Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

I wish I could follow you in the position you have taken, for I like nothing better than to sit at the feet of a master like you and be instructed. But, much as I have tried, even before our recent correspondence was begun, to get at your viewpoint as from time to time published, I have not been able to convince myself that you occupy a correct position. Please accept this as expressed in all modesty, for I know were you not thoroughly convinced of the justice of the position you have taken from the start you would not be so determined in holding to it.

I am perfectly frank to say that I am amazed and chagrined when you say that you feel strongly that the war ought to go on until the Allies have arrived at attacking Germany on her own soil, which, if this is at all likely to come, may take many months yet, and will mean sacrifice of human life on both sides more appalling than anything we have seen yet since the war began. So you are willing that, with all the human life that has already perished, practically the entire flower of the warring nations shall become exterminated before even an effort be made to see whether these nations cannot be brought to reason, cannot be made to stop and to consider whether, with the experience of the past four months before them, it would not be better to even now make an effort to find a way in which the causes that have led to this deplorable conflict can be once and forever eradicated?

That it will be possible to find at this time any method or basis through the adoption of which the world would become entirely immune against war I do not believe, even by the establishment of the international police force such as you and others appear to have in mind.

The perpetual cessation of all war between the civilized nations of the world can, as I see it, only be brought about in two ways, both Utopian and likely impracticable, for many years to come. War could be made only to cease entirely if all the nations of Europe could be organized into a United States of Europe and if free trade were established throughout the world. In the first instance, the extreme nationalism, which has become so rampant during the past fifty years and which has been more or less at the bottom of every war, would then cease to exist and prevail, and in the second event, namely, if free trade became established throughout the world the necessity for territorial expansion and aggression would no longer be needed, for, with the entire world open on equal terms to the commerce and industry of every nation, territorial possession would not be much of a consideration to any peoples.

You continually lay stress upon the danger of the domination of Germany in Europe and in the world. I believe I have already made myself quite clear in my recent NEW YORK TIMES interview, which has called forth this correspondence between us, that neither would I wish to have Germany come into a position where it might dominate Europe, and more or less the world, nor do I believe that the German Nation, except perhaps a handful of extremists, has any such desires.

I believe I have also made myself quite clear in the interview to which I have referred that my feelings are not anti-English, for I shall never forget that liberal government and all forms of liberalism have had their origin, ever since the Magna Charta, in that great nation whom we so often love to call our cousins. But, with all of this, can you ignore the fact that England even today, without the further power and prestige victory in the present conflict would give her, practically dominates the high seas, that she treats the ocean as her own and enforces her dictates upon the waters even to our very shores? That this is true the past four months have amply proved. I am not one of those who fear that the United States, as far as can now be foreseen, will get into any armed conflict with Great Britain or with Japan, her permanent ally, but I can well understand that many in our country are of a different opinion, and it takes no prophet to foresee that, with England coming out of this war victorious and her and Japan's power on the high seas increased, the demand from a large section of our people for the acquisition and possession of the United States of an increased powerful navy and for the erection of vast coast defenses, both on the Atlantic and Pacific shores, will become so insistent that it cannot be withstood. What this will mean to the American people in lavish expenditures and in increased taxation I need not here further go into.

Yes, my dear and revered friend, I can see nought but darkness if a way cannot be soon found out of the present deplorable situation as it exists in Europe.

But even if the Allies are victorious it will mean, as I am convinced, the beginning of the descent of England as the world's leader and the hastened ascendency of Russia, who, not today or tomorrow, but in times to come, is sure to crowd out England from the world's leadership. A Russia that will have become democratic in its government, be it as a republic or under a truly constitutional monarchy; a Russia in which education will be as free as it is in our own country; a Russia in which the people can move about and make homes in the vast territory she possesses wherever they can find most happiness and prosperity; a Russia with its vast natural resources of every kind fully developed, is bound to be the greatest and most powerful nation on the earth.

But I am going too far into the future and I must return to the sad and deplorable present. I only wanted to show how England's alliance with this present-day Russia and its despotic, autocratic, and inhuman Government may, if the Allies shall be victorious, prove possibly in the nearer future, but certainly in the long run, England's Nemesis.

Before closing I want to correct the impression you appear to have received that I have meant to suggest a conference of private persons for the purpose of agreeing upon an appeal by them to the nations of Europe to desist from fighting and consider terms of settlement. I know this would be entirely impracticable and useless, but what I meant to convey to you was my conviction that if you and men like you, of whom I confess there are but too few, were to make the endeavor to rouse public opinion in the United States to a point where it should insistently demand that this terrific carnage of blood and destruction cease, it would not be long before these warring Governments would take notice of such sentiments on the part of the American people; and what should be done at once is the stoppage of the furnishing of munitions of war to any of the belligerents, as is unfortunately done to so great an extent at present from this country.

We freely and abundantly give to the Red Cross and the many other relief societies, but we do this, even if indirectly, out of the very profits we derive from the war material we sell to the belligerents, and with which the wounds the Red Cross and other relief societies endeavor to assuage are inflicted. Yours most faithfully,

JACOB H. SCHIFF.

