S ItBRARtBS 3 THE WAR AND AMERICA BOOKS BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG Psychology and Life ■pp. 286, Boston. 1S99 Grundziige der Psychologie pp. 665, Leipzig, 1900 American Traits pp. 235, Boston, 1902 Die Amerikaner pp. 602 and 349, Berlin, 1904 {Rev. 1912) Principles of Art Education pp. 118, New York, 1905 The Eternal Life pp. 72, Boston, 1905 Science and Idealism pp. 71, Boston, 1906 Philosophic der Werte pp. 486, Leipzig, 1907 On the Witness Stand pp. 269, New York, 1908 Aus Deutsch-Amerika pp. 245, Berlin, 1909 The Eternal Values pp. 436, Boston, 1909 Psychotherapy pp. 401, New York, 1909 Psychology and the Teacher pp. 330, New York, 1910 American Problems pp. 220, New York, 1910 Psychologie und Wirtschaftsleben pp. 192, Leipzig, 1912 Vocation and Learning pp. 289, St. Louis, 1912 Psychology and Industrial Efficiency pp. 321, Boston, 1913 American Patriotism pp. 262, New York, 1913 Grundziige der Psychotechnik pp. 767, Leipzig, 1914 Psychology and Social Sanity pp. 320, New York, 1914 Psychology, General and AppL*'?d pp. 487, New York. 1914 The War and America New York, 1914 THE WAR AND AMERICA BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1915 COPTBIGHT, 1914, BT D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America TO ALL LOVERS OF FAIR PLAY PEEFACE This book discusses the essential factors and issues in the European war and their meaning and import for America. The hour for an im- personal account of the war has certainly not yet come, and may not come for a long while. What our time can contribute is the reflection of the great war in the minds of individuals. A story of memories and impressions, of fears and hopes, has to-day more inner truth than any history of the struggle apparently written with an historian 's coolness. This diary, therefore, views the events as they unfold themselves from week to week, from the angle of personal experiences. Life has brought me into close contact with much which is essential in this war. Hence my studies may help toward a better understanding of facts and feelings which are easily misunder- stood in America. I publish the book, of which the emphasis lies in the last paper, before the war is ended. Whatever more the struggle may bring refers to outer events, to the harvest of the guns, to victory or defeat. It cannot change the issues with which these pages have to do. They do not speak of soldiers and strategy and the chances of the battlefield; they speak of right and wrong; they speak of eternal values. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGB I. The Aggressors 1 11. The Anti-German Sentiment ... 15 III. The German-Americans 47 IV. The Threatened Provinces .... 57 V. The English 68 VI. Philosophers 79 VII. The Russians 92 VIII. The German Policy 108 IX. The Kaiser 124 X. The Silent Voices 138 XI. The Americans 155 XII. The Morals of the War 175 Note 209 THE WAR AND AMERICA THE AGGKESSOKS War is declared — the extra numbers of the papers shout it through the streets — War is declared. The war is declared. There have been wars as long as mankind remembers, but this is not a war like others. This is the war which will stand out from the world's history like a Titan among the pigmies. This is the war in which undreamed-of armies will storm against each other; the war in which the battles will be fought on land and sea, under the water and high in the air ; the war in which the ground of the whole globe will be shaken. How peaceful was our yesterday ! How it was filled with the work and the joy, the good-will and the stress, the pleasantness and the littleness of the passing lackadaisical 1 THE WAR AND AMERICA hours ! And suddenly a lightning and a thun- der crash and a cry through the world ; and we stand in a time of which men will speak through all the future ages. Passions will be ablaze, streams of blood will drench all Europe, temples will fall and sacred treas- i ures will be destroyed, works of art and of science will be thrown in the dust, hundreds of thousands will die and hundreds of mil- lions will suffer — it is an end, and nowhere a beginning. Is it a terrible nightmare of our dreams I Were these peoples not bound together by innumerable ties of social and moral, eco- nomic and cultural intercourse? Were Ber- lin and Paris and Petersburg and Vienna and Rome and London not the sparkling cen- ters of one great European Fair, hospitable to every guest, glittering with international spirit? Their scholars and writers and paint- ers, their inventors and engineers and social reformers, worked for the world, and the world welcomed them and forgot all boun- dary lines. The national armies of Euro- pean civilization marched shoulder to shoul- der; was ever a war more unnatural, more superfluous, more horrible, than this sudden 2 THE AGGRESSORS clash among friends? Has not a frivolous, reckless militarism won a distressing and scandalous triumph over the powers of culture ? And yet was ever a war more natural, more unavoidable! It is central Europe's des- perate defense against the mighty neighbors of east and west who have prepared and pre- pared for the crushing blow to the Germanic nations. This war had to come sooner or later. Russia spent billions to be ready to push the steam roller of its gigantic popula- tion over the German frontier. France armed as no civilized nation ever armed be- fore; even the educated had to serve three years in the army against the one year's service in Germany. For decades the French did not allow Germany an hour to rest with- out armor. Germany's pacific and industrious popula- tion had only the one wish: to develop its agricultural and industrial, its cultural and moral resources. It had no desire to expand its frontiers over a new square foot of land in Europe. It aimed to unfold its commerce over the markets of the world and to build up a great national literature and art and 3 THE WAR AND AMERICA science. It became prosperous and even lux- urious. But never did the neighbors allow to Germany a pause in its training of patriotic defenders. The neighbors begrudged this prosperity of the fatherland which had been weak and poor and through centuries satis- fied with songs and thoughts and dreams. They threatened and threatened by ever in- creasing armaments. Germany had to spend a vast part of its material and mental income in a hard preparation for defense. All geographical chances were against the fatherland, which was to be attacked from two sides. Only one advantage was at its dis- posal. Germany ^s small territory allows mobilization and concentration in a few days, while Eussia needs as many weeks to bring its tremendous hordes to the frontier. Hence Germany's only hope was, in case of Russian mobilization, not to wait until the Russians had completed their movements but to at- tack as soon as the Czar began to draw up his troops to its boundaries. To delay the German attack after such a Russian order to mobilize would mean to throw away the only chance for defense. Germany was on the lookout. Yet only a few weeks ago, no Ger- 4 THE AGGRESSORS man, high or low, foresaw that such a de- cisive move of Russia was so near. All Ger- many was on a vacation, in the mountains and at the sea. The Emperor was enjoying his yearly summer trip in Norway. Nobody thought of imminent danger until the events overtook the world. Servians had killed the heir of the Aus- trian throne and Austria discovered that Servia itself stood behind the dastardly deed. Austria insisted on a severe punishment of all concerned and sent an ultimatum to Servia. Belgrade was willing to yield com- pletely to its great neighbor, but at noontime of the day on which the ultimatum was to end, a cipher telegram from Petersburg ar- rived, and the message of the Russian gov- ernment to the Servian reversed the mood of the little kingdom. The bellicose Servian Crown Prince, standing in his automobile, drove jubilantly through the excited crowds on the streets, and a few hours later a re- fusal was sent to Vienna which could mean nothing but war. The Czar had instigated it and was consistent : the Russian empire was to back little Servia against its foes. He gave orders to mobilize the whole Russian army. 5 THE WAR AND AMERICA The German Emperor hurried home and found that the Russian troops were being concentrated on the frontier. He implored the Czar to abstain from this threatening move, and he reminded him of his pledge to his dying grandfather to keep peace with Russia as long as possible; he urged him to consider how Germany had helped the Rus- sian cause in one conflict after another and had allowed Russia to evacuate its eastern frontiers in the war with Japan, pledging peace in the hours of Russia's weakness. But all was of no avail. On the other hand, Austria felt that it could not withdraw from its demands to Servia. If the Servian at- tacks which culminated in the assassinatioi? remained unpunished, the Pan-Slavic agita tion at its doors would soon grow to a poitt at which the Slavic provinces of Austria it- self would be inflamed and the whole Aus- trian empire would break in pieces and be- come annihilated. This was evidently the hope of Russia, which would gain by it th'^ control of the Balkans and of Constantinopl The German Emperor nevertheless pron ised the Czar to urge his Austrian ally toward mediation, if, meanwhile, Russ = 6 THE AGGRESSORS would only pause in mobilizing the troops. But the Czar was stubborn. His armies were marching on, and as Boon as the eastern colossus began to move, at the signal of Rus- sia, France too mobilized at once. No Ger- man protest helped. Now Germany knew that the dreaded hour of the twofold attack against its homes had come. It answered with a quick declaration of war. This was the one act which was necessary for Ger- many's defense. Surely, although Germany made the declaration, this is a war against Germany, and it is a sin against the spirit of history to denounce Germany as the ag- gressor. It may be the declaration of war came too late. Perhaps it would have been better if Germany had really had something of the aggressive temper which hostile critics now seek in its deed. Then it would have fallen upon Russia when it was bleeding from the war with Japan. Then it would have turned .^gainst France when England was held by its />oer war. But Germany had for more than orty years the one desire to have peace in •rder to develop its inner energies. Aggres- bn was foreign to its policies and plans. 7 THE WAR AND AMERICA It allowed all its chances for easy victory to pass. Will it suffer from this persistent peacef ulness 1 But I trust that the Germans will know how to protect the harvests of their fields. It is true no fanaticism sharpens their sword like those of the rivals; no craving for re- venge, no mad longing for new power. The Germans feel admiration for the French genius and have respect for their political aims. The Germans will feel no hatred against England either. To be sure, they think the English selfish, and they have suf- fered from that selfishness. But they look up to the masterful energy with which Eng- land pushes its world-wide interests of state. There is no nation of Europe with which Germany would like more to live in deepest harmony and peace than with Great Britain. Nor do the Germans grudge the advance of Russia from darkness; they have sympathy with the Russian inner struggles; they love Dostoievsky and Tolstoi. No, Germany's cause would be lost from the start, if only hatred could lead to victory. But something greater is at stake. Ger- mans are attacked; they must defend their 8 THE AGGRESSORS homes and they must defend them against an overwhebning number. Germans know that the fight is not for distant places or for the gains of the mighty, but that they must pro- tect wife and children, and a grim stolid de- termination will hold them firmly until the hour of decision is over. But they know also what a German defeat must mean to the ideal civilization of the world. The culture of Germany would be trampled down by the half-cultured Tartars. Strategically this may be Germany's war with France and Bel- gium and England as well as with Russia. But seen from the higher standpoint of cul- tural world history, it is exclusively a strug- gle between Russia and Germany. They are truly in an internal conflict. Russia feels that it must gain political predominance over its neighbor in order to win complete control of the Balkan. This is the meaning of the war. France and maybe England are simply making use of Germany's embarrassment and danger in order to tear Alsace-Lorraine and the African colonies and the world com- merce from it, while it is forced to wrestle with the eastern giant. Yet I trust in Germany's armor, even 9 THE WAR AND AMERICA thougli the enemy is overpowering. I trust in it, because I know that the German army is the whole healthy nation, held together not by a ruler's will nor by the enforced de- mand of a class but by the one common pas^ sionate wish to defend the German land against envy and jealousy. The tradition of a full century from the solemn days of Prussia's liberation from the Napoleonic yoke has ingrained in every heart this devo- tion to the army. Moreover, Germany has to a high degree overcome the apparent conflict which made the other enlightened nations suffer: the conflict between militarism and culture. It made the training in the army an educative schooling of the whole population for efficiency in every line of national work. The service in barrack and camp became a time of personal happiness, of social growth, of vocational advance. Army and nation be- came one as in no other land. Finally, the German masses may not be quick and versatile but they are thorough and persistent. German thoroughness has carried the day on the battlefields of science and scholarship ; it cannot have failed in the maneuver fields where the war of the future 10 THE AGGRESSORS was prepared. The Germans who must fight to-day have been brought up under the shadow of the feeling that revengeful neigh- bors were waiting for the hour to burn their villages and their towns; they have never been relieved from 'this tension; they knew that they had to keep the edge of the Ger- man sword sharp. It became an organic part of their life. Most Americans cannot think themselves into this German sentiment. They fancy that the workingman and the man behind the plow, the business man and the university man, hate and despise the army and that the gov- ernment to-day is forcing the rifle to their shoulders. The Americans of our time have never known the dread that the neighbors may to-morrow break into their homes and destroy the happiness of their hearths. Spain and Mexico were intermezzos, no dangers: excitements, but not deepest life concerns. But avery German has known it otherwise from his childhood days. Nature formed from its clay no creature with more peaceful instincts than myself ; yet the thought of the army was intertwined with every phase of my life. It is almost typical 11 THE WAR AND AMERICA that the earliest memory of my mind and the earliest preserved writing of my pen referred to war. Indeed, my conscious life begins with the vivid image of the scene when victorious hussars came back in 1866 from the battlefields of the short Prussian war with Austria. I was just three years old, and I see still how my parents held me on the window-sill and gave me a wreath to throw down on the riders when they came home from victory. The strong emotion must have impressed the picture on my consciousness, as I cannot remember anything before. And the first writing which was kept from my childhood was a childish poem written in 1870 when I was seven years of age, on the day of the declaration of war between Ger- many and France. It began in the German rhymes: ^^Der Krieg ist erklart; in die Hand nun das Schwerf — ^^The war is declared; take the sword in hand.** I could not fore- see that forty-four years later, far beyond the sea, I would have to begin once more my diary page — *^The war is declared.** With these two wars which my personal memory still embraces, the events began which led to the combinations of the present 12 THE AGGRESSORS war. In 1866 Prussia's predominant role in Germany was decided, but with a sure in- stinct for future needs, at the same time the political bridges were built on which Prussia and Austria could meet for the firm alliance of to-day. The war of 1870, recklessly stirred by the intolerance of imperial France, cre- ated the German empire, but at the same time it left in republican France that blind striving for the lost provinces which has con- trolled all its policies since that time. Again and again France threatened its neighbor with its warlike steps. I remember well in the early 'eighties, when I was a student in Heidelberg and the elections for the Reichs- tag were near, how our street corners were placarded with diagrams of fortresses and regiments showing the alarming growth of French preparations. There was no other talk among us students but the war which the French restlessness would force upon us. This feeling was aggravated when Russia's political ill will toward Germany became more violent. Soon came the time when we all were inspired by Bismarck's words, *^We Germans fear God and no one else in the world." They echoed in every German 13 THE WAR AND AMERICA heart and it was felt that they were meant for both the French and the Russian neigh- bor. The danger never disappeared. Some- times the tension became almost intolerable. Now the explosion has come. The Czar has decreed the war. France uses the long- hoped-for hour of Germany's danger. Ger- many is attacked on both sides ; Germany is forced to fight ; Germany must win or perish. But whoever wins, whoever loses, all Europe will suffer. The last day which I spent in Europe, sum- mer before last, I was in the ruins of Pom- peii. When the ship left the European coast, a dark cloud was hanging over Vesuvius and it looked as if the crater might break and endless masses of lava once more flood over the gay, flourishing villages. All the peo- ples of Europe have settled and toiled on the slopes of Vesuvius, and the crater has erupted, and the glowing torrent is again pouring over the homes of peaceful men. Will Europe, the beautiful, become a great Pompeii? n THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT Does the war fever make the whole world delirious? Are all feelings and emotions suddenly reversed, the sympathies of yester- day nothing but hatred to-day? Is the gigan- tic tragedy of Europe to be accompanied by a travesty of war on the pages of the Ameri- can paper world? We live in a neutral coun- try. Washington is not Petersburg; and yet can the outbursts of enmity toward Ger- many be harsher in the Czar^s country than on Broadway? Only one year ago the leading papers from Boston to Washington and from New York to San Francisco were outdoing one another in jubilant celebrations of William II, the peace Emperor, at the twenty-fifth anniver- sary of his splendid reign. The best men of the country, the stars in every line of work and thought, hailed the man on the German 15 THE WAR AND AMERICA throne who had been the strongest force for European peace and who had led the German people to triumphs in every peaceful art and endeavor. To-day, exactly the same news- papers which had the superb Sunday supple- ments devoted to Emperor William as the greatest and noblest leader of our time, vitu- perate him like a cancerous growth on the body of European politics, which should be eradicated by the knife of the surgeon. The Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs must fall: that is the cry around Times Square. Millionf old family ties link the Americans with the German people; import and export of the land's products, import and export of art and science, of educational and of social ideas, import and export of respect and good will, have bound the United States and Germany and Austria closely together. To- day, one surging wave of hatred has swept it all away. The columns of the papers are filled with absurd calumnies and the silliest denunciations. If a tenth of that which the press brings out about the German people were true — ^yes, were even possible — all that it has said about them year by year would have been reckless lies. 16 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT I believe sincerely that I should feel the same distress over this anti-German out- break, if my sympathies lay with the foes of Germany; because it deprives me of the ideal faith which has filled my heart for years, the faith in the fairness of the Amer- ican people. I have repeated incessantly in all my German writings about America that the desire for fairness is one of the deepest traits in the true American mind. How often have I heralded to the European readers the glory of the American law which treats everyone as innocent until the accusa- tion is proved and never condemns until the accused has had the fullest chance to pre- sent his side. Must I reverse all my en- thusiasm and my faith? American public opinion has accused and condemned the unde- fended; unfairly, cruelly, unworthily. But may not the social psychologist recog- nize another feature in the American mind which allows a different explanation of this baffling injustice? Nobody can analyze the mental habits of the new world without notic- ing the unusual degree of imitativeness and suggestibility. Every emotional: excitement produces a state in which the individual loses 17 THE WAR AND AMERICA his strength of intellect and will and charac- ter and becomes a mere automatic mechanism in which the thoughts and feelings and im- pulses of his neighbor control his mind. No other nation is so inclined to like uniformity and monotony in social life and ideas; none has so little room for individual differences. The American idea of a gentleman is of a man who is not conspicuous ; and the crowd always wants to follow the band wagon. Everyone tries to be ^4n if; everyone wears the same collar and the same hat, and reads the same novels and thinks the same about Europe. There is a lack of individual re- sistance to prescribed opinions which pro- duces in excited states a colorless whole- sale judgment which may be entirely dif- ferent from the natural stand of the sober single individuals. I still trust that just this is the case now. public opinion against Germany has not re- sulted from the unfairness of the single in- dividuals but from this thoughtless impulse to imitate as soon as a great excitement per- turbs the balanced mood. The first days the newspapers were filled with cablegrams from Germany's foes. Incredible rumors of 18 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT German atrocities, highly-colored reports of German evil intentions, falsehoods about the German people and the German leaders, were throAvn into the editorial offices from the English cables. The Germans had no chance. The papers reproduced these reports simply as they received them; the public in its ex- cited frame of mind accepted them without a grain of salt. This at once gave to public opinion a vivid impulse against Germany, and this first impulse of the crowd worked havoc in the editorial roomsTJ The newspapers, always eager to cater to the appetite of the masses, wanted to serve this new anti-German in- stinct. The result has been that they have not only reproduced the colored news but exaggerated its one-sidedness and have be- come more Catholic than the Pope. Every hateful bit of cable news must now flare out in big headlines. It is a systematic stirring- up of the anti-German sentiment, and the ab- normal increase of suggestibility in the mind of the masses has deprived them of the power to discriminate, to judge, to be fair. Those who are shocked by this wild onrush of anti-German sentiment ought not to think 19 THE WAR AND AMERICA only of their heartfelt pain and distress of to-day; they ought to think of the threaten- ing dangers of to-morrow. This clash of public opinion is not comparable to the wrangling on political issues. If America allows the spreading of such bitterness toward the German and Austrian nations from which almost a fourth of the American population descended, the American atmos- phere itself will become poisoned. The inner harmony of the nation will be threatened. America must remain neutral, must listen patiently to both sides and must be ready to sympathize with the defeated, wherever man- kind suffers. But more than that, American public opinion will necessarily have influence on the war itself. Those who foster this blind hatred for the land of the Teutons are morally pushing American citizens into the service of the Czar. America is ordained to be the great mediator in this world struggle, as the one great nation which is not imme- diately involved. / At least one duty falls at once on everyone a] who recognizes how public opinion has been led astray: the other side must be set forth. There is so little acquaintance with the true 20 V THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT causes of the war, such grotesque misunder- standing of the true conditions, such dis- torted perspective of European policies, that no one who knows the truth has a right to shirk this duty of proclaiming it. Almost a week of the war has passed by; so far I see not a single word against this unfair treat- ment of Germany. But someone must shout his ^'I accuse '* against this sentiment of hate and must demand fair play from the masses who are eager to lynch.^ Can the Americans blame me for speaking the first word ? Have I not done exactly the same for them on European soil? I was brought up in Europe's unfair prejudices against America. In Germany, in France, in England, everywhere, a silly caricature of the true American prevailed — the vulgar, semi-cultured American who does not know anything but smartness and the chase of the dollar. As soon as I recognized the brutal unfairness of these European ideas, I felt it as my personal task to fight this anti- Ameri- can sentiment in Europe. From ever new angles, I drew the picture of the true Ameri- can, full of idealism and spiritual enthusiasm and fairness; and my efforts were not in 21 THE WAR AND AMERICA vain. When the Spanish- American War was at its height, not a few German papers boasted of their anti-American feeling. It remained mild and was incomparable to the hatred against Germany which we see around us now. Yet I left no chance unused ; I bom- barded that anti- Americanism day by day, and the effects were felt. What I have done so persistently for twenty years in the in- terest of America may I not do for twenty weeks now in the interest of my fatherland? I have learned, like so many Germans in America, to see both countries with the eyes of love and to feel that the mutual under- standing of the two countries and their mu- tual fairness are daily needs in times of peace : how much more are they needed when the emotions are confused, and the world is wild, and mankind is drunk with blood. Fortunately the American newspapers have often proved their trust in my sincerity. I shall not fail them. I have begun at home. The editor of the Boston Herald has asked me to say a frank word for the German side. I am giving the following plea for justice. 