Part 6

Returning to Macedonia, Philip craftily began taking an interest in Greek affairs--for he was a subtle politician--and at the same time turned his whole people into one vast fighting machine. His unit was the Macedonian Phalanx. First came twenty-four men, with short spears; then came a second twenty-four, with spears of six feet; then a third twenty-four, with spears of eight feet in length. The last tier of men in the company had spears twenty feet long, resting upon the shoulders of the men in the front rank. These bristling spears were invincible. The terror of the Macedonian Phalanx went out into all the earth. Demosthenes was the one man who had vision. He called the people together upon the public square and assembled them in the great theatre. He mounted the rostrum upon Mars Hill and warned Athens. He called the attention of the people to the fact that between Athens on the south and Macedonia on the north were three buffer states. As the Macedonian army moved southward, these states organized their army and went forth in defence of their homes and their firesides. But Demosthenes insisted that these buffer states were fighting not only their own battles, but also the battles of Athens. If they fall, if their armies are defeated, then Athens, single-handed, must meet the entire force of the victorious host. Nevertheless Athens delayed, and would not be persuaded. The noblest orations of the greatest man of his time, Demosthenes, were of no avail.

When he crossed his southern frontier, Philip made himself terrible. The flames of the burning towns at midnight lighted up the land as a terrible warning. Thirty-two towns that had flourished as commercial communities vanished from the face of the earth. These border states above Athens, answering to our modern Belgium, were made into a desert. Terrorized into submission, the Greeks threw down their arms and opened the gates of their cities to Philip's soldiers, who brought with them women and children in fetters that the spirit of Athens might be utterly broken.

Has there ever been in historic times any parallel quite so striking as that between the organized militarism of Macedonia with the subsequent ruin of Athens, and the present systematized militarism of Germany, now attempting the ruin of Belgium, France and England? Listen to Professor von Stengel, the German authority on International Law: "There will be no conference at The Hague when this war is over. The one condition of prosperous existence for the natives is submission to our [Germany's] supreme direction. Under our overlordship all international law would become superfluous, for we of ourselves, and instinctively, will give to each nation its own rights."

WHAT IT MEANS TO AMERICA

The acuteness of our peril was well set forth in a conversation that took place last year between an aged German officer of the Franco-Prussian war and a French officer who won his medal in the same campaign, both of whom had sought a rest in the village of Vevey upon the banks of Lake Geneva. For weeks the two old men on their wheeled chairs had passed each other without recognition. One morning, it is said, the German officer saluted. After expressing sorrow over the losses of the war, solely "for the purpose of making conversation," as he claimed, the German officer raised a question. First of all he insisted that he spoke merely as a private citizen who loved his fellow men, and represented in no sense the rulers in Berlin: "Suppose the German armies were to withdraw from Belgium and France, and agree to restore the devastated regions and repay England for her sunken ships. Do you think the Allies would then return to the conditions of 1914, granting the Fatherland the trade privileges that then were hers? For," added the officer, "it is quite certain that Germany could never raise the billions of indemnity involved in the restoration of Belgium and France, and England's ships, unless she was free to buy raw material, kept her factories intact and also her three thousand and more passenger ships, freight ships, sailing vessels and her battle-ships to protect her fleet."

To all of which, it is said, the Frenchman answered, in substance, as follows: "What you really mean is this,--that if France and England laid down their arms, and allowed Germany to keep her land uninvaded, her fleet intact, that so far from raising ten or twenty billions to restore Belgium and France and recompense England, the Kaiser would simply load one or two millions of his veterans on the three thousand of his ships, and sail away to New York, and assess the twenty or fifty billions on the American people. You must remember," said the French officer, "that England and France do not betray their friends. They do not count their treaties 'scraps of paper.' My country will never consent to hand the United States over to the armies and the battle-ships of Germany."

The genuineness of this brief discussion is beyond all doubt. The time has fully come therefore for every American and manufacturer and merchant, every farmer and financier, to realize that we have _got_ to win this war, otherwise there will be no United States. We are unprepared for war or even self-defense. After ten months of war Secretary Baker tells us frankly that thus far we have not one single machine gun completed, that not until April will there be one rifle, for each of a little army of a half-million men, while the other investigations have brought home the fact that it is the French and British army that stand between us and the Kaiser's troops, and that it is England's battle-ships that hold the Kaiser's war fleet behind the Kiel Canal. It is the British bulldog that keeps the German rat in the Kiel hole. On one side of the American silver dollar we have written these words, "In God we trust," and on the other we should write these words, "And in England's battle-ships."

