"The German individual may not consider himself superior to all individuals of other nationalities, but he will be sure to consider his nation so far superior to every other that there can be no comparison between it and them. His is a peculiar arrogance. It is not at all personal; it is purely national; but none the less it is arrogance, and all arrogance is dangerous.

"A hierarchy always exists in aristocratic countries; the hierarchical idea has been developed further in Germany than elsewhere.

"This has given Germany an unfortunate impulse. If to this impulse we add that other born of all her various victories since 1866, especially those which were won while Germany was realizing Bismarck's dream of triumph 'through fire and blood'—her industrial victories, her scientific advance, her social progress—and consider the Germanic tendency toward egotism, we do not find ourselves surprised when we find, examine, and appraise exactly what we have today in Germany.

"The perversion of national sentiment into national arrogance has been the definite, although, perhaps, unrealized and unintended, aim of every educational influence which has been at work in Germany since 1870. It has amounted to an unparalleled perversion of a nation's sentiment toward all the outside world.

"This war marks the crisis of this German pride.

"Germany's course throughout has borne all the earmarks of a national ego-mania. The whole German people, as a nation, not always, perhaps, as individuals, have fallen victim to the most colossal attack of ego-mania which the world ever has known.

"Combine this ego-mania with another delusion—the entirely unjustified conclusion that Germany was the object of a worldwide persecution—and it is unnecessary to search further for the causes of the war, just as it is unnecessary to search further for reasons for the combination of practically all other Europe against Germany.

"What would German victory mean to the world, if German victory came, save the worldwide dominance of German egotism, imposed at the expense of every other people? France would not escape, England would not escape, and, I assure you, you, America, would not escape. German victory would be far more than a European disaster—it would be a world disaster.

"Of all the nations in the world perhaps the United States and France have stood most notably for the ideas of international justice. This really makes your interest in the outcome of the present war indirectly as great as ours.

"I cannot see how the people of the United States can feel otherwise than that not only their hearts but their reason demands victory for the Allies, not because of any wish for the destruction of Germany, but because of the wish for the preservation of the world.

"Indeed, it is inconceivable that victory for the Allies can mean destruction for Germany. It can mean only the destruction of German militarism, which has brought about the perversion of the German mind.

"No abler mind exists. Its release from the thralldom which has fettered it would be a vast world service, would, indeed, be a vast benefit to Germany herself. It is curious, but true, that I believe Germany's own salvation depends upon her absolute defeat in this great war.

"A few weeks before the war began Prof. Schucking expressed regret that Germany—that is, the German Government—should be so antagonistic to international spirit. The fact that he made this expression shows that, in spite of and beyond military Germany, the intellectual elite, the cream of the elite in Germany, has remained faithful to the traditions of the great philosopher, Kant.

"The intellectual elite—the cream of the elite—therefore may be absolved from all responsibility. Loyalty to the teachings of Kant will make it possible for the friends of humanity in all nations to join with Germany for human advancement on the basis of universal justice.

"After the victory of the Allies a new Germany will appear; it will be a liberal Germany, willing to renounce the narrow Prussian ideals, finding again the old German ideal in its disinterested form, a Germany which will be able to join hands with other nations, to help them in taking up again the works of international civilization, which Prussian Germany herself brutally brought to an end, with insolent scorn of right—an act for which she is now paying and must pay the penalty."



Germany the Aggressor

By Albert Sauveur.

Professor of Metallurgy at Harvard University.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

German professors and editors and other German sympathizers in the present struggle of nations have attempted the difficult task of convincing the American public, first, that Germany was not the aggressor, and, second, that she is conducting a war of civilization directed primarily against Russia, that Europe may not fall under Muscovite domination. The German Chancellor has made similar claims, while in the German "White Paper," published in full in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Aug. 24, it is likewise attempted to fasten the responsibility for this war on Germany's opponents.