Dr. Eliot to Mr. Schiff.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 8, 1914.

Dear Mr. Schiff:

Your letter of Dec. 5 tells me what the difference is between you and me in respect to the outcome of the war--I am much more hopeful or sanguine of the world's getting good out of it than you are. Since you do not hope to get any good to speak of out of it, you want to stop it as soon as possible. You look forward to future war from time to time between the nations of Europe and to the maintenance of competitive armaments. You think that the lust of dominion must continue to be felt and gratified, now by one nation and now by another; that Great Britain can gratify it now, but that she will be overpowered by Russia by and by.

I am unwilling to accept these conditions for Europe, or for the world, without urging the freer nations to make extraordinary efforts to reach a better solution of the European international problem which, unsolved, has led down to this horrible pit of general war.

I have just finished another letter to THE NEW YORK TIMES, which will probably be in print by the time you get back to New York, so I will not trouble you with any exposition of the grounds of my hopefulness. It is because I am hopeful that I want to see this war fought out until Germany is persuaded that she cannot dominate Europe, or, indeed, make her will prevail anywhere by force of arms. When that change of mind has been effected I hope that Germany will become a member of a federation firm enough and powerful enough to prevent any single nation from aiming at world empire, or even pouncing on a smaller neighbor.

There is another point on which I seem to differ from you: I do not believe that any single nation has now, or can ever hereafter have, the leadership of the world, whereas you look forward to the existence of such leadership or domination in the hands of a single great power. Are there not many signs already, both in the East and in the West, that the time has past for world empire? Very sincerely and cordially yours,

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Jacob H. Schiff, Esq.

Mr. Schiff to Dr. Eliot.

NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 1914.

Dear Dr. Eliot:

I have delayed replying to your valued letter of the 8th inst. until after the appearance of your further letter to THE NEW YORK TIMES, to which you had made reference, and, like everything emanating from you, the contents of your last TIMES letter have evoked my deepest interest.

Had our recent correspondence not already become more extended than you likely had intended it to become when you first wrote me on the subject of my TIMES interview of some weeks ago, I should go into your latest arguments at greater length. As it is, I shall only reiterate that I find myself unable to follow you in your belief and hope, that world empire and world leadership, as this now exists, is likely to cease as a consequence of the present war, much as we all may desire this.

England has taken up arms to retain her world dominion and leadership; and to gain it, Germany is fighting. How can you, then, expect that England, if victorious, would be willing to surrender her control of the oceans and the dominion over the trade of the world she possesses in consequence, and where is there, then, room for the hope you express that world leadership may become a thing of the past with the termination of the present conflict?

I repeat, with all my attachment for my native land and its people, I have no inimical feeling toward England, have warm sentiments for France, and the greatest compassion for brave, stricken Belgium.

Thus, "with malice toward none," and with the highest respect for your expressed views, I am still of the opinion that there can be no greater service rendered to mankind than to make the effort, either through the force of public opinion of the two Americas, or otherwise, to bring these warring Governments together at an early moment, even if this can only be done without stopping their conflict, so that they may make the endeavor, whether--with their costly experience of the last five months, with the probability that they now know better what need be done to make the extreme armaments on land and sea as unnecessary as they are undesirable in the future--a basis cannot be found upon which disarmament can be effectively and permanently brought about.

This, at some time, they will have come to, in any event, and must there first more human lives be sacrificed into the hundreds and hundreds of thousands, and still greater havoc be wrought, before passions can be made to cease and reason be made to return?

If, as you seem to think, the war need go on until one country is beaten into a condition where it must accept the terms the victor chooses to impose, because it can no longer help itself to do else, the peace thus obtained will only be the harbinger of another war in the near or distant future, bloodier probably than the present sanguinary conflict, and through no compact which might be entered into will it be possible to actually prevent this.

Twenty centuries ago Christianity came into the world with its lofty message of "peace on earth and good-will to men," and now, after two thousand years, and at the near approach of the season when Christianity celebrates the birth of its founder, it is insisted that the merciless slaughter of man by man we have been witnessing these last months must be permitted to be continued into the infinite. Most faithfully yours,

JACOB H. SCHIFF.

President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot, Cambridge, Mass.

LA CATHEDRALE.

From Figaro.

By EDMOND ROSTAND.

Ils n'ont fait que la rendre un peu plus immortelle.
L'Oeuvre ne périt pas, que mutile un gredin.
Demande à Phidias et demande à Rodin
Si, devant ses morceaux, on ne dit plus: "C'est Elle!"

La Forteresse meurt quand on la démantèle.
Mais le Temple, brisé, vit plus noble; et soudain
Les yeux, se souvenant du toit avec dédain,
Préfèrent voir le ciel dans la pierre en dentelle.

