discussion which preceded the adoption of the Constitution of the United States in the eighteenth century, and out of the peculiar experiences of the free Commonwealths which make up the United States, as they have spread across the almost uninhabited continent during the past 125 years.

The experience and the situation of modern Germany have been utterly different. Germany was divided for centuries into discordant parts, had ambitious and martial neighbors, and often felt the weight of their attacks. Out of war came accessions of territory for Prussia, and at last German unity. The reliance of intelligent and patriotic Germany on military force as the basis of national greatness is a natural result of its experiences. Americans, however, believe that this reliance is unsound both theoretically and practically. The wars in Europe since 1870-71, the many threatenings of war, and the present catastrophe seem to Americans to demonstrate that no amount of military preparedness on the part of the nations of Europe can possibly keep the peace of the Continent, or indeed prevent frequent explosions of destructive warfare. They think, too, that preparation for war on the part of Germany better than any of her neighbors can make will not keep her at peace or protect her from invasion, even if this better preparation include advantages of detail which have been successfully kept secret. All the nations which surround Germany are capable of developing a strong fighting spirit; and all the countries of Europe, except England and Russia, possess the means of quickly assembling and getting into action great bodies of men. In other words, all the European States are capable of developing a passionate patriotism, and all possess the railroads, roads, conveyances, telegraphs, and telephones which make rapid mobilization possible. No perfection of military forces, and no amount of previous study of feasible campaigns against neighbors, can give peaceful security to Germany in the present condition of the great European States. In the actual development of weapons and munitions, and of the art of quick intrenching, the attacking force in battle on land is at a great disadvantage in comparison with the force on the defensive. That means indecisive battles and ultimately an indecisive war, unless each party is resolved to push the war to the utter exhaustion and humiliation of the other—a long process which involves incalculable losses and wastes and endless miseries. Americans have always before them the memory of their four years' civil war, which, although resolutely prosecuted on both sides, could not be brought to a close until the resources of the Southern States in men and material were exhausted. In that dreadful process the whole capital of the Southern States was wiped out.

But One Possible Issue.

Now that the sudden attack on Paris has failed, and adequate time has been secured to summon the slower-moving forces of Russia and England, and these two resolute and persistent peoples have decided to use all their spiritual and material forces in co-operation with France against Germany, thoughtful Americans can see but one possible issue of the struggle, whether it be long or short, namely, the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary in their present undertakings, and the abandonment by both peoples of the doctrine that their salvation depends on militarism and the maintenance of autocratic Executives intrusted with the power and the means to make sudden war. They believe that no human being should ever be trusted with such power. The alternative is, of course, genuine constitutional government, with the military power subject to the civil power.

The American people grieve over the fruitless sacrifices of life, property, and the natural human joys which the German people are making to a wrong and impossible ideal of national power and welfare. The sacrifices which Germany is imposing on the Allies are fearfully heavy, but there is reason to hope that these will not be fruitless, for out of them may come great gains for liberty and peace in Europe.

All experienced readers on this side of the Atlantic are well aware that nine-tenths of all the reports they get about the war come from English and French sources, and this knowledge makes them careful not to form judgments about details until the events and deeds tell their own story. They cannot even tell to which side victory inclines in a long, far-extended battle until recognizable changes in the positions of the combatants show what the successes or failures must have been. The English and French win some advantage so far as the formation of public opinion in this country is concerned, because those two Governments send hither official reports on current events more frequently than the German Government does, and with more corroborative details. The amount of secrecy with which the campaign is surrounded on both sides is, however, a new and unwelcome experience for both the English and the American public.

German Ignorance of Events.

The pamphlets by German publicists and men of letters which are now coming to this country, and the various similar publications written here, seem to indicate that the German public is still kept by its Government in ignorance about the real antecedents of the war and about many of the incidents and aspects of the portentous combat. These documents seem to Americans to contain a large amount of misinformation about the attack of Austria-Hungary on Servia, the diplomatic negotiations and the correspondence between the sovereigns which immediately preceded the war, and the state of mind of the Belgian and English peoples. American believers in the good sense and good feeling of the common people naturally imagine, when an awful calamity befalls a nation, that the people cannot have been warned of its approach, else they would have avoided it. In this case they fear that the Emperor, the Chancellery, and the General Staff have themselves been misinformed in important respects, have made serious miscalculations which they are proposing to conceal as long as possible, and are not taking the common people into their confidence. American sympathies are with the German people in their sufferings and losses, but not with their rulers, or with the military class, or with the professors and men of letters who have been teaching for more than a generation that might makes right. That short phrase contains the fundamental fallacy which for fifty years has been poisoning the springs of German thought and German policy on public affairs.

Dread of the Muscovite does not seem to Americans a reasonable explanation of the present actions of Germany and Austria-Hungary, except so far as irrational panic can be said to be an explanation. Against possible, though not probable, Russian aggression, a firm defensive alliance of all Western Europe would be a much better protection than the single might of Germany. It were easy to imagine also two new "buffer" States—a reconstructed Poland and a Balkan Confederation. As to French "revenge," it is the inevitable and praiseworthy consequence of Germany's treatment of France in 1870-71. The great success of Germany in expanding her commerce during the last thirty years makes it hard for Americans to understand the hot indignation of the Germans against the British because of whatever ineffective opposition Great Britain may have offered to that expansion. No amount of commercial selfishness on the part of insular England can justify Germany in attempting to seize supreme power in Europe and thence, perhaps, in the world.

Finally, Americans hope and expect that there will be no such fatal issue of the present struggle as the destruction or ruin of the German Nation. On the contrary, they believe that Germany will be freer, happier, and greater than ever when once she has got rid of the monstrous Bismarck policies and the Emperor's archaic conception of his function, and has enjoyed twenty years of real peace. Your obedient servant,

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Asticou, Me., Sept. 28, 1914.



Dr. Dernburg's Reply to the Third Letter

Late German Secretary of State for the Colonies; lived for several years in the United States as member of the banking firm of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., New York.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Prof. Eliot is conferring a great favor on the exponents of the German side in the present struggle in explaining to them what he thinks of the so-called anti-German feeling in the United States. I am sure his views will be read also in Germany with a great deal of attention, although he will certainly not remain unchallenged in nearly all essential points. The compliment that Prof. Eliot pays to the German people as a whole must be specially appreciated, the more so as it comes from a scientist whose great authority is equally recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.

The anti-German feeling, according to Prof. Eliot, takes its source from the American objection to the committal of a nation to grave mistakes by a permanent Executive. But then, with the exception of France, all the warring nations have permanent Executives, professional diplomatists; all their affairs are conducted in secret, and all their rulers have the power, including the President of France, to embroil their nations in war. The German Emperor is in this respect certainly more restricted than the other heads of State, and I have not read that the declaration of war has been expressly sanctioned by the English Parliament, and certainly the mobilization of the English fleet that took place in July, and the mobilization of the Russian Army that took place at the same time, have not even been brought to the knowledge of the respective Parliaments. When, therefore, the same conditions prevail in all the warring States, how can they be made the reason for such an anti-German feeling?

The same objection holds good with the American antipathy against the power of rulers to order mobilization or declare war in advance without consultation of Parliament, to which I have only to say that the English fleet was mobilized without consulting the English Parliament, while in Germany the Bundesrat, the representatives of the Federal States, as well as of the Federal Diets, has been duly consulted. I may add that also the party leaders of the Reichstag, which could not be convoked earlier than two days after the declaration of the war, have been continuously informed and consulted.

Against the next paragraph, where Prof. Eliot complains of the secrecy of European diplomacy and of international treaties and understandings, the same objection must be made. The state described here as particular to Germany prevails in all European countries, and neither the treaty of the Russian-French alliance, nor the arrangements of the Triple Entente have ever been submitted to the French or British Parliaments. As regards the American attitude toward armaments, I purposely refrain from adducing the American example into my argument, much as I could show that with a very large part of the American Nation the idea of defending the American coast against any invader and the maintenance of a strong Pan-American policy, if need be by arms, is just as fixed a tenet as the German idea that the Fatherland should be held safe from invasion or destruction by the will and the strength of its people. England has always held the same, if not through her army so through her navy, and so did the rest of Europe; and there is no argument to be gotten from that for an anti-German feeling.

No Seizure of Schleswig-Holstein.

Americans object to the extension of territory by force. Germany has never done that, even if one goes back as far as Prof. Eliot wishes to go. Mr. Eliot is absolutely mistaken as to the history of the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein into Prussia. Schleswig-Holstein was a Dual-Dukedom that never belonged to Denmark, but having as its Duke the King of Denmark as long as he belonged to the elder line of the House of Oldenburg. This elder line was extinct when King Christian VIII. died without male issue. His successor wanted to incorporate the two German Dukedoms into Denmark. Then the people stood up and expressed the desire to remain with the German Federation, to which it had always belonged, and there it is now, of its own free will. The natural dividing line between Denmark and Germany, however, is the River Eider. There are about 30,000 Danes south of the Eider, who have been absorbed against their will, a thing that can never be avoided, and that has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble.