A close and impartial study of both the English and German "White Papers" must suffice to convince the reader that Germany clearly was the aggressor and that England made every possible effort first to prevent a war between Austria and Servia and later to localize the conflict. Germany, on the contrary, by insisting from the start that there should be no intervention in the settlement of the dispute between Servia and her ally, Austria, made a European war inevitable. The sophistry, inaccuracies, and unwarranted conclusions of the German professors and editors have not helped their cause. The irrefutable facts remain, first, that Austria with the knowledge and approval of Germany presented to Servia an ultimatum so worded that she knew that the conditions imposed could not be complied with by any nation retaining a spark of self-respect; second, that after Servia had accepted Austria's ultimatum with the single exception of the most offensive clause, which she proposed to submit to arbitration, Austria, with Germany's consent, proclaimed herself unsatisfied and immediately declared war on Servia; third, that Germany and Austria knew that a war with Servia meant a war with Russia, and that a war with Russia meant a general European conflagration; fourth, that Germany declared war on Russia, started the invasion of France before declaring war, and, by refusing to respect the neutrality of Belgium, to which she was solemnly pledged, forced both Belgium and England into the war. In the face of so flagrant a violation of all sentiments making for peace no sophistry will avail in attempting to protect Germany from the odium of being responsible for the greatest calamity the civilized world has ever seen.

We are told that Germany is conducting this war in the interest of civilization, that her chief purpose is to protect Europe from the domination of the Slav. And to ward off this Muscovite danger Germany is at present making desperate efforts to crush England and France, the standard bearers of democracy in Europe! In her war for civilization she is employing the methods of barbarian tribes, methods condemned by civilized nations and which have already horrified the world. It is hardly conceivable that Russia, which the German Chancellor describes as a semi-Asiatic, slightly cultured barbaric nation, could have committed in Belgium the atrocities imputed to the Germans had she conquered that country in similar circumstances.

It is manifest that Germany's supreme desire is to fasten Teutonic rule on Europe, to crush Russia, to be sure, but also to crush France and French civilization and to reduce England to the rank of a second-class nation. It is obvious that this is a struggle between militarism and its evils as represented by the Hohenzollern dynasty and democracy as represented by England and France.

ALBERT SAUVEUR.

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 5, 1914.



Militarism and Christianity

By Lyman Abbott.

A Letter to The New York Sun.

Editor in Chief of The Outlook; author of numerous works on theology, religion, and democracy.

To the Editor of The New York Sun:

In answer to your request for a statement of the causes and meaning of the European war I write with necessary brevity, both because of the limits on my time and the limits on your crowded columns.

What is the cause of the explosion of a powder magazine? The gases stored in the powder. The lighted match is the occasion, not the cause of the explosion. The cause of the European war is the spirit of envy, jealousy, selfishness and suspicion in the so-called Christian nations. The assassination by a Servian of the Crown Prince of Austria was only the lighted match which set the European combustibles in flame.

In the United States we recognize the truth that the interests of each State are identical with the interests of the Union, and that no State can permanently prosper by reason of the misfortune of its neighbor. In the German Empire since its unification each principality similarly recognizes that the interests of the German Empire and the interests of the several principalities are essentially identical. But there is no such recognition of the common interest binding the warring nations of Europe together.

Each nation looks with envy on the prosperity of its neighbor and acts upon the assumption that its neighbor is a rival, and that its own commerce and wealth can be built up only at the expense of its rival. New York is quite willing that the harbor of Boston should be improved. Bremen is quite willing that the harbor of Hamburg should be improved. The west coast of England does not object to harbor facilities on the east coast of England. But Germany envies England's harbor facilities, and England and Germany are both resolved to prevent if possible Russia from getting harbor facilities on the Mediterranean Sea. Not every individual German, Austrian, Frenchman, and Englishman holds this opinion, but the policies of these nations are governed by this spirit of international rivalry.

A striking illustration of this spirit, perhaps the most striking illustration in modern international life, is furnished by the military party in Prussia. Gen. Bernhardi, in a volume entitled "Germany and the Next War," has given what may be regarded as a semi-official interpretation of German militarism. He holds that life is a struggle for existence, with a survival of the fittest, and the strongest is the fittest; that a military organization constitutes the true strength of a nation; that there is no higher power in human life, certainly none in international life, than the power of physical force; that only the strong nation has a right to exist, and he objects to international arbitration because it recognizes the right to life of a small nation. In this volume he calls on Germany to establish a "world sovereignty" by force of arms, and he indicates what should be the twofold purpose of Germany in the next war, namely, to crush France and to establish such world sovereignty of Germany.