22 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT FAIR PLAY The European war broke into the calm of our summer, quick and unexpected, but still quicker and still more unexpected by any lover of fair play was the vehement turn of the American press for the Russians and against the Germans. What- ever Germany or Austria did was seen through the spectacles of the enemy. Their motives ap- peared tainted, their actions against the rules of the game; they had no just cause and no morals; they were not worthy of American sympathy. Of course, some pretext can be found for every par- tiality, and it is not difficult to foresee how this game can be played on. If Germany's enemies are defeated, the American nation must be with them because it is always with the weakest, al- ways with the under dog; but if they are vic- torious, the American nation will be with them too, because it loves a spirited fighter and a tri- umphant power. Yet it is just Germany which dares a spirited fight and which is the weaker, forced to fight, two nations against five. The naked news which tlie cable brings helps on this cruel game. The average American reader" has no idea how much anti-German feeling is in- fused into the so-called facts which are sent over the ocean. He sees that the news is dated from Vienna or Berlin and he does not know that most of the American correspondents on the continent for many years have been Englishmen who never 23 THE WAR AND AMERICA Xsaw America and who serve first of all their home 7 papers. And even the few American journalists f on the spot devote most of their energies to Lon- I don papers and receive from there the daily ad- [ vice and the daily prejudice of English rivalry. f" But does the news at least find fair play when ( it arrives? What the French or the English gov- ) ernment proclaims stands gloriously on the first / page; what the German government replies is / hidden somewhere in a corner of the fifth. When I Germany goes through Belgium, America shares / the indignation of England to which it serves as I a welcome pretext. But that France went into I Belgium first is kept a secret in most American papers. This means playing the reporter's game / wit h loaded dice. Tet even the kind of news which is dumped on us does not justify the editorial temper with which especially the New York papers appeal to our sense of superiority over medieval Germany. Typical is the way in which the decisions and deeds of the emperors are always treated as if they were purely personal autocratic caprices without inner contact with the national life. This better than anything whips up the democratic spirit of the new world. Who stops to consider that in the hour of war, and even of danger before the war, the American President has more personal power than any emperor except the Czar; and even he would be swept away if he obstructed the will of the people. Children like to fancy that kings run 24 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT about with golden cro^\^ls on their heads and with purple cloaks. It is hardly less childlike to imag- ine that a proclamation like that of the Emperor Franz Josef was written by him personally and to construe it as if he made war on Servia because he wanted to take personal vengeance for the murder of his heir. Even the distant spectator ought to have seen that the whole tremendous pressure of the Austrian nation was necessary to force the old Emperor into a war which he re- sisted with all the instincts of a man who has suf- fered much and who wants at last his peace and rest. Is it really possible to doubt that Emperor William desired nothing but honorable peace with all the world? For twenty-five years he has been the most efficient power for European peace. He has done more for it than all the European peace societies together, and however often the world seemed at the verge of war his versatile mind averted the danger. He knew too well and the whole German people knew too well that the in- comparable cultural and industrial growth of the nation since the foundation of the young empire would be horribly threatened by the risks of war. Can any sane man really believe the slander that all was a long prepared game which Austria was to start and in which Germany would willfully force the furies of war into the Russian realm? No! this time every effort was in vain, and all good will for peace was doomed because the issue 25 THE WAR AND AMERICA between the onrushing Russian world and the German world had grown to an overpowering force. The struggle between the two civilizations was imminent, and where such a historic world conflict arises, the will of individuals is crushed until they serve the will of the nations. The Slavs of the Southeast, the Servians, had defeated their oppressors, the Turks. It was inevitable that their new strength should push them to ambitious plans. It was necessary that they should aim toward a new great Slavic empire which would border the sea and embrace Austria's Slavic possessions. That had to mean the end of Austria, the crum- bling of its historic power. Such an inner, pas- sionate conflict, such an issue of existence must lead to explosions. Servians killed the Arch- duke, That was Austria's opportunity for an ef- fort to crush the power which aimed toward its downfall. But it was no less necessary historically that the largest Slavic nation, that the Russians should feel that Servia's cause was their own. Russia knew well that while it had recovered from the wounds of the Japanese war the Russian strength was still unequal to that of the German nations, but it knew also that it could rely on France 's latent longing to revenge itself for Alsace and on England's grumbling jealousy of the great German rival in the world's markets. At last the chances seemed splendid to strike the long delayed blow of the Eastern world against the German. The Czar was unable to resist the gigantic pressure 26 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT of the hour ; his government mobilized against both Austria and Germany. Is there really any sense in blaming the German Emperor for actually declaring war before this Russian mobilization was completed and before Germany by such loss of time would have been brought to certain destruction? Four times he urged the Czar to abstain from the moving of the Russian troops to the frontier; most willingly he undertook to urge Austria to new negotiations. But the world contrast of the two civilizations was too deep; Russia could not forego its unique chances, and so it continued passionately to mo- bilize, trusting that the French guns would start of themselves. The German Emperor would have shamefully neglected his duties if he had quietly waited until the Russian armies were brought to- gether from the far East. He had to strike as soon as the war was certain, he therefore had to go through the formality of declaring war. But it was Russia which made the war, and it was part of Russia's war-making that it forced Germany to declare the war first. America undertook, without such a deep inner conflict, a punitive ex- pedition against Mexico, not unlike that of Austria against Servia. If at that time Japan had de- clared that it could not tolerate such hostility to Mexico and had sent all its warships toward Cali- fornia, would the President have genially waited until the Japanese cruisers entered the Golden Gate instead of putting an ultimatum to the 27 THE WAR AND AMERICA Mikado saying that unless the ships stopped it would mean war? In this historic situation neither Russia nor Ger- many could really act otherwise. The great con- flict of civilizations was necessarily stronger than the mere wishes of peaceful individuals. But if it is such a gigantic conflict of Russian and Germanic culture, the sympathies of the progressive Amer- ican nation ought not to be so willfully misled and ought not to be whipped into the camp of the Cossacks. Americans ought not to rejoice when the uncultured hordes of the East march over the frontier and aim toward the most eastern German city — toward Konigsberg — the town of Immanuel Kant. If this war means such an inevitable conflict of the Russian and the Germanic world, at least it ought to be clear to everyone who can think histori- cally, that it belongs to the type of war for which the world as yet knows no substitute, the one type of war which in spite of the terrible losses is ul- timately moral. Surely no comment on this fight of the nations is more absurd than the frivolous cry that this is an immoral war. Every war for commercial ends or for personal glory or for mere aggrandizement or for revenge may be called im- moral, and thus the feelings with which French- men and Englishmen join the Eastern forces might justly be accused. But both Russians and Ger- mans stand here on moral ground, as both are willing to sacrifice labor and life for the conserva- 28 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT tion of their national culture and very existence. Since the days of Napoleon, Germany has never gone into a war which was more justified by the conscience of history. To be sure, there is no lack of elements in this war which do hurt the moral feeling. In victory or defeat, Germans will hardly forget the flight of Italy, which, under the flimsiest subterfuges, has deserted its allies in the hour of need. And im- moral above all is the effort of the world to stran- gle the spirit of Germany by the mere number of enemies. That truly is not fair, no moral fight, if Germany and Austria are not to stand against Russia and Servia alone which together have a population equal to that of the two opponents, but are also attacked from behind by France and Eng- land, perhaps by Roumania and Japan, and last but not least by the misled public opinion of America. And this answers at once the pointed question which many American papers have discussed since the war began, the question whether the whole sys- tem is not fundamentally wrong, whether the arma- ments which were planned to protect countries and to keep the balance and harmony have not thrown them into a destructive war, and whether it would not have been better to rely on international arbi- tration throughout the world. The grouping of this war shows why Germany would have trampled on its own sacred rights had she laid the armor away and relied on the judgment of the other na- 29 THE WAR AND AMERICA tions. Would she have had the slightest chance for a fair judgment if the economic rivalry in England, the vanity of revenge in France, the aversion of a lower culture in Russia and political jealousy in all Europe had been combined against her in an unholy alliance? The jury would have been packed, prejudice would have swept the courtroom. No: unless the Cossacks with their pogroms were to crush the culture of Germany she had simply no resort left but to trust in her sword and in her prayer. Postscript Habent sua fata libelli; in the weeks since its publication the ^'Fair Play'' article has been reprinted in more than fifty large papers throughout the country and has brought forth a flood of letters to the editors for and against my plea. The first breach has been made and since then hundreds have rushed forward. The wall has not yet really been battered down. The anti-German sen- timent is still strong, but at least on the edi- torial pages of the best newspapers the de- sire to do justice to the German side can be felt. The high tide of bitterness is beginning to recede, and no longer is every bit of news favorable to Germany hidden in dark cor- 30 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT ners. Young Viereck's brilliant weekly The Fatherland is helping splendidly. The Ger- man-American National Alliance mider Hexamer's leadership is eagerly active. The Germanistic societies are wide awake. Forcible voices are heard in the protest meetings of the German-Americans from Boston to Cliicago and farther West. Every day the situation improves; the public gets tired ; more and more public men demand at least justice, if we cannot have the truth, and the newspapers are beginning to yield to this mood of the morning after. A paragraph from the New York Tribune is to-day making the rounds through the press. It says: ^'The first authentic reports from American tourists trapped in Germany by mobilization are coming through. They com- pletely refute the earlier rumors of abuse and insult. Americans arriving in Amsterdam from Berlin told countless stories of kindness and needed assistance at the hands of Ger- mans. It is almost needless to say that this was exactly what every fair-minded person expected. ' ' Certainly every fair-minded per- son expected it and therefore discredited the shameful rumors which ought never to have 31 THE WAR AND AMERICA found their way into a decent American pa- per. But the fair-minded persons kept si- lence and unfair-minded ones boisterously- filled all the channels of public opinion. Soon we shall hear that all the other wild rumors and denunciations of the Kaiser, of the army, of the government, of the people, are *^ com- pletely refuted' ' and that ^ ^ every fair-minded person expected it.'' But the German cables remain cut; all the news is censored in London and Paris. "We must expect that the first version of every future event will also be a slap in the face of German sympathizers, and only a week later when the interest has gone into other direc- tions the truth about the half -forgotten event will leak out. Yet even the most suggestible reader is beginning to discover the trick when it is played too often. When the big head- lines tell him again that the German soldiers slaughtered the babies yesterday in the town which they captured, he will conjecture for himself that in reality they probably slaugh- tered some chickens for which they paid in full. Even the causes of the war are slowly being seen with the eyes of justice. Leading 32 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT men have returned from Europe and say frankly that America blundered when it blamed the Emperor instead of the Czar. Even the strongest master of international law in the country, the honored dean of Co- lumbia University, Professor Burgess, has called a halt to the reckless public opinion. He knows the politics of Europe as few Americans can. His arguments are per- fectly convincing: it is Eussia's war against Germany with the selfish support of England and France. The anti-German sentiment can to-day no longer find any arguments of his- tory or of politics or of international law; it is nothing but prejudice. Anyway, we have to-day two large camps in the country: the one controlled by anti- German sentiment; the other by fair play sentiment; and the second is growing with every hour. At first only a few Germans gathered there; rapidly it filled with Ger- man-Americans; the Irish swept in who did not trust the Home Rule peace; the Russian Jews joined who laughed at the Czar's flat- teries; the Swedish and the Norwegians came who foresaw the fate of the North if Russia should triumph; and slowly the 33 THE WAR AND AMERICA Anglo-Saxon Americans kept breaking off from the majority, demanding fairness in- stead of blind hostility. And this fair play party is already strong enough not only to make declamations and appeals but to en- force neutrality in the deeds of the common- wealth. Two weeks ago the banking firm of Morgan would have found jubilant approval throughout the country for its plan to raise a great war loan for France, a subtle scheme of anti-German war-making which the inter- national law could not prohibit. Now the reception is cool; the fair play party has be- come a power. Even the politicians figure it out that election days may be reckoning days. It may be safer for them to be fair than to be unfair in a European conflict, and the political ^ ^ safety first ' ' movement makes them forget what they wrote in those first ugly days of August. The chief point is that the fair play party is steadily growing, and the anti-German party from day to day shrinking. In the fair play party the Presi- dent of the United States himself has em- phatically taken the leadership. The leader of the anti-German party — leader by age, by authority, by mastery of diction and by the 34 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT importance which the press gives to his ut- terances — is Charles W. Eliot. The programme of the two leaders is clear and simple. President Woodrow Wilson writes : ^ ' Every man who really loves Amer- ica will think and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all con- cerned. ... It will be easy to excite pas- sion and difficult to allay it. Those responsi- ble for exciting it will assume a heavy re- sponsibility, responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the United States may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if not in action. . . . We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments. ... I venture, there- fore, my fellow countrjTQen, to speak a sol- emn word of warning to you against the deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality, which may spring out of par- tisanship, out of passionately taking sides.'' The leader of the opposite party, Mr. Charles W. Eliot, on the other hand writes — and some papers have for evident reasons 35 THE WAR AND AMERICA given larger display to his words than to those of the President — the following ap- peal: ^^ Although the people of the United States mean to maintain faithfully a legal neutrality, they are not and cannot be neu- tral or indifferent as to the ultimate outcome of this titanic struggle. It already seems to "- jm that France, England and Russia are fighting for freedom and civilization. . . .'* * u:\jnerican sympathies and hopes cannot possibly be neutral for the whole history and present state of American liberty forbids. For the present thinking Americans can only try to appreciate the scape and real issue of this formidable convulsion and so be ready to seize every opportunity that may present itself to further the cause of human free- dom. ..." Germany has entered into this war ^^ rashly, and selfishly, and in a bar- barous spirit." Those who belong to the fair play party must gratefully hail every word of President "Wilson and deeply regret every word of his eloquent opponent. But they would not only dissent from this advice to the nation to seize every opportunity for attacking Ger- many, but they would insist that even the 36 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT facts which Mr. Eliot gives in his surprising proclamation are utterly wrong. There is nothing rash in Germany's going to war. After almost forcing peace on Europe for twenty-seven years under most difficult con- ditions, the Emperor had again made every effort to preserve peace while the Czar con- tinued mobilization; but finally there came the hour in which any further delay would have meant certain defeat for Germany. .Nor was there anything selfish, as Germany had obviously not the slightest desire for territorial aggrandizement in Europe, but had only the one aim to protect itself against the armies of the Cossacks. Even when the war with Eussia had become unavoidable, Germany strained every effort to keep peace w^ith France. And when even that failed, it expressed its readiness to guarantee that it would leave intact not only France but even the French colonies, if at least England would remain at peace. But all these na- tions insisted on war — was it selfish that Germany dared to defend itself? The *^ barbarous spirit" refers evidently to those gruesome stories of German cruel- ties with which the enemies of Germany have 37 THE WAR AND AMERICA tried to discredit its cause. To be sure, even they read like mild girls ^ stories compared with the reports of the French, the Belgian, the Russian atrocities with which the Ger- man papers and letters are filled. Is it really possible to condemn a nation of highest cul- tural achievements for barbarism on the basis of such testimony for the prosecution? — the Salem trials of the witches were more objective. The climax, we hear, were Ger- man cruelties in Belgium. They transformed all Louvain into a mere heap of ashes. A few days later we heard that the cathedral and the city hall and the art treasures had not been touched. Still a day later we heard that the Belgian people were coming back to Louvain to their work. At the day of this writing the papers bring over the ocean the report of the first investigation of the case by unpartisan Americans. Representatives of the Associated Press, of the Saturday Evening Post, of the Chicago Daily News, and of the Tribune, have joined in an exam- ination of the true facts ; they say and pledge their professional and personal word for the truth of the statements : We unite in declar- ing the rumors ^^of German atrocities 38 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT groundless; after spending two weeks with and accompanying the troops upward of one hundred miles, we are unable to report a single instance unprovoked. We are also un- able to confirm rumors of mistreatment of prisoners or noncombatants with the German columns. This is true of Louvain, of Brus- sels, of Luneville, and Nanteuil. "We visited other places without substantiating a single wanton brutality. Numerous investigated rumors proved groundless. Everywhere we have seen Germans paying for purchases and respecting property rights as well as according civilians every consideration. The discipline of the German soldiers is excel- lent, as we observed.'' But Mr. Eliot bases his horror of Germany also on the alleged facts that there the mon- arch alone can make war, while the national executive in a true liberal state ought not to ^'use the national forces in fight until a thor- oughly informed national assembly, thinking with deliberation, has agreed to that use.'* The fact is that not the Kaiser, but the Ger- man upper chamber, the Bundesrat, has to decide on war, and that the lower chamber, the Eeichstag, has to vote the necessary 39 THE WAR AND AMERICA funds. Both were unanimous, including the Social Democratic party, and their delibera- tions took more time than those which led to the American war movement against Mexico. Mr. Eliot, moreover, is under the impres- sion that the Germany of education and art and science is against this war and is any- how not in sympathy with Germany's im- perialism. The real people, he thinks, are driven into the war by an aristocratic bureaucracy. Englishmen to whom commer- cialism is everything have often spoken like tbis. They would prefer that the Germans write poems and music as in the good old times, but leave colonies and world trade to Great Britain. Yet America is not Eng- land's business partner. As to the people at large, one figure speaks loudly enough: in spite of the army of more than three mil- lions, still two millions more have offered themselves as volunteers, far more than the government can accept. On the same day that Mr. Eliot's appeal for anti-neutrality appeared, the noted leader of the American pacifists, Mr. Edwin D. Mead, wired from London a report about the German situation. He had spent the weeks of war in Germany 40 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT and had really studied the situation. He says: ^'Apparently there is not a man or woman in Germany who does not believe Germany's ease to be absolutely just and right; they think the war is an imperative defense of the country against the surround- ing circle of jealous enemies. The Social Democrats take this position as well as others. ' ' Mr. Mead saw many of the leading scholars and educators. ''All spoke essen- tially alike and statements to the same effect were published while I was in Berlin by Professor Harnack, Ernest Haeckel and Eu- dolf Eucken.^' Who are the people whom Mr. Eliot wants to save from the ruthlessness of the Emperor if not the Social Democrats and the two million volunteers? Who are the men of culture, if not the Harnacks and Haeckels and Euckens? The Emperor acted as their agent. No president of a republic could have been more the spokesman of a na- tion. Mr. Eliot finally speaks of the German and Austrian armies as "brute forces. '^ Is the French army or the English navy less a brute force? Would it have been more demo- cratic and wiser for Germany to be satisfied 41 THE WAR AND AMERICA with an army of tender mildness? It would have been crushed by its neighbors at once and completely. The leading civil naval au- thority of America, Mr. G. v. L. Meyer, has already declared that the European war of- fers to America only one great lesson, name- ly, that America must build at least sixteen dreadnaughts in order to control the Pacific as fully as England now controls the Atlan- tic. Is that less brute force? Can anything but brute force be in question as long as war is not abolished entirely? Does that make Germany contemptible while it makes England admirable? No: Mr. Eliot's argu- ment against President Wilson cannot be maintained. The fair play party does not consider it a duty to find a moral culprit in this war, to bear the blame and indignation of the world. There may be no moral wrong on any side. Every one of the great nations did that which was morally right and necessary in its his- toric development. This war might have been dela^^ed a month, perhaps a year, but it had to come: the European tension had be- come too strong. Germany and Russia had come to a point where no possible arbitra- 42 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT tion, but only strength could determine whether east Europe or central Europe would control the Balkan. It was the ethical duty of the Russians to strain every effort for this expansion of their influence, and it was the ethical duty of the Germans and Austrians to strain every effort to prevent it. In the same way it was the moral right of France to make use of any hour of Ger- man embarrassment for recapturing its mili- tary glory by a victory of revenge. And it was the moral right of England to exert its energies for keeping the control of the seas and for destroying the commercial rivalry of the Germans. No one is to be blamed. Every nation, therefore, entered into this war equally with the feeling that it was fighting for a just and solemn cause and that it was performing its national duty. No American has the right to destroy this moral ( equilibrium and to decide without proof and without historical understanding that the one side did morally right and the other be- haved immorally. It is quite a different question, which may well be raised without interfering with fair play, whether or not mistakes have been 43 THE WAR AND AMERICA made. Some have said that Germany made a mistake. It ought to have deserted Aus- tria in the same way that Italy deserted it. In that case Austria would have been dis- membered by Russia. The Slavic provinces of Austria would have been combined with Servia. Russia would have gained the con- trol of the Balkan, but Germany would not have been forced to fight alone against five nations. Germany might even have joined Russia and would have easily captured the German parts of Austria. It would have been a great gain for Germany's territory. Yet the Germans are convinced that the na- tion and the Emperor made no mistake when they decided in the opposite direction. If they had not done so, the result would have been an increase of Russian world power which they would have considered a blow to west European civilization. Above all, it would have been an act of barbarous faith- lessness. The pledge of assistance to Aus- tria has often been a heavy burden to Ger- many, but Germans have remained loyal to it, as this is not only a routine agreement like the neutrality treaties which no nation of the old or the new world ever considered 44 THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT binding in an hour of national life and death, but a pledge of international honor which no one breaks without moral humiliation. Many in the fair play party, and I am one of them, believe rather that a mistake — not a moral wrong, but a mistake of judgment — was made by England and France. They did their nearest duty in the interest of the near- est good, the destruction of the political and commercial rival on the right of the Khine. Their mistake was not to see that this pass- ing duty to their countries was greatly out- weighed by a higher duty the goal of which lies further off. They cannot crush Germany without helping Russia to an irresistible power which ultimately must subjugate the whole western civilization. They sacrifice the lasting cultural gain for a short tempo- rary comfort. They would have served man- kind more judiciously, if they had joined Germany in the struggle against the Russian giant. Every American has the right to point out such errors in a historical spirit. That is no attack against the morals of a na- tion ; that is no kindling of hatred ; that is in- comparable with the denunciations which the anti-German party thunders against the one 45 THE WAR AND AMERICA people which is suddenly attacked by the guns of all Europe. America ought to be no more anti-German than anti-French or anti- English. America ought to be the peace- maker of the world and not the pacemaker to any warring nation. in THE GERMAN-AMERICANS I never before saw so many American and German flags intertwined as to-day in the gaily decorated streets of Utica. It was a splendid procession of American troops, German-American societies with their ban- ners and picturesque floats wdth scenes from the War of Independence, and from German and German- American history. We were to unveil the statue of General von Steuben. Hundreds of thousands had streamed to the town ; every house was gay with waving flags and with black, white and red decorations; every window crowded with cheering throngs : truly it was German day. When through the long avenue of elms we reached the monument, the sight from the speaker's stand was overwhelming. The German- American population had streamed out and ten thousand men and women sur- rounded the spot. The German songs rolled 47 THE WAR AND AMERICA tlirougli the air; the New York state regi- ments passed the bronze statue of the great soldier. It is a fine work of art. You can really imagine that this was the stature and the gesture and the look of that great war- rior who served through the Seven Years' War of Prussia, was adjutant of Frederick the Great and who then gave up everything which he had in his fatherland to serve the cause of American independence. You see in his face that idealism and romanticism of war which made him unselfishly throw away his position and income and comfort at home and offer his sword to the congress of the weak colonies. His features show that mar- tial energy with which he trained and or- ganized the American troops in Valley Forge until the victory was won. But at the same time this figure brings out that noble genial- ity and chivalrous kindness which made him so humanly attractive through his long sol- dier's career, until after a life of war he found the peace of old age here in Utica. It is a fitting monument to the man who was the right arm of George Washington. He did not seek the showy glory of the battle- field, but behind the scenes he was the or- 48 THE GER]VIAN-AMERICANS ganizer of victory. He did effective work silently as the German-Americans always have done in America. I had been asked to deliver the oration at the unveiling. I relied on the inspiration of the hour. I spoke in German language to men of German descent whose hearts were aglow with solemn emotion for the land of their parents and grandparents. I had heard their speeches and songs on the eve before in a large festival hall and there the Watch on the Rhine had resounded as I had never heard it before. I spoke about the threefold meaning of this monument. My favorite topic came first ; the need of discipline in our modern life. Steu- ben found men full of dash and courage, and yet they did not count until he taught them the greatest lesson in war as in peace, the lesson of subordination, of self-control, of obedience. No time ever needed this lesson so much as ours. Our whole civilization tends to make the selfish impulses and the reckless instincts triumphant. Our life has lost its inner moral discipline. The spirit of Steuben is needed by the American nation in its days of glory still more than when it 49 THE WAR AND AMERICA was struggling hard for its independence. If we had more spirit of self-control, it would not be possible for public opinion to rush so blindly and thoughtlessly into the anti- German prejudice which is suddenly sweep- ing the country. The second aspect which I emphasized was suggested by the fact that German-Ameri- cans had erected this monument. I said that it showed that the Germans in America were finally conscious of their position, of their rights in this country, and of their duties to it. Too long they had lived under the illu- sion that America was an Anglo-Saxon coun- try and that all the other racial stocks were only tolerated as more or less welcome guests. This idea had imposed on them the duty of throwing off their German traits and of imitating the English characteristics. This arbitrary construction has finally been shattered. The German-Americans at last became aware that there are no hosts and guests in this land and that not England but all Europe is the mother country of the American nation. The glory of America re- sulted from the fact that many races con- tributed their distinctive achievements. The 50 THE GERMAN-AMERICANS Germans have discovered how fundamental their part has been in the development of the American nation, how they, with brain and brawn, have had their noble share from the pioneer days to the present time. A new sense of rights with a new sense of duty and responsibility has filled them; a new pride in the work of their ancestors has come to them; and out of this feeling they turn to the memory of a great leader like Steuben. To do honor to him is a pledge to remain loyal to the duties of the German- Ajuerican citizens toward America. No German-American lives up to his responsi- bilities if he does not try to bring the very best traits of the land of his ancestors as his peculiar contribution to the young nation of the new world. But this is possible only if he never forgets that he is of German de- scent. As long as this feeling remains awake in his soul, he will not tolerate this great glorious country to be dragged into an un- fair stand toward the fatherland of Steuben. But finally I spoke of the monument as a symbol of America's gratitude for a German man who came to bring all which he had learned at home to the service of this coun- 51 THE WAR AND AMERICA try. How many came after liim — teachers and scholars, scientists and engineers, mer- chants and captains of industry, musicians and artists, ministers and reformers! All brought German civilization over the ocean. But soon after Steuben's day, American in- fluences, too, turned auspiciously eastward. New ideas were carried to the fatherland. It was a giving and taking, a mutual exchange : in our days no one has a right to ask who gives more and who takes more. The monu- ment is a symbol of joy in this cordial inter- course which helps so much toward mutual understanding. And only where such under- standing exists can we hope for sympathy and respect and friendship. We see in the passionate outbursts against the Emperor and Germany how much still remains to be done. ^^Fortunately America has now been for almost a hundred years at peace with the country against which the American armies fought under von Steuben. But with the fatherland of Steuben America has al- ways been at peace. This peace ought never to be broken.