Alsace-Lorraine Originally German.

As to Alsace-Lorraine, the facts are known to be that it had belonged to Germany until it had been taken, against the will of the people, by France under Louis XIV., and it was returned to Germany as a matter of right, more than three-quarters of the population being of German descent and speaking the German language.

But let me ask in return, Mr. Eliot, when did ever in her political career England consult the will of the people when she took a country? Can he say that, when England tore the treaty of Majuba Hill, like a "scrap of paper," and made war on the Boers? Did she consult the people of Cyprus in 1878? Does he know of any plebiscite in India? Has she consulted the Persians, or has France consulted the people of Morocco, or of Indo-China, Italy the people of Tripoli? Since Germany has not acted here in any other way forty years ago than all the other nations, why does Dr. Eliot consider the American people justified in taking anti-German views for reasons of such an old date, while he forgives the nations of the party he favors for much more recent infringement of his rule?

"Americans object to the violation of treaties." So do the Germans. We have always kept our treaties, and mean to do so in the future. The fact with Belgium is that her neutrality was very one-sided; that, as can be proved, as early as the 25th of June, Liege was full of French soldiers, that Belgian fortifications were all directed against Germany, and that for years past it was the Belgian press that outdid the French press in attacks against Germany. But I can give Mr. Eliot here some authority that he has so far not challenged. When Sir Edward Grey presented the English case in the House of Commons on the 3d of August he declared that the British attitude was laid down by the British Government in 1870, and he verbally cited Mr. Gladstone's speech, in which he said he could not subscribe to the assertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee was binding on every party, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for acting on the guarantee arises. He called that assertion a "stringent and impracticable" view of the guarantee and the whole treaty a "complicated question." So Mr. Gladstone, and with him Sir Edward Grey, has held the Belgian neutrality treaty not binding on every party, when it was against the interest which the particular situation dictated, when the war broke out. It was the interest of Great Britain to maintain the treaty, and that is why she acted. It was against German interest to maintain the treaty, and that is why she broke it. That is the British and not the German theory, and I could very well rest my case here. My theory is with the German Chancellor, that I greatly regret the necessity of violating the Belgian neutrality, after Belgium had chosen to repel the German overtures for a free passage.

It is quite certain that the breach of the Belgian neutrality by Germany was used in Great Britain as a powerful instrument to influence the public sentiment. Every war must be borne by national unity, and it is the duty of the nation's leaders to secure such unity by all practicable means. But has it been forgotten that the attitude of Sir Edward Grey caused such excellent men as Lord Morley, John Burns, and Sir John Trevelyan to leave the Cabinet, where they were looked upon as the best and most liberal members of the ruling combination? Bernard Shaw says of Great Britain that she has never been at a loss for an effective moral attitude. Such an attitude is a powerful weapon in diplomatical and actual warfare, and it must be resorted to, if the necessity arises. But that cannot blind us to the fact that the British Government allowed the political interest to be the paramount consideration in this Belgian neutrality matter. The German interest for not acting on the guarantee was just as strong as the English to act for it.

The proof is found in the English "White Paper." I cite the famous reprint of THE TIMES, (Dispatch No. 148 of Aug. 2 to Paris.) Here Sir Edward Grey says: "We were considering ... whether we should declare violation of Belgian neutrality to be a casus belli."

"Treaties Must Not Be Overrated."

I am an ardent believer in all international arrangements to prevent difficulties and wars between nations, and I rejoice with the American people in the signal success this policy is now having in this country. But international treaties must not be overrated. There are questions which cannot be settled by them. It is too difficult to explain just the nature of such situations as arose in Europe, so I may be permitted for once to ask this question: Does Prof. Eliot believe that the majority of the American people think that the unwritten Monroe Doctrine could be made the subject of arbitration, whether it had a right to exist or to be enforced? I must emphatically say, No, it could not. It can be as little arbitrated upon as a matter of religion or of personal morals.

Mr. Eliot thinks a happy result of the war would be that American institutions should prevail in Germany thereafter. Why should Germany only become a representative republic? Does he not demand the same regarding Russia, England, Italy, Austria, and Japan? And if not, why not?

From all this I fail to see the point in the reasons given by Prof. Eliot why fair-minded Americans should side with the Allies because the objections made against German procedure, down to the breach of the Belgian neutrality, must be made against all other European States. British history is just teeming with examples of broken treaties and torn "scraps of paper." The chasing of German diplomatic representatives out of neutral Egypt is a case in point.

I must insist that whatever anti-German feeling there is is not fully explained by Prof. Eliot, and his article cannot be made a code by which German behavior could be regulated in the future. Prof. Eliot is a scholar; business interests do not come very near him. So he is especially concerned with the ethical aspect of the matter. He believes the Germans think that "might is right." This is very unjust. Our history proves that we have never acted on this principle. We have never got or attempted to get a world empire such as England has won, all of which, with a very few exceptions, by might, by war, and by conquest. The German writers who have expounded this doctrine have only shown how the large world empires of England and France were welded together, what means have been adopted for that purpose, and against what sort of political doctrines we must beware.

Our Sympathy for the Under Dog.

As Dr. Eliot makes his remarks for the benefit of his German confreres, may I be permitted to say to them what I consider the reason for the American attitude? There is, in the first place, the ethical side. Americans have a very strong sense of generosity, and are, as a rule, very good sports. They think Belgium a small nation, brutally attacked by a much bigger fellow; they feel that the little man stands up bravely and gamely, and fights for all he is worth. Such a situation will always command American sympathy and antagonism against the stronger. Then there is the business side. Americans feel that this war is endangering their political and commercial interests, so they are naturally angry against the people who, they believe, have brought the war about.

As Germany has not had an opportunity to make herself heard as amply as her adversaries, they think that it was Germany which set the world afire, and that is what they resent, and in which they were justified, if it were true. But the question of the hour is not the question of the past, but of the present and of the future, and the people on this side who will give Germany fair play because it is just in them will examine the situation in the light of their interests. Then they will find that Belgium had been in league with the Allies long before the conflagration broke out, only to be left to its own resources when the critical hour arose. They will further find that it is not Germany but England and her allies that are throttling commerce, maiming cables, stopping mails, and breaking neutrality and other treaties to further their aims; that, finally, today England has established a world rule on the sea to which even America must submit. They will then soon come to the conclusion that, no matter what happened in the past, the peace of the world can only be assured by a good understanding between Germany and the United States as a sort of counterbalance against the unmeasured aggrandizement of English sea power. Then the feeling toward Germany will be considerably better, and I may add that even now it is not so very bad after all.

I make these remarks with due respect to Prof. Eliot and his views, and with great reluctance for being compelled to enter the field against a personality whose undoubted superiority I wish to be the first to acknowledge.

BERNHARD DERNBURG.

New York, Oct. 4, 1914.



Dr. Jordan's Reply to Dr. Dernburg

Daniel Jordan is Assistant Professor of Roman Languages and Literature at Columbia University.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

President Eliot is as fair a judge of the present European situation as can be found anywhere, and is well qualified to explain the almost unanimous attitude of thoughtful Americans in regard to Germany. Dr. Dernburg, on the other hand, has been officially sent from Germany to expound the German official version; both his point of view and his treatment of facts are essentially un-American.

He says: "Americans object to the extension of territory by force. Germany has never done that." Apparently he believes that the Poles asked Prussia to become her subjects. The facts are that they have fought and begged for autonomy for nearly 150 years, and that at the present time high German officials are members of the Anti-Polish League.

Dr. Dernburg, when he comes to Schleswig-Holstein, states that 30,000 Danes south of the Eider River (this is in Holstein) have been absorbed against their will, "a thing that can never be avoided, and that has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble." But what about the Danes north of the Eider River? Schleswig and Holstein are really two provinces. Holstein is German, but the northern part of Schleswig, north of Fiensburg, is inhabited by Danes who are longing to join Denmark and who number about 200,000. Article 5 of the Treaty of Prague, signed on Aug. 23, 1866, after Sadowa, between Prussia and Austria, states that the inhabitants of Northern Schleswig shall be given a chance to join Denmark, "if they should so express the desire by a free vote." Prussia has not respected this solemn promise any more than former promises concerning Schleswig. The frequently renewed protests of the annexed Danes have remained unanswered. The best proof that Prussia's title to Danish Schleswig was not considered as very substantial is that in October, 1878, Prussia finally obtained from Austria the annulment of Article 5 of the Treaty of Prague, which dealt with the taking of a plebiscite in Danish Schleswig.

To decide the fate of a province without consulting the inhabitants seems perfectly natural to German Kultur, but to Americans it is not; the days of slavery have gone, and wherever slavery still exists it is time to make a change.