Militarism to Blame.

It was this spirit which led Germany into the present war; this spirit which denied that Belgium had any rights which Germany was bound to respect; this spirit which inspired the military party in Germany to regard its treaty with France and England guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium as only a "scrap of paper," and this spirit which could not and apparently still does not comprehend why Belgium should be bound in honor to defend her neutrality, or why England, with no very direct and immediate interests to protect, should feel herself bound to come to the defense of her weaker neighbor.

The delay of the German Army, which is likely to prove disastrous to her designs, has demonstrated in her own chosen field that there is a force in national honor and national conscience which can put up a very efficient resistance to Krupp guns.

It is a great mistake to suppose that all Germany is actuated by this spirit of militarism. Frederick William Wile, for over seven years the chief German correspondent of The London Daily Mail, in an article in The Outlook recently said: "There are 66,000,000 Germans; 65,000,000 of them did not want war; the other million are the war party." But he adds that now Germany is absolutely united and that the Germans will not stack arms "till the last among them capable of shouldering a rifle is incapacitated, till the last copper pfennig capable of purchasing ammunition of war has vanished from their impoverished grasp."

There is in this nothing extraordinary. Whoever is responsible for bringing on the war, the interests, the welfare, and in some sense the honor of Germany are apparently involved in it. And yet it may be true, and I believe it is true, that the defeat of Germany will be its salvation, for it will be the overthrow of the spirit of militarism inherited from Frederick the Great, and this has been the bane of the German Empire.

In our civil war there was at first only a minority in most of the Southern States in favor of secession, but when the national troops invaded Virginia the South was as united for State independence as the North was for national union, and yet today it will be difficult to find anywhere in the South an intelligent man who does not recognize the truth that the defeat of secession and the emancipation of the slave have been of inestimable benefit to the Southern States.

I make no attempt here to apportion the responsibility for this war between the several powers engaged in it. However this responsibility must be shared among them I can see but one meaning in the awful campaign. The victory of Germany would mean the victory of Prussian militarism. The defeat of Germany will mean the defeat of Prussian militarism, the rehabilitation of Germany as a great industrial and educational power in the world, and probably the practical overthrow of military autocracy in all Western Europe.

Divine Right of Kings Obsolete.

The campaigns of Napoleon ended for Western Europe the Divine right of Kings. The campaigns of the Allies will end for Western Europe the Divine right of the armed man. The Russo-Japanese war gave to Russia its first representative assembly, the Duma. It is not unreasonable to hope that the present European war will result in greatly enlarging the powers of the Duma and establishing true constitutional government in Germany, a government in which the Ministry will be responsible not to the Emperor but to the Reichstag; and the power both of the purse and the sword will not be in the hands of an aristocratic oligarchy but in the hands of the common people.

It is not strange that men should point to this, perhaps the greatest war of history, as an evidence that Christianity is a failure. If Christianity professed to be able by a miracle to transform human nature at once, such a war would be fatal to its claim. But no such claim can be made for Christianity. It is a great human movement, a phase of the gradual evolution of man, governed by conscience and reason, out of the brute, governed by appetite and passion.

Man as he is seen in the world to day is an unfinished product. He is in the making. The best that can be said of a Christian is that he is further along toward the goal of humanity than the barbarian. Theological doctrines such as the Trinity, the Atonement, and the like are not the essential doctrines of Christianity. The essential doctrine is that life is a struggle for others as well as for self; that in this struggle every one owes a duty to his neighbor, and the stronger he is and the greater the need of his neighbor the more imperative is his duty; that as the father and the mother care for, educate and govern their child until he grows able to care for, educate and govern himself, so always the strong men and women owe the duty of protection, education, and, in some measure, government to the weaker of the human race until they have outgrown the need for it.

