JJ5M 
 
iloral 3s!s;ues! of tfje 
 (great War 
 
 d^^ 
 
 GEORGE R. DODSON 
 
 Minister of the Church of the Unity 
 ST. LOUIS. MO. 
 
 i#i# 
 
 SERMON OF 
 APRIL 7th. 1918 
 
i^^"^' 
 
 
 In the present crisis, which is certainly one of the great- 
 est in history, our first duty is to understand the issues 
 involved, for the reason that we must know what is true if 
 we are to do what is right. In speaking on this theme the 
 minister makes use of a much appreciated privilege and he 
 also fulfils a duty. He cannot leave it alone if he would, 
 and he would not if he could. No form of service is more 
 needed than that which he tries to render; none promises 
 more for human welfare than that of the thinker and teacher 
 who clarifies thought, illuminates difficult situations and 
 sets in clear light the ideals that are our true goals. 
 
 Nothing will conduce more to winning the war, to a 
 victory which will bring a lasting peace, than a perfect un- 
 derstanding by the American people of the principles at 
 stake and of the frightful disaster which a failure on our part 
 would bring not only upon us but upon all that we care for 
 in the world. If we are clear-sighted and resolute, we may 
 have good hope of a victory which shall be a victory of the 
 finest ideals of civilization, a victory in which even Germany 
 will sometime rejoice. That country has taken and main- 
 tains an attitude such that her defeat is a necessity of civili- 
 zation. Our victory, to bring peace to the world, must be 
 not only physical but moral. And there can be no moral 
 victory unless the world understands the real significance 
 of what has happened, unless the Germans, the neutrals, 
 and we ourselves see with perfect clearness that the defeat 
 of Germany is the natural and inevitable consequence of 
 her moral isolation, and that this moral isolation necessarily 
 results from her policy — a policy which will always arouse 
 the hostility of the world against the nation that adopts it. 
 
 Rarely in human history have the main facts been so 
 indisputable or the principles involved so clear. Never in 
 all time, perhaps, has a nation entered a great struggle more 
 deliberately or with a greater purity and nobility of motive. 
 We are under no illusions of ambition. We know that we 
 can gain no territory, wealth, trade or material advantage 
 of any kind, and we fully realize the sacrifices we are making 
 of human life and happiness. The cost in blood and treasure 
 will be incalculable, yet we pay it because we must, because 
 only in this way can we protect that which gives to life its 
 worth. And when we have won, we shall have gained nothing 
 for ourselves which other nations, our enemies included, 
 will not enjoy. 
 
 —2— 
 
To the clear minds which for years have watched the 
 coming of the storm, it is all as light as noonday. The mass 
 of the people understood by instinct. They were, therefore, 
 never neutral in feeling, for from the very beginning there 
 was a recognition of the fact that the success of German 
 policy in the world would make American democracy im- 
 possible. This feeling was profoundly just, as it is perfectly 
 easy to show. It was morally impossible for this nation to 
 stand apart and see others battling desperately for interests 
 which are ours as much as theirs, and it became more and 
 more clear that if they failed we would go down in their fall. 
 It was well to be deliberate and reluctant, possibly even 
 when the treatment of Belgium and the sinking of the Lusi- 
 tania showed the nature of the power that threatened us, 
 but we could not, consistently either with our real interest 
 or our honor and self-respect, have put off our entrance 
 into the conflict a moment longer. 
 
 In our effort to understand the present crisis, we must 
 first of all put aside irrelevant and merely subsidiary ques- 
 tions. It is not helpful to talk about the private virtues of 
 the German people. These are ungrudgingly and gladly 
 admitted. Nor is it a question of the value of German 
 science and art. These, too, like the science and art of other 
 peoples, are of value to all men, and nobody wishes to dis- 
 parage or depreciate them in any way. Nor is it true, as 
 has often been asserted, that this war is a conflict without 
 principle, a struggle of greedy powers for purely material 
 advantage, in which case it would not matter much which 
 side wins. False, too, is the assertion that increasing arma- 
 ments have caused the war. In fact, the armament of France 
 and the British navy have saved Europe from the domination 
 of the Kaiser and the men about him. 
 