As to Alsace-Lorraine, says Dr. Dernburg, "the facts are known that it had belonged to Germany until it was taken by Louis XIV., against the will of the people, and that it was returned to Germany as a matter of right." Such an argument is mediaeval, and it might just as well be argued that Germany should now belong to France, because Germany was once conquered, civilized, and organized by inhabitants of France, led by their Frankish King. And it is not sure that in 1648 Alsace was not glad to become French, because Louis XIV., by the Treaty of Westphalia, then granted perfect religious freedom to the Alsatians, who unlike their neighbors, lived ever since without fear of religious persecutions. Lorraine itself was not annexed by Louis XIV., nor by force, as it was peacefully united to France at the death of Stanislas, father of the Queen of France, Marie-Lesinzka. As for the inhabitants of Metz, they were considered long ago as French. Metz was annexed to France in 1552, with the full consent of the then allies of the French King, Henri II., the German Princes, who recognized by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, (1559,) that Metz, Toul, and Verdun were French cities, and could not be considered as a part of the German Confederation. So there were at one time German Princes who accepted the dogma of the consent of the governed!

Attacking the record of England in order to defend the record of Germany, as Dr. Dernburg does, is no justification for the necessary German aggression of today. Even granting that the English record is poor, which is a matter open to discussion, two wrongs would not make things right.

Dr. Dernburg also compares the policy of aggrandizement of Germany in Schleswig, Alsace, &c., with that of other countries in Morocco, Tripoli, &c. Even school children know that two things which are entirely unlike must not be compared. Northern Africa had too long been a den of pirates and brigands, and Latin Europe has rendered an immense service to the world in establishing order there. Algeria has been conquered in the same way as Morocco is now being conquered, and her natives enjoy more genuine liberty than they ever did before; they are even willing to fight as volunteers for the country they consider now as their own. Neither Danish Schleswig nor Alsace-Lorraine, which were as civilized as any other European country when they were last annexed, can be compared to Morocco any more than to the Philippines. So this comparison made by Dr. Dernburg also falls to pieces.

The case of the German point of view is not entirely without hope. In THE TIMES of Oct. 5 Dr. Dernburg approves the annexation of Holstein because the Germans of Holstein wanted to belong to Germany. This is a sound conclusion, and Dr. Dernburg will doubtless acknowledge later—better late than never—that the Alsatians and the Danish of Schleswig should have had their say, just like the Germans of Holstein. It cannot be possible that to him the wish of the inhabitants of a province is the voice of God when it suits Germany and the voice of the devil when it suits somebody else.

DANIEL JORDAN.

Columbia University, Nov. 6, 1914.



Dr. Irene Sargent's Reply to Dr. Dernburg

Professor of the History of Fine Arts, Syracuse University.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Contradicting Dr. Eliot, Dr. Bernhard Dernburg says:

Schleswig-Holstein was a dual Dukedom that never belonged to Denmark; but, having as its Duke the King of Denmark, as long as he belonged to the elder line of the house of Oldenburg ... Frederick VII. wanted to incorporate the two German Dukedoms into Denmark.... Then the people stood up and expressed the desire to remain with the German Federation.

Such an assertion is a summary, inaccurate, and unfair manner of dealing with perhaps the most complex series of diplomatic, legal, and racial questions that arose in the nineteenth century. It would appear from the best evidence that Schleswig was indissolubly united with the Crown of Denmark. To maintain this principle Christian VIII. in 1846 issued letters patent declaring that the royal line of succession (female) was in full force, as far as Schleswig was concerned. As to Holstein, the King stated that he was prevented from giving an equally clear decision, and the reason of his hesitation lay in the assumption that the law of the Salic Saxons excluding women from the throne would naturally prevail in Holstein, where the Germans, their customs, and their language were dominant. Two years later, Prussia sought to restore her prestige, lost in the Revolution of 1848, by sending troops into the Duchies in order to enforce the principle that this territory constituted two independent and indivisible States, the government of which was hereditary in the male line alone. The Prussian troops were afterward withdrawn by the hesitating Frederic William, and there followed a succession of protocols, constitutions, and compacts until the time of Bismarck, who, in his "Reflections," Volume II., Page 10, in writing of the Duchies, acknowledges:

"From the beginning I kept annexation steadily before my eyes."

The master of statecraft conquered. But did the people "stand up and express their desire to remain with the German Federation," as Dr. Dernburg asserts?

If his assertion be true, why were the Danish "optants" subjected to domiciliary visits, perquisitions, arrest, and expulsion? And why—only to mention one instance of espionage—did the Prussian police confiscate the issue of a Danish newspaper published in Schleswig because it contained a reference to that Duchy under its historic name of South Jutland?

The truth stands that the whole Schleswig-Holstein question is one that involves the modern principle of "nationality," and, as such, enters of necessity into the present European crisis. It is broadly understood by Dr. Eliot and willfully misapprehended by his critic.

Passing on to consider Alsace-Lorraine, Dr. Dernburg declares that "it had belonged to Germany until it was taken, against the will of the people, under Louis XIV."

In this statement, as in the treatment of the previous question, facts are mutilated and wrong impressions are given. Alsace, it is well known, was included within the confines of ancient Gaul, its original population was Celtic, and it passed, late in the fifth Christian century, under the rule of the Franks, one of whose chieftains, Clovis, became the founder of the first French monarchy. In dealing with its later history Dr. Dernburg confuses the Holy Roman (Germanic) Empire with Germany, considered in its modern sense. He appears to forget that the reign of Louis XIV. was an age of absolutism and not of plebiscites.

He also ignores that the most strenuous efforts on the part of Germany to strangle the French nationality and language in the imperial territory (Alsace-Lorraine) have proved useless, although they have been exerted constantly for almost a half century.

IRENE SARGENT.

Professor of the History of Fine Arts.

Syracuse University, Nov. 3, 1914.



DR. ELIOT'S FOURTH LETTER.

Germany and World Empire

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Each one of the principal combatants in Europe seems to be anxious to prove that it is not responsible for this cruelest, most extensive, and most destructive of all wars. Each Government involved has published the correspondence between its Chief Executive and other Chief Executives, and between its Chancellery or Foreign Office and the equivalent bodies in the other nations that have gone to war, and has been at pains to give a wide circulation to these documents. To be sure, none of these Government publications seems to be absolutely complete. There seems to be in all of them suppressions or omissions which only the future historian will be able to report—perhaps after many years. They reveal, however, the dilapidated state of the Concert of Europe in July, 1914, and the flurry in the European Chancelleries which the ultimatum sent by Austria-Hungary to Servia produced. They also testify to the existence of a new and influential public opinion, about war and peace, to which nations that go to war think it desirable to appeal for justification or moral support.

These publications have been read with intense interest by impartial observers in all parts of the world, and have in many cases determined the direction of the readers' sympathy and good will; and yet none of them discloses or deals with the real sources of the unprecedented calamity. They relate chiefly to the question who struck the match, and not to the questions who provided the magazine that exploded, and why did he provide it. Grave responsibility, of course, attaches to the person who gives the order to mobilize a national army or to invade a neighbor's territory; but the real source of the resulting horrors is not in such an order, but in the Governmental institutions, political philosophy, and long-nurtured passions and purposes of the nation or nations concerned.

German Desire for World Empire.

The prime source of the present immense disaster in Europe is the desire on the part of Germany for world empire, a desire which one European nation after another has made its supreme motive, and none that has once adopted it has ever completely eradicated. Germany arrived late at this desire, being prevented until 1870 from indulging it, because of her lack of unity, or rather because of being divided since the Thirty Years' War into a large number of separate, more or less independent, States. When this disease, which has attacked one nation after another through all historic times, struck Germany it exhibited in her case a remarkable malignity, moving her to expansion in Europe by force of arms, and to the seizure of areas for colonization in many parts of the world. Prussia, indeed, had long believed in making her way in Europe by fighting, and had repeatedly acted on that belief. Shortly before the achievement of German unity by Bismarck she had obtained by war in 1864 and 1866 important accessions of territory and leadership in all Germany.

With this desire for world empire went the belief that it was only to be obtained by force of arms. Therefore, united Germany has labored with utmost intelligence and energy to prepare the most powerful army in the world, and to equip it for instant action in the most perfect manner which science and eager invasion could contrive. To develop this supreme military machine universal conscription—an outgrowth of the conception of the citizens' army of France during the Revolution—was necessary; so that every young man in Germany physically competent to bear arms might receive the training of a soldier, whether he wished it or not, and remain at the call of the Government for military duty during all his years of competency, even if he were the only son of a widow, or a widower with little children, or the sole support of a family or other dependents. In order to the completeness of this military ideal the army became the nation and the nation became the army to a degree which had never before been realized in either the savage or the civilized world. This army could be summoned and put in play by the Chief Executive of the German Nation with no preliminaries except the consent of the hereditary heads of the several States which united to form the empire in 1870-71 under the domination of Prussia, the Prussian King, become German Emperor, being Commander in Chief of the German Army. At the word of the Emperor this army can be summoned, collected, clothed, equipped and armed, and set in motion toward any frontier in a day. The German Army was thus made the largest in proportion to population, the best equipped, and the most mobile in the world. The German General Staff studied incessantly and thoroughly plans for campaigns against all the other principal States of Europe, and promptly utilized—secretly, whenever secrecy was possible—all promising inventions in explosives, ordnance, munitions, transportation, and sanitation. At the opening of 1914 the General Staff believed that the German Army was ready for war on the instant, and that it possessed some significant advantages in fighting—such as better implements and better discipline—over the armies of the neighboring nations. The army could do its part toward the attainment of world empire. It would prove invincible.