In so far as autocracy is the rule of the few for the benefit of the few it is paganism. In so far as democracy is the rule of the many for the benefit of the many it is Christianity. He who believes this will perhaps believe with me that in a true sense this is a religious war, the war of conscience, honor, the moral sense against the rule of the bayonet and the bullet.

The cynic who thinks this war demonstrates the failure of Christianity should not forget such facts as the heroic struggle of Belgium to maintain her neutrality, the resolve of England at every cost to maintain her pledges to Belgium, the Red Cross following the armies in the field and ministering to the sick, the wounded and the suffering, regardless of their nationality, the general kind treatment to prisoners, accentuated by some very horrible exceptions, and all this contrasted with the enslaving, torturing, the crucifying, the flaying alive of prisoners captured in war by barbaric nations before the dawn of Christianity.

LYMAN ABBOTT.

Cornwall-on-Hudson, Sept. 17, 1914.



VIGIL

By HORTENSE FLEXNER.

I have waited with my mothers down the dim, uncertain ages, I have waited in the cave and hut and tower, From the first dawn's nameless fear To the death-list posted here I have slain my soul in waiting, hour by hour.

Under pelt of beast, trap-taken, or the leaves by chance winds blow, Under tunic, peasant hemp, or cloth of gold, By the fire, in low flame burning, I have crouched in silence, yearning, And as now, my helpless heart has waited cold.

Ancient is the part I play—like a cloak of heavy mourning, I take it, bending, from a million women's hands. They have worn it, they have torn it, Agonizing, they have borne it, And its folds are dark with heart-break of all lands.

Oh, the woman figure standing, with the face toward the horizon, Oh, the hand above the eyes to ease the strain! Gaunt and barren, stricken, lonely, With the empty memories only, We have stood, the dry-eyed sentries of our pain.

Nothing we can do to stop them, nothing we can say to hold them; Taking sunlight, laughter, youth, they swing away, And the things they leave grow strange, House and street and voices change, But the women and the burdened hours stay.

I have waited with my mothers down the dim, uncertain ages, While my children die, I pray the centuries through, And I wonder in my fear At the death-list posted here If God has left the women waiting, too!



Nietzsche and German Culture

By Abraham Solomon.

A Letter to The New York Evening Post.

Sir: Those who trace the German militaristic doctrines to Nietzsche's influence commit Pastor Mander's sin when he told Mrs. Alving to bar from her library a book which he had never read. Nietzsche was an inveterate enemy of efficiency, astigmatic with regard to practical life, and he never worked out a philosophy in the accepted sense of the term. He was a lyric poet who wrote psychology when he failed to sustain the poetic mood. In the Engadine and at Sils-Maria, brooding in a rocky void wherein he touched the sharp edge of infinity, he sang a Dionysian hymn to life against the melancholy products of German learning and against those Nihilistic snares which he thought lurked in Christian doctrine. There he worked out the mystic idea of "Eternal Recurrence" and his song of Zarathustra with the bell strokes of noon.

What he knew of history he used for an analysis of values, and not for State polity. He shrank from the irritations of reality, and he had little patience with the national mania cultivated after Sedan, warning his country that their victory was not one of a superior culture, that Germany had no style but a barbaric mixture of many styles; and he pointed out the essential difference between culture and erudition.

His unfinished work, "The Will to Power," was an attempt to house his lyric passions in an architectural frame. The facade of the structure, as posthumously revealed to us, is an indication that he was really engaged in building a Tower of Babel. Power, Affirmation, Yea-Saying he considered the attributes of life, and he found in them recompense for his weakness and his lack of capacity for happiness. He was a master of the exquisite nuances of vision, but since he touched real life at the circumference, and not at the centre, his philosophical valuations are bizarre, and have only a literary value.

It is superficial to make Treitschke and Bernhardi his disciples, as some American writers have made Roosevelt his disciple. Treitschke is a heavy-footed historian who raised the axiom of self-preservation into a philosophy of force. Von Bernhardi's book, though extreme in its expression, is based on the fundamental truth that if Germany desired a just proportion of oversea territories (a proportion denied her by England) she would have to gain it by force of arms. In the development of this idea he makes many generalizations calculated to dazzle the multitude and to imbue it with the courage to expansion. Treitschke would have rested in obscurity but for the war; Bernhardi does not pretend to talents as a philosopher.