EDMUND BURKE'S WORDS

Burke once spoke of civilization as a contract between three parties, the noble dead, the living and the unborn. The English statesmen held that our fathers have a great stake in this republic. It could not be otherwise. Washington and Hamilton, Webster and Lincoln, who struck out the free institutions of this country, are vitally interested in their preservation and their future. The merchant who founds a great business, the educator who establishes the academy or college, the architect who rears some capital or cathedral, the patriot and soldier who gave their life-blood to preserve their institutions, the parents and teachers who have reproduced themselves in their children and pupils,--all these have a great stake in society. Of necessity, each Franklin or Edison follows with solicitude the tools invented for the redemption of men from drudgery. Are not the Pilgrim Fathers interested in the outcome of their ideas? Has the great Emancipator no regard for the black race whom he redeemed? Can the husbandman lose all interest in the orchard and vineyard he has planted for the support of succeeding generations? Little wonder that the Gothic legend represents the fathers drawing near to the battlements of heaven to watch every assault upon liberty in the plains beneath! From time to time the illustrious souls, redeemed out of the body, pluck the red roses from the tree of life, and fling them down upon those who are struggling on the plains. When the roses fall upon the arms of the enemies of liberty they turn to coals of fire, that burn the hands of tyrants and make them drop the sword unsheathed to promote oppression. When the roses fall upon the gashes of those who fight for humanity they become medicines that heal all wounds. Our children, and our children's children to the last generation also have a great stake in this republic. Our own generation is at best a trustee, whose duty it is to safeguard the institutions won by our fathers, and then to hand them forward, unimpaired and greatly enriched, to the generations that come after us. God weaves the ages upon a loom. Civilization is a solid texture, that belongs to the noble dead, to the living, but chiefly to the unborn. Every motive, therefore, of reverence and loyalty to our fathers, and of affection for our children, bids us dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour to the overthrow of autocracy and militarism, and the establishment upon abiding foundations of the institutions of our fathers.

OUR OBLIGATION TO ENGLAND

Because England has been fighting our battle for two and a half years, we are now not only fighting our own battle, but trying to repay in part our immeasurable debt to the motherland. Great Britain has been the mother of many republics; all the harvest of our liberty came from seed corn gathered in England's harvest fields. Among Pilgrim Fathers who founded New England were men educated in Cambridge. We had our revolt against the autocracy of George the Third from the inspirations of Oliver Cromwell, John Pym and John Hampden. Boston owes a great debt to Sir Harry Vane, whose statue stands at the entrance of her Public Library. We borrowed our freedom of the press from John Milton's noble argument. Our Declaration and our Constitution are nothing other than the restatement, in legal form, of the noble visions that pursued the soul of John Milton all his life long.

And now that England is steadily winning and gaining six battles and attacks out of seven, during the fourth year of the war, the time has come for the American people and government to ask themselves this question,--Shall we not do in the first year of our war the things that England did in the third year and the fourth?--thus assuring our winning six times out of seven. At the beginning of this war, Britain's ammunition was provided by three government factories and a few auxiliary firms. "The first 100,000 men," sneered at by the Kaiser as "Kitchener's contemptible little army," were pounded by fifty German shells for every one shell with which they could reply. Now England has over 5,000 factories turning out munitions. Her capacity for producing high explosives in October, 1917, was twenty-five times as great as in the autumn of 1915, while the expense is one-third. She is now producing 25,000 tons of projectiles every week, and each new arsenal factory is built with the thought of turning them over to productive industrial companies when the war is over. Her cannons are roaring upon every front in Europe, as well as in the Balkans, in Palestine, in Persia and in Africa.

She now has 400,000 automobile trucks, or lorries, in France and Belgium, and will turn out 20,000 airplanes during the next year. Her fleet has increased from 136,000 sailors to 400,000; and at last, thanks to the deep-sea bomb, for every slow and old ship Germany sinks, she has to lose a far more costly submarine. To-day England has 4,000,000 men on six fronts and three continents. She has not simply mobilized her army, but mobilized the entire nation, and is only beginning to exert her full power.