^' A tremendous wave of ap- proval swept over the gigantic audience at these words. In closing I said : * * The Ameri- 52 THE GERMAN-AMERICANS can nation must maintain its neutrality at any price. It has no right to aid the enemies of Germany as long as it remains loyal to the memory of Washington under whom Steuben fought on this side of the ocean. It must not grudge the good fortune to Emperor William if victory blesses his sword as once before the sword of his great ancestor, Frederick, was blessed, under whom Steuben fought on the other side of the ocean. ' ' What followed was a demonstration of German- American feel- ing, enthusiastic and wonderful. In looking back to these Utica hours I feel that he calculates wrongly with American public opinion who fancies that the twenty- five millions in whose homes lives the mem- ory of German ancestors can be neglected. The wall of anti-German feeling will be broken down by the hammering of this titanic power. Not long ago the German- Americans were not aware of how strong they were, or rather they were not strong because they were not aware of their strength. They served faithfully, but did not dare to insist on respect and did not venture to ask for thanks. The last twenty years have changed their place in the world. '\A^ile the German 53 THE WAR AND AMERICA immigration decreased and the new incoming masses were recruited more and more from Italy and Turkey and Russia, the German- American spirit has steadily become stronger. The German- Americans have be- come conscious of their duties in the highest historic sense of their mission, and they demand their rights in the shaping of the country's fate. Their cause had only one element of weak- ness. The one great binding force was the memory of the past, and not a forceful, posi- tive programme. They sympathized with the Republican party as much as with the Demo- cratic party; their interests were divided on almost every economic question; religi- ously they were scattered ; their common love of German literature and music naturally be- came weaker with the second and third gen- eration; and so it happened most unfortu- nately that only the pitiful stein of beer ap- peared the one object of common wishes. The fight against prohibition, upon which the opinions of Germans might be just as di- vided as upon any practical question before the nation, was artificially made the center of German- American public activity; it was 54 THE GERIVIAN-AMERICANS bolstered up with great words of personal liberty. Nothing has hurt the German- Americans in their struggle for the place which belongs to them so much as the illusion that the negative side of the prohibition ques- tion can be in our present time a great vital issue. It was as if the German- American masses had only waited for a really convincing goal common to all in order to be filled with that enthusiasm which secures strength. The lightning of the European thunderstorm has suddenly shown them their true duty. The policy of this country which they love with their whole hearts must be one of sincere friendship not only with England but also with Germany. They will break down this anti-German agitation; they will punish every effort to inject hatred of Germany into the veins of the Ajnerican political body. Their National German- American Alliance with two and a half million voters as mem- bers, their intellectual leaders and their eco- nomic captains of commerce and industry, their farmers and their workingmen, old and young, men and women, first generation and second and third, every religious sect, North 55 THE WAR AND AMERICA Germans and South Germans, Austrians and Swiss — they will be united and will show a crushing power of which the reckless torch- bearers of German hatred did not dream. This European war will not reach its end without being deeply influenced by American public opinion. At an early or at a late stage, American sentiment will play its role. Since I heard the Watch on the Rhine thun- dering in the Mohawk Valley I know that twenty-five millions will take care that this national sentiment is ultimately not misled as it has been in the first hour of confusion. They will take care that this powerful Ameri- can influence cannot be prostituted to a breach of neutrality in order to back the allies of Russia who are trying to throw into the dust America's staunchest friend, the German nation. Never until to-day have I seen so many American and German flags intertwined. IV THE THKEATENED PKOVINCES The papers this morning brought a sketch of Germany as it will look after the great disaster. England, they say, and of course they must know, will be modest in its de- mands, and will take only the whole German fleet and the Kiel canal, besides the cost of the mobilization. France, to be sure, will in- sist on the billion dollars which it had to pay after the Franco-Prussian war, together with the interest for forty-four years, and will take not much more land than Alsace-Lor- raine. Eussia will grasp for Eastern Prussia with its Baltic seacoast to include Danzig. It was a slender Germany which was left in that gruesome picture. But how many American readers do really know what it would mean for Germany to lose Alsace and Prussia to the Danzig coast? Alsace ! Yesterday was the anniversary of the battle of Weissenburg, the first great 57 THE WAR AND AMERICA struggle in the war for Germany's unity. To the American it is a battle name, colorless and commonplace. Weissenburg is to him one of the many little French towns in the French land which the brutal force of Ger- many has torn out of happy France and has crushed by blatant militarism, and which, in its suffering through almost half a century, longs to be taken home into the mother arms of the French people. But this is untrue and a hundred times untrue. It may be that nobody between the Atlantic and the Pacific knows better, and that it is thus nobody's duty to protest. But many a Fourth of August I have been on the hills of Weissen- burg and have seen the graves of the French- men and of the Germans who fell on the battlefield decorated with flags and wreaths by the Weissenburg people. Weissenburg and all Alsace are to me not geographical lines on the map and not political abstrac- tions, but they are part of my life. There in Weissenburg where forty-four years ago Germany's glory began, I found the happi- ness of my family life, found there my Ger- man wife, had there my wedding and my sil- ver wedding, returned there almost every 58 THE THREATENED PROVINCES STuniner. I must know better than the edi- torial writer how Alsace feels. Alsace is a German province with German traditions and German lifeblood. For a while French rule was forced on it, but it never became French. In the beautiful little old garden of my wife's parents I can never dream my summer dreams Avithout thinking of the historic sacredness of that German soil. It is part of a large cloister garden in which a massive tower has been standing since the ninth century. In this garden, Monk Otfried lived who wrote one thousand years ago the first German epic poem in rhyme. This German tradition remained un- broken until Louis XIV, after he had laid in ruins the castle of Heidelberg, snatched Alsace from the German people. Then a long period of oppression began. This French rule was much more rigorous and intolerant than any German rule after 1870. Moreover the Alsatians were never really accepted as Frenchmen. In the eyes of Paris they always remained only half French ; their French dialect appeared ridiculous. They disliked France and were disliked in France. 59 THE WAR AND AMERICA It was no wonder tliat their resources re- mained undeveloped. Even the proudest city of Alsace, Strassburg, when it came into Ger- man possession in 1870, was after all only an overgrown village. To-day it is a wonder- ful, proud city with beautiful palaces, with one of the best equipped universities of the world, with noble avenues and parks, en- riched by Germany's good will as much as it was held down by France's indifference in the past. Alsace would be to-day perfectly happy in its natural German frame, if French longing for political revenge had not artificially kept alive agitation for jointure with France. To be sure, the German administration was often unstable; there was not sufficient unity of purpose. Sometimes the effort was made to win the population by overindulgence. As soon as such leniency was intolerably mis- used at the instigation of Paris, the regime was changed to the other extreme and the German language and German methods were sternly insisted on. As soon as that started up reactions, the other groove was tried again until the French societies again preached treason. One consistent policy in 60 THE THREATENED PROVINCES the German camp would probably have suc- ceeded better. But the real fault was with France, which refused to forget. If France after the breakdown of the hollow Napo- leonic empire had reconstructed its realm with the same spirit with which in America the southern states submitted to the decision of the Civil War, Alsace would be perfectly German to-day, and the whole military ma- chine of Germany would never have been built up. But France smarted under the memory of Sedan; it draped in black the statue of Strassburg in Paris and knew no prayer but for the recovery of the beloved provinces which it had despised until they were taken. Every piece of Alsatian arrogance was ap- plauded on Parisian boulevards, and the cari- caturist who drew my Weissenburg as if its teachers were idiots and its officers drunk- ards was heralded in France as a hero and his poor drawings crowned with glorious prizes. Only on account of this artificial stimulation from Paris, a part of the Alsa- tian people felt anxious to don their French costume. Our neighbors in Weissen- burg were two dignified elderly ladies whose 61 THE WAR AND AMERICA brother had left their home after the Ger- man war and lives in Paris as a physician. Every summer he comes back to his native place. Those three good Alsatian people would never venture to go to a store and do their shopping otherwise than in the French language and with every stranger they must parade their French. But when they are at home among one another they always speak their good Alsatian Ger- man. Yes: Alsace is German; and if the over- whelming number should capture the prov- inces on the left of the Ehine and the tri- color should once more flutter over the Strassburg cathedral, Alsace would be for a while the glory of the Gallic nation, and a little later it would be again degraded to a second-class France because its people are not French but German. How long would it be before the rich Strassburg of the German empire would again be the neglected, impov- erished town of France? Is it really neces- sary for every American who contributes to the papers a word about Alsace simply to repeat that absurd cant about the *4ost" provinces I 62 THE THREATENED PROVINCES About Alsace which the Frenchmen are to take we hear at least not a little in America, as everybody knows everything about it. But about the province of West Prussia with its capital Danzig which Russia has selected as its prize we never hear anything at all. The editorial writers seem not to be at home there. But there I am at home. I was born in Danzig, spent my youth there, and have gone back to my beloved native town when- ever I went to Germany. It is quite true: nothing which Russia might gain could be so valuable as Danzig with its harbor in the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Vistula. A great seaport which can be used all the year must be the longing of Russia, which finds no outlet from its Baltic harbors during six winter months. The ice- free harbor in the east was after all the chief aim in Russians fight with Japan; an ice-free harbor of the west is its hope in Germany, and Danzig's harbor is surpassed by few. We know Danzig's history since 997i At the end of the fourteenth century three hundred ships brought goods there from England every year ; and at the end of the fifteenth more than seven hundred ships 63 THE WAR AND AMERICA left Danzig's harbor yearly. Its world com- merce was often checked and always again came to power. In the last few decades it has developed its resources with new energy and is flourishing to-day. Will all this German work be lost to Russian greed? But what is Danzig's harbor compared with Danzig's beautiful streets? Americans who automobile through Germany are en- thusiastic over Nuremberg ; they do not know that Danzig is still more wonderful. Those squares and streets, houses and churches, halls and towers and city gates tell the fas- cinating story of five centuries of architec- ture in one of the richest cities of the North. They call it the northern Venice. The houses are filled with the arts and crafts of beauty- loving times and their fagades and their ga- ble roofs are the gems of eastern Germany. To stroll in boyhood days through the streets of Danzig is truly a liberal education. Will the Cossacks break into this paradise of stone? To be sure, it would not be the first time that the Russians would come to the doors of Danzig. In 1734 a Russian army besieged Danzig because it had taken sides in the 64 THE THREATENED PROVINCES fight about the Polish succession. It had to surrender, had to pay a million thalers to the Eussians, and the free town had to send a delegation with pledges to Petersburg. After the dismemberment of the Polish kingdom in 1793 the old, free German town of Danzig joined the kingdom of Prussia. Soon the great oppressor of Europe de- stroyed the peace of the flourishing city. Na- poleon 's armies forced their way to the far east of Prussia and crushed Danzig by a most cruel siege. I remember well how my grandmother told me of the terrible suffering in her childhood when the population was hidden in the cellars of the town. Danzig surrendered to the French in 1807, but the suffering was not at an end. Napoleon squeezed millions over millions from the im- poverished citizens and filled the town with insolent French soldiers. Those years of brutal French oppression were the darkest time of Danzig's thousand years of history. At last Prussia's struggle for freedom broke out. In 1813 the Prussian army sur- rounded the remnant of Napoleon's troops which were concentrated in Danzig, and at this time the Russians were Prussia's allies. 65 THE WAR AND AMERICA In January, 1814, came the happy day when the Germans and Russians broke the Napol- eonic force and expelled the French soldiers from Danzig. With that day a new strong development of Danzig began. In January, 1914, the whole city celebrated the anniver- sary of that glorious day. My oldest brother, who is the representative of Danzig in the Prussian parliament, delivered the official oration and could speak of a full century of splendid, peaceful progress. The grateful people of Danzig did not forget on this occa- sion at the beginning of 1914 the help which the Russians had given in delivering them from the French yoke. Is it really possible that 1914 will not come to an end without seeing the Russians once more before Dan- zig, this time not to expel the French but to help the French and to swing the knout over the beautiful culture of the industrious Dan- zig people? If a cruel fate were to deliver the province of West Prussia with its capital Danzig to the Slavs, it would be as if New England were handed over to Mexico as a Mexican colony with General Villa as dictator in Bos- ton. Americans do not know the eastern 66 THE THREATENED PROVINCES part of Prussia with its lovely forests and hills along the Baltic coast. Their pilgrim- age goes through the Rhine valley, goes to Hamburg and Berlin and Dresden and Munich, but they seldom find the way to the charms of the east. They may think that Germany, after all, is hardly changed if such slices on the east and on the west are cut off by its neighbors, as the diagrams of this morning's papers suggest. But I know one who would feel that Germany had perished if Weissenburg became French and Danzig became Russian. THE ENGLISH To-day I had luncheon in town with Rev- erend from Oxford. He had come over from England because he is interested in the psychology of religion which has had such a remarkable development in America, and he wanted to see what we are doing here. He had written to me before he sailed, and I gladly went in from the country to have some hours of serious talk about psy- chology. It is no wonder that it was not only psychology of religion but also psychology of the nations and psychology of war and peace which we discussed. He must have had exciting experiences. England declared war on Germany while he was in the midst of the ocean. The passen- gers had hardly any fears for their safety, as the captain remained in wireless contact with an English cruiser. They had arrived in Boston harbor only yesterday and my 68 THE ENGLISH friend thought he ought to return at once to be near his family. Yet through long stages of our talk he and I were not aware that the world was ablaze and we discussed heartily the recent tendencies in the philosophy of the soul and the theories of the subconscious. All that time we forgot that our native lands are hostile to each other. The coast of the philosophers' country cannot be threatened by battleships. Yet in a peaceful sense I never forgot that he was an Englishman, because he repre- sented that finest type of Englishman for which I have always had an especial sympa- thy and admiration. The English philistine is to me a good deal more tiresome than the American or the German philistine, but the highly cultured Englislmian is to me not sel- dom more fascinating than a cultured Ameri- can and even than a cultured German. With the American you too often feel a certain lack of background: his knowledge appears sec- ond-hand. With the German you too often feel that the discussion is caught at one point and is becoming erudite. But with the Eng- lislmian you sense that he has read his Plato well, and yet you can easily move hither and THE WAR AND AMERICA thither. It was an exquisite pleasure to meet this English minister with whom I had so many common acquaintances and so many common interests. And in the twinkling of his eyes was all the time that harmless, deli- cious superciliousness which the cultured Englishman in contact with another educated European never forgets when he talks about America. But above all we talked war. Of course, not warlike. He had been a member of that delegation of English clergymen who went to Berlin a few years ago in days of political tension in order to work for mutual harmony. He remembers with great satisfaction the personal cordiality of the Emperor on that occasion. He had always done his share for peace between England and Germany. He knew, too, all my efforts in the German sphere to bring not only Germany and America but Germany and England into more cordial relations. Moreover he felt the common ground of distress over the world calamity. Whatever the end of this struggle may be, it must mean the destruction not only of life and property but of so many deep cultural interests. The steamer with which 70 THE ENGLISH he had arrived had brought me a letter from the President of the International Congress of Philosophy to be held in London next smn- mer urging me to give the first address in the psychological meeting. We talked about it. Who can know to-day how many years will pass before a truly international congress of scholars can be held anywhere, and who can know whether London will be interested in philosophy next summer? Between the writ- ing of that letter and the reading, the ground had crumbled beneath our feet. But however much it was the same world which we saw with the same distress, our instincts, our emotions, our traditions, our loyalty, forced us to see it from different standpoints, and in spite of all frankness there was some last hope and belief which the simplest tact inhibited on our lips. Yet it was clear: with English stolidity he felt that the gigantic navy of his country would calmly take care of the future, and he may have felt my apprehension that the young German navy could not be a match for the tremendous English fleet. But even with the deepest scrutiny he could not have found at the bottom of my 71 THE WAR AND AMERICA soul the slightest hatred of England. In vic- tory or disaster I shall hardly change this emotional attitude. Yes: I regret sincerely that so much passion has embittered the Ger- man-English relation during the last few- years. England and Germany have hardly seriously struggled against each other be- fore. Shoulder to shoulder they have fought together and the history of their contact has been above all a history of most fruitful ex- change. In my childhood days, in Danzig by the Baltic sea, when every year my father came home from his journeys to England, everything which he brought from London was to me like a gift from the wide world to which my imagination stretched out, and I remember well how the big sheets of the London Times impressed us children when they came to our house and appeared to us so gigantic compared with the flimsy little Danzig sheets of more than four decades ago. Whatever life brought me, I stood out for Great Britain. And even to-day w^hen its ally may bombard my beloved Danzig home and its help to France and Eussia may be the most cruel blow to my fatherland I cannot share the indignant sentiment of the German 72 THE ENGLISH masses. They feel against England not only anger and enmity on account of its act of jealousy but hatred and moral contempt be- cause its declaration of war involved race treason. I do not see a moral turpitude in a war against peoples with racial affinity. The whole idea of race obligation and race treachery is a construction which has never really been accepted by the political powers of the world. The appeal to race feeling has always been a welcome aid when the peoples of common race fought on the same side, but has never stood in the way when politics made them foes in war. No difference of race has ever weakened a political and strategical alliance. There cannot be a more unlike racial companionship than England, Russia, France, Servia and Japan, and yet the whole history of mankind justifies this welding together of strange elements. The cousinship of Germans and Englishmen is no political tie. The banquet toast, that blood is thicker than water, served as regularly at German-English social gatherings of recent years as it did at English-American festiv- ities. But it has not in the least hindered England from declaring war against the 73 THE WAR AND AMERICA brothers in blood, simply because printers' ink is still much thicker than blood. Abstract ideas and conceptions, interests and aspira- tions bind historical forces together. To rely on blood relation means to look on the development of mankind from a bio- logical point of view; the race is an ele- ment of natural science. But history is very different from the mere natural development of mankind. History is the working out of human ideas and volitions which must be understood in their meaning and cannot sim- ply be taken as products of racial qualities. No historical nation is one of pure race. The strongest nations have always been melt- ing pots of many races. There is behind human history no breeder of races who for- bids the struggle between the related peoples. England fought America; Prussia fought Austria; Japan fought China; Slavs fought Slavs in the Balkans. When Italy broke the Triple Alliance and denied in the hour of conflict the help which it had promised, the accusation of historic treason may have been morally justified, but England was not by its race community alone entangled in any obligation. 74 THE ENGLISH Yet while England in this sense did not commit a crime, I do think that it committed a great historical blunder. Its argument, freed from all cant, is quite clear. Leading Englishmen have said often without the slightest hesitancy that England, the mis- tress of the world markets, has found a for- midable rival in Germany's economic prog- ress. Backed by the incomparable advance of Germany's technical science and strength- ened by its methods of discipline and thor- oughness, Germany's commerce and industry stood more and more in the way. True friends of international peace recognized the means to meet this rivalry. All technical ed- ucation in Great Britain was to be improved, labor legislation and social reform were to be organized after the German model ; in short, an internal readjustment of England's indus- trial energies was to be carried through. But there seemed a shorter path open, and the instincts of the masses rushed into it. The discomfort of Germany's mighty rival be- came envy, and the envy turned into desire to overcome the successful ascendant by sheer power. Edward VII yielded to these instinctive desires of his nation. He sup- 75 THE WAR AND AMERICA pressed the old English-Russian antagonisms and the old English-French enmity was for- gotten. The Triple Entente was formed. Three very unlike sources of anti-German feeling united in one stream of policy. This policy has triumphed in England ^s declara- tion of war. If the miraculous occurs and Germany wins against the world, England's mistake will be evident. But will England pluck the fruits for which it reaches out its hand even if Germany is crushed? The German defeat will satisfy the longing of France without strengthening it strategically, but it will im- mensely strengthen the Slavic nations. Rus- sia will be the great winner, and the new strength of Russia will be the real danger to the British Empire, which will be weakened anyhow by the exhausting war. Russia will at once push forward in Asia ; India will be liberated, and if India secures its indepen- dence, Canada and Australia will be lost. If the German dam against the Russian-Servian flood is broken, twenty years later the area of the British Empire will be pitifully small. But England has not only made a grave mistake by breaking the traditional peace 76 THE ENGLISH with Germany. It has, I cannot help feeling, somewhat lowered its dignity by a cheap ap- peal to the second-rate women's clubs in which nobody cares to study the real facts. Instead of saying straightforwardly that England believes that its economic interests demand the overthrow of the German rival, it poses as the protector of the higher moral- ity. Of course, this has been a familiar ges- ture of English political leaders whenever an act of selfish economic or political interest was to be excused before the English lower middle-class and the gallery public of the western world. But it was so especially ab- surd when England claimed that it had to go to war because it could not possibly tolerate the moral wrong of Germany's using the Belgian railways — England which had broken pledges upon pledges in Egypt, in Tibet, in South Africa and which, as Germany knew well, was prepared to use Antwerp as har- bor for its fleet. In the world of political realities no seri- ous man can doubt that England declared war because it believed in that fatal hour that its practical interests would be best served if it joined the powerful alliance at the moment 77 THE WAR AND AMERICA at which Italy was showing unwillingness to keep its promise. Not a few believe that at the same time it was the cabinet's high game to overcome the inner wars which were tear- ing Great Britain: the fighting forces of Irishmen and the clashing forces of militant suffragists. Lord Morley and John Burns stood out in the cabinet for England's ideal traditions ; they refused to serve Russia. But the will to destroy the rival's trade in the lucky hour when it was attacked by force from all sides and deserted by its ally, was too tempting. On the athletic field, English- men would probably have refused to fight four against two and still to signal for help to the Japanese outsider as the fifth. But the world does not expect on the battlefield the morals of manly sport. I am sorry I did not discuss this subtle problem of moral philosophy with my friend the Reverend from Oxford. VI PHILOSOPHERS We are overflooded with the superficial war talk of the men on the street and the women in the parlors and the sexless in the newspapers. It was high time for the great intellectual lights to illuminate the darkness. At last the best known English sociologist and the most famous French philosopher have spoken and the world may listen. H. G. Wells voices England; through Henri Berg- son France is speaking. Yet there would still have remained a chance that the en- lightenment would not be complete, as it might have happened that Wells would say one thing and Bergson the opposite ; and then we neutrals would not have known after all which of the two beacons was the true one. But the miracle has happened. Those two philosophers, each equally famous for the originality of his thoughts and for the bril- liancy of his diction, have said exactly the 79 THE WAR AND AMERICA same; thus every doubt is superfluous. We know now the complete truth. The truth which both have proclaimed with their superb and masterful style is simply that this war against Germany is a war of civilization against barbarism. ^^ Never was a war,'* shouts Wells, ^^so righteous as is the war against Germany now. Never any state in the world so clamored for punish- ment.'' ** Germany and Austria are doomed to defeat in this war. There is no destiny in the stars and every sign is false if this is not so.'' *^The monstrous vanity which was begotten by the easy victory of 1870 has challenged the world." **That trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of Europe that has arrested civilization and darkened the hopes of mankind for forty years, German imperialism and German militarism, has struck its inevitable blow." And so it goes on. Bergson's diction is always shorter. In an address before the French Academy he is reported to have burst into the beautiful words: *^ Glory to Belgium! Hail, little peo- ple with mighty swords ! All the world knows that the struggle against Germany is civilization against barbarism. Our academy 80 PHILOSOPHERS has special authority to say so. Devoted mainly to the study of psychological, moral and social questions, the academy is simply doing its scientific duty in recognizing Ger- man brutality and cynicism as a retrogession to a savage state.'