Rendons grace--attendu qu'il nous manquait encor
D'avoir ce qu'ont les Grecs sur la colline d'or;
Le Symbole du Beau consacré par l'insulte!--

Rendons grace aux pointeurs du stupide canon,
Puisque de leur adresse allemande il résulte
Une Honte pour eux, pour nous un Parthénon!

* * * * *

THE CATHEDRAL.

A Free Translation of Rostand's Sonnet.

By FRANCES C. FAY.

"Deathless" is graven deeper on thy brow;
Ghouls have no power to end thy endless sway.
The Greek of old, the Frenchman of today,
Before thy riven shrine are bending now.

A wounded fortress straightway lieth prone,
Not so the Temple dies; its roof may fall,
The sky its covering vault, an azure pall,
Doth droop to crown its wealth of lacework stone.

Praise to you, Vandal guns of dull intent!
We lacked till now our Beauty's monument
Twice hallowed o'er by insult's brutal hand,

As Pallas owns on Athens' golden hill,
We have it now, thanks to your far-flung brand!
Your shame--our gain, misguided German skill!

Probable Causes and Outcome of the War

By Charles W. Eliot.

President Emeritus of Harvard University; Officer Legion
d'Honneur (France); Imperial Order of the Rising Sun, first
class (Japan); Royal Prussian Order of the Crown, first class;
Grand Officer of the Crown of Italy; Member of the General
Education Board, and an original investigator for the cause of
international peace.

_Following Is Reproduced a Series of Five Letters to_ THE NEW
YORK TIMES _from Dr. Eliot, Together with the Comments Thereon
by Eminent Critics._

DR. ELIOT'S FIRST LETTER.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

The American people without distinction of party are highly content with the action of their National Administration on all the grave problems presented to the Government by the sudden outbreak of long-prepared war in Europe--a war which already involves five great States and two small ones. They heartily approve of the action of the Administration on mediation, neutrality, aid to Americans in Europe, discouragement of speculation in foods, and, with the exception of extreme protectionists, admission to American registery of foreign-built ships; although the legislation on the last subject, which has already passed Congress, is manifestly inadequate.

Our people cannot see that the war will necessarily be short, and they cannot imagine how it can last long. They realize that history gives no example of such a general interruption of trade and all other international intercourse as has already taken place, or of such a stoppage of the production and distribution of the necessaries of life as this war threatens. They shudder at the floods of human woe which are about to overwhelm Europe.

Hence, thinking Americans cannot help reflecting on the causes of this monstrous outbreak of primitive savagery--part of them come down from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and part developed in the nineteenth--and wondering what good for mankind, if any, can possibly come out of the present cataclysm.

The whole people of the United States, without regard to racial origin, are of one mind in hoping that mankind may gain out of this prodigious physical combat, which uses for purposes of destruction and death all the new forces of nineteenth-century applied science, some new liberties and new securities in the pursuit of happiness; but at this moment they can cherish only a remote hope of such an issue. The military force which Austria-Hungary and Germany are now using on a prodigious scale, and with long-studied skill, can only be met by similar military force, and this resisting force is summoned more slowly than that of Austria-Hungary and Germany, although the ultimate battalions will be heavier. In this portentous physical contest the American people have no part; their geographical position, their historical development, and their political ideals combine to make them for the present mere spectators, although their interests--commercial, industrial, and political--are deeply involved. For the moment, the best thing our Government can do is to utilize all existing neutrality rights, and, if possible, to strengthen or develop those rights, for out of this war ought to come more neutral States in Europe and greater security for neutralized territory.

The Need for Discussion.

The chances of getting some gains for mankind out of this gigantic struggle will be somewhat increased if the American people, and all other neutral peoples, arrive through public discussion at some clear understanding of the causes and the possible and desirable issues of the war, and the sooner this public discussion begins, and the more thoroughly it is pursued, the sounder will probably be the tendencies of public sentiment outside of the contending nations and the conclusions which the peace negotiations will ultimately reach.

When one begins, however, to reflect on the probable causes of the sudden lapse of the most civilized parts of Europe into worse than primitive savagery, he comes at once on two old and widespread evils in Europe from which America has been exempt for at least 150 years. The first is secret diplomacy with power to make issues and determine events, and the second is autocratic national Executives who can swing the whole physical force of the nation to this side or that without consulting the people or their representatives.

The actual catastrophe proves that secret negotiations like those habitually conducted on behalf of the "concert of Europe," and alliances between selected nations, the terms of which are secret, or at any rate not publicly stated, cannot avert in the long run outrageous war, but can only produce postponements of war, or short truces. Free institutions, like those of the United States, take the public into confidence, because all important movements of the Government must rest on popular desires, needs, and volitions. Autocratic institutions have no such necessity for publicity. This Government secrecy as to motives, plans, and purposes must often be maintained by disregarding truth, fair dealing, and honorable obligations, in order that, when the appeal to force comes, one Government may secure the advantage of taking the other by surprise. Duplicity during peace and the breaking of treaties during war come to be regarded as obvious military necessities.