A Great German Navy.

The intense desire for colonies, and for the spread of German commerce throughout the world, instigated the creation of a great German navy, and started the race with England in navy building. The increase of German wealth, and the rapid development of manufactures and commercial sea power after 1870-71, made it possible for the empire to devote immense sums of money to the quick construction of a powerful navy, in which the experience and skill of all other shipbuilding nations would be appropriated and improved on. In thus pushing her colonization and sea-power policy Germany encountered the wide domination of Great Britain on the oceans; and this encounter bred jealousy, suspicion, and distrust on both sides. That Germany should have been belated in the quest for foreign possessions was annoying; but that England and France should have acquired early ample and rich territories on other continents, and then should resist or obstruct Germany when she aspired to make up for lost time, was intensely exasperating. Hence chronic resentments, and—when the day came—probably war. In respect to its navy, however, Germany was not ready for war at the opening of 1914; and, therefore, she did not mean to get into war with Great Britain in that year. Indeed, she believed—on incorrect information—that England could not go to war in the Summer of 1914. Neither the Government nor the educated class in Germany comprehends the peculiar features of party government as it exists in England, France, and the United States; and, therefore, the German leaders were surprised and grievously disappointed at the sudden popular determination of Great Britain and Ireland to lay aside party strife and take strenuous part in the general European conflict.

The complete preparation of the German Army for sudden war, the authority to make war always ready in the hands of the German Emperor, and the thorough studies of the German Staff into the most advantageous plans of campaign against every neighbor, conspired to develop a new doctrine of "military necessity" as the all-sufficient excuse for disregarding and violating the contracts or agreements into which Prussia or the new Germany had entered with other nations. To gain quickly a military advantage in attacking a neighbor came to be regarded as proper ground for violating any or all international treaties and agreements, no matter how solemn and comprehensive, how old or how new. The demonstration of the insignificance or worthlessness of international agreements in German thought and practice was given in the first days of the war by the invasion of Belgium, and has been continued ever since by violation on the part of Germany of numerous agreements concerning the conduct of war into which Germany entered with many other nations at the Second Hague Conference.

Sanctity of National Contracts.

This German view of the worthlessness of international agreements was not a cause of the present war, because it was not fully evident to Europe, although familiar and of long standing in Germany; but it is a potent reason for the continuance of the war by the Allies until Germany is defeated; because it is plain to all the nations of the world, except Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey at the moment, that the hopes of mankind for the gradual development of international order and peace rest on the sanctity of contracts between nations, and on the development of adequate sanctions in the administration of international law. The new doctrine of military necessity affronts all law and is completely and hopelessly barbarous.

World empire now, as always, is to be won by force—that is, by conquest and holding possession. So Assyria, Israel, Macedonia, Athens, Rome, Islam, England, and France have successively believed and tried to accomplish in practice. United Germany has for forty years been putting into practice, at home and abroad, the doctrine of force as the source of all personal and national greatness and all worthy human achievements. In the support of this doctrine, educated Germany has developed and accepted the religion of valor and the dogma that might makes right. In so doing it has rejected with scorn the Christian teachings concerning humility and meekness, justice and mercy, brotherhood and love. The objects of its adoration have become Strength, Courage, and ruthless Will-power; let the weak perish and help them to perish; let the gentle, meek, and humble submit to the harsh and proud; let the shiftless and incapable die; the world is for the strong, and the strongest shall be ruler. This is a religion capable of inspiring its followers with zeal and sustained enthusiasm in promoting the national welfare at whatever cost to the individual of life, liberty, or happiness, and also of lending a religious sanction to the extremes of cruelty, greed, and hate. It were incredible that educated people who have been brought up within earshot of Christian ethics and within sight of gentle men and women should all be content with the religion-of-valor plan. Accordingly, the finer German spirits have invented a supplement to that Stone Age religion. They have set up for worship a mystical conception of the State as a majestic and beneficent entity which embraces all the noble activities of the nation and guides it to its best achievements. To this ideal State every German owes duty, obedience, and complete devotion. The trouble with this supplement to the religion of valor is that it dwells too much on submission, self-sacrifice, and discipline, and not enough on individual liberty and self-control in liberty. Accordingly, when the valiant men got control of the Government and carried the nation into a ferocious war, they swept away with them all the devotees of this romantic and spiritual State. The modern German is always a controlled, directed, and drilled person, who aspires to control and discipline his inferiors; and in his view pretty much all mankind are his inferiors. He is not a freeman in the French, English, or American sense; and he prefers not to be.

What German Domination Would Mean.

The present war is the inevitable result of lust of empire, autocratic government, sudden wealth, and the religion of valor. What German domination would mean to any that should resist it the experience of Belgium and Northern France during the past three months aptly demonstrates. The civilized world can now see where the new German morality—be efficient, be virile, be hard, be bloody, be rulers—would land it. To maintain that the power which has adopted in practice that new morality, and in accordance with its precepts promised Austria its support against Servia and invaded Belgium and France in hot haste, is not the responsible author of the European war, is to throw away memory, reason, and common sense in judging the human agencies in current events.

The real cause of the war is this gradually developed barbaric state of the German mind and will. All other causes—such as the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, the sympathy of Russia with the Balkan States, the French desire for the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, and Great Britain's jealousy of German aggrandizement—are secondary and incidental causes, contributory, indeed, but not primary and fundamental. If any one ask who brought the ruling class in Germany to this barbaric frame of mind, the answer must be Bismarck, Moltke, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, the German Emperor, their like, their disciples, and the military caste.

Germany Never Dreaded Russia.

Many German apologists for the war attribute it to German fear of Russia. They say that, although Germany committed the first actual aggression by invading Belgium and Luxemburg on the way to attack France with the utmost speed and fierceness, the war is really a war of defense against Russia, which might desirably pass over, after France has been crushed, into a war against Great Britain, that perfidious and insolent obstacle to Germany's world empire. The answer to this explanation is that, as a matter of fact, Germany has never dreaded, or even respected, the military strength of Russia, and that the recent wars and threatenings of war by Germany have not been directed against Russia, but against Denmark, Austria, France, and England. In her colonization enterprises it is not Russia that Germany has encountered, but England, France, and the United States. The friendly advances made within the last twenty years by Germany to Turkey were not intended primarily to strengthen Germany against Russia, but Germany against Great Britain through access by land to British India. In short, Germany's policies, at home and abroad, during the last forty years have been inspired not by fear of Russia, or of any other invader, but by its own aggressive ambition for world empire. In the present war it thinks it has staked its all on "empire or downfall."

Germany Should Be Defeated.

Those nations which value public liberty and believe that the primary object of Government is to promote the general welfare by measures and policies founded on justice, good-will, and respect for the freedom of the individual cannot but hope that Germany will be completely defeated in its present undertakings; but they do not believe that Germany is compelled to choose between a life of domination in Europe and the world and national death. They wish that all her humane culture and her genius for patient and exact research may survive this hideous war and guide another Germany to great achievements for humanity.

If the causes of the present immense catastrophe have been have correctly stated, the desirable outcomes of the war are, no world empire for any race or nation, no more "subjects," no Executives, either permanent or temporary, with power to throw their fellow-countrymen into war, no secret diplomacy justifying the use for a profit of all the lies, concealments, deceptions, and ambuscades which are an inevitable part of war and assuming to commit nations on international questions, and no conscription armies that can be launched in war by Executives without consulting independent representative assemblies. There should come out from this supreme convulsion, a federated Europe, or a league of the freer nations, which should secure the smaller States against attack, prevent the larger from attempting domination, make sure that treaties and other international contracts shall be public and be respected until modified by mutual consent, and provide a safe basis for the limitation and reduction of armaments on land and sea, no basis to be considered safe which could fail to secure the liberties of each and all the federated States against the attacks of any outsider or faithless member. No one can see at present how such a consummation is to be brought about, but any one can see already that this consummation is the only one which can satisfy the lovers of liberty under law, and the believers in the progress of mankind through loving service each to all and all to each.