The real origin of Germany's policy in the last forty years may be derived from the eminently practical and direct mind of Bismarck. From reading of history he learned that chicane and force had been utilized as the roads to power, of which fact he found ample demonstration in the histories of England and Russia. He proved himself a true adept by using chicane and force to achieve German unity, after the theorists had failed.

Those who glibly condemn a lyric philosopher in order to make out a case against Germany reveal the weakness of their position. It is strange that these lantern-eyed critics haven't cited Heine as an enemy of democracy because he adored Napoleon. Was it because Heine lived for years in Paris on the adulation of advanced feminines?

ABRAHAM SOLOMON.

New York, Oct. 13, 1914.



Belgium's Bitter Need

By Sir Gilbert Parker.

Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P., went to Holland at the request of the American Committee for the Relief of Belgium a week ago to inquire into the work of the committee and the needs of the Belgians.

Sir Gilbert visited frontier towns and the camps of the refugees for the purpose of making a personal investigation into the conditions. That he is deeply impressed by the desperate need of the Belgians may be gathered from the following graphic statement and appeal, dated Dec. 5, 1914, to the American people:

Since the beginning of the war the hearts of all humane people have been tortured by the sufferings of Belgium. For myself the martyrdom of Belgium had been a nightmare since the fall of Liege. Whoever or whatever country is to blame for this war, Belgium is innocent. Her hands are free from stain. She has kept the faith. She saw it with the eyes of duty and honor. Her Government is carried on in another land. Her King is in the trenches. Her army is decimated, but the last decimals fight on.

Her people wander in foreign lands, the highest and lowest looking for work and bread; they cannot look for homes. Those left behind huddle near the ruins of their shattered villages or take refuge in towns which cannot feed their own citizens.

Abyss of Want and Woe.

Many cities and towns have been completely destroyed; others, reduced or shattered, struggle in vain to feed their poor and broken populations. Stones and ashes mark the places where small communities lived their peaceful lives before the invasion. The Belgian people live now in the abyss of want and woe.

All this I knew in England, but knew it from the reports of others. I did not, could not, know what the destitution, the desolation of Belgium was, what were the imperative needs of this people, until I got to Holland and to the borders of Belgian territory. Inside that territory I could not pass because I was a Britisher, but there I could see German soldiers, the Landwehr, keeping guard over what they call their new German province. Belgium a German province!

There at Maastricht I saw fugitives crossing the frontier into Holland with all their worldly goods on their shoulders or in their hands, or with nothing at all, seeking hospitality of a little land which itself feels, though it is neutral, the painful stress and cost of the war. There, on the frontier, I was standing between Dutch soldiers and German soldiers, so near the Germans that I could almost have touched them, so near three German officers that their conversation as they saluted me reached my ears.

I begin to understand what the sufferings and needs of Belgium are. They are such that the horror of it almost paralyzes expression. I met at Maastricht Belgians, representatives of municipalities, who said that they had food for only a fortnight longer. And what was the food they had? No meat, no vegetables, but only one-third of a soldier's rations of bread for each person per day. At Liege, as I write, there is food for only three days.

What is it the people of Belgium ask for? They ask for bread and salt, no more, and it is not forthcoming. They do not ask for meat; they cannot get it. They have no fires for cooking, and they do not beg for petrol. Money is of little use to them, because there is no food to be bought with money.

Belgium under ordinary circumstances imports five-sixths of the food she eats. The ordinary channels of sale and purchase are closed. They cannot buy and sell if they would. Representatives of Belgian communities told me at Maastricht yesterday that the crops were taken from their fields—the wheat and potatoes—and were sent into Germany.

No Work, but Taxes Continue.

There is no work. The factories are closed because they have not raw material, coal, or petrol, because they have no markets.

And yet war taxes are falling with hideous pressure upon a people whose hands are empty, whose workshops are closed, whose fields are idle, whose cattle have been taken, or compulsorily purchased without value received.