The second great evil under which certain large nations of Europe--notably Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary--have long suffered and still suffer is the permanent national Executive, independent of popular control through representative bodies, holding strong views about rights of birth and religious sanctions of its authority, and really controlling the national forces through some small council and a strong bureaucracy. So long as Executives of this sort endure, so long will civilization be liable to such explosions as have taken place this August, though not always on so vast a scale.

Americans now see these things more clearly than European lovers of liberty, because Americans are detached from the actual conflicts by the Atlantic, and because Americans have had no real contact with the feudal or the imperial system for nearly 300 years. Pilgrim and Puritan, Covenanter and Quaker, Lutheran and Catholic alike left the feudal system and autocratic government behind them when they crossed the Atlantic. Americans, therefore, cannot help hoping that two results of the present war will be: (1) The abolition of secret diplomacy and secret understandings, and the substitution therefor of treaties publicly discussed and sanctioned, and (2) the creation of national Executives--Emperors, Sultans, Kings, or Presidents--which cannot use the national forces in fight until a thoroughly informed national assembly, acting with deliberation, has agreed to that use.

Opposite Tendencies.

The American student of history since the middle of the seventeenth century sees clearly two strong though apparently opposite tendencies in Europe: First, the tendency to the creation and maintenance of small States such as those which the Peace of Westphalia (1648) recognized and for two centuries secured in a fairly independent existence, and, secondly, a tendency from the middle of the nineteenth century toward larger national units, created by combining several kindred States under one executive. This second tendency was illustrated strongly in the case of both Germany and Italy, although the Prussian domination in Germany has no parallel in Italy. Somewhat earlier in the nineteenth century the doctrine of the neutralization of the territories of small States was established as firmly as solemn treaties could do it. The larger national units had a more or less federative quality, the components yielding some of their functions to a central power, but retaining numerous independent functions. This tendency to limited unification is one which Americans easily understand and appreciate. We believe in the federative principle, and must therefore hope that out of the present European horror will come a new development of that principle, and new security for small States which are capable of guaranteeing to their citizens "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"--a security which no citizen of any European country seems today to possess.

Some of the underlying causes of the horrible catastrophe the American people are now watching from afar are commercial and economic. Imperial Germany's desire for colonies in other continents--such as Great Britain and France secured earlier as a result of keen commercial ambitions--is intense. Prussia's seizure of Schleswig in 1864-5 had the commercial motive; and it is with visions of ports on the North Sea that Germany justifies her present occupation of Belgium. The Russians have for generations desired to extend their national territory southward to the Aegean and the Bosphorus, and eastward to good harbors on the Pacific. Later they pushed into Mongolia and Manchuria, but were resisted successfully by Japan. Austria-Hungary has long been seeking ports on the Adriatic, and lately seized without warrant Herzegovina and Bosnia to promote her approach toward the Aegean, and is now trying to seize Servia with the same ends in view. With similar motives Italy lately descended on Tripoli, without any excuse except this intense desire for colonies--profitable or unprofitable. On the other hand, the American people, looking to the future as well as to the past, object to acquisitions of new territory by force of arms; and since the twentieth century opened they have twice illustrated in their own practice--first in Cuba, and then in Mexico--this democratic objection. They believe that extensions of national territory should be brought about only with the indubitable consent of the majority of the people most nearly concerned. They also believe that commerce should always be a means of promoting good-will, and not ill-will, among men, and that all legitimate and useful extensions of the commerce of a manufacturing and commercial nation may be procured through the policy of the "open door"--which means nothing more than that all nations should be allowed to compete on equal terms for the trade of any foreign people, whether backward or advanced in civilization. No American Administration has accepted a "concession" of land in China. They also believe that peaceable extensions of territory and trade will afford adequate relief from the economic pressure on a population too large for the territory it occupies, and that there is no need of forcible seizure of territory to secure relief. It is inevitable, therefore, that the American people should hope that one outcome of the present war should be--no enlargement of a national territory by force or without the free consent of the population to be annexed, and no colonization except by peaceable commercial and industrial methods.

Aggressive Force a Failure.

One of the most interesting and far-reaching effects of the present outbreak of savagery is likely to be the conviction it carries to the minds of thinking people that the whole process of competitive armaments, the enlistment of the entire male population in national armies, and the incessant planning of campaigns against neighbors, is not a trustworthy method for preserving peace. It now appears that the military preparations of the last fifty years in Europe have resulted in the most terrific war of all time, and that a fierce ultimate outbreak is the only probable result of the system. For the future of civilization this is a lesson of high value. It teaches that if modern civilization is to be preserved, national Executives--whether imperial or republican--must not have at their disposal immense armaments and drilled armies held ready in the leash; that armaments must be limited, an international Supreme Court established, national armies changed to the Swiss form, and an international force adequate to deal with any nation that may suddenly become lawless agreed upon by treaty and held always in readiness. The occasional use of force will continue to be necessary even in the civilized world; but it must be made not an aggressive but a protective force and used as such--just as protective force has to be used sometimes in families, schools, cities, and Commonwealths.