Extreme pacificists shrink from fighting evil with evil, hell with hell, and advise submission to outrage, or at least taking the risk of being forced into resigned submission. The believers in the religion of valor, on the other hand, proclaim that war is a good thing in itself, that it develops the best human virtues, invigorates a nation become flaccid through ease and luxury, and puts in command the strong, dominating spirit of a valid nation or race. What is the just mean between these two extremes? Is it not that war is always a hideous and hateful evil, but that a nation may sometimes find it to be the least of two evils between which it has to choose? The justifiable and indeed necessary war is the war against the ravager and destroyer, the enemy of liberty, the claimant of world empire. More and more the thinkers of the world see, and the common people more and more believe instinctively, that the cause of righteous liberty is the cause of civilization. In the conference which will one day meet to settle the terms of peace, and therefore the future conditions of life in Europe, the example of the American Republic in regard to armaments and war, the publicity of treaties, and public liberty, security and prosperity may reasonably have some influence.

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 14, 1914.



DR. ELIOT'S FIFTH LETTER.

A Hopeful Road to Lasting Peace

To the Editor of The New York Times:

The great war has now been going on long enough to enable mankind to form approximately correct views about its vast extent and scale of operations, its sudden interference with commerce and all other helpful international intercourse, its unprecedented wrecking of family happiness and continuity, its wiping out, as it proceeds, of the accumulated savings of many former generations in structures, objects of art, and industrial capital, and the huge burdens it is likely to impose on twentieth century Europe. From all these points of view, it is evidently the most horrible calamity that has ever befallen the human race and the most crucial trial to which civilization has been exposed. It is, and is to be, the gigantic struggle of these times between the forces which make for liberty and righteousness and those which make for the subjection of the individual man, the exaltation of the State, and the enthronement of physical force directed by a ruthless collective will. It threatens a sweeping betrayal of the best hopes of mankind.

Each of the nations involved, horrified at the immensity of the disaster, maintains that it is not responsible for the war; and each Government has issued a statement to prove that some other Government is responsible for the outbreak. This discussion, however, relates almost entirely to actions by monarchs and Cabinets between July 23 and Aug. 4—a short period of hurried messages between the Chancelleries of Europe—actions which only prove that the monarchs and Ministers for Foreign Affairs could not, or at least did not, prevent the long-prepared general war from breaking out. The assassination of the Archduke and Duchess of Hohenberg on the 28th of June was in no proper sense a cause of the war, except as it was one of the consequences of the persistent aggressions of Austria-Hungary against her southeastern neighbors. Neither was Russian mobilization in four military districts on July 29 a cause of the war; for that was only an external manifestation of the Russian state of mind toward the Balkan peoples, a state of mind well known to all publicists ever since the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. No more was the invasion of Belgium by the German Army on Aug. 4 a true cause of the war, or even the cause, as distinguished from the occasion, of Great Britain's becoming involved in it. By that action Germany was only taking the first step in carrying out a long-cherished purpose and in executing a judicious plan of campaign prepared for many years in advance. The artificial panic in Germany about its exposed position between two powerful enemies, France and Russia, was not a genuine cause of the war; for the General Staff knew they had crushed France once, and were confident they could do it again in a month. As to Russia, it was, in their view, a huge nation, but very clumsy and dull in war.

The real causes of the war are all of many years' standing; and all the nations now involved in the fearful catastrophe have contributed to the development of one or more of these effective causes. The fundamental causes are: (1) The maintenance of monarchical Governments, each sanctioned and supported by the national religion, and each furnished with a Cabinet selected by the monarch—Governments which can make war without any previous consultation of the peoples through their elected representatives; (2) the constant maintenance of conscript armies, through which the entire able-bodied male population is trained in youth for service in the army or navy, and remains subject to the instant call of the Government till late in life, the officering of these permanent armies involving the creation of a large military class likely to become powerful in political, industrial, and social administration; (3) the creation of a strong, permanent bureaucracy within each nation for the management of both foreign and domestic affairs, much of whose work is kept secret from the public at large; and, finally, (4) the habitual use of military and naval forces to acquire new territories, contiguous or detached, without regard to the wishes of the people annexed or controlled. This last cause of the war is the most potent of the four, since it is strong in itself, and is apt to include one or more of the other three. It is the gratification of the lust for world empire.

Of all the nations taking part in the present war, Great Britain is the only one which does not maintain a conscript army; but, on the other hand, Great Britain is the earliest modern claimant of world empire by force, with the single exception of Spain, which long since abandoned that quest. Every one of these nations except little Servia has yielded to the lust for empire. Every one has permitted its monarch or its Cabinet to carry on secret negotiations liable at any time to commit the nation to war, or to fail in maintaining the peace of Europe or of the Near East. In the crowded diplomatic events of last July, no phenomenon is more striking than the exhibition of the power which the British people confide to the hands of their Foreign Secretary. In the interests of public liberty and public welfare no official should possess such powers as Sir Edward Grey used admirably—though in vain—last July. In all three of the empires engaged in the war there has long existed a large military caste which exerts a strong influence on the Government and its policies, and on the daily life of the people.

These being the real causes of the terrific convulsion now going on in Europe, it cannot be questioned that the nation in which these complex causes have taken strongest and most complete effect during the last fifty years is Germany. Her form of government has been imperialistic and autocratic in the highest degree. She has developed with great intelligence and assiduity the most formidable conscript army in the world, and the most influential and insolent military caste. Three times since 1864 she has waged war in Europe, and each time she has added to her territory without regard to the wishes of the annexed population. For twenty-five years she has exhibited a keen desire to obtain colonial possessions; and since 1896 she has been aggressive in this field. In her schools and universities the children and youth have been taught for generations that Germany is surrounded by hostile peoples, that her expansion in Europe and in other continents is resisted by jealous powers which started earlier in the race for foreign possessions, and that the salvation of Germany has depended from the first, and will depend till the last, on the efficiency of her army and navy and the warlike spirit of her people. This instruction, given year after year by teachers, publicists, and rulers, was first generally accepted in Prussia, but now seems to be accepted by the entire empire as unified in 1871.

The attention of the civilized world was first called to this state of the German mind and will by the triumphant policies of Bismarck; but during the reign of the present Emperor the external aggressiveness of Germany and her passion for world empire have grown to much more formidable proportions. Although the German Emperor has sometimes played the part of a peacemaker, he has habitually acted the war lord in both speech and bearing, and has supported the military caste whenever it has been assailed. He is by inheritance, conviction, and practice a Divine-right sovereign whose throne rests on an "invincible" army, an army conterminous with the nation. In the present tremendous struggle he carries his subjects with him in a rushing torrent of self-sacrificing patriotism. Mass fanaticism and infectious enthusiasm seem to have deprived the leading class in Germany, for the moment, of all power to see, reason, and judge correctly—no new phenomenon in the world, but instructive in this case because it points to the grave defect in German education—the lack of liberty and, therefore, practice in self-control.

The twentieth century educated German is, however, by no means given over completely to material and physical aggrandizement and the worship of might. He cherishes a partly new conception of the State as a collective entity whose function is to develop and multiply, not the free, healthy, and happy individual man and woman, but higher and more effective types of humanity, made superior by a strenuous discipline which takes much account of the strong and ambitious, and little of the weak or meek. He rejects the ethics of the Beatitudes as unsound, but accepts the religion of valor, which exalts strength, courage, endurance, and the ready sacrifice by the individual of liberty, happiness, and life itself for Germany's honor and greatness. A nation of 60,000,000 holding these philosophical and religious views, and proposing to act on them in winning by force the empire of the world, threatens civilization with more formidable irruptions of a destroying host than any that history has recorded. The rush of the German Army into Belgium, France, and Russia and its consequences to those lands have taught the rest of Europe to dread German domination, and—it is to be hoped—to make it impossible.

The real cause of the present convulsion is, then, the state of mind or temper of Germany, including her conception of national greatness, her theory of the State, and her intelligent and skillful use of all the forces of nineteenth century applied science for the destructive purposes of war. It is, therefore, apparent that Europe can escape from the domination of Germany only by defeating her in her present undertakings; and that this defeat can be brought about only by using against her the same effective agencies of destruction and the same martial spirit on which Germany itself relies. Horrible as are the murderous and devastating effects of this war, there can be no lasting peace until Europe as a whole is ready to make some serious and far-reaching decisions in regard to Governmental structures and powers. In all probability the sufferings and losses of this widespread war must go further and cut deeper before Europe can be brought to the decisions which alone can give securities for lasting peace against Germany on the one hand and Russia on the other, or to either of these nations, or can give security for the future to any of the smaller nations of Continental Europe. There can, indeed, be no security for future peace in Europe until every European nation recognizes the fact that there is to be no such thing in the world as one dominating nation—no such thing as world empire for any single nation—Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, or China. There can be no sense of security against sudden invasion in Europe so long as all the able-bodied men are trained to be soldiers and the best possible armies are kept constantly ready for instant use. There can be no secure peace in Europe until a federation of the European States is established, capable of making public contracts intended to be kept, and backed by an overwhelming international force subject to the orders of an international tribunal. The present convulsion demonstrates the impotence toward permanent peace of secret negotiations, of unpublished agreements, of treaties and covenants that can be broken on grounds of military necessity, of international law if without sanctions, of pious wishes, of economic and biological predictions, and of public opinion unless expressed through a firm international agreement, behind which stands an international force. When that international force has been firmly established it will be time to consider what proportionate reductions in national armaments can be prudently recommended. Until that glorious day dawns, no patriot and no lover of his kind can wisely advocate either peace in Europe or any reduction of armaments.

