Part 5

Having substituted the Prussian theory of the State for Christianity, having replaced the eternal God with the word Force, spelt with a capital "F," having gotten the Devil all mixed up with God, until the Kaiser planned Devil deeds and signed God's name to them, finally Germany decided to slay humanitarianism, pity, sympathy, and regard for the poor and weak. Nineteen centuries ago Jesus taught men that God by His dear Son had identified Himself with the poor and the weak. Taking a little child, Jesus said, "Take heed that ye offend not one of my little ones." Christianity is kindness, and pity. Out of Christ's teachings came the world's hospitals, the emancipation of slaves, homes for the aged and the invalid, schools for orphans, hospitals for the sick. Jesus' sympathy has journeyed like an angel of God across the fields of the world, and God's sweet mercy has fallen like rain from His heaven to cool men's fevered souls. Just in proportion as men have gone towards God, they have gone towards pity and compassion. Florence Nightingale and Augusta Stanley enter the smitten hospitals of the Crimea; Mother Bickerdyke and all her associates are found on the battle-fields of our Civil War; John Howard organizes the Prison Relief movement. Everywhere society climbs upward upon the golden rounds of sympathy, and philanthropy.

But Germany despises kindness. She now bombs hospitals, sinks passenger ships, and the malignancy of her cruelties has horrified savages in the South Sea Islands. Over against the teachings of Jesus therefore put the German frightfulness. Read the article by that American physician, who left Germany last summer by way of Switzerland. Note that when a train of English soldiers passed through the town, a train loaded with prisoners packed in freight cars, without sanitation, wounded men who had been without food or drink for three days, men who, with black lips, begged the German women for water, that these women held water just out of reach of these English soldiers, and then spilling it on the ground, spat in the faces of these wounded men!

When Germans were marching into a Belgian village, a German captain ordered the villagers to go into the church. The houses were then searched. Unfortunately no weapons were found, and therefore there was no excuse for looting the town and then burning the buildings. The diary of a German soldier says that his captain showed him a window opening into the cellar of a Belgian house, and told him to put a gun in through the window. A few minutes later the captain "discovered" the gun, and taking the weapon into the church told all the villagers that concealed weapons had been found, and they must all be shot and the village destroyed. The German burglar's life was sacred, but the honest householder's life and that of his family were as nothing, losing all rights because the German burglar has broken open the door.

This new philosophy of militarism teaches that crimes become virtues if they promote the interests of the Fatherland. To accept the hospitality, to plot arson, bombing and sedition; to play false to all the higher considerations of honour, through the treachery of Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, is beautiful and glorious for a German. The blackest deeds become sacred because they promote German interests. So thoroughly has this philosophy of loyalty to the Fatherland permeated the German soul in every part of the world, that--despite multitudes of large-hearted, open-minded American citizens who came hither from German homes to better their political and industrial conditions, and who, Germans as they are, gratefully appreciate and are loyal to the America that has welcomed them--there are also thousands of German-Americans about us from whose lips you cannot obtain one word of criticism of the blackest deeds of murder and arson and treachery by Germany's agents in this country, or of Germany abroad. Whatever is done for the Fatherland is right, no matter what crime is involved.

It is precisely to this type that Jesus addressed His words about the light in men that had become darkness, and therefore "how great is that darkness." By this route Germans have gone downward towards spiritual apostasy.

GERMANY'S WOLFISH SPIRIT

Germany's inspiration seems to be that of the treacherous wolf. Intellectually we cannot understand how a shepherd can watch wolves tearing the throat of the lamb in the Belgian sheepfold and the French sheepfold, while he stands by and waits until the wolf tears some lambs and sheep in the American sheepfold. When a brave man has seen a wolf tear the throat of one lamb he ought to leap from his place of safety and take his place beside the lamb. Of course, the wolf has many explanations to offer, but the explanations of the wolf do not interest some men. There are some foul diseases, like slavery, that have to be cut out by the surgery of war. Militarism and autocracy are cancers, and God has anointed the surgeon with ointment, black and sulphurous. But the surgeon's knife has to be heated red hot, that it may cauterize the wounds, lest the patient bleed and die.

"We must choose," said Bernhardi, "between Napoleon and Jesus."