 The outstanding fact, which no sophistry or special 
 pleading can obscure, is that for several decades Germany 
 has been preparing to repeat on a grander scale her lucrative 
 conquests of the past. Germany has been built up largely 
 by war. Mirabeau said truly that ''War is the national 
 industry of Prussia." We see a definite policy steadily 
 adhered to. Silesia was taken, then Schleswig-Holstein, 
 Austria was defeated, and when complete preparation had 
 been made France was conquered and deprived of provinces 
 and an immense indemnity is exacted. The war of 1870 
 was a great financial success. It cost Germany about 250,- 
 000,000 dollars. All this France had to pay and three times 
 —3— 
 
as much more, and besides give up territory rich in minerals 
 and containing 1,500,000 people. 
 
 It has long been perfectly clear to the observing that a 
 new stroke was preparing. Just when it would come, we 
 did not know. That it would fall on France seemed certain. 
 If defeated, she would be drained of her wealth, stripped of 
 her colonies, deprived of her remainijig coal and iron fields, 
 and reduced to a position of complete dependence upon 
 Germany. Some few realized that even greater ambitions 
 were cherished by the autocratic rulers of Germany, but 
 when these facts were stated the average American 
 was incredulous, and it has taken the events of the war 
 to convince us that any country could act on a policy 
 so out of accord with our ideas of what is civilized and humane 
 and our feeling for what is right. 
 
 It is now evidettt that the attack was scientifically pre- 
 pared through many years, and that the men who dispose of 
 the resources of Germany, who direct its national policy, 
 who control education and through it direct public^sentiment, 
 were mobilizing all the resources of that mighty country in 
 order to repeat Bismarck's performance on an immense 
 scale. 
 
 One of the greatest advantages possessed by the men 
 who planned and brought on this war was their entire free- 
 dom from moral scruple. In the last two decades we have 
 become accustomed to the frank avowal of the doctrine that 
 ethical principles do not apply in international relations. 
 Of course, this is not new. Hegel taught it. He said the 
 state is sovereign and is responsible to nothing. But so 
 long as only philosophers talk this way, not much attention 
 is paid to ethical cynicism. The doctrine becomes a frightful 
 menace, however, when it is accepted by the people. For 
 it practically means that the state can do no wrong, that 
 what in the individual would be an atrocious crime the 
 state may without blame commit, if it is believed to be for 
 its interest. The world has been astonished by the ruthless 
 way in which the German government has carried on this 
 war, but it really had fair warning. The fact that it took 
 some time for other peoples to realize that in Germany ethics 
 is considered to be a private matter, which the state need not 
 regard, is much to their credit, but it was a great initial 
 disadvantage, since they failed to provide against an ethical 
 cynicism which seemed to them absurd. The policy of 
 
 —4— 
 
{rightfulness, of terrorizing the world into submission, was 
 announced beforehand, but that civilized men would carry 
 it out so thoroughly as Germany has done was, until we had 
 seen it, simply beyond belief. 
 
 ''Twelve years before the invasion of Belgium, the Gen- 
 eral Staff of the German Army in contravention of all the 
 principles of international law, instructed its Generals, 
 to quote its exact words, that 
 
 'A war conducted with energy cannot be direct- 
 ed merely against the combatants of the enemy 
 State and the positions they occupy, but it will 
 and must in like manner seek to destroy the total 
 intellectual and material resources of the latter. 
 The argument of war permits every belligerent 
 State to have recourse to all means which enable 
 it to attain the object of the war.' 
 
 "The same war manual provides that it is the duty of 
 German Commanders 'ruthlessly to employ the necessary 
 means of defense and intimidation.' And again, that a 
 commanding officer neglects his duty unless he resorts to 
 'the ruthless employment of such severity,'" 
 
 In all great wars there are occasions when infuriated 
 soldiers get beyond control and commit outrages, but this 
 is the first time that we have witnessed cruelty by order 
 from above, ruthlessness made a deliberate national policy. 
 There surely must have been times when German soldiers 
 and officers have obeyed with extreme reluctance the cruel 
 orders given. We like to believe the story of one of them 
 who was asked by a suffering civilian if he had a heart and 
 replied, "I had, but it is broken." Every report of 
 acts of generosity or sympathy has been to us like refreshing 
 rain to a land perishing from drought. We do not like to 
 believe that, though they obey their autocratic leaders in 
 outward acts, the German people have lost the human feel- 
 ings which would make it impossible for them to approve of 
 such acts, feelings without which men cease to be human. 
 