The hate-breeding and worse than brutal cruelties and devastations of the war, with their inevitable moral and physical degradations, ought to shock mankind into attempting a great step forward. Europe and America should undertake to exterminate the real causes of the catastrophe. In studying that problem the coming European conference can profit by the experience of the three prosperous and valid countries in which public liberty and the principle of federation have been most successfully developed—Switzerland, Great Britain, and the United States. Switzerland is a democratic federation which unites in a firm federal bond three different racial stocks speaking three unlike languages, and divided locally and irregularly between the Catholic Church and the Protestant. The so-called British Empire tends strongly to become a federation; and the methods of Government both in Great Britain itself and in its affiliated Commonwealths are becoming more and more democratic in substance. The war has brought this fact out in high relief. As to the United States, it is a strong federation of forty-eight heterogeneous States which has been proving for a hundred years that freedom and democracy are safer and happier for mankind than subjection to any sort of autocracy, and affords far the best training for national character and national efficiency. Republican France has not yet had time to give this demonstration, being incumbered with many survivals of the Bourbon and Napoleonic regimes, and being forced to maintain a conscript army.

It is an encouraging fact that every one of the political or Governmental changes needed is already illustrated in the practice of one or more of the civilized nations. To exaggerate the necessary changes is to postpone or prevent a satisfactory outcome from the present calculated destructions and wrongs and the accompanying moral and religious chaos. Ardent proposals to remake the map of Europe, reconstruct European society, substitute republics for empires, and abolish armaments are in fact obstructing the road toward peace and good-will among men. That road is hard at best.

The immediate duty of the United States is presumably to prepare, on the basis of its present army and navy, to furnish an effective quota of the international force, servant of an international tribunal, which will make the ultimate issue of this most abominable of wars not a truce, but a durable peace.

In the meantime the American peoples cry with one voice to the German people, like Ezekiel to the House of Israel: "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?"

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 8, 1914.



THE LORD OF HOSTS.

By JOSEPH B. GILDER.

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh."

The warring hosts that gather To ravage, burn, and slay, Turn first to that dread Father To whom the nations pray:

"O God, our hearts Thou knowest, Our minds Thou readest clear; Where we go, there Thou goest— With Thee we have no fear.

"The folk that harm and hate us— Thy enemies, O Lord— Thou knowest how they bait us: Make brittle their strong sword!

"Against the foe that goaded We heed Thy call to fight: Our guns are primed and loaded, Our swords, how keen and bright!

"Make strong our hearts to serve Thee, Uphold our lifted hands; Let no petition swerve Thee To succor alien bands.

"So shall we burn and slaughter, Spread desolation wide, If still, by land and water, Thou fightest on our side."

The Lord of Hosts had listened— Had heard the rivals' prayer, Upraised where bayonets glistened And banners dyed the air;

And as His people waited An answer to their cry, Two bolts with lightning freighted Flashed from the angry sky.

To left, to right they darted, Impartially they fell: The hosts in terror started As they envisaged hell.

For wide their ranks were riven, Night blotted out the sky, As prostrate, dazed or driven, They caught their God's reply.

Then, as the blinding levin's Twin bolts were buried deep, Who dwelleth in the heavens Was heard to laugh—and weep!



A War of Dishonor

By David Starr Jordan.

Late President of Leland Stanford Junior University, now its Chancellor; Chief Director of the World Peace Foundation since 1910.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

In this war what of right and what of wrong? Not much of right, perhaps, and very much of wrong. But there are degrees in wrong, and sometimes, by comparison, wrong becomes almost right.

The armed peace, the peace of guns and dreadnoughts and sabre rattlers, has come to its predestined end. Its armaments were made for war. Its war makers and war traders, the Pan-Germanists in the lead, have done their worst for the last nine years. They have been foiled time after time, but they have their way at last. Their last and most fatal weapon was the ultimatum. If Servia had not given them their chance they would have found their pretext somewhere else. When a nation or a continent prepares for war it will get it soon or later. To prepare for war is to breed a host of men who have no other business, and another host who find their profits in blood.

When the war began it had very little meaning. It was the third Balkan war, brought on, as the others were, by intrigues of rival despotisms. The peoples of Europe do not hate each other. The springs of war come from a few men impelled by greed and glory. Diplomacy in Europe has been for years the cover for robbery in Asia or Africa. Of all the nations concerned not one had any wish to fight, and Belgium alone could fight with clean hands.

And this fact gave the war its meaning. The invasion of Belgium changed the whole face of affairs. As by a lightning flash the issue was made plain: the issue of the sacredness of law; the rule of the soldier or the rule of the citizen; the rule of fear or the rule of law. Germany stands for army rule. This was made clear when, a year ago, she passed under the yoke at Zabern. However devious her diplomacy in the past, Britain stands today for the rule of law. The British soldier is the servant of the British people, not their master.

The highest conception of human relations is embodied in the word law. Law is the framework of civilization. Law is the condition of security, happiness, and progress. War is the denial of all law. It makes scrap paper of all the solemn agreements men and nations have established for their mutual good.

The rape of Belgium made scrap paper of international law. The sowing of mines in the fairways of commerce made scrap paper of the rights of neutral nations. The torture of the Belgian people made scrap paper of the rights of non-combatants.

War may be never righteous, but it is sometimes honorable. In honorable war armies fight against armies, never against private citizens. If armies give no needless provocation, they will receive none. The sacking of Malines, Aerschot, Dinant—these are not acts of honorable war. The wreck of Louvain, historic Louvain, the venerable centre for 500 years of Catholic erudition, at the hands of blood-drunk soldiers was an act of dishonorable war. It marks a stain on the record of Germany which the ages will not efface.

"A needed example," say the apologists for this crime. The Duke of Alva gave the same "needed example" to these same people in his day. For centuries the words "Spanish blood" struck terror into peoples' hearts throughout the Netherlands. For centuries to come the word Prussian will take its hated place.

The good people of Germany do not burn universities. Neither do they make war for war's sake. They are helpless in the hands of a monster of their own creation. The affair at Zabern a year ago testifies to their complete subjugation. All the virtues are left to them, save only the love of freedom. This the mailed fist has taken away.

The Germany of today is an anachronism. Her scientific ideals are of the twentieth century. Her political ideals hark back to the sixteenth. Her rulers have made her the most superb fighting machine in a world which is soul-weary of fighting. For a nation in shining armor the civilized World has no place. It will not worship them, it will not obey them. It will not respect those who either worship or obey. It finds no people good enough to rule other people against their will.

A great nation which its own people do not control is a nation without a Government. It is a derelict on the international sea. It is a danger to its neighbors, a greater danger to itself. Of all the many issues, good or bad, which may come from this war, none is more important than this, that the German people should take possession of Germany.

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

Berkeley, Cal., Sept. 19, 1914.



Might or Right

By John Grier Hibben.

President of Princeton University; author of works on logic and philosophy.

The address printed below was delivered by President Hibben at the opening of the Laymen's Efficiency Convention in New York City, Oct. 16, 1914.

We are all of us sadly conscious of our failure to realize in any adequate measure the standards of right conduct which we set for ourselves. Attainment falls far short of purpose and desire. Through want of courage, or it may be of inclination, or of sheer inertia, we fail to obey perfectly the law of duty which we recognize as imperatively binding upon us. There is, however, a more subtle kind of failure as regards our moral endeavor and achievement which is due to the unconscious shifting of these standards of right and wrong themselves. It is not merely that we fail to do that which we know to be right, but at times the very idea of right itself is strangely altered. The good insensibly assimilates to itself certain elements of evil which we allow and accept without full realization of the significance of this moral alchemy to which the most fundamental of our ideas are often times subjected. The idea of right no longer stands in its integrity, but is compromised and even neutralized by conflicting thoughts and sentiments. The things which at one time held first place in our estimate of life become secondary. Our attitude toward men, and manners, and affairs experiences a radical change. This in most cases takes place unconsciously, or if conscious of it, we refrain from confessing it even to ourselves.