At present Americans do not close their eyes to the plain fact that the brute force which Germany and Austria-Hungary are now using can only be overcome by brute force of the same sort in larger measure. It is only when negotiations for peace begin that the great lesson of the futility of huge preparations for fighting to preserve peace can be given effect. Is it too much to expect that the whole civilized world will take to heart the lessons of this terrible catastrophe and co-operate to prevent the recurrence of such losses and woes? Should Germany and Austria-Hungary succeed in their present undertakings, the whole civilized world would be obliged to bear continuously, and to an ever-increasing amount, the burdens of great armaments, and would live in constant fear of sudden invasion, now here, now there--a terrible fear, against which neither treaties nor professions of peaceable intentions would offer the least security.

It must be admitted, however, that the whole military organization, which has long been compulsory on the nations of Continental Europe, is inconsistent in the highest degree with American ideals of individual liberty and social progress. Democracies can fight with ardor, and sometimes with success, when the whole people is moved by a common sentiment or passion; but the structure and discipline of a modern army like that of Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia, has a despotic or autocratic quality which is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of democratic society. To make war in countries like France, Great Britain, and the United States requires the widespread, simultaneous stirring of the passions of the people on behalf of their own ideals. This stirring requires publicity before and after the declaration of war and public discussion; and the delays which discussion causes are securities for peace. Out of the present struggle should come a check on militarism--a strong revulsion against the use of force as means of settling international disputes.

America Cannot Be Indifferent.

It must also be admitted that it is impossible for the American people to sympathize with the tone of the imperial and royal addresses which, in summoning the people to war, use such phrases as "My monarchy," "My loyal people," "My loyal subjects"; for there is implied in such phrases a dynastic or personal ownership of peoples which shocks the average American. Americans inevitably think that the right way for a ruler to begin an exhortation to the people he rules is President Wilson's way: "My fellow-countrymen."

It follows from the very existence of these American instincts and hopes that, although the people of the United States mean to maintain faithfully a legal neutrality, they are not, and can not be, neutral or indifferent as to the ultimate outcome of this titanic struggle. It already seems to them that England, France, and Russia are fighting for freedom and civilization. It does not follow that thinking Americans will forget the immense services which Germany has rendered to civilization during the last hundred years, or desire that her power to serve letters, science, art, and education should be in the least abridged in the outcome of this war upon which she has entered so rashly and selfishly and in so barbarous a spirit. Most educated Americans hope and believe that by defeating the German barbarousness the Allies will only promote the noble German civilization.

_(Photo by Alman & Co.)_

_See Page 507_]

_(Photo by Pach.)_

_See Page 515_]

The presence of Russia in the combination against Germany and Austria-Hungary seems to the average American an abnormal phenomenon; because Russia is itself a military monarchy with marked territorial ambitions; and its civilization is at a more elementary stage than that of France or England; but he resists present apprehension on this score by recalling that Russia submitted to the "Concert of Europe" when her victorious armies were within seventeen miles of Constantinople, that she emancipated her serfs, proposed The Hague Conferences, initiated the "Duma," and has lately offered--perhaps as war measures only--autonomy to her Poles and equal rights of citizenship to her Jews. He also cannot help believing that a nation which has produced such a literature as Russia has produced during the last fifty years must hold within its multitudinous population a large minority which is seething with high aspirations and a fine idealism.

For the clarification of the public mind on the issue involved, it is important that the limits of American neutrality should be discussed and understood. The action of the Government must be neutral in the best sense; but American 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 scope and real issues of this formidable convulsion, and so be ready to seize every opportunity that may present itself to further the cause of human freedom, and of peace at last.

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Asticou, Me., Sept. 1, 1914.

Appreciation from Lord Bryce

Late Ambassador at Washington from Great Britain; Chief
Secretary for Ireland, 1905-6; author of "The American
Commonwealth," and of studies in history and biography.

It has been a great pleasure to see from your published letter, which has just reached us, that you so clearly understand the motive and feelings with which Great Britain has entered on the present war. Neither commercial rivalry nor any fancied jealousy of Germany's greatness has led us into it, and to the German people our people bear no ill-will whatever. Along with many others I have worked steadily during long years for the maintenance of friendship with Germany, admiring the splendid gifts of the German race, and recognizing their enormous services to science, philosophy, and literature. We had hoped, as some thoughtful statesmen in Germany had also hoped, that by a cordial feeling between Germany and Britain the peace of Europe might be secured and something done to bring about permanently better relations between Germany and her two great neighbors with whom we found ourselves on friendly terms; and we had confidently looked to the United States to join with us in this task. But the action of the German Government in violating the neutrality of Belgium when France had assured us that she would respect it, the invasion of a small State whose neutrality and independence she and England had joined in guaranteeing, evoked in this country an almost unanimous sentiment that the faith of treaties and the safety of small States must be protected. There has been no war for more than a century--perhaps two centuries--into which the nation has entered with so general a belief that its action is justified. We rejoice to be assured that this is the general feeling of the people of the United States, whose opinion we naturally value more than we do that of any other people.