 In his address at Washington University recently, an 
 Italian officer translated the first and last sentences of a 
 proclamation found on the bodies of German soldiers killed 
 in the last great battles in Italy. In substance, they were 
 as follows: "Soldiers, as you pass into Italy, you must not 
 —5— 
 
allow yourselves to be influenced by pity for the Italian 
 women and children. Remember that revenge is sweet. 
 Soldiers, thip unwarlike Italian flesh must be no more to 
 you than the manure on the fields which are Italian today 
 and will be German tomorrow." 
 
 To speak of these things, or even to think of crucified 
 Belgium and tortured Armenia, is painful, so painful that 
 we face these facts only because we must, because it is nec- 
 essary to realize that the men who decide when and how 
 Germany makes war stop at absolutely nothing. Apparently 
 they are trying now to destroy the recuperative power of 
 France and England so that even though these countries 
 win they will be ruined. Everything has been thought of, 
 nothing is left to chance, not even cruelty. Nothing is to 
 stand in the way of success. Anything that can strike 
 terror into other peoples is regarded as legitimate and all 
 who protest called hypocrites, it being incredible to the 
 military masters of Germany that others should be moved 
 by principles to which they are insensible. 
 
 What would be the consequences of German victory? 
 They are clear beyond the slightest doubt. Among them 
 would be — 
 
 1. The ruin of France. The reason is apparent at a 
 glance. France would cease to be an industrial nation be- 
 cause she would lose her remaining resources of coal and iron. 
 She was crippled in 1870, being deprived at that time of 
 part of her mineral-bearing lands. To give up the rest, 
 as she must in case of a German victory, would be to surrender 
 first her economic independence and then necessarily her 
 political independence. According to the International 
 Geological Congress of 1913, Germany has fifty-five per cent 
 of Europe's coal, i. e., twice as much as all the continental 
 states, twice as much as Great Britain, and twenty-five times 
 as much as France. Recently she has taken three-fourths 
 of what remained to France, and the few coal fields still in 
 French possession are thin and irregular. 
 
 In this war Germany has also secured possession of the 
 principal iron fields of France, and if she is able to keep them 
 and the coal lands beside, she will grow rapidly in population 
 and power, while France, dependent upon Germany for these 
 essentials factors of industrial life, will shrink to small pro- 
 portions. Her birth rate will fall still lower and her people, 
 unable to make a living at home, will have to emigrate. This 
 
 —6— 
 
is the last chance of this great country. If she goes down 
 now, she cannot by any possibility regain her place in the 
 world. Germany, with the coal and iron and potash lands 
 of France, Poland and western Russia, will be absolute 
 master of Europe's resources and consequently irresistible. 
 France, like ancient Greece, will be irretrievably ruined and 
 her greatness, her service to art, and science and human 
 culture, will soon be a memory. She can live only as her 
 German neighbors permit. Without coal, iron or industry, 
 she can never again equip a fleet and atmy, and must be 
 counted out in any future struggles for democracy. 
 
 2. It is now beyond question that the Kaiser and his 
 supporters meant to break up and succeed to the British 
 Empire. What would the world gain or lose if this attempt 
 were to succeed? Again, the answer is obvious. The 
 British Empire is not really an empire. It is not even a 
 league to enforce peace. It is actually a voluntary associa- 
 tion of self-governing nations. If Canada or Australia, 
 for instance, decided to sever the bonds of union with the 
 mother country, not the slightest resistance would be offered. 
 Up to the time the present war broke out, all nations, Ger- 
 many included, were free to trade wherever waved the 
 British flag. The only cases that even looked like an excep- 
 tion were the few in which the colonies themselves, for 
 revenue purposes and over English protest, established a 
 tariff and gave some preference in duties to British merchants. 
 
 Suppose all this changed, and that the German flag were 
 flying over the British colonies. No one doubts that an 
 empire controlled by the Kaiser and his associates would be 
 a real empire. Coercion would take the place of the present 
 voluntary association, and everything would be exploited 
 in the interest of the autocratic masters of the world. 
 
 The colonies realize this and do not wish to give up 
 their practical independence for a regime of coercion, of 
 direction from Berlin. What the change would mean is 
 clear even in India. Few people adequately realize that 
 India is not a nation, but a vast land inhabited by peoples 
 differing extremely in racial stock, language, stage of culture 
 and religion. It had been a cockpit for centuries, suffering 
 from an anarchy so complete that it can hardly be said to 
 have a history. English influence in India was for a long 
 time that of merchants and traders, and the government 
 took over the affairs of the India Company only when it 
 
 —7— 
 
became absolutely necessary. Even today native states 
 comprise one third of the area, and contain one-fourth of 
 the population of the country. 
 