* In different words both mean the same. German imperialism has arrested the world civilization, says the one; Germany is bar- barism, says the other. The war which shakes Europe is a fight against the degen- erate German land of retrogession. ^^ Never was a war so righteous, ' ' says Wells ; and we may add, certainly, never was a power more fit to fight this noble struggle of civilization against barbarism than the people of Eus- sia, who are the only real makers of the war. Bergson, the pride of Paris, recognized it with fine instinct. Before he closed his words against German brutality, he said: *^Our colleague, the Grand Duke Michaelovitch is now with the Russian army. Let us send him the salutation of the academy and of France.'* The Russian Grand Duke at the head of his Cossacks as the English and French sjTiibol of the fight of civilization against the barbarism of Germany: that is 81 THE WAR AND AMERICA original, that is a truly philosophical revalu- ation of all values. It is hardly worth while to answer the French academician when his ' ^ creative evo- lution'' transforms the thinker into a dema- gogic worshiper of Russian culture against German barbarism. He has devoted many years to the study of memory, but his own memory is defective. He has forgotten that all his best thoughts come from Germany and that the best of his success in France re- sulted from the fact that he brought German thoughts into the dryness of French philoso- phy. Bergson is nothing but Schopenhauer served with a piquant French sauce. Berg- son has not learned anything essential from France, and he surely did not find anything worth learning in Russia, but he did learn industriously from Germany. His gracious speech before the academy was evidently his way of expressing his thanks to the German benefactor; it was an intimate act, perfect in itself; it needs no reply. But it is different with Wells. His procla- mation has been cabled over the world and has reached millions. Above all, he has turned to his specialty of prophesying. He 82 PHILOSOPHERS has not only condemned Germany, but has sketched the dire fate of Europe if Germany and not Russia should win. Every word of it is misleading. I wish a sober statement in reply could reach the American masses as Wells has done. I am glad that Hearst of- fers me the three million copies of his Sun- day papers from New York to Los Angeles for a bold type reply. This is my answer : MR. WELLS AND THE FUTURE OP GERMANY This was to be expected: England would send not only her battleships against Germany, but above all her superdreadnoughts, Kipling and Wells. Kipliag may still be exhausted from the fight about Ulster, but Wells has opened the can- nonading with word shells. But there are shells which do not reach the enemy because they explode in the air. Wells' bomb, German imperialism ''has arrested civiliza- tion and darkened the hopes of mankind for the last forty years" — must be exploded by its inner grotesqueness. If Shaw or Chesterton had pro- claimed it, everybody must have enjoyed it. Theirs is the amusing art of taking a self-evident truth and turning it around. Or was it not until yes- terday an axiom that Germany since the founda- tion of the empire has been astonishing the world 83 THE WAR AND AMERICA by its triumphs in science and art, in technique and industry, in progressive legislation and social reform? Was it not self-evident that Russia could not compare with it, that France fell behind it and that England made tremendous efforts to keep pace with it? And let us not be deceived: these victories of civilization were won not by the ''kindly, amiable mass of the German people" in spite of the im- perial government with its ''trampling, drilling foolery," but at every pulse beat of historic life this people which Wells condescendingly approves was one and the same as that imperial state which he despises. That drilling foolery was the foolery of discipline, of subordination, of self-control. Not the amiability but the thoroughness made the Ger- man people efficient in its cultural work, not its kindliness but its moral obedience, not its geniality but its intellectual discipline. The Emperor was only the symbol of this united will of the na- tion. But Wells philosophizes not only about trampled Germany's pitiful past. As he has written about the future of America, his proclamation deals with the future of Germany, too. Only the defeat of Germany can open the way to disarmament and peace. Were Germany victorious, the world would become a barrack and culture would be buried. We all have often admired Mr. Wells* fantastic imagination, but even the boldest novelist cannot turn the world upside down. 84 PHILOSOPHERS What was the only reason that Europe turned into an armed camp during the last few decades? Was it Germany's desire to expand, to take any- thing away from its neighbors? Had any sane German the desire to add still more Poles to its Polish provinces or still more Frenchmen to its Lorraine? Every square foot of land taken from its Russian or French neighbors would have be- come a new burden to the German Empire. Ger- many wanted from its neighbors nothing but to be left alone. This they did not allow. Both France and Russia longed for German provinces. Their craving alone forced Germany to drill its soldiers to prevent its dismemberment. If France and Russia had pledged not to attack the land between them, Germany's army would have been superflu- ous. If Germany were victorious in this European turmoil the only essential effect for which it could hope would be liberation from the danger with which its neighbors have threatened it so many years. If France's and Russia's fortresses on the frontier were leveled, Germany might send every soldier back to the fields and factories, and international disarmament might possibly be nearer. If Germany is defeated, the militarism of yesterday will appear mild in contrast to the over- militarism of to-morrow. Russia and France could not leave the battlefield without disrupting the fatherland and forcing indignity on the German 85 THE WAR AND AMERICA nation. Of course, some enemies cling to the hope that when the German lands have been devastated and when the people are starving, the mob may march on and the banner of Socialism be unfurled. Yet, it is endlessly more probable that the nation in its tragic hour would sacrifice everything but its honor and would be welded together by the one idea of loyalty to the throne and of preparedness for the day of reckoning. It was crueUy thrown to the ground once before by the brutal Napoleonic force in 1806, and once before in 1813 it broke the yoke with heroic energy. But even if in this unequal struggle of six na- tions against two, the Napoleonic sword were to strike the death blow of the nation, Mr. Wells' prophecy would prove false. The spirit of Luther and Goethe and Kant and Beethoven might be lost, but the spirit of militarism would not be taken away from the world. That was not Ger- many's own. Annihilate Germany, the buffer state, and the world fight between England and Russia is imminent. The defeat of Germany would be the beginning of ages of war. The vic- to:^y of Germany alone could relieve this terrible tension. Of course, whether Germany is approaching vic- tory or defeat we here in America cannot know. The wires from Germany are cut; we are like the people in Paris in 1870, who saw one glorious French victory after another posted in the Paris street. But it is not enough for the London cables 86 PHILOSOPHERS to tell us of English and French and Russian and Belgian victories. If American public opinion is to be won over, the German motives must be falsi- fied. The Teutons alone must break the rules and perform every mean act. From jMr. Wells the fanatic we ought to appeal to Mr. Wells the delightful novelist, whose feeling for poetic balance could not approve such a silly story in which chivalrous heroes stand against villains and brutes. Some time, sooner or later, the cables will be laid again and we shall read the true' story which the God of history has written. Whether that speaks of German victory or defeat, nobody knows ; only this is sure : it will tell deeds of loyalty, of righteousness and of honor. This is my reply for the public. But as I wrote it, I felt deeply that I should have pre- ferred quite a different kind of an answer. I should have liked to have both Wells and Bergson, without a listening audience, quiet- ly with me under the elms of Harvard. Then I should have spoken to them in reply like this. Do you remember, Mr. Wells, how we had a good talk here a few years ago? I was impressed by your fine wide perspec- tives and by your lucid analysis of European affairs. And you, Monsieur Bergson, do you remember how we presided together over 87 THE WAR AND AMERICA the Psychological Congress in Paris, and you most kindly helped me when my French failed me? And how we discussed only last year in Cambridge the problems of mind and matter? As you, Mr. Wells, greeted me with the words that you had just read my book on *'The Americans,*^ and as you, Monsieur Bergson, told me that you had read every line which I have written with the exception of my book on *^The Americans, '* evidently you two taken together are well acquainted with me, and you know how much we agree in essentials. Now, my friends and colleagues, in our little intimate circle think yourselves once more into such meetings on neutral ground and feel yourselves again not poli- ticians of the hour, not speakers for the gal- lery, but true thinkers as I knew you yester- day. Will you now still say that Russia's war against Germany which your country- men have unfortunately joined, is a war of civilization against barbarism? Is there even a shadow of doubt in your hearts that Germany's culture and Germany's national life expression are in every respect equal to that of France and England and that com- pared with this spirit of western and central PHILOSOPHERS Europe the Russian world is one of dark- ness? Of course, you and I and men of our type everywhere have no personal taste for the instruments of force, for armies and navies and all that stern militarism, but at least we know that no single people is re- sponsible for these sharp-edged tools of power which the jealousy of the nations never allows to become dulled. We may re- gret that no better means have been discov- ered. Yet why must it make us unjust and unfair toward one people which is exactly like the others ? And must it destroy all our historic understanding as if the excitement of the hour could lower the philosopher to the level of the unthinking crowd? Certainly, my friends, we ought not to imi- tate our great colleague Hegel who coolly wrote his logic in Jena while he heard the thunder of the Napoleonic cannons in the battle of Jena which destroyed Germany. Surely, we ought to be devoted to the solemn idea of nationality. But does this demand the denunciation of the most loyal seekers for culture as barbarians? Search the ap- peals to public opinion which I have pub- lished in these painful weeks in defense of 89 THE WAR AND AMERICA my native country. I have hurled many a reproach against France and England. I thought it inexcusable for them to use the advantage of the hour to join Russia in this fight. I regretted the revenge feeling of France and the ungenerous attitude of Eng- land toward its new rival in the world ^s markets. But I certainly did not call them barbarians because France strained its en- ergies to build up a powerful army for the regaining of Alsace and England insisted on the mightiest fighting navy of the world. I acknowledged that even the most peaceful governments must count with the sensitive- ness and passion of the nations. I never denied that Germany did the same as the others. I claimed for it only that its so- called militarism was less dangerous to the world, because it was the only country which had nothing to gain of its neighbors from a victory, and the world might therefore have known that it would never fight until its very existence was dangerously threatened. But above all, my colleagues, every utter- ance of mine was full of appreciation, nay of admiration, for the genius of your great peoples. I hailed France and England while 90 PHILOSOPHERS I disapproved of their last actions. Would i'; not have been more worthy of your splen- did work if you both had remained the true philosophical judges of recent history, ac- knowledging cheerfully that Germany's part in the war was one of historic necessity, the self-defense of a most highly cultured state against the onrush of barbaric masses and that France and England are only acci- dentally mixed in for political, strategical reasons, but without any reference to cul- tural issues? You both must feel so, or all your life work would be insincere. You do feel so. Why should you not frankly say so 1 Truly it seems to me not the smallest mis- fortune and perversion of this time of hor- ror that intellectual leaders like you two speak words which are nothing but will-o'- the-wisps, when you both ought to be the steady beacons shining over a dark and stormy sea. vn THE RUSSIANS The Eussian army of eight million men has begun to flood into Germany. The Americans feel rather indifferent about Eussia. It is true in the Eussian-Japanese War ten years ago public opinion was quick to take Japan ^s side, but by no means with the bitterness against Eussia which has now broken out against Germany. The whole anti-Eussian agitation of that time was hardly more than the artificial war- fare of certain newspapers which were in- fluenced by international anti-Eussian bank- ing houses. The masses did not care at that time, nor was the later breaking-up of the commercial treaty with Eussia really a pop- ular movement. The Americans do not think about Eussia. They do not travel there and the only Eus- sians whom they meet at home come from within the pale and are not classed as Eus- 92 THE RUSSIANS sians. They shiver at the thought of Siberia and philosophize about Tolstoi, but the Eus- sian policy appears to the average American as an internal affair which is no concern of the world at large. He has not the slightest idea that Eussia's policy is the strongest on this globe, the most persistent, the most pregnant with consequences for Europe, Asia and ultimately America. England is mig j.ty, but Eussia is mightier. All other nations are in a hurry, Eussia has time ; all other nations economize with men, Eussia can waste and waste and will always grow. All other nations have wavered in their enterprises, Eussia re- mains unswervingly loyal to its aim of world control. Eussia has seen reverses which would have crushed any weaker nation; de- feats in Turkey, defeats in East Asia; she hardly felt them. The clumsy bear withdrew his heavy paw for a while to put it forth with tremendous power at another spot. Eussia is the one nation on earth which is invincible. The European nations felt this instinc- tively and tried to shield themselves when they joined in the great Berlin congress of 1878 under the leadership of Bismarck and of 93 THE WAR AND AMERICA Disraeli, to force down the Pan-Slavic move- ment of eastern Europe. The Slavic Balkan states gained new independence; Turkey re- mained strong; the way to Constantinople, which must be one of Eussia's goals, seemed still long : but Russia had time. The colossus turned for a while to the other side ; it pushed toward Japan, toward China, toward India; Persia was devoured. The little setback with Japan was quickly made good. Meanwhile the times had become more favorable for new harvests on the European side. Russia has always been a master of diplo- macy. From the Russian standpoint the European problem is very simple. The great Napoleon recognized it. Only he underesti- mated the time it might take for Russia to force the Cossacks on all Europe. Russia makes no subtle discriminations; there is no German or French or English civilization; there is only a west European power against the east European Russian world. The great struggle to which it is pressing on must de- cide whether the east or the west will be the ruler. Russia does not care in the least whether Germany or France or England predomi- 94 THE RUSSIANS nates. The empire of the Czar knows only the Mongolian heathen in the East, the Mo- hammedan heathen in the South, the western European heathen in the West. But Russia has time. To defeat western Europe it must divide it. Its cunning statesmen saw France willing to sacrifice everything if it could have revenge for 1870, and saw England anx- iously seeking for means to give a blow to the most disturbing rival in the world mar- ket. If Russia allied itself with its cultural antipodes. Great Britain and France, it could hope to break down first the strong empire on its immediate border. As soon as Ger- many was defeated by the overweight of the threefold enemy, Russia would stand much nearer to its western goal. It could foresee that after Germany's disaster it would be easy to subjugate France and Italy and fin- ally to free India and to wrestle with Eng- land. Germany is fighting to-day the battle of western civilization, and while the French bayonets and the English torpedoes are di- rected against its life, it fights this battle ulti- mately for France and England too. No thoughtful German underestimates the great moral powers latent in the Russian 95 THE WAR AND AMERICA people. The Slavic world is full of deep melanelioly beauty, of devoted loyalty, of re- ligious democracy, of sincere idealism. The harshness of its autocratic regime and the widespread corruption of its upper classes are unimportant compared with the sterling virtues of the Russian people. Yet the Ger- mans feel strongly that a fundamental con- trast separates the German nation from the Russian. The German culture is active and productive; the Russian at its best passive and uncreative. The German soul is full of sunshine; there is something somber and gloomy and oppressive in the Russian soul. The German democracy is one which aims to raise even the lowest by better education and by the stimulation of his free energies to the level of the highest. The Russian democracy also aims to bring high and low to the same level, but by lowering the high and bringing them to the elementary state of simple hu- manity. The result is lack of education, com- plete submission to the church, a pathetic mixture of ignorance and superstition. I say this as one who has always enjoyed the company of Russians. I have had Rus- sian anarchists and Russian princes under my 96 THE RUSSIANS roof; I have been intimate with noted Rus- sian scholars; and when I was a student in Geneva, I spent many a night in radical Rus- sian circles with the tea from the samovar and the Russian cigarettes and the dreams of a better Russia. But all were dreams, full of sadness. The Russian life is one of cul- tural inefficiency, a life from which no true inner progress may be hoped. This inner deadness, this lack of productive energy, is in no way contradictory to the tre- mendous world-power of the Russian nation organized in the Czar's empire. A supersti- tion binds the people into a solid mass just as firmly as any liberal ideals bind free nations like Germany or America. The Russians have that force of blind brutality which easily makes the unthinking fanatic superior to the sensitive. As of the Germans it is true of the Russians that nation and Emperor are one. The Romanoffs do not force the people into world politics; they are only the instrument of the somber, silent masses whose orthodox belief pushes forward to subjugate the world. No Teuton to whom life means more than the comfort of his senses and to whom western civilization is more than mere entertainment 97 THE WAR AND AMERICA of his intellect, can coolly deliberate whether the German or the Russian civilization is the better. He must feel with all the instincts of his mind that one is progress and the other regress, that one is cultural blessing and the other cultural depravity, that the one is life and the other internal death in spite of exter- nal colossal force and mystical beauty. As the Russian nation has decided to have war, Germans, stirred by these instincts, must fight along the whole battle-line from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea for civilization against semi-barbarism. If Germany had been left alone, it would have gone into this struggle with the cer- tainty of success. Even if corruption had not undermined the Czar's land and even if the cruel oppression of the Finns and the Poles, of the Jews and of the Liberals, had not weakened the nation, the Germans would have felt sure that their intellectual mastery of the technical war problems and their edu- cation and thoroughness must bring victory. Germany pledged that it would not attack France, if France promised neutrality. But the craving for Alsace was too overwhelm- ing, and when France joined Russia, the 98 THE RUSSIANS chances for England were too tempting ; and now Germany, weakened and exhausted by enemies at its back, must fight against Russia. If Germany had been left alone in the struggle, Russia's move would have been checked; the German victory would have strengthened Austria's influence on the Balkan; the Pan-Slavic dreams would re- main dreams ; western Europe would keep its hold on the southeast down to Constanti- nople. Now there must be a miracle. Ger- many must win against the world, if this balance of eastern and western powers is to be maintained. But what will occur if in- stead of it the natural expectation of America becomes truth; if the tremendous massing of six nations with their auxiliaries from Asia and Africa brings disaster to Germany? The writers of the day are not shy in dis- cussing the probable outcome of the Kaiser's defeat. Without reserve, their imagination pictures how he will be tarred and feathered and how the whole nation will be made to bleed until it is back to its shadowy existence of a hundred years ago — a people which 99 THE WAR AND AMERICA writes poems and songs and discusses phil- osophical theories — but which has no voice in the councils of the real world. Of course, Austria will not fare otherwise: it will also be dismembered; the Slavic states of Aus- tria will join the Balkan kingdoms in a great Slavic union under the Czar. At the same time, France and England will carry their booty home and all Europe with the excep- tion of the two mourners will live happy ever after. But is not such a programme for the fu- ture, after all, very shortsighted? It may tell the story of the evening of our short life, but after it, history brings a to-morrow and a day after to-morrow. Our vision ought to reach further. The game on the chessboard of the world will not stop because one piece is lost; what are the next moves and who will finally win? Yet is it really difficult to foresee the further development? As soon as Russia has the control of the whole Balkan, and Germany and Austria are torn in pieces, no other country of Europe can resist Eussia's weight. France and Italy as well as the northern states must become dependencies of the onmoving giant, and 100 THE RUSSIANS finally Eussia will strike against England, the mistress of the sea. But this stroke will be well prepared. Great Britain cannot hold India after Eussia has gained this new strength; India is ripe to fall. When India is cut off, Canada, Australia, South Africa must follow. England will stand alone and weakened from the fight with her rebellious colonies. Then the Eussian bear will be far stronger than the English lion. In the mean- time Japan and China and India will begin their fight for the control of the Pacific. The Eussian-German War of to-day will be the first decisive step. Japan has already won over England; by its clever move of joining England against Germany it has shown to the world that the eastern waters are under Japanese supremacy. It will strive not only for Kiao-Chou in China but for German col- onies in the Pacific in order to have foot- holds for the fight for the Philippines. Chinese-Japanese and Hindu infiltration of Central and South America is the next step. In such a way Eussia will press on Eng- land; Japan, China and India on the Pacific coast of America. But in the meantime Eng- land and America will themselves have be- 101 THE WAR AND AMERICA come rivals which weaken each other. Eng- land will not tolerate the growth of an American merchant marine; jealousies will lead to hostilities and when these struggles on the Atlantic have reduced the resisting power of the peoples about the western ocean the time will have come when Russia can win over England and the united orientals over America. The final outcome will be the tri- umph of Asia and of Asia only. Geograph- ical names must not deceive us. We count Russia into Europe because the Ural is a boundary line on the map. But culturally Russia is Asia, and since the railway binds Moscow and Pekin, the Ural line has become still more insignificant. The triumph of Russia over the Atlantic and of Japan, China and India over the Pacific means the com- plete control of Asia over the globe, and the only real antipodes, the western European- American civilization will then be subju- gated. What does this contrast of the antipodes mean I It is a contrast between feeling and thought ; it is a world conflict between mys- tical devotion and efficiency, between the in- stinctive life and the life of technical civiliza- 102 THE RUSSIANS tion, between nature and culture, between the heart and the brain. Asiatic longing from Buddha to Tolstoi means a suppression of the human demands, a somber, dreamy life without desires; western striving from the Greeks to the Americans is to awake ever new demands and to satisfy them by cease- less effort of thought and action. From the standpoint of western culture the Asiatic world must therefore appear anti-cultural, superstitious, semi-barbaric. From the Asiatic standpoint the western world is un- natural, artificial, irreligious, worthless. Every great religion came from Asia. If Russia w^ins to-day and Germany is broken down, Asia must win sooner or later, and if Asia wins, the achievements of the western w^orld will be wiped from the earth more sweepingly than the civilization of old Assyria. The anti-Asiatic work will and must appear sinful and treacherous; it will be obliterated from the globe and the dark- ness of old will reign again. It may be that two thousand years hence an Asiatic priest will tell the faithful peasants the true story of the world history as follows : In the beginning Asia was the human 103 THE WAR AND AMERICA world, and the world was full of devotion and humility. Swarms moved westward into the peninsula of Asia called Europe and moved eastward into the great American islands where they lived a natural life as Indians. But in little Europe a rebellion started. It was begun in Greece by a man called Soc- rates and his followers, Plato and Aristotle. They propagated the sinful belief that man can rely on his own thought. The new creed spread like an infectious disease. They taught how to arrange the whole human life by reasoning, and the false doctrine made progress because it seemed to them that by such reasoning they could master nature, which God has given. For a thousand years there came a check: reason was suppressed once more by religious belief. But after that the Greek revolt spread suddenly over all Europe west of Russia and was carried by the Europeans over to America where the Indians with their natural life were subju- gated by the onrush of the European thought-people. The very worst was the tribe of the Ger- mans. They invented the printing press, which more than anything aided the thought- 104 THE RUSSIANS rebellion. Afterward they had bold revolu- tionists, Luther and Kant and many others, who boasted their so-called science and scholarship and inventions of a thousand kinds, all aiming to undo the natural life of man and his salvation by delivery from his desires. France, England, America, were not better. They were fanatically worship- ing education and knowledge and suppress- ing the truth of the heart. In a sad period the sinful spirit made inroads even into sacred Asia. Especially the Japanese w^ere for a while quite infected by this false re- ligion of intelligence and thought with its worthless technique. But the evil consequences had to come. With the steady increase of desires which they artificially fostered, they made life more difficult and began to reduce the fam- ily, while our Asiatic population grew with- out limit. Our gigantic numbers had to win over the few hundred millions of the thought- rebels. Moreover their complicated, unnat- ural life with railways and cables and steam- ers and factories brought them into endless conflicts which awoke jealousies, and their technique thus served their mutual destruc- 105 THE WAR AND AMERICA tion. Above all, their rivalry made them interfere with one another, at the time when Asia finally took steps to suppress that un- holy rebellion. Two thousand years ago Eussia undertook to punish the chief prov- ince of the thought-district, its small neigh- bor Germany. The Germans might have re- sisted successfully, as they had skill and courage. But fortunately the English and French were very shortsighted and struck Eussia 's enemy in the back. Japan, of course, helped too, and finally India; and so Germany was annihilated. After that the holy work of Asia was divided : the good Eussian Cossacks destroyed the last of the thought-people in Europe, and the Japanese, Chinese and Hindus swept over Araerica. It took hardly more than a thousand years. "When the victory was complete, all libraries were burned, the schools destroyed and the use of all those Godless inventions forbid- den. Now all people on earth have been for a long time dependent on Asia. It is again as it was in the beginning ^ve thousand years ago, and the reckless thought-rebellion is stamped out for all time and almost for- gotten. Men must not think, but feel. Let 106 THE RUSSIANS us be grateful that at tlie decisive hour of this holy world war against the worshipers of thought, France and England helped us Asiatics. vni THE GERMAN POLICY Whose policy is responsible for this titanic world calamity? The less reliable news we have as to the actual happenings, the more America discusses the underlying causes. But the overwhelming majority of the peo- ple seems to have made a decision: Ger- many is the wilful aggressor; five European nations were Germany's innocent victims. But while this is accepted as an axiom it is quite evident that the American people are ready to make a subtle point. The culprit Germany must be discriminated from the harmless German people; the masses are peaceful, industrious, civilized, honest, pro- gressive. They did not want the war; they were whipped into it by the reckless will of the autocratic emperor. Before the tribunal of the new world William II alone stands accused and convicted. To use the language of a divine, the Eev- 108 \ THE GERMAN POLICY erend C. H. Parkhurst contributes to-day to the New York Times a letter which the edi- tors class among "the most interesting.