In Belgium itself the misery of the populace is greater than the misery of the Belgian fugitives in other countries, such as Holland, where there have come since the fall of Liege one and a half million of fugitives. To gauge what that misery in Belgium is, think of what even the fugitives suffer. I have seen in a room without fire, the walls damp, the floor without covering, not even straw, a family of nine women and eight children, one on an improvised bunk seriously ill. Their home in Belgium was leveled with the ground, the father killed in battle.

Their food is coffee and bread for breakfast, potatoes for dinner, with salt—and in having the salt they were lucky—bread and coffee for supper. Insufficiently clothed, there by the North Sea, they watched the bleak hours pass, with nothing to do except cling together in a vain attempt to keep warm.

Multiply this case by hundreds of thousands and you will have some hint of the people's sufferings.

In a lighter on the River Maas at Rotterdam, without windows, without doors, with only an open hatchway from which a ladder descends, several hundred fugitives spend their nights and the best parts of their days in the iron hold, forever covered with moisture, leaky when rain comes, with the floor never dry, and pervasive with a perpetual smell like the smell of a cave which never gets the light of day. Here men, women, and children were huddled together in a promiscuous communion of misery, made infinitely more pathetic and heartrending because none complained.

At Rosendaal, at Scheveningen, Eysden, and Flushing, at a dozen other places, these ghastly things are repeated in one form or another. Holland has sheltered hundreds of thousands, but she could not in a moment organize even adequate shelter, much less comforts.

In Bergen-op-Zoom, where I write these words, there have come since the fall of Antwerp 300,000 hungry marchers, with no resources except what they carry with them. This little town of 15,000 people did its best to meet the terrible pressure, and its citizens went without bread themselves to feed the refugees. How can a small municipality suddenly deal with so vast a catastrophe? Yet slowly some sort of order was organized out of chaos, and when the Government was able to establish refugee camps through the military the worst conditions were moderated, and now, in tents and in vans on a fortunately situated piece of land, over 3,000 people live, so far as comforts are concerned, like Kaffirs in Karoo or aborigines in a camp in the back blocks of Australia. The tents are crammed with people, and life is reduced to its barest elements. Straw, boards, and a few blankets and dishes for rations—that constitutes the menage.

Children are born in the hugger mugger of such conditions, but the good Holland citizens see that the children are cared for and that the babies have milk. Devoted priests teach the children, and the value of military organization illuminates the whole panoply of misery. Yet the best of the refugee camps would seem to American citizens like the dark and dreadful life of an underworld, in which is neither work, purpose, nor opportunity. It is a sight repugnant to civilization.

The saddest, most heartrending thing I have ever seen has been the patience of every Belgian, whatever his state, I have met. Among the thousands of refugees I have seen in Holland, in the long stream that crossed the frontier at Maastricht and besieged the doors of the Belgian Consul while I was there, no man, no woman railed or declaimed against the horror of their situation. The pathos of lonely, staring, apathetic endurance is tragic beyond words. So grateful, so simply grateful, are they, every one, for whatever is done for them.

None of the Refugees Begs.

None begs, none asks for money, and yet on the faces of these frontier refugees I saw stark hunger, the weakness come of long weeks of famine. One man, one fortunate man from Verviers, told me he could purchase as much as 2s. 8d. worth of food for himself, his wife, and child for a week.

Think of it, American citizens! Sixty-six cents' worth of food for a man, his wife, and child for a whole week, if he were permitted to purchase that much! Sixty-six cents! That is what an average American citizen pays for his dinner in his own home. He cannot get breakfast, he can only get half a breakfast, for that at the Waldorf or the Plaza in New York.

This man was only allowed to purchase that much food if he could, because if he purchased more he would be taking from some one else, and they were living on rations for the week which would represent the food of an ordinary man for a day. A rich man can have no more than a poor man. It is a democracy of famine.

There is enough food wasted in the average American household in one day to keep a Belgian for a fortnight in health and strength. They want in Belgium 300,000 tons of food a month. That is their normal requirement. The American Relief Committee is asking for 8,000 tons a month, one-quarter of the normal requirements, one-half of a soldier's rations for each Belgian. The American Committee needs $5,000,000 a month until next harvest. It is a huge sum, but it must be forthcoming.