 The British government has recently pledged itself to 
 give India self-government as fast as natives can be trained 
 to take the responsibility. Sir Francis Younghusband 
 writes, — "The goal of British policy in India is no longer in 
 doubt. It has been stated clearly and authoritatively and 
 quite recently. It is not the perpetual maintenance of 
 the present bureaucratic autocracy, the continuance of 
 benevolent despotism. It is, as announced in Parliament 
 last August, the increasing association of Indians in every 
 branch of the administration, and the gradual development 
 of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive 
 realization of responsible government in India as an integral 
 part of the British Empire. Ultimate self-government, 
 to be gained by successive stages is then the goal of British 
 policy in India." That is, the English are trying to do in 
 India what we are aiming at in the Philippines. Success 
 requires time and patience. If the English should leave 
 India, there is every reason to suppose that it would slip 
 back into the hideous mess in which they found it, just as 
 a sudden abandonment of our East Indian islands would 
 mean, not freedom to their populations, but the alternation 
 of anarchy and Oriental tyranny, which are the only things 
 they have ever known. 
 
 German success would mean, if not the end of the hope- 
 ful democratic movements in the world, at least a tremendous 
 reverse for human liberty. For self-governing peoples the 
 state is a means to an end, the end being the welfare and 
 happiness of individual men, women and children. The 
 business of the state is to provide and maintain secure and 
 favorable conditions of life, leave personal initiative free, 
 and use the least possible coercion. Our so-called rulers 
 are, and realize that they are, our agents. This regime has 
 certain defects and is at a disadvantage when it has to do 
 with autocratic militant neighbors, but it opens a career 
 to every talent, gives hope and opportunity to all, and de- 
 velops liberty-loving, resourceful men. 
 
 The German theory is that the state is an entity, superior 
 to the people, and in the present autocratic social organiza- 
 tion of Germany the initiative is with a group of men who 
 feel that they rule by divine right. Impulsion is from the 
 
 —8— 
 
top. Every man stands on a certain level and must accept 
 direction from above. Docile to those higher up, he may be 
 domineering to the unfortunate ones below. Intolerable 
 as a such a regime is to men and women who have grown up 
 under freer institutions, it is especially effective both in war 
 and in preparation for war. The whole resources of the 
 nation can be mobilized and disposed of by a single will. 
 The present war has shown that democracies are at a 
 tremendous disadvantage when contending with an autoc- 
 racy and that they can never enjoy any security in a world 
 which is part autocratic and part free. 
 
 3. What a German victory would mean to the United 
 States stands before us in vivid light. There are only two 
 possibilities. We must either submit to German dictation 
 and acquiesce in a German policy of exploitation throughout 
 the world, or fight. The domineering temper of the Imperial 
 government could hardly be changed for the better by victory 
 and mastery of Europe's resources. Sons of such fathers 
 as we have had, we know that we could not tamely submit. 
 The inevitable consequence of German victory would be 
 war. For a century we can not reasonably expect anything 
 but war or gigantic preparations for war. In either event, 
 we must definitely bid good-bye to the America we have 
 loved so much. 
 
 Why this is so, why it can not possibly be otherwise, is 
 evident. Democracy is not compatible with war. Many 
 a battle has been won by a poor general, never one by a 
 debating society. When a democracy engages in war, one 
 of the first things it has to do is to confer vast powers upon 
 its executive. All the resources of the country must be at 
 the disposal of those who are responsible for the direction 
 of the war. The old liberties, the private rights so dear to 
 the common man, must be given up while the conflict lasts. 
 It is but a little while since we entered the great war, and 
 already we have conscription, government control of rail- 
 ways and of business, and we are finding out what it is 
 to be told what we may eat and wear. This is only a be- 
 ginning, and we are prepared to submit to further restriction 
 and control, because when peace returns we expect a return 
 of the old conditions. But unless we win and the German 
 autocracy which brought this great disaster upon the world 
 is defeated, the old conditions will not and can not possibly 
 return either in our lifetime or in that of our children. In 
 —9 — 
 
the terrific conflict we would have to wage against the mighti- 
 est empire in history, one that is influenced by no moral 
 scruples whatever, this country would have to centralize 
 and organize its administration in a more effective way or 
 lie prostrate like Russia before a ruthless conqueror. The 
 impossibility of the co-existence of American democracy 
 and the German autocracy bent on conquest, is so obvious 
 that all the world can see. 
 