The lesson for us, from England's experience, is this: that every factory in the United States, now turning out luxuries, should be taken over by the government to turn out munitions; that every loom and lathe, forge and hammer, every mine and forest and shipyard should be dedicated to this one task--of winning this war for humanity and liberty. History will doubtless say that during the first two and a half years of this war America was like the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side, leaving Belgium like the wounded man lying among thieves, while England was the Good Samaritan, glorious forever through her service, self-sacrifice and loyalty to her written pledges. We owe Great Britain and her colonies a debt of service because she placed her army and her navy between us and our enemy and preserved us. When, therefore, an occasional pro-German, who does not dare defend the Kaiser, stands on the street, and in his harangue vilifies Great Britain, we should remember that the Allied cause has three armies, Haig's, Petain's and Pershing's. Whoever vilifies one of the hosts is the enemy of all three. When General Grant found one of his aids chuckling over the news of a defeat of Sheridan, Grant court-martialed the man, found him guilty, shot him at daybreak,--an example to be commended with reference to any man who vilifies Great Britain or France with his lips or pen. In this crisis there are no German-Americans,--there are only Americans and traitors. The first duty of our government is to defend our transports, our soldiers and sailors, from all spies, American with their lips, but with hearts full of hatred for our Allies and our country.

WE ARE ALSO FIGHTING TO PAY OUR DEBT TO FRANCE

Fighting to protect the institutions of our fathers and to safeguard democracy for our children, we are also fighting to expel invaders from France, as once France helped Washington expel thousands of German invaders from America. How black the sin of ingratitude! What if some youth, poor and obscure, coming up to the great city to make his fortune, should gain his opportunity to climb at the hands of some noble merchant. And what if this benefactor, taking the orphan into his home, shares his treasure with the youth, builds manhood in the poor boy, opens to him the door to fortune and to fame. And what if, when the poor boy finally has a mansion of his own, with wealth, and honours, news should come that his now aged benefactor has fallen on evil days and been attacked by cruel enemies. Can any crime be blacker than for this strong man to send word to the one upon whose shoulders he had climbed up to place, saying, "I do not wish to enter into any entangling alliances with you in your distress, for I have learned neither to borrow nor to lend"?

In 1781 France, a kingdom rich and powerful, found the handful of American colonists in the condition of a boy, poor, friendless, obscure, and threatened by a powerful enemy. Washington had no money, no guns, no powder, no shoes for his soldiers in the winter. At the moment when our fortunes were at the lowest ebb, France sent us her greatest admiral, with a fleet of two battle-ships, three destroyers, thirty-eight transports, and seven thousand soldiers, with muskets, powder, shot, shoes, clothing and medical supplies. She sent us Lafayette, heir to rich estates, with one of the largest private incomes in Europe, who, with his fellow officers, joined the troops of Washington. He saw his Frenchmen fall side by side with the troops of Washington. When at length Cornwallis surrendered his sword to the Commander of our army, Lafayette shared in the ceremony. What treasure of lives and fortune France lavished upon this republic more than one hundred years ago! We owe France our generals, our admirals, our soldiers and sailors, our munitions, our physicians, our nurses, our admiration, our love, our lives and our sacred honour.

THE WORLD'S LOVE FOR FRANCE

If Germany is the best hated nation in the world, so France is the most dearly loved country. From France we have our painting at the hands of her artists, from France we have our sculpture at the hands of Rodin. From France we have fine literature and music; from France we have the beautiful, organized into the clothes the people wear. But above all, France has given us the enduring things of the spirit. The whole history of heroism holds nothing finer than the tales of French soldiers struggling unto blood and death to secure happiness and liberty for others. Where will you find a more glorious sentiment than this, that fell from the lips of the poilu in the trenches,--"We sleep in mud, we bathe in blood, but our souls, they dwell among the stars." Here is that young French girl, going to the station, the Garde du Nord, to meet her wounded husband, who had never seen his new-born babe. But the young fellow died while they lifted him out of the car. Putting the little babe down to the cheek that was becoming cold, the girl lifted her eyes unto God, and with streaming eyes exclaimed, "I am only his wife! France is his mother!" And here is that poilu home for his eight days' rest, who saw the broken-down hearse, with a poor little woman hidden under crêpe, marching as the sole mourner; the soldier sprang up, rushed to the hearse, saw a crippled comrade who had been killed at the battle of the Somme, and turned to bid all the men and women on the sidewalk fall into line, because a soldier of France was sleeping, and all Frenchmen were his lovers, and who carried the poor man in triumphal procession in the midst of sorrowing hundreds to his final resting place. The French have added a new chapter to the history of heroism. The Hun will never conquer France. Should a time ever come when the butchers have killed all save one French boy and girl, when the weapon is lifted against them, they will stand against the wall of the Pyrenees, and the last Frenchman might die, but he will never be conquered by the Huns.