Of all the great powers of the world the United States is the only one not at war or in peril of war. Of all the foremost nations of the world the United States is the only one that can save Belgium from starvation if she will. She was the only nation that Germany would allow a foothold for humanity's and for Christ's sake in Belgium. Such an opportunity, such responsibility, no nation ever had before in the history of the world. Spain and Italy join with her, but the initiative and resources and organization are hers.

Around Belgium is a ring of steel. Within that ring of steel are a disappearing and for ever disappearing population. Towns like Dendermonde, that were of 10,000 people, have now 4,000, and in Dendermonde 1,200 houses have fallen under the iron and fire of war. Into that vast graveyard and camp of the desolate only the United States enters with an adequate and responsible organization upon the mission of humanity.

No such opportunity was ever given to a people, no such test ever came to a Christian people in all the records of time. Will the American Nation rise to the chance given to it to prove that its civilization is a real thing and that its acts measure up with its inherent and professed Christianity?

I am a profound believer in the great-heartedness of the United States, and there is not an American of German origin who ought not gladly and freely give to the relief of people who, unless the world feeds them, must be the remnant of a nation; and the world in this case is the United States. She can give most.

The price of one good meal a week for a family in an American home will keep a Belgian alive for a fortnight.

Probably the United States has 18,000,000 homes. How many of them will deny themselves a meal for martyred Belgium? The mass of the American people do not need to deny themselves anything to give to Belgium. The whole standard of living on the American Continent, in the United States and Canada, is so much higher than the European standard that if they lowered the scale by one-tenth just for one six months the Belgium problem would be solved.

I say to the American people that they cannot conceive what this strain upon the populations of Europe is at this moment, and, in the cruel grip of Winter, hundreds of thousands will agonize till death or relief comes. In Australia in drought times vast flocks of sheep go traveling with shepherds looking for food and water, and no flock ever comes back as it went forth. Not in flocks guided by shepherds, but lonely, hopeless units, the Belgian people take flight, looking for food and shelter, or remain paralyzed by the tragedy fallen upon them in their own land.

Their sufferings are majestic in simple heroism and uncomplaining endurance. So majestic in proportion ought the relief to be. The Belgian people are wards of the world. In the circumstances the Belgian people are special wards of the one great country that is secure in its peace and that by its natural instincts of human sympathy and love of freedom is best suited to do the work that should be done for Belgium. If every millionaire would give a thousand, if every man with $100 a month would give $10, the American Committee for the Relief of Belgium, with its splendid organization, its unrivaled efficiency, through which flows a tide of human sympathy, would be able to report at the end of the war that a small nation in misfortune had been saved from famine and despair by a great people far away, who had responded to the call, "Come over and help us!"

GILBERT PARKER.



A CORRECTION.

Under the head of "Russia's 'Little Brother,'" on Page 364 of this magazine history, in its issue of Dec. 26, 1914, appeared a statement taken from The New York Sun of Oct. 12, 1914, and attributed to George Bakhmeteff, Russian Ambassador at Washington. Our attention has been called to the following editorial paragraph printed by The Sun on Oct. 14, embodying the Russian Ambassador's denial of its authenticity:

The Sun on Monday printed in good faith what it believed to be an authorized statement of the views and sentiments of Mr. George Bakhmeteff, Russian Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Bakhmeteff telegraphs to us from Washington as follows:

"I most emphatically deny having spoken one single word to the reporter who published an interview with me in your paper. I have not even seen one, and must insist on your publishing this very categorical and direct statement."

Of course, we publish the Ambassador's denial not less in justice to our readers and to ourselves than to him, at the same time expressing our extreme regret that The Sun should have been led to believe that it was presenting the Russian case as viewed by Mr. Bakhmeteff with his full acquiescence.

We add our cordial regret to that of The Sun that this repudiated statement should have gained further circulation.—Editor.



[English Cartoon]

Certainly Not!

THE END