 Which shall triumph? Shall democracy go down before 
 the Kaiser and centuries elapse before such life as we have 
 known be possible again? Or are we to escape the eclipse 
 of freedom, and enter an era of friendly co-operation of all 
 nations, small as well as great, weak as well as strong, in 
 the task of building of civilization? This, and no other, is 
 the question we must answer. What is before us is not war 
 in the abstract, but this war which we could avoid only 
 through surrender of what gives life its worth. The heart 
 of the American people is sound, and their instincts unper- 
 verted, and this is why, although opposed to war in general, 
 they are whole-hearted and resolute in this war. What they 
 felt from the beginning they now clearly see, despite insidious 
 propaganda and the confusion wrought by those who can not 
 distinguish the main question which alone matters now from 
 the many subsidiary and more irrelevant questions which 
 they constantly seek to bring into the foreground. Fortu- 
 nately we saw the truth in time, and did not, from blindness 
 or baseness, put off the acceptance of our rightful share in 
 the struggle until we could no longer find allies in the world. 
 
 4. What a German victory would mean for France. 
 Great Britain and the United States I have tried to show. 
 What would be the fate of the rest of our allies I must pass 
 over that I may have space to make clear one result of the 
 greatest consequence to all the contending nations, to the 
 neutrals — in fact, to civilization. The eftect of Teutonic 
 success would be to give increased prestige among all peoples 
 to the German view that ethics counts for nothing in inter- 
 national relations; that the state as a mystical, transcendental 
 and supreme entity, may do what seems to it for its own inter- 
 est and disregard right and wrong as mere private and 
 individual interests. Whence this ethical cynicism? It 
 has already been said that Hegel taught it. That does not 
 mean that he is solely or chiefly responsible for its present 
 vogue. In fact, both he and Fichte can be quoted in support 
 of the opposite view. Moreover, although what they said is 
 —10— 
 
strangely like what Germany is now saying and although 
 they helped "to provide the Junkers with their philosophy," 
 the main cause of the political demoralization is more 
 recent. But it is worth while to note in passing that 
 while the systems of these famous thinkers are obsolete, 
 some ideas which ''originated as parts of their remote and 
 technical systems have, by multitudes of non-refiective 
 channels, infiltrated into the habits of imagination and 
 thought" of the present generation, and now serve as the 
 "framework of a national fanaticism." 
 
 This amazing ethical cynicism is probably due primarily 
 not to any philosophy but to successful and lucrative vio- 
 lence from Frederick the Great to Bismarck. But intelligent 
 men are prone to defend their policies before others and justify 
 them for themselves by some philosophy or other, and the 
 chief reliance of the German intellectuals of today is upon 
 a form of neo-Darwinism. An American scholar, Professor 
 Vernon Kellogg, who, as chief representative of the American 
 Relief Commission, used to frequent the Great Headquarters 
 of all the German armies in the West, has had excellent op- 
 portunities for knowing the real convictions of the men of 
 light and leading — "men who had exchanged, for the moment, 
 the academic robes of the Aula for the field-gray uniforms 
 of the army." Their view in substance is as follows: 
 
 Human evolution is the result of natural selection in 
 a struggle which is rigorous and ruthless. Within limited 
 social groups, such as nations, it is possible and permissible 
 to give some scope to altruism or the law of mutual aid, but 
 the competition between these groups is of the exterminating 
 kind and is not to be limited in any way. 
 
 This gospel of the German intellectual class is clearly 
 and concisely stated by Professor Kellogg in the Atlantic 
 Monthly for August, 1917. "This struggle not only must 
 go on, for that is the natural law, but it should go on, so 
 that this natural law may work out, in its cruel, inevitable 
 way, the salvation of the human species. By its salvation 
 is meant its desirable natural evolution. That human group 
 which is in the most advanced evolutionary stage as regards 
 internal organization and form of social relationship is best, 
 and should, for the sake of the species, be preserved at the 
 expense of the less advanced, the less effective. It should 
 win in the struggle for existence, and this struggle should 
 occur precisely that the various types may be tested, and 
 the best not only preserved, but put in a position to impose 
 —11— 
 
its kind of social organization — its Kultur — on the others, 
 or, alternatively to destroy and replace them." 
 