Most persons in this country, including all those who work for peace, agree with you in deploring the vast armaments which European States have been piling up, and will hope with you that after this war they may be reduced--and safely reduced--to slender dimensions. Their existence is a constant menace to peace. They foster that spirit of militarism which has brought these horrors on the world; for they create in the great countries of the Continent a large and powerful military and naval caste which lives for war, talks and writes incessantly of war, and glorifies war as a thing good in itself.

It is (as you say) to the peoples that we must henceforth look to safeguard international concord. They bear the miseries of war, they ought to have the power to arrest the action of those who are hurrying them into it.

To get rid of secret diplomacy is more difficult in Europe than in America, whose relations with foreign States are fewer and simpler, but what you say upon that subject also will find a sympathetic echo here among the friends of freedom and of peace. I am always sincerely yours,

JAMES BRYCE.

Forest Row, Sussex, Sept. 17, 1914.

A Reply by Dr. Francke

Professor of the History of German Culture at Harvard
University and Curator of the Germanic Museum; author of works
on German literature.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

In his letter of Sept. 1 President Eliot expresses the opinion that in the present war "England, France, and Russia are fighting for freedom and civilization." And he adds:

It does not follow that thinking Americans will forget the
immense services which Germany has rendered to civilization
during the last hundred years, or desire that her power to
serve letters, science, art, and education should be in the
least abridged in the outcome of this war, upon which she has
entered so rashly and selfishly and in so barbarous a spirit.
Most educated Americans hope and believe that by defeating the
German barbarousness the Allies will only promote the noble
German civilization.

In other words, German military and political power is to be crushed in order to set free the German genius for science, literature, and art. It is interesting to contrast with such views as these the following words of Goethe, uttered in 1813:

I have often felt a bitter grief at the thought of the German
people, which is so noble individually and so wretched as a
whole. A comparison of the German people with other nations
gives us painful feelings, which I try to overcome by all
possible means; and in science and art I have found the wings
which lift me above them. But the comfort which they afford
is, after all, only a miserable comfort, and does not make up
for the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation strong,
respected, and feared. However, I am comforted by the thought
of Germany's future. Yes, the German people has a future. The
destiny of the Germans is not yet fulfilled. The time, the
right time, no human eye can foresee, nor can human power
hasten it on. To us individuals, meanwhile, is it given, to
every one according to his talents, his inclinations, and his
position, to increase, to strengthen, and to spread national
culture. In order that in this respect, at least, Germany may
be ahead of other nations and that the national spirit,
instead of being stifled and discouraged, may be kept alive
and hopeful and ready to rise in all its might when the day of
glory dawns.

If I am not mistaken, these words of Germany's greatest poet express accurately what the German people during the last hundred years has been striving for--national culture and national pre-eminence in every field of human activity. To advocate the reduction of Germany to a land of isolated scientists, poets, artists, and educators is tantamount to a call for the destruction of the German Nation.

KUNO FRANCKE.

Harvard University, Sept. 5, 1914.

DR. ELIOT'S SECOND LETTER

The Stout and Warlike Breed

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

There is nothing new in the obsession of the principal European nations that, in order to be great and successful in the world as it is, they must possess military power available for instant aggression on weak nations, as well as for effective defense against strong ones.

When Sir Francis Bacon wrote his essay on "The True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates" he remarked that forts, arsenals, goodly races of horses, armaments, and the like would all be useless "except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike." He denied that money is the sinews of war, giving preference to the sinews of men's arms, and quoted Solon's remark to Croesus, "Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold"--a truly Bismarckian proposition. Indeed, Sir Francis Bacon says explicitly "that the principal point of greatness in any State is to have a race of military men."

Goethe, reflecting on the wretchedness of the German people as a whole, found no comfort in the German genius for science, literature, and art, or only a miserable comfort which "does not make up for the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation strong, respected, and feared." Because Germany in his time was weak in the military sense, he could write: "I have often felt a bitter grief at the thought of the German people, which is so noble individually, and so wretched as a whole"; and he longed for the day when the national spirit, kept alive and hopeful, should be "ready to rise in all its might when the day of glory dawns."

"The day of glory" was to be the day of military power. Carlyle said of Germany and France in November, 1870, "that noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vaporing, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems to me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred in my time." How did Germany attain to this position of "Queen of the Continent"? By creating and maintaining, with utmost intelligence and skill, the strongest army in Europe--an army which within six years had been used successfully against Denmark, Austria, and France. Germany became "Queen" by virtue of her military power.

In the same paper Carlyle said of the French Revolution, of which he was himself the great portrayer: "I often call that a celestial infernal phenomenon, the most memorable in our world for a thousand years; on the whole, a transcendent revolt against the devil and his works, (since shams are all and sundry of the devil, and poisonous and unendurable to man.)" Now, the French Revolution was an extraordinary outbreak of passionate feeling and physical violence on the part of the French Nation, both at home and abroad; and it led on to the Napoleonic wars, which were tremendous physical struggles for mastery in Europe.