^' He says: "When a mad dog runs amuck, the policeman shoots him on the spot — not by way of revenge, but as a humanitarian contribution to the security of the public. Now has a more rabid creature than the Em- peror William ever run amuck through the peaceful and prosperous domain of Europe? The policeman makes no argument with the dog and enters into no compromise with him, but deals with him in exclusive regard to the requirements of society and simply blots him out as a public menace. It may not be neces- sary to strangle Germany, but her claws should be clipped and her teeth filed and enough of her fortifications dismantled to render her harmless and as heavy a war in- demnity imposed as will not drive her to ab- solute penury. ' * Still more typical than this clerical out- break is the milder form by a layman con- tributor who writes from Boston to his edi- tor. He says: "The average American is extremely certain that there need not have been any war. He wanted none and he is 109 THE WAR AND AMERICA apt to be pretty stern with the man whom he finds responsible. That man is the Em- peror of Germany. The average American is convinced that the whole question could have been choked at birth had the Kaiser brought proper pressure upon Austria-Hun- gary at the right time. This he refused to do even when the course was urged upon him by Great Britain, and he stands to-day, justly or unjustly, solely responsible, in American public opinion, for the war. Hence the al- most universal hope in America that Ger- many will be thoroughly chastized for her ruler's monstrous crime against the peace of the world." ► This is indeed exactly the mood of the man on the street, and he does not feel the blood of shame rushing to his cheeks because he does not stop to think for a moment what it means that the Emperor ** stands to-day, justly or unjustly, solely responsible in American public opinion.'' Justly or un- justly ! If in a murder case in court the dis- trict attorney were to point his finger at any tramp, declaring that this man must be pun- ished for the crime, justly or unjustly, an outburst of indignation would sweep over the 110 THE GERMAN POLICY country. But if the deed brings suffering to hundreds of millions and drenches the worid in blood, ^*the average American'' is wel- come to condemn the Emperor for the gigan- tic act without caring whether the judgment is just or unjust. Can there really still be any doubt that the Kaiser was not respon- sible for this European war? Who threw the spark into the powder magazine? But after all that is not the decisive question. It ought to be : who heaped up so much pow- der on such a dangerous spot that a spark could explode a world? But most impor- tant: where did the powder come from? Must we not say: the spark was thrown by the Servian murderer of the Austrian arch- duke; the explosive was heaped up by King Edward VII, who created the mighty alliance of Great Britain, Eussia and France ; but the powder was made from the political jealousy of Europe against ascending Germany. The distortions of the truth have been so absurd in recent days that I tried once more to show that this war is not a game on a European chessboard played by an over- ambitious monarch, but that great historic movements of the nations themselves have 111 THE WAR AND AMERICA led to it. I published in the New York World a paper of which the following part covers this ground: The great events have drawn the attention away from the small immediate causes, but in the sphere of German emotion the shot which killed the heir to the Austrian throne resounded tremendously. The Archduke had been Emperor William's most intimate friend, but it was not this personal aspect of friendship which made the treacherous deed so momentous. When Austria recognized that this murder was the result of Servian political agita- tion, that this agitation aimed toward the disrup- tion of Austria, when Austria therefore had to demand Servians punishment, and Russia, in re- sponse, began her mobilization against both Austria and Germany, William II was forced to strike against Russia at once. He knew too well that if the declaration of war were delayed until Russia could complete its mobilization, all the strategical advantages of Germany would be lost. But this means that the true cause, after all, was not the assassination, but the political situa- tion by which the Czar could force a war on Ger- many, and could dare to mobilize against it and not to be afraid of any German ultimatum. This situ- ation was the master work of the late King of Eng- land. It was the time when England began to feel the rivalry of the Germans in the world markets. German technical science had become superior. He 112 THE GERMAN POLICY foresaw that the economic struggle would lead to irritation, and the irritation to hatred and the hatred to a political wrangle. With masterly states- manship he prepared for that event: the English fleet was to be aided by the French and Russian armies. This leads us to the ultimate, causes. King Edward had a right to expect that the racial hatred of the Gallic and Slavic nations would al- ways be ready to crush the German Empire, when the chances for success seemed fair. His policy of encircling Germany, by uniting its foes, was thus founded upon France's desire for the lost provinces and upon Russia 's longing for the trium- phant predominance of the Slavic race. Had Emperor William anything to do with these causes? He was a child when Alsace-Lorraine was conquered, or rather, when Germany reconquered the old German land which it had lost to France two hundred years before. The French hatred was in no way a reaction on the Emperor's deeds. On the contrary, he left nothing undone to concili- ate the Gallic pride. And the antagonism between the German and the Slavic races was necessary from natural growth. Like two mighty trees side by side they hinder each other as they grow. The Teutons have had their day ; the Slavs want their day. That has always been the course of the world's history; what boots their emperor or czar? This world condition of racial hatred once given, this encircling policy with its strategical chances once established, and this last chance conflict at 113 THE WAR AND AMERICA the Servian frontiers once thrown into our time — what choice was left to William II and what blame can fall on him that he did that for which no alternative was open? To be sure, he did not wait until Petersburg declared war. If he had, he would have neglected his duty as leader of the German army. As soon as it was perfectly evident that the Czar had de- cided for war, it was the duty of Emperor William not to delay the fight until the slow mobilization on the one-tracked Russian railroads could be completed. He knew that he was prepared. But there is the rub. Was not this his great offense, that he had his army always ready? Did he not irritate the world by this constant preparation for war? Was this drilling and training not itself a provocation which had to lead to war? On the contrary, it was the one move by which peace continued through forty-three years after the foundation of the German Empire. If this tremendous machine had not been kept up, the Russian and the French guns would have opened fire much earlier. If this German readiness did not save peace this time, it was only because the Czar believed that the united forces were at last over- powering. The German army was no possible prov- ocation, and the Emperor's activity no possible first cause for the militarism of the neighbors be- cause even an elementary pupil of politics had to see that Germany did not desire expansion of its home land. The Emperor had difficulty enough 114 THE GERMAN POLICY with the Polish subjects on the Russian fron- tier and the Lorrainian subjects on the French frontier. To swallow more such indigestible ele- ments of population was against Germany's inter- ests and desires. The world, therefore, could be sure that Ger- many never would make use of its fighting machine except to defend itself against its ill-disposed neigh- bors. Even if William II had been craving the glory of the battlefield, the absurd uselessness of an aggressive war, the absence of any possible re- ward and the evident risk of great losses would have forced him to be pacific in every move. On every occasion he has shown by his deeds that the upbuilding of European peace was the one con- trolling programme of his reign. The White Book, just published in Berlin, proves that this remained his one desire, even at the hour when Slavs had murdered his friend and Austria felt threatened, and the Czar had actually begun rushing troops to the German frontier. How grotesque if Russian, French and English statesmen, who all have profited year by year from this peace policy of the Emperor, now join in the cry that at last the sham of peace has been torn from his face and his real war features have been unmasked. To-day he is the war lord indeed, whose every thought is fight for victory. But does this will to fight in the hour of battle give the lie to the longing for harmony in the days of peace and to the hope that war never would come? Does U5 THE WAR AND AMERICA America not know that the American who holds the Nobel prize for peace, Theodore Roosevelt, is the fiercest in battle? Is not this whole American nation united in its most earnest desire to live in peaceful harmony with the nations of the globe, and yet at every hour ready to strike with all the energies of its manhood if the Monroe Doctrine should be violated ? Would such a decision to fight really mean that the nation was deceiving the world with its desire to live peacefully? This double nature pervades the whole German nation exactly as it does the American. It is there- fore entirely misleading to construct a contrast be- tween the German people, which seeks peace and culture and art and science, and the imperial gov- lernment which rattles the saber. The whole Ger- man people knows that it owes to no one more than to the Emperor its wonderful progress in the arts of peace; and the hour of danger has shown that there is no dissension from the Emperor's will to war when need be. This does not mean that every citizen has a taste for the life of the barracks. War is abhorrent to many, but there is no fundamental disagreement as to Germany 's life necessities. Even the Socialistic opposition is only a luxury for peace- ful hours of discussion. Emperor and nation are one in the knowledge that Germany is surrounded by peoples whose racial hatred would crush Ger- many to the ground if it could not fight at an in- stant 's notice. Whether this fight had any promise of success 116 THE GERMAN POLICY when six nations stood against two could not be the question, as the Emperor had no choice. If he had not struck, the defeat was certain. He did strike, as at least a hope existed that once more the miracle might occur which came to his ancestor, Frederick the Great, who also went against an un- holy alliance, also was outnumbered by armies four times larger than his, and who won. The papers with more academic back- ground have their own variation of the ter- rible conflict between Kaiser and nation. They do not think so much of the poor farm- ers and workingmen with whom the sensa- tional papers are concerned, but they harp upon the sad fate of those who work for art and science and ideal culture. The regi- ments of the willful Kaiser trample down the wonderful harvests of Germany ^s higher life. I printed the following letter in the New York Evening Post: To THE Editor of the Evening Post: Sir: — Your much reprinted editorial called ''The Real Crime Against Germany" is the most elo- quent expression of the American upper-class opin- ion of the second week of war. In the first week the rush was simply straight against Germany. Then came the reaction ; everybody felt the absurd- 117 THE WAR AND AMERICA ity, and a subtle discrimination began. The indig- nation is now not against Germany, the highly civilized nation with its idealistic citizens, but against Germany, the imperial militaristic state. The Germany of the Emperor must be crushed in order to liberate the better Germany of ''Fichte, Kant and Hegel." As Fichte and Kant and Hegel can no longer express their views on the question, and as I am the only living man you draw into the dispute, I beg permission to restate the issue as I see it. You say: "Is it any wonder that true friends of Ger- many cry out against all this from the depths of their affection for it — that they protest against the sophisms of a Miinsterberg and of all those who would suddenly see in this horrible slaughter of the true Germany a new crusade against the heathen?'' I cannot speak for *^all those,'' but for my own part I can say with certainty that I never spoke of anything like a crusade against the heathen, because a crusade suggests an attack, while the only meaning of all my utterances was that this war of Germany is a war of defense. The Slavic attack which was signalized by the Russian mobilization threatened to become crushing inasmuch as Russia was able to rely on the willingness of France to take revenge. As soon as it was evident that both felt ready to risk the long-delayed blow against Germany, it was the duty of the Emperor to save the country from certain defeat bv making the 118 THE GERMAN POLICY first movement qnickly and by declaring war be- fore the slow-moving Russian troops were assem- bled. Now it is thinkable that the Emperor was mis- taken in believing that Russia really meant war this time and not only bluff. But it is certain that this perhaps mistaken judgment was shared by the over- whelming majority of the nation. In the last few days, as travelers have returned, and letters and papers have come in, we know more than a week ago. In every home and wherever two Germans met, lived the one conviction: Russia wants war; France is ready, too ; if Germany waits some weeks more, its best chance will be lost ; the quick declara- tion of war is unavoidable, if the nation is not to be thrown to the ground. The fiction that the true nation wanted peace and the government war is a bold construction which is utterly refuted by the evident facts. The cultured people and the Em- peror alike wanted and w^orked for peace, as long as there seemed any hope. But all of them de- manded war when they felt convinced that it was the only possible protection against a Slavic on- rush. This inner unity of people and imperial govern- ment in matters of militarism was not confined to this hour of danger after the murder of the Aus- trian Archduke, but it has been the backbone of German politics for the last forty years. Those men who have achieved the marvelous progress of German civilization have done it in the conviction 119 THE WAR AND AMERICA that the military spirit is a splendid training for cultural efficiency and that anyhow Germany, in its geographical position between rivals, has no other way open but to prepare for fight. The German university professors, whom you praise, have al- ways been the most enthusiastic defenders of the system. You hear nowhere in Germany more belittling of the peace and disarmament movements than among the university professors. And are they really dis- loyal to Fichte and Kant and the rest? Was the need of Germany's armor ever more passionately proclaimed than in Fichte 's ** Orations to the Ger- man Nation?'* If Germany had been made a re- public twenty years ago, and the lawyers and cap- tains of industry, the farmers and the workingmen, and, as would be probable, the professors, had the say, not one soldier and not one cannon less would stand to-day at the French and the Russian border. Yes : it is a fact that repeatedly in the Emperor 's reign of twenty-five years the people would have pushed toward war, if the government had not kept a restraining influence. It may be said even of the whole of Europe that the governments have been cooler and more pacific than the peoples. The historic state forms have hardlj^ any influ- ence on this war spirit. Has America forgotten how quickly the troops began firing in Vera Cruz, and how suddenly a large part of the people wanted to fight until the whole of Mexico was conquered ? And yet the crime at Tampico was hardly the assas- 120 THE GERMAN POLICY sination at Serajevo. No: the fighting spirit is the same the world over under presidents as under em- perors. But what can letters to the editor achieve against the stubborn American indifference concerning German political matters? Men who are familiar with German literature and art and science express their sincere belief that Germany has no constitution or that the German Emperor can declare war on his own responsibility or that the Reichstag is not elected by universal, equal manhood suf- frage and so on. Indeed, it is perfectly evi- dent that not a small part of the present-day articles which attack the Emperor would fall asunder if the statements on which they are based were simply corrected by anyone who has clear knowledge of the fundamental po- litical facts. But even where the facts are not of the kind which the school teacher ought to have supplied, would not straight thinking be enough to eliminate the suspicions ? Day by clay we must read that Austria's ultimatum to Servia ^^dtll the intention to force a war with the world was a sinister scheme of the 121 THE WAR AND AMERICA German Emperor who had carefully pre- pared and timed it when Russia had not completed its new railway systems and when England was suffering from inner disorders. Can this absurdity really gain credence by its endless repetition? Can anyone really fancy that the Emperor would have lingered in Norwegian waters, far from home, if he had foreseen what the next few days were to bring? Would he not have given a hint to the merchant marine which was swarm- ing over the oceans of the globe and which with its billion dollars' value became the easy prey of the English fleet? Can anyone really think that America figures so little in the Emperor's mind that he would not even keep his Washington ambassador at his post when he was to stir up a world conflict? The ambassador had left America only a few weeks before, and I remember how he told me at the end of June that he could go on his vacation in Bavaria with the comfort- able feeling that Mexico was settled and that not the slightest cloud was on the hori- zon. The Kaiser was as unaware of the rapid developments in Petersburg as the whole German nation. But when the great Russian 122 THE GERMAN POLICY turn was made, the nation was as quickly pre- pared for the decisive struggle as the Em- peror. There was not a day's, not an hour's, not a heartbeat's time in which this perfect unity of people and monarch was broken. IX THE KAISER At the declaration of war there was not a day^s, not an hour's, not a heartbeat's time in which the perfect nnity of people and mon- arch was broken — so I wrote yesterday. How could it be otherwise after a reign of twenty- five years in which the German nation felt the Emperor's vigorous personality — a true embodiment of its aspirations and im- pulses? It was a fair symptom of the ex- treme freedom in Germany that small dis- sensions between the monarch and various groups of the people had sometimes been aired in the comic papers, in the serious press, in the parliament, with noise and energy. Outsiders may have been deceived by it. In every deeper impulse the harmony between Emperor and nation has always been sincere, and has become the more perfect as his personality matured, his cultural inter- ests widened, his tolerance, even for the So- 124 THE KAISER cialists, broadened, his character mellowed. The nation realized that some of the most characteristic forces of Germany's new, suc- cessful life had their spring in the personal talent and intelligence, in the character and conviction of the leader. His was the inter- est for the industrial developments and the technical education; his was the enthusiasm for the great merchant marine ; his was the support for sport and bodily training of the youth ; his was the persistent work for social reform, for labor legislation, for the protec- tion of the young and the weak and the poor; his the effort for international cultural ex- change with the leading nations on earth. When the young monarch ascended the throne and the great Bismarckian period came to an end there was a hush throughout the country and nobody knew whether the heir would live up to the great inheritance and whether the industrious empire would really entrust itself to the untested, self- willed, youthful prince. But when last year under every German roof the twenty-fifth an- niversary of his reign was celebrated, a wave of gratitude swept over the land which came from the depths of the heart. The whole 125 THE WAR AND AMERICA people felt that the dissensions and frictions between the monarch and the nation had been insignificant episodes, as the pulse-beat of friendship is sometimes intermittent in the most cordial relation. But fundamentally the country saw in William II its good spirit. In joyful and in serious hours all love and pride and hope and trust turned to his unique personality. No side of German life was neglected or suppressed by him. He devoted himself to the army and the government; and yet the four volumes of his speeches deal far more with science and literature, with education and art and social reform than with mere military or political questions. He was sur- rounded by the highest nobility; and yet he loved to draw captains of industry or schol- ars or artists into his intimate circle. And whoever came in contact with him felt that he would have admired this universality of interests and this intensity of spirit if he had met it in academic halls instead of in an imperial palace. Everyone must speak for himself. I can say this: my scientific in- terest has turned in recent years toward the application of experimental psychology to 126 THE KAISER the practical needs of civilization. I have had ample opportunity to speak about these questions to many a scholar and many a lay- man in the new world and in the old. When I was last at the Emperor's palace in Pots- dam he discussed with me these problems at length. He was especially interested in the ways in which psychology could be useful for vocational guidance and for the selection of industrial workers, and secondarily in its application to education, law and medicine. The questions which he asked and the criti- cisms which he expressed showed a more thorough grasp of the essentials and a more helpful insight into the new science than any which I have heard from scholarly or un- scholarly men. Needless to say that the same earnestness of grasp, but aided by a wealth of information, showed itself when the same night's conversation went over to new move- ments in America and to the Panama Canal. America has always had a most favored place in the compass of his personal interests and with deepest s^Tupathy he always followed the inner tendencies of the American nation. To draw a line between the desires of the Emperor and the interests of the people is 127 THE WAR AND AMERICA thus entirely fantastic. To say that the Kaiser is militaristic and the people anti-mil- itaristic, that the nation is longing for cul- ture and the monarch is forcing them away from it, is contradicted by every breath of German life. Yet may there not be an ele- ment of truth in the feeling that the German life of recent time is threatened by a con- trast and by an inner rivalry of interests? It is so. The grotesque misunderstanding is only to fancy that the division line lies be- tween the Emperor and the nation ; the divi- sion line is drawn in the midst of every per- sonality, the highest and the humblest alike. There is a certain dualism in the soul of every German to-day. It is the contrast be- tween the ideal values and the earthly power and success, the contrast between cultural un- folding and practical efficiency, between the legacies of Goethe and of Bismarck. Ger- many is still, as it was of old, a people of poets and thinkers ; and yet the time is past when it could not be anything else because it was exhausted by the devastations of the Thirty Years' War. The new united Ger- many had again reached by its own efforts the wealth and the strength of the Germany 128 THE KAISER of the Renaissance. The days of power and of luxury came back, the glories and the joys of success and might stirred the nation to greater and greater achievements : not Wei- mar but Berlin became the true capital. The weakness and one-sidedness of the poet and thinker period was overcome, but the faults of the new virtues crept in with them. An empty ostentation, frivolity and arrogance, a sensual joy of life and devotion to external success pushed themselves into the home life and into the state life. The modern world suffers everywhere from these antagonistic feelings, but no people more than the Germans. Their old traditions of a life devoted to idealistic culture conflict too strongly wdth the life yearning for powerful external civilization. Berlin became more and more like old Rome in the imperial time, while the German soul made its pilgrimage longingly to the Greece of Plato. That is the conflict which really divides the nation. There will be not a few who will feel that it is a blessing for Germany if a great war shakes once more the national conscience. There was too much dancing, too much love of enjoyment; the time of fighting and of 129 THE WAR AND AMERICA hardship may bring forth a greater Germany. There was too much luxury and frivolity; !he earnestness of a strenuous fight, the suffering and the prayers will bring back a puT^'^r Germany. They would feel that a de- feat of Germany would ruin everything, but that Germany blessed by victorious struggles would come out riper and better prepared to unite the ideal demands of the German im- mortal soul with the work of modern civil- ization. One thing, however, is certain, even if the most cruel fate were to befall the German nation and the Cossacks should swarm through the streets of Berlin and the envy and fury of Eussia's allies should make the most of the Russian victory and should trample on the bleeding nation: the people would never separate themselves from the Kaiser. The widespread ignorance of the true German motives and feelings is nowhere so evident as in the every-day discussions of this possibility. The average American fan- cies that the poor German people are held in the grip of the powerful Emperor and his army and that at the first moment when a national disaster gave them a chance to 130 THE KAISER throw off the yoke, they would enthusiasti- cally declare a republic. Sincere admirers of the German people and their cultural achievements are fully convinced that this would be the inevitable outcome. The bulk of the American