 That this justification of military aggression, this "rea- 
 soned savagery," is a misinterpretation of Darwinism, or 
 rather of the process of evolution, is not hard to show, or 
 would not be hard toshow, if reason were the court of decision. 
 But the Germans have appealed to Mars. Let the conflict 
 decide, they say. "If Germany is beaten, it will prove that 
 she has moved along the wrong evolutionary line, and should 
 be beaten. If she wins, it will prove that she is on the right 
 way, and that the rest of the world, at least that part which 
 we and the allies represent, is on the wrong way and should, 
 for the sake of the right evolution of the human race, be 
 stopped, and put on the right way — or else be destroyed as 
 unfit." 
 
 Precisely, and here is the moral danger of civilization. 
 The Germans believe this, and if they win they will interpret 
 their victory as nature's justification of their philosophy 
 and their war of aggression and conquest. "If nature and 
 reality be for us, who can be against us?" Who would ever 
 dare in the future to assert that ethical principles apply 
 in international relations? Not only does such a view lead 
 kind-hearted men to defend the wholesale murder of the 
 Lusitania passengers and the ruin of Belgium and northern 
 France and pervert their moral judgment of the whole war, 
 but it makes it impossible to hope to convince them by 
 argument. When men say, "We appeal to struggle and wait 
 for nature's decision," other men can only fight or submit. 
 And no nation that sincerely holds this view will ever live 
 peacefully with its neighbors if it thinks that in a war of 
 conquest its chances are good. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the effect of a Teuton victory would 
 be to confirm the Germans in their belief that ethical prin- 
 ciples are restricted in their application within limited groups 
 and need not be regarded by nations in their dealings with 
 one another. Moreover, similar conclusions would be drawn 
 in other countries and the demoralization would be wide- 
 spread. That this was actually the effect upon English opinion 
 of the apparent prosperity of France under Napoleon the 
 Third, has been pointed out by John Morley in a memorable 
 passage in his essay entitled "On Compromise": 
 
 "A minor event, which now looks much less important 
 than it did not many years ago, but which still had real 
 —12— 
 
influence in deteriorating moral judgment, was the career 
 of the late sovereign of France. Some apparent advantages 
 followed for a season from a rule which had its origin in a 
 violent and perfidious usurpation, and which was upheld by 
 all the arts of moral corruption, political enervation, and 
 military repression. The advantages lasted long enough 
 to create in this country a steady and powerful opinion that 
 Napoleon the Third's early crime was redeemed by the 
 seeming prosperity which followed. The shocking pre- 
 matureness of this shallow condonation is now too glaringly 
 visible for anyone to deny it. Not often in history has the 
 great truth that morality is the nature of things received 
 corroboration so prompt and timely." 
 
 Then, after pointing out that moral principles record 
 uniformities of antecedence and consequence in the region 
 of human conduct, Mr. Morley rightly says that "Want of 
 faith in the persistence of these uniformities is only a little 
 less fatuous in the moral order than a corresponding want of 
 faith would instantly disclose itself to be in the purely physi- 
 cal order. In both orders there is only too much of this kind 
 of fatuousness, this readiness to believe that once in our 
 favor the stream shall flow up hill, that we may live in mias- 
 matic air unpoisoned, that a government may depress the 
 energy, the self-reliance, the public spirit of its citizens, and 
 yet be able to count on these qualities whenever the govern- 
 ment itself may have broken down, and left the country to 
 make the best of such resources as are left after so severe 
 and prolonged a drain. This is the sense in which morality 
 is the nature of things. The system of the Second Empire 
 was in the same sense an immoral system. Unless all the 
 lessons of human experience were futile, and all the principles 
 of political morality mere articles of pedantry, such a system 
 must inevitably bring disaster, as we might have seen that it 
 was sowing the seeds of disaster. Yet because the catas- 
 trophe lingered, opinion in England began to admit the 
 possibility of evil being for this once good, and to treat any 
 reference to the moral and political principles which con- 
 demned the imperial system, and all systems like it, beyond 
 hope or appeal, as simply the pretext of mutinous or Utopian 
 impatience." 
 