In a recent public statement two leading philosophical writers of modern Germany, Profs. Eucken and Haeckel, denounce the "brutal national egoism" of England, which they say "recognizes no rights on the part of others, and, unconcerned about morality or unmorality, pursues only its own advantage"; and they attribute to England the purpose to hinder at any cost the further growth of German greatness. But what are the elements of that German greatness which England is determined to arrest by joining France and Russia in war against Germany and Austria-Hungary? The three elements of recent German greatness are the extension of her territory; contiguous territories in Europe and in other continents colonial possessions; the enlargement of German commerce and wealth, and to these ends the firm establishment of her military supremacy in Europe. These are the ideas on the true greatness of nations which have prevailed in the ruling oligarchy of Germany for at least sixty years, and now seem to have been accepted, or acquiesced in, by the whole German people. In this view, the foundation of national greatness is fighting power.

This conception of national greatness has prevailed at many different epochs--Macedonian, Roman, Saracen, Spanish, English, and French--and, indeed, has appeared from time to time in almost all the nations and tribes of the earth; but the civilized world is now looking for better foundations of national greatness than force and fighting.

The partial successes of democracy in Europe have much increased the evils of war. Sir Francis Bacon looked for a fighting class; under the feudal system when a Baron went to war he took with him his vassals, or that portion of them that could be spared from the fields at home. Universal conscription is a modern invention, the horrors of which, as now exhibited in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France, much exceed those of earlier martial methods. There has never been such an interruption of agricultural and industrial production, or such a rending of family ties in consequence of war as is now taking place in the greater part of Europe. Moreover, mankind has never before had the use of such destructive implements as the machine gun, the torpedo, and the dynamite bomb. The progress of science has much increased the potential destructiveness of warfare.

Thinking people in all the civilized countries are asking themselves what the fundamental trouble with civilization is, and where to look for means of escape from the present intolerable conditions. Christianity in nineteen centuries has afforded no relief. The so-called mitigations of war are comparatively trivial. The recent Balkan wars were as ferocious as those of Alexander. The German aviators drop aimless bombs at night into cities occupied chiefly by non-combatants. The North Sea is strewn with floating mines which may destroy fishing, freight, or passenger vessels of any nation, neutral or belligerent, which have business on that sea. The ruthless destruction of the Louvain Library by German soldiers reminds people who have read history that the destroyers of the Alexandria Library have ever since been called fanatics and barbarians. The German Army tries to compel unfortified Belgian cities and towns to pay huge ransoms to save themselves from destruction--a method which the Barbary States, indeed, were accustomed to use against their Christian neighbors, but which has long been held to be a method appropriate only for brigands and pirates--Greek, Sicilian, Syrian, or Chinese.

What Is Wrong with Civilization?

How can it be that the Government of a civilized State commits, or permits in its agents, such barbarities? The fundamental reason seems to be that most of the European nations still believe that national greatness depends on the possession and brutal use of force, and is to be maintained and magnified only by military and naval power.

In North America there are two large communities--heretofore inspired chiefly by ideals of English origin--which have never maintained conscripted armies, and have never fortified against each other their long frontier--Canada and the United States. Both may fairly be called great peoples even now; and both give ample promise for the future. Neither of these peoples lacks the "stout and warlike" quality of which Sir Francis Bacon spoke; both have often exhibited it. The United States suffered for four years from a civil war, characterized by determined fighting, in indecisive battles, in which the losses, in proportion to the number of men engaged, were often much heavier than any thus far reported from the present battlefields in Belgium and France. There being then no lack of martial spirit in these two peoples, it is an instructive phenomenon that power to conquer is not their ideal of national greatness. Much the same thing may be said of some other self-governing constituents of the British Empire, such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. They, too, have a better ideal of national greatness than that of military supremacy.

What are the real ambitions and hopes of the people of the United States and the people of Canada in regard to their own future? Their expectations of greatness certainly are not based on any conception of invincible military force, or desire for the physical means of enforcing their own will on their neighbors. They both believe in the free commonwealth, administered justly, and with the purpose of securing for each individual all the freedom he can exercise without injury to his neighbors and the collective well-being. They desire for themselves, each for itself, a strong Government, equipped to perform its functions with dignity, certainty, and efficiency; but they wish to have that Government under the control of the deliberate public opinion of free citizens, and not under the control of any Prætorian Guard, Oligarchic Council, or General Staff, and they insist that the civil authority should always control such military and police forces as it may be necessary to maintain for protective purposes.

True National Greatness.

They believe that the chief object of government should be the promotion of the public welfare by legislative and administrative means; that the processes of government should be open and visible, and their results be incessantly published for approval or disapproval. They believe that a nation becomes great through industrial productiveness and the resulting internal and external commerce, through the gradual increase of comfort and general well-being in the population, and through the advancement of science, letters, and art. They believe that education, free intercourse with other nations, and religious enthusiasm and toleration are means of national greatness, and that in the development and use of these means force has no place. They attribute national greatness in others, as well as in themselves, not to the possession of military force, but to the advance of the people in freedom, industry, righteousness, and good-will.