The people of the United States have chosen between Militarism and Jesus. Our fathers chose eighteen centuries ago. They left the law of the pack behind. They chose to become the sons of God, and lose their lives that Christ's little ones might survive. Hospitals, reforms, schoolhouses for children, reform acts, emancipation proclamations, the Declaration of Independence, justice, and man's redemption are the results. German militarism is the apotheosis of the law of the wolf-pack, return to the club and the caveman. If she succeeds in a return to brute force, her victory will be the most terrible calamity that overwhelmed the earth since that event that Milton describes in his story of the rebellion in heaven. Every editor and school-teacher, every priest and minister, every patriot and parent, should drill into the minds of children and youth the Kaiser's original charge and the meaning thereof: "No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Make yourselves more frightful than the Huns under Attila." Strange, therefore, the Germans feel so terribly because men call them Huns! Who understood their real nature? The Kaiser. Who branded them on the forehead with a red-hot iron, "Huns"? Their Kaiser. Whose bloody fingers were lifted upon their heads when his mildewed lips christened them "Hun"? Their Kaiser. Who likened the German soldiers to bloodhounds held upon the leash as they strained forward to tear women and children in Belgium and France? Their Kaiser. But Jesus said, Woe unto him that offends against one of My little ones! And out of the whirlwind comes the voice of an outraged God, saying to the invaders, "Here stay thy bloody waves! Thus far, and no farther!"

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "On Thursday afternoon in connection with the sentence pronounced upon von Bopp and the German vice consul and the German attorney for complicity in the plot to blow up factories the dispatches said much about 'the man higher up.' One of the references plainly referred to Münsterberg. On Saturday morning Münsterberg fell dead of apoplexy. Many Secret Service men associate the two events."--_Extract from address by Lawrence Chamberlain_.

III

What the United States and Her Allies Are Fighting For

_Statement Made by Admiral Von Goetzen at Manila in 1898, to Admiral Dewey_

"About fifteen years from now my country will start a great war. She will be in Paris in about two months after the commencement of hostilities. Her move on Paris will be but a step to her real object--the crushing of England.

"Some months after we finish our work in Europe we will take New York, and probably Washington, and hold them for some time. We will put your country in its place with reference to Germany. We do not propose to take any of your territory, but we do intend to take a billion or so of your dollars from New York and other places.

"The Monroe Doctrine will be taken charge of by us and we will dispose of South America as we wish. Don't forget this about fifteen years from now."

III

What the United State and Her Allies Are Fighting For

Not since Fort Sumter was fired upon and Bull Run lost have thoughtful men been so disturbed as to-day. The breakdown of Russia, the massing of German troops on the western front, the accumulation of cannon and munitions against the day of account, make it certain that the coming inevitable battle is to be the greatest battle of the most terrible war that ever shook our earth. All the issues vital to democracy, independence, freedom, and self-government are now at stake. It is a singular fact that the four liberties won by our fathers during four wars are now to be nobly won again, or meanly lost in a single struggle with Germany. In 1776 our fathers won freedom upon the land; in 1812 they fought for the freedom of the seas; in 1846, in their war with Mexico, they established the sanctity of frontier lines; in 1861 our fathers safeguarded liberty for white men by extending liberty to black men. In 1898 the young men of this republic lifted a shield above the little land of Cuba, in the hour when it was being butchered, just as little Belgium to-day is being butchered by Germany. Now, strangely enough, every form of liberty won by these wars is denied to the human race by the militarism and autocracy of Germany.

Once more these forms of democracy must be reasserted, revindicated and reëstablished. We expect militarism in folk like the old Macedonians and Romans, and occasional outbreaks among Indians and the savages of the South Sea Islands, but we do not expect that a nation industrially efficient and claiming to be civilized should suddenly revert to savagery, and revive the methods of the cave man. Society protects itself against the occasional burglar with his nitroglycerine, dark lantern, and revolver, by building a jail for the lawbreaker. Civilized states find that it is impossible to build jails for nine million Germans who have become thieves, murderers, violators of women and children. On German terms life is not worth living for the boys and girls of Belgium, France and Poland. If Germany wins, an eclipse will pass over the face of the sun. The industrial nations will have to adopt militarism. The United States will become one vast armed camp. Every boy will give three or four years to the life of the soldier. The Atlantic Coast and the Pacific must bristle with forts, and the harbours be filled with mines. The ploughman in the furrow and the workman in the factory will have to carry a soldier upon their shoulders. The whole world must become one vast volcano, with Berlin as the crater, spouting forth passion and hate like lurid lava. Not since Judas brought Jesus to the piteous tragedy of His cross has there been an hour so black as this moment when Germany is trying to crucify mankind upon a cross of bayonets.

AUTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY INCOMPATIBLE AND MUTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE

During the past forty years there have been in Germany on the one hand, and in the Allied states on the other, two incompatible and mutually destructive principles,--one named Military Autocracy and the other Democracy. The conflict between the two was irrepressible, and our entrance into the war inevitable. Lincoln once said that a house divided against itself could not stand; that the republic could not endure half slave and half free; that it must become all one thing or all the other. To-day Europe, and indeed the world, represent a house divided against itself. It cannot remain half autocratic and half democratic; it must become all one thing or all the other. Either Germany must conquer England, France and the United States, and impose autocracy upon them, and enthrone the Kaiser as the world emperor, or else the Allies must conquer Germany, and overthrow autocracy and militarism, until Germany, and Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey become truly self-governed. On that August day in 1914, therefore, it became morally obligatory upon every patriot, every city and every nation to make the choice between autocracy and democracy. In the hour when the battle lines were set in array, between autocracy and democracy, on August 4, 1914, neutrality became intellectually absurd and morally monstrous. Serving both God and Mammon became unthinkable. Even after our President declared that we must make the world safe for democracy, a few men tried to be neutral, and stretched out the right hand to Germany and the left hand to the United States, in the spirit of the man who declined to choose between hell and heaven, saying he had friends in both places. The time has fully come to recognize that civilization and autocracy are deadly antagonists. John Milton defined a book as the precious life-blood of a master spirit, treasured up and handed on to the future. "As good almost kill a man as kill a good book." But the free and democratic institutions are the precious life-blood of the patriots, the heroes and martyrs, preserved, and handed forward, as means for winning the Golden Age. Better, therefore, a thousand times, that the Kaiser should murder mankind than assassinate the free institutions that manufacture manhood of good quality, and make human life worth the living.

THE STRENGTH OF OUR ENEMY

The battle line between a military autocracy and the free government is now set in array. It is to the last degree important that our people know the strength of the adversary. Prudent men never underestimate their opponents. Brave men want to know the worst that can be said, truthfully. Let us confess that Germany with her nine million soldiers, ammunition accumulated through twenty-five years of preparation, has suffered no vital hurt. Three years of battle have lessened the wealth of the Allied nations, but vastly increased the treasures of Germany. This war has cost Great Britain thirty billions of dollars, it has cost France twenty billions, it has cost the United States ten billions. For these billions expended there has been for the Allies no financial return. In striking contrast thereto, consider that if Germany has spent twenty billions upon this war, she has won another twenty billions, and even claims to have won thirty billions. Thus far, her armies, like those of ancient Rome, have looted four countries. She has carried away their gold, silver, copper, iron, steel, stocks, bonds, she has stolen their locomotives, passenger coaches, freight cars, wagons, automobiles, with all the goods of merchants. In the face of her solemn treaties she has stolen the horses, cattle, oxen, sheep; she has spoiled the granaries of their wheat, rye and barley. She has looted the Belgian and French factories of their machinery, and carried away the looms from the mills for cotton, wool and silk. The total value of the steel mills of Belgium and of France, with all lathes and stationary engines, is almost incalculable. She looted the iron and coal mines of Belgium and France and the wells of Rumania for the oil; she has looted the mines of Poland, Rumania and Serbia of their bronze, lead, zinc, copper. She has loaded thousands upon thousands of freight trains with household furniture, agricultural implements, goods from the merchants' stores, art treasures from public galleries, as well as from private houses. In every city and town, in every store and farmer's house, the Germans attack first of all the safety vaults and the little money chest of rich and poor alike. Germany found Belgium worth twenty billion of dollars. It is probable that she has spoiled Belgium of at least eight billions. The national fortunes of the invaded territories were estimated at fifty billions, and most of this, after three years, is now in the hands of the Germans. Each attack made by Germany has been against a rich people whose treasure she could loot, while every attack made by the Allies has been to recover a land already devastated, poor and helpless. In choosing Napoleon, therefore, rather than Jesus, Germany chose the motto of aggressive warfare, and has made war an investment too profitable to be readily abandoned.

The peril to the Allies is the greater because of the vicious methods used by Germany. All military experts know that wars are fought incidentally with guns at the trenches, but in reality with granaries at the rear. Better a million well-fed men with naked fists than two million of armed men who are starving, for the starving men will soon be too weak to lift the guns and the well-fed men will grasp the weapons. From the view-point of food resources, Germany has from the beginning occupied a unique position, in that she is rimmed all around about with little nations unprepared and unarmed, and therefore impotent to protect their granaries and root cellars, their herds and flocks, when Germans came in to steal them. Whenever Germany has, therefore, been short of food, she has organized an expedition and looted some land like Belgium, as Poland. The next winter she sends an army out to loot Rumania. Now that the harvests have been gathered in upon the fields of Italy, Germany is trying to despoil that land.