nation anticipates this as the natural and most desirable result of Ger- man defeat. For not a few this is even the secret spring of the sympathy with the ter- rific alliance of six nations against two. However this unfairness may be abhorrent to their sense of justice, they feel that after all at least one good thing can be hoped for : the militarism of monarchies, the humbug of royalties of divine right will be swept away from Central Europe, and the area of repub- licanism will be expanded to the banks of the Vistula. If they knew Europe better they would feel that those to whom republicanism is the be- ginning and end of all political righteousness ought rather to hope for the victory of the German arms. If France is victorious, the chance is much greater that Germany will keep its monarchy, but tliat France will throw off its ill-fitting republican costume. I was in Paris at the Boulanger time. Paris 131 THE WAR AND AMERICA is clamoring to make a victorious war hero king. But the main point is that Germany, if it does not lose itself, will remain loyal to its traditional monarchical state form. Most Americans simply cannot think them- selves into the mind of another nation. Just as they are seldom able really to master a foreign language and as even those who travel in Europe usually rely on their na- tive tongue, they cannot understand the lan- guage of foreign political thought and fancy that everybody must have a desire to speak the American idiom. The man I meet in the club tells me spontaneously how warmly he sympathizes with me in any misfortune of Germany and how wonderful Germany's progress has been, but with the same sin- cerity he adds that he simply cannot under- stand how such an enlightened people can stand the claptrap of a monarchy, if it is to mean more than a mere social decoration, as it appears to him in the case of England. I know I cannot convince that man in the club that every healthy-minded German con- siders the imperial government the ideal state form for his fatherland and would regard a change to the republican state form as a 132 THE KAISER great step backward which would be welcome to none but to cosmopolitan Socialists. The German who believes in the historic meaning and value of national units as against color- less cosmopolitanism would see in the crea- tion of a German republic a falling back to the rationalizing theory of the eighteenth cen- tury. He would feel it as a destruction of Germany's historic continuity. Does that mean that he considers the monarchical state form as a better one than the republican? Certainly not. He would consider such a question as to the best state form as unfit and unworthy of anyone who understands the spirit of history. It would be as unwise as the question whether man or woman is the better human form when it is clear that na- ture needs both and performs in both neces- sary purposes. America would prostitute itself if it were to make its greatest and strongest man a king, just as Germany would lower itself if it were to elect its best man as president. The German is not unaware of the splendid moral energies living in the thought of a true re- publican democracy. He knows quite well that the glaring defects of democratic rule, 133 THE WAR AND AMERICA the often inefficient civil service, the over- weight of moneyed interests and many simi- lar faults are after all superficial and insig- nificant compared with the tremendous value which lies in the participation and power of every individual citizen. This complete distri- bution of responsibility, making everything which the state is to do ultimately dependent upon the will of every voter, is a civic achievement which cannot be bought too dearly and which inspires the nation to won- derful feats. But behind this stands and must stand a certain view of the state. The state must be taken as an organization which exists in the interest of the individuals. This is indeed the central belief of Anglo-Saxon civilization. It harmonizes completely with the individualistic philosophy in every other field. What else is the purpose of science and knowledge, of art and literature, of culture and progress, but to aid and to strengthen the individuals, to make life comfortable and pleasant and efficient for as many persons as possible? The happiness of individuals is the last goal for the Anglo-Saxon. But the philosophy of life which stands be- hind the German nation has always been en- 134 THE KAISER tirely different. In the German view the state is not for the individuals, but the in- dividuals for the state. The ideal state unit which has existence only in the belief of the individuals is felt as higher and more impor- tant than those chance personalities which enter into it. In the same way truth and beauty, law and morality, progress and re- ligion are valuable in themselves and not only means to bring comfort and happiness to in- dividual persons. It is man's task to serve these ideals. To fill one's life with the serv- ice of science and art, of culture and state, and when need be to spend one's life for them is an eternal value. The German creed is that not the enjoyment of happiness, but the fulfillment of duties is the real meaning of c human existence. Life is worth while only if we serve ideas and if we are ready to sac- rifice everything for them. If this is the moral background, the power of the state must be symbolized in a person- ality which is entirely independent from the struggle of the individuals as such. A presi- dent is the product of parties; his real strength lies in the fact that the will of a ma- jority has selected him and has empowered 135 THE WAR AND AMERICA him. The whole meaning of a true king lies in the fact that his strength is not the result of the struggling wills of individuals. He symbolizes the state as a unit and not as a mere sum of individual persons. Of course, he is a man with all the limita- tions of an erring man, just as our flag is, of course, a piece of cloth. But the flag is more than a piece of cloth and in that sense the king is more than a man; and only in that sense the German welcomes even the sym- bolic language which calls the power of the king one of divine grace, just as the marriage tie is taken as divine. The Germans could not substitute a republic for the monarchy without throwing away this whole system of ideas about the meaning of life and the state and the world. They have not chosen their attitude toward man and God by votes in committees; it has grown with them in two thousand years of history, and has grown out of their traditions as necessarily as the oppo- site ideas of state and individual have re- sulted from the cooperation of the American colonies. Nations cannot exchange the stories of their lives ; Germany cannot cut itself loose from two thousand years so gloriously rich 136 THE KAISER with the most costly treasures of culture. Germany's future depends upon its loyalty to the idealism of its great past. Have those who speculate on the German republic ever considered that this type of monarchical feelings with its tremendous and incomparable idealistic value holds not only an Emperor at the top of the empire, but kings and grand dukes in every German state? Are Bavarians and Saxons and Wiirtenbergians too coolly to throw their old reigning dynasties, in which their state history is symbolized, overboard in order to hold primaries and party committees to elect some la^vyer politicians as substitutes! Those who know the elements of history would se- riously doubt whether such Broadway advice would find sympathizers in Munich or Dres- den or Stuttgart. Germany may be crippled by the brutal, overwhelming force of the six nations which have attacked it in the midst of its peaceful life, but only if it became dis- loyal to its history and its idealistic belief would it be really defeated. Those who know the spirit of the German nation do not fear such a moral disaster. Its fortresses may fall, but its faith in the Kaiser will stand. 137 X THE SIKENT VOICES We know where the newspapers stand, but where does the crowd stand and the quiet masses from the American homes? The sur- face appearance is that the papers and the nation are one in this war and that the large reading public enjoys these savage editorial policies which put all blame on Germany- while its news and views are so largely cut off from America. Yet may not the papers be deceiving themselves ? In the first moment when the one-sided, colored news of German meanness and brutality and of Rus- sian and French and English and Belgian honor and glory was cabled, the well-known tendency of the Americans to follow the crowd made them swarm into the anti-Ger- man camp. It was a nation-wide auto-sug- gestion. The victory of the six over the two seemed certain, and this first unthinking rush to the successful gave the cue to the 138 THE SILENT VOICES editors and they outdid themselves in cater- ing to the apparent mass instinct. With some of the best papers the reaction has set in. During the last week the tone has markedly changed. Others, no doubt, will follow. Yet the total impression in the coun- try's press is still that of pronounced hos- tility to Germany, and certainly not that of neutrality. The theory that the German Em- peror wanted the war, that the Germans were the aggressors, and that it would be a bless- ing for mankind if the Germans were beaten and severely punished is still the great, har- monious background of the country's litera- ture for the day. But symptoms indicate that the reaction in the decent public has gone much faster and further. The wholesome family circle begins to feel pretty sure that an appalling injustice, unworthy of the great American nation, has been done. It has da^\Tied on them that this war has been forced on Germany, that it is fundamentally a war of Russian brutality against German civiliza- tion, and that it is a misfortune for the world that revengeful France and envious England have joined Russia to throw down the Ger- man nation by force of a larger number. 139 THE WAR AND AMERICA The coming of this change in the public opinion is as yet little felt on the outside. The newspapers can easily select the letters which they print, can open their columns to everyone who is under the suggestive in- fluence of the one-sided cables or who hon- estly believes that whatever England says must be right. They can keep out of print the letters from those Anglo-American citi- zens who know better and take the German side. If the German-born writers protest against unfairness, their letters are, of course, gladly admitted; they are treated as outsiders. They are the poor fellows on whom a generous newspaper may have pity because their fatherland is crushed and no- body can be surprised that they beg grace in the hour of humiliation. They are discounted beforehand. Those who arrived here with the Imperator cannot help feeling friendly to Germany, but when those whose ancestors arrived with the Mayflower are indignant with this press campaign against Berlin, they are carefully silenced. Even if the coun- try's leading authority on international law, dean of Columbia University for many years, writes a fervent appeal to the American na- 140 THE SILENT VOICES tion to be just to the Emperor and to see the true aggressors, he finds difficulty in publish- ing his article. The public press is thus like a curved mir- ror which distorts and alters the perspec- tive. I feel so because my private correspon- dence suggests a very different impression. I do not speak of those letters which I have received from friends or colleagues, from politicians and statesmen, men with whom I am personally acquainted. During the last four weeks the larger part of my mail has come, strange to say, from people whose names I have never heard. I have been sim- ply inundated here in my quiet country place with a flood of letters from all sorts of men and women who would hardly think of elab- orating neatly prepared arguments for the public. But they do sit down and discharge their emotions in informal letters, warm or cool, polite or sharp, grammatical or other- wise. Every mail has brought piles of them. My time has not allowed me to read all of them and my good intention of dictating a word of answer to every letter simply had to be given up on account of its utter hope- lessness. Yet I have seen enough of their 141 THE WAR AND AMERICA content to know that the masses whose voices are silent cannot be understood by simply reading the editorial columns and even the letter-box colmnns of our metropolitan news- papers. What the papers say would discour- age me utterly. My correspondence, if I may so call the letters which I do not answer, gives me the most encouraging and inspiring con- viction that the day of justice for Germany's cause before the tribunal of American pub- lic opinion is near. I do not quote the hundreds of letters from German writers. Their sympathy with my stand is almost a matter of course. Yet it is truly encouraging to see with what loyalty and sincere enthusiasm they profess their faith in the Emperor's course as one which the ill will of the neighbors has forced on him. This does not refer only to those who were born in the fatherland, but to their children and grandchildren, many of whom write to me in English. They tremble with holy wrath at the indignities which part of the press is heaping on the German race, and they fear that this recklessness with which the hatred against the Germans is stirred up may seriously disturb the peace between va- 142 THE SILENT VOICES rious racial elements in this country. The far more important and characteristic ex- pressions are in those heaps of letters from persons who have no German blood in their veins. Certainly many of them are full of attacks and vituperations. I should deceive myself if I overlooked this feature of my collection. I may set down here some specimens. ^ ^ Your article is pure, unadulterated piffle, and you know it. Germany, the bully of Europe, is doomed, and you know it, too.'' Or: *^The American people believe that the Kaiser is an arrogant swashbuckler and his military officers are insolent warriors.'' Or: ^^ Ger- many is a thug breaking into the household of nations in the night. I would be glad to see food furnished to those who are defend- ing their home lands. The German army I would see go hungry." Or: ''It was your blustering, swell-headed German Emperor who is to blame. He is a big bluff, but was called this time good and plenty. The Ger- man empire ends in sixty days." Or: ''Let us hope the final result will be a disgraced Kaiser and a German republic. " Or : " When the German armies have been beaten to a 143 THE WAR AND AMERICA frazzle, as pray Heaven they will, and the Emperor has been sent to a hospital for paranoiacs, where he should have been con- signed before, then it will be a great oppor- tunity for the Social Democrats. ' * This concern with the Emperor's paranoia is one of the most often repeated sympathetic motives. One dear soul writes directly: ^*I see symptoms of morbidity, suggestive of paranoia. I hope the symptoms are decep- tive, but I find them depressing.'' Another, a lawyer who has a reputation to lose, ten- derly goes into still more detail. ^'I really fear that William is the victim of the two distinctive delusions which constitute para- noia, the delusion of grandeur and the delu- sion of persecution. Nothing but his insane delusion made him believe that under his guidance Germany can overcome Russia, France, Great Britain and Belgium com- bined." As this came early, at a time when I was still trying to answer at least the longer epistles, I wrote to him in an ironic mood that his diagnosis was the more probable as it evidently runs in the family, considering that Frederick the Great, his ancestor, also thought that he ought to fight against the 144 THE SILENT VOICES whole world when the honor of his people de- manded it. But my correspondent took that seriously and wrote at once : ^ ^ Frederick the Great was certainly a paranoiac,' ' and added : * ^ My knowledge of psychology is very slight and yours is very great, but mine is enough to convince me that many of the most inflAien- tial names in history acquired their fame from the results of paranoia. Among these I include the names of Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Mohammed.'' But however often the para- noia motive returns, it is outdone by one imaginative thought which recurs with sur- prising regularity, namely, ^Hhe hope that the Kaiser may some day hang from the top of the Eiffel Tower." Needless to say that wishes of this kind are mostly expressed on postal cards. Others make it still easier for themselves. There is, for instance, one gen- tleman in Chicago who is evidently afraid that the eastern newspapers do not supply me sufificiently with accusations against Ger- many. He therefore sends me regularly whatever he can cut out of western news- papers, especially when they quote my arti- cles, and in happy reminiscence of his not quite successful German school lessons, 145 THE WAR AND AMERICA writes blue pencil comments over the text like *^Du bist dumm!'' Do these communications really mean any- thing? Do not these insults simply bear the stamp of the unthinking men who are per- fectly honest but naively imitate in their crude and vulgar way what they see in the papers? If the English cables had been cut and they had read daily from German sources the wild news of glorious deeds of the Ger- mans and of the brutality of the Russian Cossacks and the infamy of the French sol- diers, these same men would have shouted themselves hoarse for the German Emperor, the finest man in Europe. This class of peo- ple simply rushes into the path of least re- sistance. As soon as the thinking men get the upper hand and the press yields to them, these post-card writers who may easily lick their intellectual weight in wildcats will be on the side of fairness before they know it them- selves. But I turn now to the much larger part of my non-German correspondence, to those who object to the anti-German sentiment. They really speak the language of all classes ; they come from all parts of the country ; and they 146 THE SILENT VOICES vary greatly in the character of their mo- tives. Many think of their personal debt to German people or to German culture ; others emphasize the historic obligation of America ; still more dread the frightful consequences of a German defeat, or condemn the one-sided- ness of a hasty public. But almost all speak like people who think for themselves, earnest, independent men who represent the best type of the wholesome American public. ' ' The current prejudices and the ultra-pro- British attitude I expected, but the revelation of ignorance among our educated men about history and the obvious meaning of things amazes me.'' Or: ^'It would be lamentable if German civilization should suffer as the victim of blind, bellicose resentment." Or: ^^Undoubtedly the Kaiser is the friend of peace; undoubtedly the civilized, intelligent world should stand for Germany in this con- flict of civilizations. ' ' Or : ' ^ Amazing indeed is the attitude of some of our people who, I think, fail to realize Germany 's progress and Russia's blocking. I know both lands well and should never hesitate for a moment on which side to cast my lot." Or: '^It seems to me that if my countrymen consult their 147 THE WAR AND AMERICA own interests, they will not find them to lie either with the Slav or Japanese advance." Or : ''I am unwilling to stand by without pro- testing against the manifest unfairness with which the game is played and the cards stacked against your country. It is bad enough to have the news colored in the inter- ests of Germany 's foes, but it is much worse to prejudice American opinion by editorial comment founded on such news. " Or : ^ ' I am an American born and brought up and like to see fair play at all times. As far as Germany and Austria are concerned, they are not get- ting same, not from the European nations or from the American press.'' Or: *^This is an unfair struggle any way you look at it. I am surprised at a power like England going in with such odds against two nations.'' Or: ' ' The crushing of Germany as bulwark of the Germanic race on the European continent is not likely to prove of advantage to the ad- vance of mankind. To enlighten our people on the real issues of this dreadful struggle is indeed highly necessary." Or: *'I know that in this struggle Germany is standing for the essential civilization of the world and while I have no German blood in my veins 148 THE SILENT VOICES my sympathies are all with her. * * Or : * ' How anybody with a thimbleful of common-sense can resist this absolutely sane and true state- ment of the case of Germany against the allies passes my comprehension. The nota- ble fact that so sane a thinker as John Morley resigned from the British cabinet rather than join Eussia in this war of aggression is most significant. In any event — Germany may be beaten — but beaten or not she did the only thing that a strong people could possibly do under the circumstances." Or: *^A proud and manly nation cannot stoop to fling back the mud flung at it by the press of Europe and copied thoughtlessly in our own. For my part I earnestly hope that the Teutonic Hercules whose labors have been so great a boon to mankind will yet baffle his enemies. ' ' Or: ^'It is urgently necessary that vigorous methods be adopted to convince the American people that it is a moral struggle and an at- tempt to strangle the progress of the German people. When Russia threatened India, Eng- land's diplomacy induced Japan to fight her war. Now that Germany threatens Eng- land's commercial supremacy, it turns the legions of Europe against her." Or: ^^As a 149 THE WAR AND AMERICA journalist, manager of a news bureau, I have tried to form as accurate conclusions as I could regarding the present absurd but mon- strous and gigantic war, and for the life of me I fail to see where Germany's error lies. She, as I make it out, had done her utmost for peace, and when Eussia began to mobilize and kept on, Germany deserves commenda- tion for her strategic sense in sailing in just as fast as she could. I am amazed that the public seems to blame Germany for the war. ' ' Or : ^ ' France, England and Japan in fighting on the side of Russia are bringing nearer by twenty-five years the time they will become actually dependencies of Russia. Nothing can prevent this except Germany's success now. Russia, being relentless and ungrateful, will not hesitate to break any promises she has made her allies for their support.'' Or: '*For us who love Germany the thing which hurts most deeply is less the dreadfulness of the material situation than the infamous and insidious misstatement of the issue: every lover of Germany should now consider him- self a soldier sworn to defend her good name." Or: ^^As one descended from grad- uates of Harvard University since 1707, as 150 THE SILENT VOICES one who has lived both in France and Ger- many and been intimate with the elite of both countries, I take the liberty of expressing my most heartfelt and best wishes for the success of Germany in this present struggle which I consider to be for the advancement of Christian, Teutonic civilization.'^ I might go on in this way without end. Of course the real significance of these hundreds of letters would come out only if space al- lowed them to be copied complete. "While I am writing these lines the mail brings me a new pile. At haphazard I take one sample. It is written from St. Louis. *'I have no German blood save what I inherited through the Anglo-Saxon invaders of England ages ago, who brought with them the ideals of jus- tice and freedom which their latest descend- ants in England have forgotten. It is to me incomprehensible how the American press so generally supports Eussia and England. Eussia stands for the most conscienceless and atrocious despotism, whose recent prom- ise of national regeneration to Poland is an insult to human intelligence after its crush- ing out the guaranteed liberties of Finland only yesterday. As to our relations with 151 THE WAR AND AMERICA Great Britain there is much idle talk of a hundred years of peace. Frederick the Great of Prussia was the first European monarch to recognize our independence. Never have the American people suffered in- jury at the hands of the German people, who have peacefully entered our land in multi- tudes to help subdue the wilderness, bringing with them the ark of science, art and loyalty. Never can America fully repay this debt to Germans and to Germany. England ushered in the hundred years of peace by destroying our capital and presidential residence. Dur- ing our Civil War it was British ships and British cannon that swept off the seas our world-wide commerce. Great Britain, with- out the slightest intention of making a Pan- ama Canal herself, has from the outset thrown every possible obstacle in the way of our accomplishing it. If all this is the spirit of peace, rather give us war. I most ear- nestly pray that Providence, wearied at last by such presumption, has appointed Germany to teach Great Britain that nations, like in- dividuals, must learn moderation. ' ' To be sure, I should not do justice to my host of letters if I were to forget those who 152 THE SILENT VOICES do not praise and who do not blame, but sim- ply put questions. Here, too, many simply shape in interrogatory form their disap- proval of Germany's course. But there is not much variety in this field, and I have mostly answered such questions, because I was able to use the stereotyped stand- ard replies. The chief questions which came again and again were four. *^Why did Ger- many noi wait until Eussia actually declared war 1 ' ' My answer, of course, is that if Ger- many had waited until Eussia 's eight million men were mobilized, it would have lost the war before it had begun. It had to act as soon as the mobilization and actual movement of Eussian troops began. Just as frequently comes the question: ^'If this is Germany's war against Eussia, why did it declare war on France too 1 ' ' My regular answer is that it declared war on France because France be- gan mobilizing and refused to promise that it would keep neutral during a German-Eus- sian war. As France wanted to use this op- portunity for revenge, Germany had to strike quickly before Eussia 's preparations were completed. The third question is: ^^ Would not this war have been avoided if Germany 153 THE WAR AND AMERICA had forced Austria to give up the punitive expedition against ServiaT^ I reply with fullest conviction that it would not have pre- vented the war, but simply postponed it for possibly a year until the Russian prepara- tions for the war, with French money, had been completed and the chances against Ger- many would have been still greater. And curiously, the most frequent question put in letters and post cards on my table is this: '^It may have been necessary for Germany to fight against Russia and France, but why did Germany make war on England?'' My answer could every time be short. It did not make war on England. Its whole policy was controlled by the wish to have firm friendship with England, and it is the greatest grief of the German people that England in the moment when the chances for Germany seemed bad took hold of the convenient chance to strike the commercial rival, de- stroyed the slowly built-up friendship, and declared war against the cousins on the continent. XI THE AMEKICANS We have entered into the second month of war. How many more will follow f When will the day come on which I may write over my entry in this diary the heading '* After the War"? But how this one month has already changed the aspect of the world conflict. Four weeks ago it seemed like mad- ness for Germany to dare to fight against the world instead of surrendering at once when Europe with its colossal resources was united in an attack on its borders. To-day the sub- urbs of Paris are razed in order that the enemy may not use the houses for protec- tion. The Germans are expected before the doors of the French capital. What a change also in the role which falls to the Americans in this historic catastrophe. At first the Americans appeared as entirely detached spectators of the European turmoil. Their only concern was the fate of the hundred 155 THE WAR AND AMERICA thousand tourists who were caught between Dublin and Petersburg when the war trap was sprung. But how quickly did every day bring to the new world fresh evidence that civilized mankind is one. The economic changes were felt most directly. The exchanges were closed; the food prices went up; the impor- ters and exporters faced a new situation; bankers were stunned; a million men in the textile mills foresaw idleness as the dyestuffs were not on hand; American securities were unloaded by panic-stricken Europe. America felt that no shell could explode on the old world battlegrounds without some splinters hitting the skyscrapers on the other side of the ocean. At the same time new hopes, new plans, new achievements were stirring the country. The American crop is abundant, while Europe is threatened by famine. New industries are starting to fill the gaps of im- port. A great merchant marine is surely to come from this perverted time in which hun- dreds of large ocean carriers lie idle in the harbors of the Atlantic. New markets of the world invite American efficiency. South America is ready for a great friendly inva- 156 THE AMERICANS sion from the north. Everything is in change for the worse or for the better. With the economic changes have come new developments in the social and the political attitude. America is the one great neutral country. But the mood of the population has not remained neutral for a single day. A great wave of hostility to Germany has over- flooded the land. In the first two weeks the rush against Berlin was senseless. The newspapers of that depressing period will remain sad human documents of a sober peo- ple losing its mind. The first vehement re- action came necessarily from the Germans themselves in America; it called not for a similar outburst against Russia or France or England, but simply for fair play. The twenty-five millions of German descent were soon joined by the quiet, impartial elements of all races. At the end of the second week came a slight change in the newspapers all along the line, and now the sober elements of the American people are beginning to feel sorry that such a passionate outbreak of the whole nation was possible in a time in which a calm judicial attitude was needed more than ever. Of course, there are still con- 157 THE WAR AND AMERICA servative cliques which have been brought up in the dogma that France and England cannot do any wrong, and there are news- papers which write for them. There are still larger groups which are accustomed to a kind of rationalistic philosophizing about democracy and which vaguely feel that Ger- many's defeat would mean a rise of demo- cratic government in the world, whatever the right or wrong in the beginning of the war may have been. They do not see that Ger- many is internally as democratic as any coun- try in the world, that its defeat would mean only the rise of Russia's autocracy, that Ger- many's monarchic state form has deep his- toric roots and has proved a most fortunate condition for Germany's unparalleled growth in the prosperity and happiness of its peo- ple. "Whatever extreme groups and cliques may think, the nation as a whole has to-day probably overcome that blind, passionate un- fairness of the first weeks, but it is not yet ready to listen to both sides really without prejudice. It has not found again its high place of dignity; it has forgotten that its mother country is the whole of Europe. 