They believe that the ideals of fighting power and domination should be replaced by the ideals of peaceful competition in production and trade, of generous rivalry in education, scientific discovery, and the fine arts, of co-operation for mutual benefit among nations different in size, natural abilities, and material resources, and of federation among nations associated geographically or historically, or united in the pursuit of some common ends and in the cherishing of like hopes and aspirations. They think that the peace of the world can be best promoted by solemn public compacts between peoples--not Princes or Cabinets--compacts made to be kept, strengthened by mutual services and good offices, and watched over by a permanent International Judicial Tribunal authorized to call on the affiliated nations for whatever force may be necessary to induce obedience to its decrees.

Will not the civilized world learn from this horrible European war--the legitimate result of the policies of Bismarck and his associates and disciples--that these democratic ideals constitute the rational substitute for the imperialistic ideal of fighting force as the foundation of national greatness? The new ideals will still need the protection and support, both within and without each nation, of a restrained public force, acting under law, national and international, just as a sane mind needs as its agent a sound and strong body. Health and vigor will continue to be the safeguards of morality, justice, and mercy.

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Asticou, Me., Sept. 14, 1914.

DR. ELIOT'S THIRD LETTER.

Why Is America Anti-German?

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

The numerous pamphlets which German writers are now distributing in the United States, and the many letters about the European war which Americans are now receiving from German and German-American friends, are convincing thoughtful people in this country that American public opinion has some weight with the German Government and people, or, at least, some interest for them; but that the reasons which determine American sympathy with the Allies, rather than with Germany and Austria-Hungary, are not understood in Germany, and are not always appreciated by persons of German birth who have lived long in the United States.

It would be a serious mistake to suppose that Americans feel any hostility or jealousy toward Germany, or fail to recognize the immense obligations under which she has placed all the rest of the world, although they now feel that the German Nation has been going wrong in theoretical and practical politics for more than a hundred years, and is today reaping the consequences of her own wrong-thinking and wrong-doing.

There are many important matters concerning which American sympathy is strongly with Germany: (1) The unification of Germany, which Bismarck and his co-workers accomplished, naturally commended itself to Americans, whose own country is a firm federation of many more or less different States, containing more or less different peoples; while most Americans did not approve Bismarck's methods and means, they cordially approved his accomplishment of German unification; (2) Americans have felt unqualified admiration for the commercial and financial growth of Germany during the past forty years, believing it to be primarily the fruit of well-directed industry and enterprise; (3) all educated Americans feel strong gratitude to the German Nation for its extraordinary achievements in letters, science, and education within the last hundred years. Jealousy of Germany in these matters is absolutely foreign to American thought, and that any external power or influence should undertake to restrict or impair German progress in these respects would seem to all Americans intolerable, and, indeed incredible; (4) all Americans who have had any experience in Governmental or educational administration recognize the fact, that German administration--both in peace and in war--is the most efficient in the world, and for that efficiency they feel nothing but respect and admiration, unless the efficiency requires an inexpedient suppression or restriction of individual liberty; (5) Americans sympathize with a unanimous popular sentiment in favor of a war which the people believe to be essential to the greatness, and even the safety, of their country--a sentiment which prompts to family and property sacrifices very distressing at the moment, and irremediable in the future; and they believe that the German people today are inspired by just such an overwhelming sentiment.

How is it, then, that, with all these strong American feelings tending to make them sympathize with the German people in good times or bad, in peace or in war, the whole weight of American opinion is on the side of the Allies in the present war? The reasons are to be found, of course, in the political and social history of the American people, and in its Governmental philosophy and practice today. These reasons have come out of the past, and are intrenched in all the present ideals and practices of the American Commonwealth. They inevitably lead Americans to object strongly and irrevocably to certain German national practices of great moment, practices which are outgrowths of Prussian theories, and experiences that have come to prevail in Germany during the past hundred years. In the hope that American public opinion about the European war may be a little better understood abroad it seems worth while to enumerate those German practices which do not conform to American standards in the conduct of public affairs:

(a) Americans object to the committal of a nation to grave measures of foreign policy by a permanent Executive--Czar, Kaiser, or King--advised in secret by professional diplomatists who consider themselves the personal representatives of their respective sovereigns. The American people have no permanent Executive, and the profession of diplomacy hardly exists among them. In the conduct of their national affairs they utterly distrust secrecy, and are accustomed to demand and secure the utmost publicity.

(b) They object to placing in any ruler's hands the power to order mobilization or declare war in advance of deliberate consultation with a representative assembly, and of co-operative action thereby. The fact that German mobilization was ordered three days in advance of the meeting of the Reichstag confounds all American ideas and practices about the rights of the people and the proper limits of Executive authority.