There are some, however, who are both frank enough and bold enough to announce their belief in the radical doctrine which demands a complete transformation of essential values. For them, good is evil and evil good, and they seem not ashamed to avow it. The conspicuous German philosopher of later years, Nietzsche, with a naive simplicity insists that the great need of our modern civilization is that which he designates as "the transvaluation of all values." By this he means the complete transformation of certain ideas of supreme value into their direct opposites. He declares, for instance, that the central virtues of Christianity, such as those of self-sacrifice, pity, mercy, indicate an inherent weakness of the human race, and that the strong man dissipates his energies through the offices of kindness and helpfulness. Thus the law which commands us to bear one another's burdens must be regarded as obsolete. Every man should be strong enough to bear his own burdens. If not, he is a drag to the onward progress of humanity, and to assist him is to do evil and not good. If you help the weak, you so far forth assist in perpetuating an inferior type of manhood.

Nietzsche's "Moralic Acid."

From this point of view, the definition of religion given in the Old Testament should be revised, "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy God." In doing justice we must first be just to self; in loving mercy it must not be at the expense of our own interests and advantage, and we must not walk so humbly before our God as to give to the world the appearance of weakness or lack of independence. As Nietzsche insists, "The man who loves his neighbor as himself must have an exceedingly poor opinion of himself." If the race is to be perfected, everything and every person must be sacrificed in order to produce and preserve the strong man at all hazards. There is a kind of "moralic acid," as Nietzsche styles it, which is corroding the strength of humanity in our modern day. We have discoursed too much of character, too little of power; too much of self-sacrifice and too little of self-assertion; too much of right, too little of might. Conscience not only interferes with success, but also prevents the evolution of a superior type of man, that superman who is not constrained by duty nor limited by law, living his life "beyond good and evil."

The serious question which presents itself to our minds at this time is whether our modern world has not been unconsciously incorporating these ideas into its living beliefs—that is, those beliefs which reveal themselves in actual living and doing, in daily purpose, in the adaptation of means to ends, in the deeds which the world honors, and in the achievements which it crowns with glory. There are many persons who would not have the frankness of Nietzsche to say that might makes right, and that a moral sense is the great obstacle to progress, and that in "vigorous eras noble civilizations see something contemptible in sympathy, in brotherly love, in the lack of self-assertion and self-reliance." Our modern world may not explicitly subscribe to such doctrines in their extreme and exaggerated expression, but nevertheless may be unconsciously influenced by them. Our real opinions, however, are to be tested by our sense of values as revealed by the things which we crave, which we set our hearts upon, which we strive early and late to gain, and sacrifice all else in order to secure. Have we not offered our prayers to the God of might rather than the God of righteousness, to the God of power rather than the God of justice, the God of mercy and of love?

The time has come, in my opinion, for us to take account of the things which we really believe, and of the God Whom we really worship. If we have been following false gods, let us honestly endeavor to re-establish fundamental and essential values, to discover anew what is of supreme worth and set our faces resolutely toward its realization. The need of our modern world today is the same as that of the ancient world at the time of the coming of Christ. His message to the world as indicated by His teaching, and His life was an arraignment of the ancient regime as regards three crucial points.

The Brotherhood of Man.

First, the religious and moral beliefs of that age had become purely formal. There was the letter of conviction, but not the spirit of it. The creed, the ritual, the ceremony were there, but the life had departed. And so today our beliefs have lost vitality to a large extent because we have been content to indulge in formulas oft repeated, which have ceased to have significance for our thoughts or for our feelings. We have allowed ourselves to be betrayed by words which are mere sounds without substance. We have verbalized our beliefs, and have depotentialed them of vital significance. Take, for instance, the phrases, "The fatherhood of God" and "The brotherhood of man." They have been so often upon our lips as to become trite; their real meaning has disappeared. It is easy to repeat the words, and to be satisfied with the repetition, and nevertheless remain wholly insensible to their profound import, and under no compulsion whatsoever to obey their sublime command. We assent to the formula: but it does not become a determining factor in our purposes and plans. There is perhaps no age in the history of the world which has so emphasized the idea of the brotherhood of man as our own, and never in all history has there been such a denial of this idea as by the present European war. If the brotherhood of man had been the living, dominant idea of our civilization, could this present tragedy of the nations have occurred? If the world had believed profoundly in the idea of God, would we now be daily reading of the ghastly scenes where human life is no longer sacred, where love gives place to hate, where the constructive forces of the world are superseded by the destructive, and all the passions of man's brute inheritance are given full play and scope?

Second—In the teachings of Christ there was a remarkable expansion of the idea of God. Instead of the tribal God worshipped as the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, He substituted the idea of God, as the God of all peoples and all races, the God of the Jew and Gentile, of the Greek and barbarian, of the bond and the free. It was the great apostle of the Gentiles who at the centre of Greek civilization announced this fundamental conception of Christianity to the old world:

God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.

This was the sublime idea of the God of a united humanity. The God of the tribe had given place to the God of the whole world. That conception was very foreign to the popular religious notions current at the time of Christ, and it seems still further away from our ideas of the present day. It is a very narrow and circumscribed view of God to regard Him as concerned merely for our little insular affairs, to regard Him simply as a God of the individual or of the home, or even one's nation. He transcends all these limitations of particular interests and particular needs. He is not merely our God but the God of all mankind. The children of Israel called Him the God of battle, the God of hosts, that is, the one who would give victory to them in their battles, and who would prove the leader of their hosts. But Christ came to the world in God's name to universalize this narrow tribal idea of God, proclaiming peace on earth and good will to men. It was the dawn of a new era, the Christian era. That light which shone upon the old world is darkened by the cloud hanging low over Europe at the present time. We cannot think, however, that it is permanently extinguished. To that light the nations of the earth must again return.

The Area of Moral Obligation.

Third—Christ gave to the world of His day an enlarged idea of the area of moral obligation. He insisted most stoutly upon the expansion of the scope of individual responsibility. This freeing of the idea of duty from the limitations of race prejudice is a natural corollary to the idea of the universality of God's relation to the world. Corresponding to the tribal view of God there is always an accompanying idea of the restricted obligation of the individual. To care for one's own family or one's own clan or tribe and present a hostile front to the rest of mankind has always been the characteristic feature of primitive morality. It was peculiarly the teaching of Christ which brought to the world the idea that the area of moral obligation is co-extensive with the world itself. There are no racial or national lines which can limit the extent of our responsibility. The world today needs to learn this lesson anew, and it is evident that it must acquire this knowledge through bitter and desperate experiences. We must interpret in this large sense the great moral dictum of the German philosopher, Kant, that every one in a particular circumstance should act as he would wish all men to act if similarly circumstanced and conditioned. This is the complete universalizing of our moral obligations—stripping our sense of duty of everything that is particular and local and isolated. The natural tendency of human nature is to particularize our relations to God and bound our relations to our fellow-men; to narrow our relations to God so as to embrace only our direst needs, and to circumscribe our relations to man so as to include in the field of responsibility only those who are our kin or our own kind. The time has certainly come for us to take larger views of the world, of man, and of God.

After the great calamity of this present war is passed there must necessarily follow a period of reconstruction. It will not be merely the reconstruction of national resources and international relations, but it must be also a reconstruction of our fundamental conceptions of man and of the relation of man to man the world over, and of the relation also of man to God. We must ask anew the question, Who is our neighbor? In this great moral enterprise you will naturally play a large and significant part, for you belong to the class of men who are expected to have strong and decided opinions in the face of a great world crisis, and are capable of leading others toward the goal of a regenerated humanity. To know the right and to maintain it, to fight against the wrong, to impart courage to the timid, strength to the weak, and hope to the faint-hearted; to forget self in the service of others and extend a human sympathy to the ends of the earth, this is your vocation. It is the call of the world, it is the voice of one calling to you out of a distant past across the nineteen Christian centuries; it is the "spirit of the years to come," summoning you to establish the Kingdom of God upon earth.



JEANNE D'ARC—1914.

By ALMA DURANT NICOLSON.

Rise from the buried ages, O thou Maid, Rise from thy glorious ashes, unafraid, And wheresoe'er thy Brothers need thee most, Arise again, to lead thy tireless host. France calls thee as she called in days gone by! She calls thy spirit where her soldiers die; She knows thy courage and thy sacrifice, And wills today to pay the selfsame price, All-confident that when the work is done, She shall behold her Honor saved and Victory won.

God calls thee, Maid, from out the Past— The Past of France where thy strange lot was cast— And bid'st thee fling about this fearful hour Thy dauntless Faith, that was thy magic Power. And Freedom calls, with all-impelling voice, She calls the Sons of France, and leaves no choice, No waver and no alternating will; Where Freedom calls, all other calls are still, All-confident that when her work is done Ye shall behold your Country saved and Victory won.



The Kaiser and Belgium

By John W. Burgess.

Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, Pure Science, and the fine Arts at Columbia University; Roosevelt Professor of American History and Institutions at Friedrich Wilhelms University, Berlin, 1906-7; Visiting American Professor to Austrian Universities, 1914-15; Decorated, Order of Prussian Crown by the German Emperor and Order of the Albrechts by the King of Saxony.

FIRST ARTICLE.