158 THE AMERICANS Such retreat from the eccentric position of the partisan to the central stronghold of the truly neutral is the more to be desired, as this great historic month has also made it clearer every day that America's political influence in the war is of highest import. The na- tion was not aware in the first hours how much even slight decisions of the government might influence the happenings at the the- ater of war. The censorship of the wireless or the government aid of the merchant marine or the endorsement of war loans or the activities of American ambassadors in Europe or the interpretation of contraband and hundreds of other much aired ques- tions have brought the responsibility of America much nearer to the consciousness of everybody. Each day will bring new prob- lems which must be solved not only in the White House, but in the whole area from Maine to California. And overtowering all of them stands America's gigantic task, to give to Europe honorable peace. No greater deed, no greater work for mankind was ever within this nation's roach. No doubt the hick of judicial attitude has often sprung from the difficulty the average 159 THE WAR AND AMERICA American has in thinking himself into Euro- pean politics. He takes an nnhistoric stand- point and interprets old world movements by motives and ideas which are foreign to them. It has often been claimed that this lack of insight into the European mind is the fault of a particular party. I do not think so. Republicans, Progressives, and Democrats may sin equally there. On the other hand, their historically best trained minds are equally open to the fullest understanding of Europe and especially of Germany, which is perhaps hardest to understand and which can least be brought into a routine formula of American politics. If I consider the three presidential leaders in which the three par- ties have found their marked expression, I feel equal warmth of admiration. Before me lies a long letter, almost an essay, about the war from Colonel Roosevelt, and every word, if any new proof were needed, shows such a perfect grasp of Europe as the European sees it that in foreign politics I am surely a Progressive, if that is Progressivism. Yet I remember just on the day when Theodore Roosevelt on his way from Africa was the guest of Emperor William in Berlin I had 160 THE AMERICANS lunclieon in the White House with President Taft. It was only natural that his conversa- tion should have lingered about that Berlin meeting of the two so unusual and in many respects so similar men. As my wife and I were the only guests, Mr. Taft spoke without reserve and his whole delightful humor scin- tillated through his talk. His judicious statesmanship, however, gave the keynote, and every word indicated such a splendid, truly historic grasp of the European lands in world perspective that as far as international politics is concerned I am thoroughly a Re- publican, if that is Republicanism. And my memory goes still further back. In this study of mine here at the seashore where I am writ- ing the pages of this diary Woodrow Wilson once sat, at that time still president of Prince- ton, and we spoke long about European move- ments and European ideals. I was deeply impressed by his masterful analysis of the deeper European energies from the stand- point of an American. It was that conversa- tion which made me, not long after, express in a German paper the conviction that the Democratic party surely could not find a finer and more far-sighted statesman than Wilson. 161 THE WAR AND AMERICA No doubt, I am from the depths of my heart a Democrat, as far as foreign politics is con- cerned, if that is typical Democracy. But even if the average American is un- prepared or unwilling to interpret the Euro- pean conflict with European ideas, and meas- ures less with the standards of the historian than with those of the editorial writer, I trust that now after the first excitement has evap- orated the conditions will be more favorable for a sincere neutral attitude. The one-sided prejudice against the German cause cannot possibly last through the cooler second month of war. All the historic sympathies which had been rashly suppressed in the first pas- sion must awake again. Was not the whole development of the United States accom- panied by the good will of political and cul- tural Germany? It is true our schoolbooks make little of it. The German-Americans have often pointed to the partiality with which historic knowledge is implanted in the pupils from the grade school to the college. They learn much about the glorious help which young Lafayette brought to the cause of the colonies in their struggle for indepen- dence, but they do not hear that the service 162 THE AMERICANS of von Steube?! was more effective. After all, we had only last w^eek the anniversary of EnglancVs capture of Washington when the capital was burned and wantonly sacked by British soldiers and sailors. England's ac- tion during the Civil War bristled with un- friendliness. It is good that the youth of to-day is taught to suppress such reminis- cences and that the old feeling of antagonism toward Great Britain has become rare. But that ought not to push into the background the historic fact that Germany has been help- ing the American cause in every hour of need down to the last incident at Tampico where a German cruiser helped the American refu- gees. But with this good will from official Ger- many goes through two centuries the good will of the millions who settled in the new world and helped with untiring energy to make it the America of to-day. They gave their blood to save the Union; they gave their soul to make it a land of honesty, of efficiency, of achievement in every field. Moreover, the community of interests be- tween Americans and Germans has steadily swelled the stream of those who went to Ger- 163 THE WAR AND AMERICA many to see, to learn, to form friendships. The memory of hundreds of thousands lin- gers on happy hours in Germany. Such reminiscences were driven away in those first angry August weeks; the fresher winds of the fall will bring them back. The news of the day can only strengthen these fairer feelings toward Germany. The reports grow that the Americans have been surrounded with hospitable kindness through- out Germany. Every day now brings new stories of the unanimous effort with which the German people tried to make easy the discomfort which the war brought to the traveling Americans. It is no chance that ever so many were unwilling to follow the advice of the ambassadors and insisted on staying on German soil throughout the war. But there are other bits of news which must push sentiment into the same groove. The Americans did not like Japan's mixing in at the side of England. This capturing of Ger- many's little colony in China by a sly trick when Germany's hands were bound had to awake sympathy in every American. But this was outdone by the latest move of the campaign which has brought Hindus from 164 THE AMERICANS India and Turkos from Africa into line against the German people. To force these colored races, which surely have not the slightest cause to fight the German nation, into battle against the Teutons is an act which must have brought a feeling of shame for the allies to every true American. Yet it is truly not necessary to bolster up the sympathy for Germany by an aversion to the acts of its enemies. Cordial feelings of Americans for the German people are cer- tainly not dependent upon an animosity against Eussia and France and least of all against England. The neutrality for which President Wilson fought and which the Ger- mans prayed for means a suspension of judgment as to the right and wrong of the war, hatred and condemnation of none of the parties, sjTnpathy for all. There is no inkling of the neutrality which the President upholds as long as the press indicts and convicts Ger- many and the Emperor without evidence, from mere passionate prejudice. But the feeling that America and central Europe ought to be bound together by cordial good will does not preclude in the least the warm- est friendship with western Europe. If Ger- 165 THE WAR AND AMERICA man thoughts go out to the tiuae after the war at all in this hour of excitement, they wish for nothing better than for a sincere union of understanding between Germany, France, England, and America. The Germans do not preach hatred against their neighbors, but they insist that it would be a gigantic calamity if this war were to cut the ties of the American and the German nations, ties of culture and of intercourse, of welfare and of reform, of trade and of industry, of science and of literature, of art and of music, of philosophy and of religion. The mere thought of such an unfortunate result is intolerable; and yet even now, though the wild storm of the first weeks has passed by, the gravest fears overshadow the hopes which the last years fostered. It would be a disaster for both countries alike, as the harmonious fellowship and mutual inner attunement of the two peoples were among the most valuable and most ideal forces in modern civilization. From day to day the two nations sought each other with finer instincts; the sym- pathies became keener, the interests more abundant. It was a national elective af- 166 THE AMERICANS finity for which the political friendship was a fitting outer expression. And sud- denly, a tornado is breaking into the world: can it really be that with one crash all the ties are broken and destroyed! Can it really be that the friendship of yesterday has turned into impatient anger and sneering disgust? What has happened? What is Americans complaint against the Germans? To begin with the outskirts we have had to hear a hundred times that Germany can- not expect the Americans to take sides with it in its struggle, as the Germans did not sympathize with America in its last war ; the press even belittled the American intentions during the Spanish War and sneered at American life afterward. It is true that the German press had much s}Tnpathy with Spain, because the Spanish appeared so piti- fully weak compared with the mighty oppo- nent. It is true also that at that time the Germans still knew little of the spiritual America and saw everything from the angle of the American chase for the dollar. This has been changed completely. Moreover, while many a superficial editorial word may have then and later irritated a sensitive 167 THE WAR AND AMERICA American reader, there was never a line writ- ten which could be compared with the bitter- ness and hatred against the Germans during this campaign. The worst which was said was that America went to Cuba not with un- selfish motives, but in the service of capitalis- tic interests. That was unfair; the accusa- tion was later emphatically withdrawn. But does that really justify the American nation in declaring that the Germans, when they de- fend their homes against Eussian and French attack, are nothing but pirates and that their Emperor ought to be treated like a murderer? On the other hand the kind of superfluous criticism which can be still found in German papers is utterly harmless. It is on the level with the American jokes about German beer drinking and sauerkraut eating, jokes which neither the writer nor the reader really be- lieves. Malicious essays like those of Price Collier here on the stupidity of the German women and the bad manners of the German men hardly find a counterpart nowadays in the German discussion of American life, as far as responsible writers are concerned. The worst which I found last year were tasteless jokes on Secretary Bryan's Chautauqua lec- 168 THE AMERICANS turing, and yet I have read a hundred times sharper witticisms about it in Bryan's native land. The Americans have to-day no reason to complain about the German attitude. It is in vain to justify the American outbreak as the resentment against unfairness from the other side. It is still worse if American public opinion is whipped with the argument that Americans must take the side of the allies because if Germany came to increased power its next foe would be the United States. It is claimed that the Germans would be ambitious to have colonies like England and that large prov- inces in Argentine and perhaps in Brazil are the long coveted goal. Even in the confusion of war excitement such silliness ought to be below the level of any decent editorial page. These absurdities have been spread a hun- dred times by those who hope to gain some sly advantage from a distrust of the Ger- man government by the American people. But a hundred and one times they have been proved to be grotesque inventions. It is more probable since Mr. Williams of Massachu- setts took charge of Albanian politics that America will establish a kingdom in the Euro- 169 THE WAR AND AMERICA pean Balkans than that Germany will estab- lish a colony in South America. The Americans are too little aware how they misunderstand the German government and responsible Germany altogether if they identify it ever with the fantastic dreams of the so-called Pan-Germanists. It is true there are a few pensioned naval officers and retired colonels of the army and some irre- sponsible oration makers who gloriously out- Hearst the Hearst editorials and who on pa- triotic occasions swallow some neighboring lands, preferably Holland and Denmark, and if they are in noble spirits also half of Aus- tria and a part of Turkey. Nobody takes them seriously, and to identify the govern- ment with such hashish dreamers is prepos- terous. But even these courageous clowns nowadays leave America alone and respect the Monroe Doctrine. It was the most inex- cusable incident of the war 's first month that certain newspapers tried insistently to stir up the American crowd against Germany by such treacherous alarm cries. What really remains'? The newspapers have forced the idea on the nation that every true American dislikes such a personality as 170 THE AMERICANS that of the German Emperor. His constant desire to fight, his militaristic preparations, his anticultural belief in might as against right, must be deeply repugnant to every American citizen. They do not object to the Czar of Eussia or the King of Servia or of Italy or of Belgium or to the Mikado. The German monarch alone is the tyrant. Yet he is the man whom only a year ago all America celebrated after a quarter century of his reign as the greatest energy for peace in all Europe. If the Emperor's life had come to an end three months ago he would have figured in every American schoolbook of European history for centuries to come as the greatest peace monarch of his age. And yet he would have lived long enough truly to be tested. Now since the *^ White Books'' have been published in Berlin and London and since the actions behind the scenes in the Emperor's palace have become more fully understood we know better than a month ago that he remained such an agent for peace up to the last hour of the days which preceded the war. As he had worked to prevent a Pan-European war at the dangerous times of the Balkan troubles, so he did again. He 171 THE WAR AND AMERICA hoped and hoped that peace could be pre- served, until it became evident that Russia was playing a double game and asked for the continuance of peace negotiations while it secretly carried the concentration of troops beyond the point where war would be still avoidable. But the American people has made up its mind that Germany had slowly worked to- ward this war, because it showed itself per- fectly prepared when it broke out. Yes: Germany was prepared, has been prepared for forty-four years, but had hoped that this state of mere preparation would last forty- four years more. Every American takes it as a matter of course that England kept its gigantic navy always ready to fight, be- cause it is vital for Great Britain's very existence ; he overlooks that an army able to fight in the east and the west was equally necessary for the existence of Germany. If that is militarism, the slightest neglect of such a militaristic policy would have meant sure disaster to the whole German nation long before the twentieth century started. This vigilant militarism which was a national insurance policy made neither the Emperor 172 THE AMERICANS nor the government nor the leading classes nor the people at large in the least disloyal to the ideal aims of German traditions. Is the ^\dll to fight when the honor of the coun- try is threatened so unknown to the Amer- ican soul? Can we forget that outburst of fighting spirit at the Venezuela time when President Cleveland rattled the saber? And last May when Huerta refused to salute the flag one solitary congressman from Cali- fornia made a calm peace speech ; he was at once isolated: all Congress dashed toward war. The Germans knew that for them the issue of the war was : to be or not to be. Day after day the Americans have seen cartoons denouncing the German men at the top, themselves in safe and comfortable places, ruthlessly hounding the unwilling populace to the battlefields. It was as true as most of the news on which the Americans crystallized their opinions. The answer to those cartoons came with ringing voice from the fatherland. In every battle were princes falling, and while millions had to march into the field as regular or reserve soldiers, more than two million other men offered them- selves as volunteers, two million whom no- 173 THE WAR AND AMERICA body urged, but who felt tbe sacred call of conscience. Their country was attacked in- famously; they wanted to die for it. Those cartoonists were the men in the safe places who whipped the millions of peaceful Amer- ican readers ruthlessly and shamefully to the passionate attack against their best friends, the Germans. CHAPTER XII THE MORALS OF THE WAR Three million men stand to-day in battle line against one another. Three million men ! As long as men have lived on earth, they have fought. But all fighting through the thousands of years seems like mere skirmish- ing compared with these gigantic armies of armies. The world has drilled and trained and planned and worked through half a cen- tury for this battle of the millions, and a thousand years may pass before mankind witnesses again a fight of men like this. The results of victory or defeat will be enormous ; men will speak about it as long as history goes on — and yet there is something greater in the world than even a battle line which girdles the globe, something endlessly more important than triumphant victory and shat- tering defeat: the issue of right and wrong. If Germany ^s guns carried the day and the century and its cause was not one of right- 175 THE WAR AND AMERICA eousness, every German would bow his head in shame. If it were overwhelmed by the number of enemies, every German would be stunned by grief at the disaster of his father- land, but he would remain proud of his people if the moral right is with it. The German feels that for the nation and the individual alike Schiller's word is written: *^Life is not the highest of goods, but guilt is the greatest of all calamities. *' Germany's enemies have raised the cry, and Americans have taken it up, that Ger- many has committed sin after sin. The moral issue was brought to the foreground, and that portion of the American press which stands under the spell of English suggestions hides every German victory behind accusa- tions of treachery and immorality. Germany has broken the treaties ; Germany committed dastardly atrocities with bombs from air- ships ; Germany burned towns and murdered the helpless ; Germany shrinks from no crime and no perfidy. Is there any truth in all this ? Yes : one truth, which is undeniable, which is sad, which is awful, namely that war is war. But shame on him who poisons the wells of public opinion by falsifying the atrocious 176 THE MORALS OF THE WAR cruelties which the work of war demands into immoralities when the one side is con- cerned while they are approved as necessities when the other side is in question. It is not worth while to discuss the grue- some stories of nefarious acts against the wounded or helpless enemies. They are hardly conscious lies; they are the hysteric illusions of overexcited brains. The bystand- ers are really convinced that they saw the horrible ferocities. I fancy that Eichard Harding Davis believed sincerely that he ac- tually saw those wild impossibilities with which his reports are bristling, and even the minor American fiction writers who send their romances from the field of German im- moralities were surely ready to take an oath to their inventions. Every psychologist knows these hallucinatory phenomena of the witness stand. Exactly the same thing, of course, occurred on the other side. Number- less German witnesses believe themselves to have observed the most unspeakable cruel- ties from Belgians and Frenchmen. It would be psychologically most surprising if the be- numbing sight of fight and death, of suffering and wounds, did not upset many an unbal- 177 THE WAR AND AMERICA anced mind and did not surround it with a whirlwind of needless horrors and willful cruelties. The wildest exaggerations must be expected. On the whole those alleged cruel- ties and atrocities are probably on all sides nothing but products of horrified imagina- tion, and nobody has a right to blame the victims of such illusions for their terrorizing fancies. But the public ought to blame those papers which give broad display to such ab- surd cabled rumors whenever they come from the anti-German side. But how with the reproaches against Ger- many's official warfare, the burning of a Bel- gian town in which the population had se- cretly provided itself with firearms and shot from the windows in a sniping attack against the troops through a whole day? How with the use of bombs thrown from an airship into Antwerp? Yes: war is war. Have the Americans forgotten their own last war on a large scale? General Sherman wrote: ' ^ The amount of burning, stealing, and plun- dering done by our army makes me ashamed of it." But this shame refers only to the private looting which is anyhow unthinkable in a war of to-day. It does not refer to the 178 THE MORALS OF THE WAR official destruction. Sherman wrote deliber- ately and officially: ''I should not hesitate to burn Savannah, Charleston, and Wilming- ton if the garrisons were needed. Of ne- cessity in war the commander on the spot is the judge and may take your house, your fields, your everything and turn you all out helpless to starve. Our duty is not to build up; it is rather to destroy both the rebel army and whatever wealth or property it has founded its boasted strength upon.'' The historians like to call Sherman a 'typical American.'' American Shermans of to-day would act just as the German generals acted against the sniping Belgians on the march to Paris. W^ar is war. Binding for war are only the international laws on which the nations have solemnly agreed. There is not the slightest item of such laws which has not been carefully re- spected by the German army and navy. Those laws cannot be supplemented at any moment by the desires of sympathetic by- standers. We all must be full of pity when we hear that in this war the attacks against fortresses like Antwerp and Paris are made also by bombs from airships. But it 179 THE WAR AND AMERICA is a fact that tliis is not forbidden by the agreements. It was especially dis- cussed in the last Hague conference and both France and Germany voted in favor of allowing this new horrible method. We peace people, of course, feel our nerves revolt against this and other new schemes. When be- fore Liege masses of German troops marched . unwittingly on undermined ground and were then killed by the dynamite explosion, impartial nerves must shiver, too. And so without end before all this strategical futur- ism. But our mere nerves cannot be decisive. We simply must acknowledge that everything is allowed which is not forbidden in war and no moral reproach is in order as long as the international agreements are respected. The professionals probably offer us a correct con- solation when they claim that just the re- gardless war is effective and therefore short, while the half-hearted is war horror without end. In any case when in the first days of the war French aviators threw bombs into Nuremberg and Coblenz, the Americans treated it as a picturesque event which gave new interest to modern warfare and which showed brilliantly the wonders of modern 180 THE MORALS OF THE WAR technique. Only when the same was done by the Germans, America stood aghast. There remains only one grave point: the neutrality of Belgium. No doubt Germany had agreed to treat Belgium as a neutral state. But what are the facts? On the day the war between France and Germany seemed unavoidable, it was reported that fifty automobiles full of French officers rushed over the frontier to Liege and were welcomed in the fortress, which had partly been built by French engineers. Lnmedi- ately afterward French aviators passed through Belgium on their way to the Rhine, where they began their bomb throwing at the Coblenz bridges. Everything suggested that Germany's long-standing fear was jus- tified, that French-speaking Belgium was in a secret understanding with France, that it would allow to the French army liberties w4iich would at once expose Germany's most defenseless portion to attack. Germany had no right to wait until it might be too late. It had to force its troops over Belgian* ter- ritory before the French could undertake in great style what they had started to do. Yet Germany did not come to Belgium as an 181 THE WAR AND AMERICA enemy ; it promised to repay any damage and not only guaranteed the integrity of the land but was most willing to make every possible restitution. Belgium chose to put itself on the side of France, with which its sympathies have al- ways connected it. It was an hour in which the world was sure of French victory as Russia was battering at the gates of Ger- many from the other side and England was to give its mighty aid, too. Belgium thus be- came one of the allies, enthusiastically will- ing to help in this world rush against Ger- many. Did this mean that Germany attacked a land which was unprotected and which had relied for its safety on its neutrality papers ? Certainly not. The story of the fights about Liege tells of the gigantic fortifications with which Belgium had prepared itself for just this German attack. Belgium was one great fortified camp, and every stone in the walls must have been carried to them with the understanding that the course of historic events in the next war would force France and Germany to fight on Belgian battle- grounds, and that Belgium ought to take sides with the probable winner. Belgians and 182 THE MORALS OF THE WAR Germans did not meet for the first time. A great war reporter from the time when the reporting was still wireless and the warring' still fireless, Julius Caesar tells that the Bel- gians are very courageous and that they live next to the Germans, who are settled in the Rhine region, and that they live in constant warfare with them. Belgium knew exactly that these neutrality treaties were not treaties comparable to the contracts of private persons who are bound by the laws of the land and by the laws of honesty to fulfill them under every possible condition. It is nothing but sheer hypocrisy if the enemies of Germany, including the Anglophile portion of the American press, behave as if this had not been common knowl- edge the world over. This kind of treaties has been violated in the last fifty years almost as often as any conflicts have happened. Only this morning the papers report China's offi- cial protest against the breach of the neutral- ity treaty by Japan, which has landed troops to fight against Kiau Chau in plain defiance of the agreement. There was no life need for Japan to break the treaty, as there was for Germany, but of course Japan is now 183 THE WAR AND AMERICA England ^s friend and its breach of neutrality is therefore perfectly agreeable and welcome on Broadway. Did not America break its solemn treaty with Colombia when a vital interest was in- volved? Is not the majority of Congress even inclined to apologize for the wrong which was done to Colombia in the Panama revolution? Yet could Roosevelt really have acted otherwise? Was it not true, moral statesmanship to put America's canal work above a treaty which, like all such interna- tional agreements, was made with the reser- vation that it holds only if it does not come into conflict with the life and honor of the people involved. Gladstone, to whom the present English statesmen refer, has clearly said that this is also England's view con- cerning the treaties with Belgium. It was England's view until it became convenient to change it for the purpose of denouncing Ger- many. America's most popular statesman