Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

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

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 14, 1914.

DR. ELIOT'S FIFTH LETTER.

A Hopeful Road to Lasting Peace

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 8, 1914.

THE LORD OF HOSTS.

By JOSEPH B. GILDER.

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A War of Dishonor

By David Starr Jordan.

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

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

Berkeley, Cal., Sept. 19, 1914.

Might or Right

By John Grier Hibben.

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

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

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

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

Nietzsche's "Moralic Acid."

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

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

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

The Brotherhood of Man.

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

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

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

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

The Area of Moral Obligation.

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

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

JEANNE D'ARC--1914.

By ALMA DURANT NICOLSON.

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

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

The Kaiser and Belgium

By John W. Burgess.

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

FIRST ARTICLE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Man of Warm Affections.

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

_(Photo by the Misses Selby.)_

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

His Passion for German Greatness.

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

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

I know that the two things which are giving him the deepest pain in this world catastrophe, excepting only the sufferings of his own kindred and people, are the enmity of Great Britain and the misunderstanding of his character, feelings, and purposes in America. To remedy the first we here can do nothing, but to dispel the second is our bounden duty; and I devoutly hope that other evidence may prove sufficient to do this to the satisfaction of the minds of my countrymen than was necessary to convince the British Nation that the great-hearted Abraham Lincoln was not a brute nor the urbane William H. Seward a demon of ferocity.

Reply to Prof. Burgess

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

The Burgess Kaiser is a truly admirable person. Every right-minded man will be only too glad to believe all that Prof. Burgess affirms of him. To be sure, there is a lurking sense that the professor "doth protest too much." But let that go. In the present topsy-turvy state of the world it is refreshing to hear of a man who loves his wife and children in the good, old way. But just now the world is not interested in the private, personal, peculiarly German characteristics of the Kaiser. We outsiders must take him as he is known to the international world. We of course trust that he is an able, cultivated, attractive gentleman. There are many such in the world. But this gentleman happens to be the head of one of the great nations. Our interest in him centres in his relations to his neighbor nations.

An English friend of mine was appointed to duty in a tribe of savages in Africa. I dislike to call them savages after the testimony of my friend. But they were just plain, naked folk, living in primitive simplicity in their native land. The chief of this little tribe was, as my friend asserts, a superior man, and, in spite of his undress, a good deal of a gentleman. In physique he was superb. A sculptor's heart would have leaped for joy at sight of him. My friend said to see him teaching his young son to throw a spear was a sort of physical music. He himself could throw a spear to an incredible distance with the precision of a rifle shot. He ruled his little kingdom with surprising wisdom and fairness. He was welcomed everywhere among his people as the friend and counselor. His family relations were unimpeachable. The same was true throughout the tribe. He was devoutly pious. In short, he was a Burgess Kaiser in the small. But he was the war lord of all that region. He was fiercely jealous of all the neighboring tribes. He kept his own people armed and drilled to the top of efficiency, ready for attack or defense. He was noted for his hatred and contempt for his people except his own. His forays were marked by savage cruelty. His military necessities stopped at nothing.

Need it be said that the surrounding tribes were in nowise interested in this chief's physique or domestic virtues, or in his fidelity to his own people? It is safe to affirm that the British Government did not ask whether he had the body of a Michael Angelo's David or of a baboon from the jungle. It did not ask whether he was good to his wife and children. Most animals are. It did not care how devoted he was to his fetich. The sole question was, What sort of public citizen is he? How does he stand related to surrounding peoples? On what terms does he propose to live with them? That precisely is what we want to know about the Kaiser.

Fortunately, we do not have to ask Prof. Burgess, or any group of savants, or the German people. The Kaiser's record is known and read of all men.

JAMES H. ECOB,

American Institute of Social Service.

New York, Oct. 21, 1914.

PROF. BURGESS'S SECOND ARTICLE.

The Guarantee of Belgian Neutrality

So much has been said about Belgian neutrality, so much assumed, and it has been such a stumbling block in the way of any real and comprehensive understanding of the causes and purposes of the great European catastrophe, that it may be well to examine the basis of it and endeavor to get an exact idea of the scope and obligation.