It is often said by historians that no truly great man is every really understood by the generation, and in the age, for which he labors. Many instances of the truth of this statement can be easily cited. Two of the most flagrant have come within the range of my own personal experience. The first was the character of Abraham Lincoln as depicted by the British press of 1860-64 and as conceived by the British public opinion of that era. Mr. Henry Adams, son and private secretary of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, our Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain during that critical era in our history, writes, in that fascinating book of his entitled "The Education of Henry Adams,"

that "London was altogether beside itself on one point, in especial; it created a nightmare of its own, and gave it the shape of Abraham Lincoln. Behind this it placed another demon, if possible more devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard to these two men English society seemed demented. Defense was useless: explanation was vain. One could only let the passion exhaust itself. One's best friends were as unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality and Seward's ferocity became a dogma of popular faith."

Adams relates further that the last time he saw Thackeray at Christmas of 1863 they spoke of their mutual friend Mrs. Frank Hampton of South Carolina, whom Thackeray had portrayed as Ethel Newcome, and who had recently passed away from life. Thackeray had read in the British papers that her parents had been prevented by the Federal soldiers from passing through the lines to see her on her deathbed. Adams writes that

in speaking of it Thackeray's voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears. The coarse cruelty of Lincoln and his hirelings was notorious. He never doubted that the Federals made a business of harrowing the tenderest feelings of women—particularly of women—in order to punish their opponents. On quite insufficient evidence he burst into reproach. Had he (Adams) carried in his pocket the proofs that the reproach was unjust he would have gained nothing by showing them. At that moment Thackeray, and all London society with him, needed the nervous relief of expressing emotions; for if Mr. Lincoln was not what they said he was, what were they?

Mr. Lincoln sent over our most skillful politician, Thurlow Weed, and our most able constitutional lawyer, William M. Evarts, and later our most brilliant orator, Henry Ward Beecher, followed, for the purpose of bringing the British people to their senses and correcting British opinion, but all to little purpose. Gettysburg and Vicksburg did far more toward modifying that opinion than the persuasiveness of Weed, the logic of Evarts, or the eloquence of Beecher, and it took Chattanooga, the March to the Sea, and Appomattox to dispel the illusion entirely.

Today we are laboring under a no less singular illusion than were the English in 1862. The conception prevailing in England and in this country concerning the physical, mental, and moral make-up of the German Emperor is the monumental caricature of biographical literature. I have had the privilege of his personal acquaintance now for nearly ten years. I have been brought into contact with him in many different ways and under many varying conditions, at Court and State functions, at university ceremonies and celebrations, at his table, and by his fireside surrounded by his family, when in the midst of his officials, his men of science, and his personal friends, and, more instructive than all, alone in the imperial home in Berlin and at Potsdam and in the castle and forest at Wilhelmshoehe. With all this experience, with all this opportunity for observation at close range, I am hardly able to recognize a single characteristic usually attributed to him by the British and American press of today.

In the first place, the Emperor is an impressive man physically. He is not a giant in stature, but a man of medium size, great strength and endurance, and of agile and graceful movement. He looks every inch a leader of men. His fine gray-blue eyes are peculiarly fascinating. I saw him once seated beside his uncle, King Edward VII., and the contrast was very striking, and greatly in his favor.

In the second place, the Emperor is an exceedingly intelligent and highly cultivated man. His mental processes are swift, but they go also very deep. He is a searching inquirer, and questions and listens more than he talks. His fund of knowledge is immense and sometimes astonishing. He manifests interest in everything, even to the smallest detail, which can have any bearing upon human improvement. I remember a half hour's conversation with him once over a cupping glass, which he had gotten from an excavation in the Roman ruin called the Saalburg, near Homburg. He always appeared to me most deeply concerned with the arts of peace. I have never heard him speak much of war, and then always with abhorrence, nor much of military matters, but improved agriculture, invention, and manufacture, and especially commerce and education in all their ramifications, were the chief subjects of his thought and conversation. I have had the privilege of association with many highly intelligent and profoundly learned men, but I have never acquired as much knowledge, in the same time, from any man whom I have ever met, as from the German Emperor. And yet, with all this real superiority of mind and education, his deference to the opinions of others is remarkable. Arrogance is one of the qualities most often attributed to him, but he is the only ruler I ever saw in whom there appeared to be absolutely no arrogance. He meets you as man meets man and makes you feel that you are required to yield to nothing but the better reason.

A Man of Warm Affections.

In the third place, the Emperor impressed me as a man of heart, of warm affections, and of great consideration for the feelings and well-being of others. He can not, at least does not, conceal his reverence for, and devotion to, the Empress, or his love for his children, or his attachment to his friends. He always speaks of Queen Victoria and of the Empress Friedrich with the greatest veneration, and once when speaking to me of an old American friend who had turned upon him he said that it was difficult for him to give up an old friend, right or wrong, and impossible when he believed him to be in the right. His manifest respect and affection for his old and tried officials, such as Lucanus and zu Eulenburg and von Studt and Beseler and Althoff, give strong evidence of the warmth and depth of his nature. His consideration for Americans, especially, has always been remarkable. It was at his suggestion that the exchange of educators between the universities of Germany and of the United States was established, and it has been his custom to be present at the opening lecture of each new incumbent of these positions at the University of Berlin, and to greet him and welcome him to his work. He is also the first to extend to these foreign educators hospitality and social attention. To any one who has experienced his hearty welcome to his land and his home the assertion that he is arrogant and autocratic is so far away from truth as to be ludicrous. Again I must say that I have never met a ruler, in monarchy or republic, in whom genuine democratic geniality was a so predominant characteristic.



But the characteristic of the Emperor which struck me most forcibly is his profound sense of duty and his readiness for self-sacrifice for the welfare of his country. This is a general German trait. It is the most admirable side of German nature. And the Emperor is, in this respect especially, their Princeps. I remember sitting beside him one day, when one of the ladies of his household asked me if I were acquainted with a certain wealthy ultra-fashionable New York social leader. I replied, by name only. She pressed me to know why not more nearly, why not personally. And to this, I replied that I was not of her class; that I could not amuse her, and that I did not approve of the frivolous and demoralizing example and influence of one so favorably circumstanced for doing good. The Emperor had heard the conversation, and he promptly said: "You know in Germany we do not rate and classify people by their material possessions, but by the importance of the service they render to country, culture, and civilization." One of his sons once told me that from his earliest childhood his father had instilled into his mind the lesson that devotion to duty and readiness for sacrifice were the cardinal virtues of a German, especially of a Hohenzollern. His days are periods of constant labor and severe discipline. He rises early, lives abstemiously and works until far into the night. There is no day laborer in his entire empire who gives so many hours per diem to his work. His nature is manifestly deeply religious and, in every sentence he speaks, evidence of his consciousness that the policeman's club cannot take the place of religious and moral principle is revealed. His frequent appeal for Divine aid in the discharge of his duties is prompted by the conviction that the heavier the duty the more need there is of that aid.

His Passion for German Greatness.

He undoubtedly has an intense desire, almost a passion, for the prosperity and greatness of his country, but his conception of that prosperity and greatness is more spiritual and cultural than material and commercial. More than once have I heard him say that he desired to see Germany a wealthy country, but only as the result of honest and properly requited toil, and that wealth acquired by force or fraud was more a curse than a blessing, and was destined to go as it had come. His conception of the greatness of Germany is as a great intellectual and moral power rather than anything else. Its physical power he values chiefly as the creator and maintainer of the conditions necessary to the production and influence of this higher power. I have often heard him express this thought.

And in spite of this terrible war, the responsibility for which is by so many erroneously laid at his door, I firmly believe him to be a man of peace. I am absolutely sure that he has entered upon this war only under the firm conviction that Great Britain, France, and Russia have conspired to destroy Germany as a world power, and that he is simply defending, as he said in his memorable speech to the Reichstag, the place which God had given the Germans to dwell on. For seven years I myself have witnessed the growth of this conviction in his mind and that of the whole German Nation as the evidences of it have multiplied from year to year until at last the fatal hour at Serajevo struck. I firmly believe that there is no soul in this wide world upon whom the burden and grief of this great catastrophe so heavily rest as upon the German Emperor. I have heard him declare with the greatest earnestness and solemnity that he considered war a dire calamity; that Germany would never during his reign wage an offensive war, and that he hoped God would spare him from the necessity of ever having to conduct a defensive war. For years he has been conscious that British diplomacy was seeking to isolate and crush Germany by an alliance of Latin, Slav, and Mongol under British direction, and he sought in every way to avert it. He visited England himself frequently. He sent his Ministers of State over to cultivate the acquaintance and friendship of the British Ministers, but rarely would the British King go himself to Germany or send his Ministers to return these visits. More than once have I heard him say that he was most earnestly desirous of close friendship between Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, and had done, was doing, and would continue to do, all in his power to promote it; but that while the Americans were cordially meeting Germany half way, the British were cold, suspicious, and repellent.