has said a hundred times that such international arbitration treaties are not worth the paper on which they are written and that they are top often even dangerous, because they give 184 THE MORALS OF THE WAR an illusory feeling of safety. They seem to abolish the fundamental law of five thousand years of history that ultimately the life needs of a healthy nation are decisive. To be sure, Belgium knew better and made its war plans. It knew that such agreements are at pres- ent not more than a matter of international etiquette. Certainly life goes on more smoothly and more pleasantly, if we stick to the rules of etiquette and to the prescrip- tions of nice manners. But everybody knows that etiquette stops when the house is on fire and that good manners must be forgotten even by the best mannered when life and death are involved. Germany did what any other state would have done, did it with re- gret and with the best will not to bring any suffering to Belgium, if Belgium only would not join the allies. But Germany could do what it did with a clean conscience ; it did not violate the higher laws of honor. Will it ever be otherwise? Can we hope that treaties and arbitration will ever be a substitute for the wars of mankind? I do not believe it. I suppose I have spent more time in the last ten years reading peace lit- erature than with any other branch of popu- 185 THE WAR AND AMERICA lar interests, and I have devoted myself to the study of it with sincere admiration for this noble and most inspiring of efforts. I am on the side of the peace movement with all my heart; I believe in its magnificent work and should gladly do whatever is in my power to propagate it and to serve it. But I utterly reject the idea that this propaganda for peace and this fight against war can be compared with the struggle of the social re- formers against crime or with that of the hygienists against disease. Such compari- sons create a distorting perspective. War is not crime and war is not disease. I should much rather compare the relation between the treaty believers and the believ- ers in war with the relation between the pro- tectionists and the free traders in the eco- nomic field. I myself believe heartily in pro- tectionism and feel in the fullest sympathy with the efforts of those who argue against free trade and against the economic destruc- tion which results from unbridled commercial and industrial rivalry. But this does not mean that I consider free trade a crime or a disease. On the contrary, I know exactly that there are natural limits to every protec- 186 THE MORALS OF THE WAR tionist policy. The high tariff has to be low- ered as soon as monopolistic abuses arise, and concessions to free trade are sometimes necessary. To be sure, even when the time of the free traders comes, we protectionists hope that the tariffs will be only lowered and not entirely abolished. The friends of treaties and arbitration must hope in the same way that when the hours of war come international treaties will not be entirely eliminated. The work of the Hague confer- ences and of those thousand agencies in the Carnegie world can be a magnificent gain for civilization and a blessing for mankind even if their achievements can never be substituted for war. We workers for peace and arbitration must not deceive ourselves : whatever the outcome of the present war may be, there will be little faith in arbitration in the near future. We have read so often that great wars will no longer be possible because the power of the world has gone into the hands of two classes which are mightier than governments and armies, the labor class with the socialist vote and the banker class with the financial influ- ence. We have heard that they would not 187 THE WAR AND AMERICA allow war. Can we ever enjoy this confi- dence again? There is no doubt that capi- talism did not want this European war. The bankers of the world worked against it, and yet when the national passions were awak- ened the opposition of the stock exchanges was no more obstacle than straws before an express train. The ineffectiveness of the so- cialist opposition was still more surprising. The army of workingmen had nowhere de- nounced war more than in Germany, but when the sudden attack of Russia on Ger- many became known the socialist opposition turned like a flash into enthusiasm for the war. The socialists in the Reichstag who represent nearly five million votes cheered the Emperor and approved unanimously the gigantic budget for the fight. Their leaders entered the army as volunteers. Moreover, the faith in the binding power of treaties must be thoroughly discredited, not because a German army passed through Belgium, but above all because Italy refused to fight. The alliance of Italy with Germany and Austria was the one solid stone in the foundation of European politics. Every cal- culation as to the international future began 188 THE MORALS OF THE WAR with the one claim that if ever Germany and Austria had to fight against three enemies, they could count on Italy ^s loyalty. The treaties which pledged this help appeared so firm and trustworthy that nothing could de- prive Berlin and Vienna of Eome's help in the hour of danger. And yet when the time came Italian lawyers found technicalities by which they could pose as having the right to refuse the sacrifice. If this Italian treaty failed, who can hope for a treaty which could not be pushed aside by a skillful misinterpre- tation 1 After this breach of faith the world knows that a treaty will be binding exactly as long as it serves the realistic interests of the nation. The treaties of the Triple En- tente — or in view of Belgium, it ought prob- ably to have been called for a long time the Quadruple Entente — worked well because France and England had an actual interest to jump in at the time when the colossal ar- mies of Russia moved against Germany. But the essential point remains after all that war has its own value and morals. Just as free trade is not only a negative element in human progress, an opposition to protec- tionism, but has its positive advantages for 189 THE WAR AND AMERICA the development of economic life, war too is not simply a disruption of the international peace, but can become a positive creator of better and higher forms of the life of man- kind. First of all, only war can adjust the power of countries to the changing stages of their inner development. It is easily said, and the average American likes to say it, that nations ought to respect the possessions of other nations as individuals respect the pri- vate property of their neighbors. But this apparently highest morality would be the grossest immorality. The property of a man can grow through his industry; there is un- limited supply ; he does not need to take any- thing by force from his lazier or his less in- telligent competitor. But if war were abol- ished the peoples which have poor land to- day must remain poor through the centuries ; however much they may progress internally they would have no right to expand, as they would do so at the expense of their neigh- bors. The peoples which are on rich land could be sure to retain their possessions, even if they became unworthy and useless for the march of civilization. The world's progress has depended at all times upon the expansive 190 THE MORALS OF THE WAR ascendency of the sound, strong, solid and able nations and the shrinking of those which have lost their healthy qualities and have be- come unfit or decadent. Why is one particu- lar stage of this international development, the chance distribution of power to-day or to- morrow, more worthy of legal conservation than any previous ? Once the sun never sank on the world em- pire of Spain. Would it have been better if no enemies could have dismembered it, when it began to hinder the advance of mankind? Was it not righteous when finally America took a portion of Spain's ill-treated posses- sions under its protection? Where are the vast realms of Portugal, of Holland, of Tur- key, to-day? Was it wrong that the Amer- ican colonies disturbed the legal status of England's possessions? The laws of the equity courts applied to nations must stifle progress, must forcibly insure the perma- nency of any chance monopoly, of any inher- ited domain, for which the cultural inner right may have long ago been lost. When Prussia was defeated by Napoleon in 1806, it really had failed to preserve the sterliQg qualities which secured the victories 191 THE WAR AND AMERICA of Frederick tlie Great. The old spirit of duty and thoroughness had yielded for a generation to flabbiness and frivolity. Prus- sia deserved the humiliation and the losses which sobered it again and stirred it up to a new moral rise. If every nation's boundaries were guaranteed by a world court, mankind would necessarily sink. A new adjustment to the inner growth or decay must set in from time to time. Spanish misrule in Cuba, Tur- kish misrule in the Balkans, had to stop. It may be that it is time to stop Russian mis- rule in Poland. But often it would be unfair to speak of national wrong. It may be that both rivals are morally right in their wishes, but that their wishes cannot be harmonious. If two men love the same woman, neither of them is wrong, and yet only one can possess her. If two nations grow, there may be conflict- ing needs of expansion; both may need a strip of land, a harbor, an island, an outlet to the coast, if they are to develop their re- sources. Neither Russia nor Japan was in the wrong when their wholesome growth led them to mutual interference. No tribunal of the world can find in such cases a decision, be- 192 THE MORALS OF THE WAR cause it is no question of right. Both parties are equally on moral ground, and the source of the conflict is only the scarcity of the avail- able land, in sharp contrast to the unlimited goods which the individuals covet. Then strength alone can bring a final decision. To be sure, the sacrifice of blood may be terrific and the thought of the carnage must make us shudder in times of peace. But the progress of the world demands a higher point of view. Every human being must die. Is there a nobler death than to give one's life for the better life of the nation, to die that the country may live a fuller embodi- ment of the national ideals? For the in- dividual, sudden death on the battlefield in the overwhelming excitement is much less cruel than the agonies which millions of deathbeds bring in peaceful homes. And we ought not to forget the solemn words of President Wilson who, before the coffins of the victims of Vera Cruz, said in deep emo- tion: ''I never was under fire, but I fancy that there are some things just as hard. I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.'* 193 THE WAR AND AMERICA But the sacrifices which the nation brings in war must anyhow not be viewed with ref- erence to individuals. If a nation is victori- ous — and the hope of victory is of course the only motive which makes war possible — the nation may gain ten lives for every one which it spends. The American colonies spilled costly blood, but if those lives had not been given, the present territory of the United States would be settled by twenty instead of a hundred millions. If the German states had not sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives, Germany would never have reached that strength and wealth and through them that industrial and scientific, technical and hygienic progress which meant life and hap- piness for millions on millions who would have remained unborn or would have died in childhood. The imagination of mankind is too easily impressed by sudden dramatic events, compared with the slow working of destructive forces. If the Titanic sinks, the globe is aghast, but if a ten times larger number of human beings are destroyed by avoidable accidents through carelessness in the structure and service of the railways, it is hardly noticed. If a state in undisturbed 194 THE MORALS OF THE WAR peace remains on a low level of hygiene and science, has poor labor legislation, does not protect the women and children, has a high criminal record, indulges in alcohol, is scourged by venereal diseases and infected by the small family habit, the loss and the maiming of human beings is a hundred times larger than that which may come on the battlefield. A victorious war may bring to such a nation a complete regeneration: the moral energies awake ; vice is repressed ; life is protected; education flourishes; hygiene spreads; science rebuilds the land; prosper- ity grows ; temperance and self -discipline prevail; family life can expand in the new abundance. For every boy who dies, a score of men and women in the next generation will find the means of health and happiness. Nobody dies at Thermopylae without giving life to hundreds. A gigantic destruction of human life such as this war demands must naturally force on everyone the wish for a substitute which is less painful to the imagination. But any schemes which renounce those higher gifts of war that serve the historic progress of mankind are utterly unfit and would never be 195 THE WAR AND AMERICA of lasting value. It might not be difficult to construct plans which conserve the chance distribution of national possessions to-day still more firmly than any mere treaty and arbitration schemes. But, wherever the aim is simply to guarantee the present national boundaries without means to change them in constant adjustment to new inner needs, the plan is condemned by the tribunal of his- toric morality. I, for my part, see only one logical possi- bility. War-making could be overcome only if the fundamental condition of wars were artificially changed, and this would not be utterly beyond man's power. Almost all the wars between nations have been struggles to gain territory or at least to deprive other nations of their territory. International wars would disappear if nations did not own their countries. The idea of such a state of mankind would be entirely parallel to that of socialism for individuals in the state. The socialistic plan abolishes the economic strug- gle of the individuals by eliminating capital- ism. This world plan for the nations would abolish the struggle of war by eliminating Jerritorialism. The territory on the globe 196 THE MORALS OF THE WAR would be distributed so that any one million beings would receive an equal share. Of course, it would not be equality of size but of value. The territory of Turkey even to-day is larger than that of France, Germany, England and Italy taken together. The equal distribution would therefore involve very different areas. But, fundamentally, any one million persons would gain equal chances, and, as with the growth or decay of the population and with the development of the territory new distributions would always be arranged, no one would have any interest in fighting. No nation would possess land any more than the socialistic individual would possess capital. This seems to me the only possible solu- tion of the problem which would not stifle the progress of mankind. As long as nations have possessions of land, there will be con- stant need of new adjustment which no hu- man court, but only war, can regulate. The anti-territorialism would bring to the nations all the blessings which are hoped from anti- capitalism for the individuals. There would be no poor, and no economic misery, if so- cialism were carried through ; there would be 197 THE WAR AND AMERICA no militarism and no war, if cosmochorism were the scheme of the world. The word cosmochorism is formed from the Greek chora, the land. A cosmopolitan order of mankind would be one in which the state loses its individuality; in the cosmochoristic order the nations would retain their state forms, but their land would belong to the whole world. I do think that the transition to socialism is possible and would not even be extremely difficult in our present days. I think that an equal distribution of land for all the peoples on earth without any one peo- ple having a right to possession of land w^ould be equally possible. Cosmochorism might be carried out even without externally changing much in the present status. But it would carry with it all those important and thousand times discussed disadvantages of the socialistic system. Most men are still convinced that the evils of capitalism are less than those which a socialistic order would involve. The stimulus which the possession of private and inheritable property has given to the world ought not to be dispensed with. The progress of mankind in the same way needs the possibility of private land posses- 198 THE MORALS OF THE WAR sion by the individual nations; it needs the rivalry and I believe that such an anti-terri- torialistic plan ought ultimately to be de- feated, for the same reasons for which the majority of the civilized nations still opposes the socialism of the anti-capitalists. But this is certain: As long as private possession of land by the nations is sanctioned, incessant changes in the size of the territories are needed and must be secured by free competi- tion. Of course, it may happen that the industri- ous, intelligent merchant has bad luck and remains poor while his less worthy rival grows rich by accident or trickery! no un- failing justice lies in the decision of the ac- count books. Yet on the whole our economic system is backed by the belief that free com- petition brings gain to the worthy and keeps down the less efficient. In this sense cer- tainly no unfailing justice lies in the decision of the weapons, but in the great average history has proved that those nations will rise which are worthy of it and those will fall which deserve punishment from the high- est point of view of civilization. Success or failure in war may come to nations without 199 THE WAR AND AMERICA any reference to certain outlying valuable factors of national culture. France was beaten by Germany at a time when it was su- perior to its opponent in the art of painting. But on the whole the empire of the third Napoleon deserved to crumble. No reasonable man would judge a univer- sity by the victories or defeats of its football teams. There is hardly any inner connection ; a miserable university may have a splendid football squad and vice versa. The truly valuable energies of a college are not ex- pressed in such a sport appendage. But it is different with the war team of a nation. This really does embrace many of the essen- tial traits and virtues of the people. The intellectual and moral qualities of a nation do come to expression in a modem war. It is not mere strength and not mere pluck and least of all mere possession of guns which decides to-day in warfare. It is the total makeup of a nation with its thoroughness and its energy and its mentality and its readi- ness to bring sacrifices. To be sure, such a test has value only if one stands against one, or two against two. If the armies of six nations join to make war 200 THE MORALS OF THE WAR on two, the moral qualities of the war are pushed into the background. Three football teams against one would be no real test for the outnumbered party. The allied nations cannot prove any higher qualities and there- fore cannot possibly earn any honors in this European Avar, as their final victory would mean only a quantitative superiority, the power of inexhaustible combined resources. If one stood against one, if France and Ger- many were left to fight the war alone, no- body could even now, only five weeks after the declaration, have any doubt that the en- ergies of the German empire proved much superior to those of the French republic: the army stands near the gates of Paris and no French soldier is on German soil in spite of Belgian and English help. If it were only a Franco-German War, as a generation ago, France would be completely defeated to-day. When future historians study the under- lying conditions and factors of this European war, they will, no doubt, recognize that this superiority of the German army indeed does not result from a merely outer professional war technique, but comes because the German army is the embodiment of the national soul 201 THE WAR AND AMERICA with all its intellectual and moral energies. It is the same soul wMch in peaceful hours works toward science and industry, toward literature and social reform. "With scientific exactitude every detail of the campaigns has been worked out and prepared; with unfail- ing thoroughness the strategical ideas have been carried through; with iron self-dis- cipline the millions have been forged to- gether into one powerful machine; with un- swerving loyalty the nation has rallied to its leader and has stood by its ally ; with moral enthusiasm the whole people have known only the one thought : to sacrifice all for right and for honor. The true story is nowhere better told, nowhere more sincerely and with- out any retouching than in the personal let- ters which friend writes to friend. Nothing there is made up for public use. They are documents of spontaneous emotion. It is marvelous how they agree in their view of the situation and as to the temper of the German people. I have before me the letter of a young man in the Rhine valley to his American fiancee. The handwriting shows his inner excitement. I may render a trans- lation here, as it is so typical. 202 THE MORALS OF THE WAR You simply cannot imagine how sad and yet how inspiring everything here is. Since an hour ago I have known that England too has declared war on us. It will be a. struggle of life and death. From all sides they fall upon us. We might have left Austria alone ; then we should have had peace. And yet not a single man wavered even for a second when the question came to us whether we ought loyally to keep faith with Austria or not. Our people is going into this war with such moral earnestness and is so deeply impressed with the feeling of its right and of its duty and with such indignation at the frivolous, long prepared breach of peace and the deceitfulness of our enemies that you cannot imagine it at all. The people rises with its tasks to a tremendous height ; men become better and nobler; all the good instincts become wide awake. No faintheartedness, — no narrowminded- ness, — no timidity, but at the same time no boast- ing, no arrogance ! Everything is done with a quiet, earnest feeling of responsibility. It is inspiring to see this enthusiasm, with which all hurry to the standards, to hear those roaring cheers with which they are brought to the railway trains which go to the front. Even the poorest give every bit which they have. There are no longer any political parties in Germany ; all are one. Then again you see scenes which make your heart break. I saw yesterday a mother who took leave of five sons. Women and children hang weeping upon the father of the family, whom the fatherland calls. 203 THE WAR AND AMERICA But everyone feels : we shall win, — ^because we have not only the might but the right on our side. This will be the most terrible war which the world has ever seen. Hundreds of thousands will have to die, and a tremendous sorrow will go through the lands. But we shall win over unscrupulous force, over hatred and envy. When you receive this letter the first battles will have been fought. At this time the mobilization of our armies is going on in perfect calmness. All is running smoothly like a machine. We shall send millions into the field. The sons of the Emperor and of all the other German princes go to the front, many as simple lieutenants. I myself have not served in the army and should be called only if the last man is needed. But I shall certainly not wait until that time comes. To-morrow I shall put my- self with my motor car at the disposal of the army and hope sincerely that there will be use for me. You will not blame me for it, I am sure. I love life a hundred times more since I have found you, but here the fatherland calls me. Writer on writer says exactly the same. This morning I got from my best friend in Berlin a letter which begins as follows : War ! The years of our youth were inspired by the ideas of the great time which created the Ger- man empire. To-day a new furor Teutonicus has burst out. To live through this is worth a lifetime. 204 THE MORALS OF THE WAR Our nation has been torn from the deepest peace and we have seen a rising of the people such as the world has never seen before. Every German felt that the existence of Germany as a cultural world energy was at stake. With a solemn enthusiasm, without oratory and without jingoism, the whole nation stood by the Kaiser like one man. There were no longer any Catholics or any Social Demo- crats, not even Poles and Alsatians, but only Ger- mans. They felt themselves as bearers of civiliza- tion against the barbaric Pan- Slavism, as bearers of ideals against the selfish commercial spirit of England, as bearers of sober efficiency against the phrases of France. There was not a single deserter, and millions of volunteers. Everyone wanted to offer his life. This iron will to win must lead to victory. In Germany not a soul thinks of the possi- bility of a defeat. The spirit which animates the whole nation is simply marvelous and admirable. There is no reckless overconfidence, no drunkenness of spirit, but a sober, proud consciousness of inner strength and of a righteous cause. Indeed every letter reiterates this moral enthusiasm, this new inner unity of the na- tion, and one thing above all, the tremendous increase of the monarchical conviction. The complete failure of the American press to grasp the true historic meaning of this war and its inner consequences will later be rec- 205 THE WAR AND AMERICA ognized perhaps in no point more strongly than in the absurd persistency with which it repeats the prophecy that the war will weaken the monarchical idea and create a popular desire for an imitation of republican gov- ernment. So far only one great historic fact stands out, that the German nation and the Emperor were never more one than since the hour when the war against Russia broke out, and that in the twenty-seven years of the Kaiser's reign the love for the Emperor and the conviction that the monarchical state form is the ideal form of government for the great German nation was never so deep and penetrating as to-day. It is as if the great leaders of the German nation had risen from their graves, Bismarck and Moltke planning again in the headquar- ters of state and army. It is as if Schiller had come to life and was inspiring with his ethical idealism the troops which are defend- ing their home land in the west, as if he called to them once more: ** Infamous is the na- tion which is not ready to give everything for its honor. ' ' And it is as if at the eastern frontier at the town of Konigsberg a little old-fashioned man had left the grave, Im- 206 THE MORALS OF THE WAR mannel Kant, and whispered into the heart of everyone : * ^ There is only one thing worth while in life, and that is the moral will/' And all are ready to give their lives to pro- tect those boundaries against the Russian on- slaught. Never was the moral will of the na- tion more alive and more pure. Even the poems of the day affirm it in all its solemnity. Everyone has read those Eng- lish poems cabled over the world which the war has brought forth. But all which they had to say was boastful pride in England and hatred for the enemy. No tone of that kind was heard in Germany. One poem after an- other is filled with the moral meaning of the world event. The controlling idea is that of self-discipliae. We have taken life too light- ly ; we have lived too much for the joys of the day, and the pomp of the outer world; now the hour of sacrifice and of need and of sad- ness has come to us. May it make us purer in heart and deeper in thought and more ideal in action. The whole meaning of life is to do one's duty, and suffering may help us to become better. I may pick out of many similar songs one by Richard Delunel. I know he has always felt the pulse-beat of the 207 THE WAR AND AMERICA German nation. My daughter translated his short poem. It may be the closing word of this first part of my little diary: Hour of steel, thou art a blessing That at last unites us all. Friend and foe, still peace caressing, Trembled in suspicion's thrall. Now comes the fight, The honest fight! Greed with blunted claw has meanly Bartered for its pomp and lust; Now we all are feeling keenly ^hat can save our souls from dust: The hour of need. Of blessed need! Truth will blaze, through darkness smiting, Over dust and powder's smoke. Not for life we men are fighting — Fighting till the fatal stroke: For then comes death, Divinest death! Led by faith, thy land defending, People, for thy spirit fight, Heroes' blood for honor spending! Sacrifice be our delight — Then victory, Hail victory! 208 NOTE The first papers of this diary were written in the first days of the war. They were based, of course, on the knowledge available at that time. I have not changed them after- wards, because I wanted to preserve the inner truth of the immediate impressions. But at- tention ought to be drawn to one point which now appears entirely different. I have emphasized that the war was forced on Germany but acknowledged that tech- nically Germany declared the war. We know now that even this is not the case. Even the technical war-making was begun by Rus- sia and France. The Russian and French troops crossed the frontiers and made pris- oners before Germany took any warlike step. After Russia's actual starting of the war, Germany simply declared in its ultimatum that if these hostile movements did not stop at once it would consider itself in a state of war. They did not stop and, therefore, Ger- many withdrew its ambassadors. 209 NOTE Since it has become absolutely clear that the war was started by Eussia and France and that Germany was in no way responsible, the anti-German press has suddenly discov- ered that the question of the origin of the war is ^ ^ very unimportant. ' ' Historians will judge otherwise. They will be unwilling to disburden the allies so easily. It is very im- portant to understand who started this war of wars and to know that Germany was loyal to her policy of peace till the enemies actually crossed her frontiers. flPRi ' DATE DUE pfim L \} U \ APRl 7Z0ui !:'ss? COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 0030464242