Whenever she has had to withdraw a million men from the fields to send them to the front Germany has impressed another million from Belgium, Poland or Rumania, and forced these slaves to plough her fields, reap her harvests, and all without wage. Sometimes she has gone through the form of buying grain from the Balkan States, but she has forced these peoples to take in return paper currency, which she can grind out so long as the printing presses hold out and which in the event of defeat she can easily repudiate. On the other hand, when Turkey and Bulgaria have turned towards Germany for guns and munitions, since they had nowhere else to go, Berlin has forced their rulers to pay in gold and silver. Germany's claim is probably true, that her people are as well-fed during the fourth winter of the war as they were during the first winter. These are not pleasant matters to consider, but these are the facts. Wise men want to know the facts, and then they know what plans they must make to overcome the worst and turn it into the best. Better be a wise pessimist than an ignorant optimist. Uninformed Micawbers always waiting for something to turn up have no place in this world war.

The query, How goes the battle? involves the statement that Germany is now fighting this war at the expense of her neighbours. Her great Krupp factories are using enormous quantities of coal, but it is Belgian coal. Every week she consumes vast stores of rich iron ore, but it is French ore. Her motors, trucks, military cars, consume oceans of oil; this oil comes from Rumania. Each month she burns up human muscles in field and factory and shop, but these spent men and women are subject peoples. In a thousand ways events are worked for her interests. Because she is in the center it is very easy for Germany to transport her troops from one front to another, while it is very difficult for the United States to transport munitions and guns and food across an ocean 3,000 miles in width. It is a conservative statement to say that it does not cost Germany one-tenth as much to move a cannon from Essen to Ypres as it costs the United States to move a machine gun from Bridgeport to Cambrai and Verdun.

Nor must we forget that we are building our iron ships with $6 a day labour, our wooden ships with $7 a day carpenters, while Germany is impressing labourers from Belgium and forcing them to work like slaves. Slowly she is starving them to death, while pretending to pay them seven cents a day for their eighteen hours of toil. When one group of men breaks down and dies, Germany simply forces at the point of the bayonet another group to take their places. Brutality, savagery, have an enormous advantage over civilized States. One wolf is equal to a hundred sheep and a thousand lambs. Thus far Germany has not lost one inch of territory, and this fact must be considered when we raise the question as to how goes the battle.

Ignorant of the real situation, underestimating the peril that is upon the United States, many of our citizens refuse to support the government, discourage enlistment on the one hand, or else carry about with them an atmosphere of ignorant optimism. They talk loudly about America winning this war. They never tire of telling about our one hundred millions of people, our two hundred and fifty billions of wealth, our possible ten millions of soldiers, and upon the basis of these considerations they count the war ended, and win battles by waving perils into thin air. Others say that in a moral universe, injustice and cruelty cannot be victorious, and that in the nature of the case Germany must be beaten, quite forgetting that Belgium has been beaten, and so have Alsace and Lorraine. It is a truism that what has been may be. A just God permitted the first republic, Athens, to be ruined by her military neighbour, Macedonia. The story how the militarism of Macedonia brought about the fall of Athens, and contributed to dark ages, makes up a black page in the history of liberty.

The ruthless hand of militarism snuffed out all the torches in the temples of intellect that once "looked down on Marathon, as Marathon looks on the sea." What scholar does not thrill with pain at the very thought of the brutal regiments that destroyed the temples, the libraries, the statues, the galleries of Athens! Phocion believed, as did Plato and his pupils, that society had outgrown forever brute force, wars and savagery. Athens put her emphasis upon the intellect. She founded schools, and made her sons to be scholars. She became the mother of the arts, science and philosophy, and prided herself upon her artists and statesmen. She established foreign colonies, builded ships and extended her trade to far-off lands in Sicily, Spain, Gaul and North Africa. Within a century Athens became the center of eloquence, poetry, philosophy and liberty. One day Prince Philip from Northern Macedonia visited Athens. He marvelled that the city should be like a vineyard whose purple clusters were without a fence, whose treasure boxes were without watchmen. In that hour of avarice and ambition Philip remembered the soldiers in his father's army at home. He believed that one soldier could conquer a dozen merchants, bankers, statesmen and scholars.