 Who can read these words without gratitude to the 
 writer for a statement of such incomparable clearness? 
 The circumstances are different, the conflict in this instance 
 —13— 
 
is on a colossal scale, but the principles involved are the same, 
 BO that we know perfectly well what will happen if Germany 
 wins. This neo-Darwinian philosophy, which is not due 
 to Darwin and is not accepted by representative biologists, 
 but is merely the translation into intellectual terms of the 
 lust for the wealth, trade and possessions of others and of 
 a brutal and merciless disregard of the rights of small states, 
 will be transformed into a gospel. And the truth of this 
 gospel will be widely supposed to be established by the de- 
 cision of nature in its favor. Its apostles will be " Messieurs 
 les ministres du culte evangelique de I'armee du roi de Prusse" 
 and those who refuse to accept the faith will have a hard time. 
 
 If, on the other hand, this long prepared and wonder- 
 fully organized attack upon the democratic peoples meets 
 with a decisive defeat, one great, very great and permanent 
 moral gain for the whole world will result from the war. 
 For mankind can hardly fail to see and be impressed with the 
 fact that Germany's disaster followed inevitably from her 
 contempt for ethics. There is a moral order which she 
 refused to recognize. This aroused the hostility of nearly 
 all the civilized world against and ensured her defeat. There 
 can be but one conclusion from the facts. If Germany, 
 with the most perfect military and administrative mechanism 
 in all history, with all its resources mobilized in preparation 
 for a struggle which other nations could hardly believe 
 possible and with deep-laid plans to stir up treason and 
 revolution in other countries and if need be set the world 
 on fire, — if with all this Germany fails, who can hope to 
 succeed in such undertakings in the future? To make such 
 an attempt will henceforth be recognized as suicidal; it is 
 to dash one's self against the hard, sharp corners of the uni- 
 verse; it is to collide with the nature of things. The greatest 
 hope of the world's peace depends not only on a German 
 defeat, but also upon the clear perception by victors, van- 
 quished and neutral spectators of the reason why this outcome 
 was inevitable. We shall not feel secure, or be secure, until 
 this great nation enters with her sister nations into the way 
 of international law and co-operation and peace to walk 
 henceforth therein, until all civilized peoples have the moral 
 perception to see the signboard which stands over the entrance 
 to every other road,— NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 Our failure would, then, tend to support the view that 
 the nature of things decided for German autocracy as against 
 —14— 
 
democratic institutions, and for the Kaiser's methods and 
 principles in making, conducting and profiting by the war 
 as against those who trusted in a moral order and tried to 
 conform thereto not only their private life but their national 
 and international policy. We would have to live in a world 
 in which cynical might is apparently triumphant and ideals 
 only beautiful dreams that ruin those who try to make them 
 come true. Moreover, this regime would be fastened upon 
 Germany as well as upon the rest of the world. 
 
 Which do we want and which shall we have? It must 
 be the one or the other. The result depends more and more 
 upon American intelligence, resourcefulness and the resolute 
 use of our power to the end. When these issues, the real 
 issues of the war, are seen, it is clear that our triumph will 
 mean the salvation not only of ourselves, but ultimately 
 of Germany as well, that is, if we assume that progress lies 
 in the direction of human freedom and not in the direction 
 of autocracy. The Persians were a noble race, but civiliza- 
 tion depended upon the victory of Greece. The Saracens 
 were knightly and valiant soldiers, but if they had conquered 
 Europe would have been Mohammedan, the cross would 
 have given way to the crescent, and woman would have had 
 to enter the harem. The rough soldiers of Charles Martel 
 saved Europe and Christendom. 
 
 Once more civilization, as least the free type of civiliza- 
 tion that we love, is in mortal peril. We must fight with 
 all we have and are. I believe we shall triumph. If we 
 should not, who would care to live? We did not make the 
 crisis. It is ours to face it with clear intelligence, resolute 
 with courage and hope. We may reasonably hope that when 
 the German people are cured of their belief in conquest, 
 when they are disillusioned, as the French people were a 
 century ago, they will be ready to enter the fraternity of 
 nations as an equal among equals and without aspiring to 
 impose their social type upon the rest. When this time comes, 
 the last great struggle of men against men will, perhaps, be 
 over. For if the nations now at war combine to have peace, 
 nobody else can fight. Then all peoples will together engage 
 in the one great war that will last to the end of our race, 
 namely, that against chaos, ignorance, poverty and disease, 
 and in this war, like different regiments in one army, march 
 all one way. 
 
 —15 — 
 
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