THE TRIBUTE OF THE BRITISH

Americans oftentimes marvel at the praise that the British and the French bestow upon the armies of the other. Each insists upon considering the other superior to himself. One August day, in a Paris restaurant, a young English captain, quiet, reserved, modest to a degree, was praising the French soldiers and officers whom he had met. Having just returned from the front of Ypres and La Bassée he was so filled with admiration for the fortitude, the endurance, and the heroism of the French soldiers, that he sought in vain for words bright enough with which to describe their achievements. Asked for the reason of his eulogy, and his conviction as to the supremacy of the French, the British captain answered, "You must remember that the Frenchman is fighting for his native land, while England has never been invaded by the Huns." Then the captain went on to praise the British rifles, machine guns, their military tactics, and the skill of their soldiers. "When my company march, they are so perfectly drilled that their one hundred right legs swing like the single stroke of a pendulum. I will put my men against the soldiers of the world. Still," he said, "so far as I now recall, no English division ever brought in at one time more than one fourth their number as prisoners."

A PICTURE OF THE FRENCH FIGHT

"But," added the captain, "look at the French soldiers at Verdun. One had a helmet, one a hat, some were bareheaded; some had new rifles, some old rifles, and some only a bayonet and revolver. When they were within ten rods of the German trench they lifted up their bayonets and sent out their battle cry, and hearing the hoarse voices, the Germans flung away their guns, climbed out of their trenches, ran like rabbits and bellowed like bulls; that night when the French division came home for supper, they brought ten thousand Germans along with them. You can't beat the French--they are fighting for their native land." That is a reason, but it is not _the_ reason. The reason is this--the Frenchman counts himself dead already. If he survives to-day's battle, he says, The morrow will give me another chance to die for God and beautiful France. The Frenchman never knows when he is defeated, and therefore he cannot be beaten.

One day a lawyer from Paris came to the front to bring Jean a message from a cousin. "The Americans have come, the Latin Quarter is reviving, the shops are reopening, and your cousin offers to take down the shutters that have been up for three years and try to make a little money to take care of you if you are wounded, and have it ready for you when you return." Jean shook his head,--he was not interested. He said that he never expected to return; that his cousin must take the shop, that everything therein was hers; that he asked only to die for France. The lawyer could not reason with him, and so the attorney hastily wrote out a paper, giving the cousin full power to act as if the property were hers, and then the French soldier hurried back to the trenches, having no time for even a farewell. If to-day every civilized city and country looks with contempt upon Germany, and thinks of her as a wild beast let loose to rend the white flesh of humanity, every country in the world hails France, and admires and loves her for her chivalry, her heroism, her fortitude and her faith.

THE NEXT STEP

In this critical hour national unity is become an imperative necessity. Men who have travelled up and down the country realize the intense patriotism of one city and section, and the apathy of another section. Always the explanation is to be found in the fact that some outstanding newspaper or public man has become the center of enlightenment and patriotism or the reverse.

As for the papers, the cost of the cablegrams, the expense of telegraphing news across the country into the South, the West, or the Pacific Coast cities, the high price of print paper, has all but destroyed the financial resources of many papers, in towns west of the Alleghanies. But the flame of enthusiasm is fed by the fuel of ideas. The men who sacrifice are the men who know. The time, therefore, would seem to have come for the government, during the period of the war, to see to it that the people in the villages, rural districts, and remote towns, should receive the full facts, every morning, so that daily one hundred millions of people should be assembled in one vast speaking gallery, and rise to the news of the same victory, and resolve with one mind and one heart to defend humanity. All the millions must think as one, and feel as one, and save and serve and sacrifice, and have one resolve to back up our President in the pledge to make democracy safe for our earth.

THE MOBILIZING OF THE WOMEN

To win this war our girls and women must join the world movement. The outstanding lesson of the first two years of the war for Great Britain and France is that the beginning of their victories came with the entrance of women into the war. The steel wedge splits the log, not alone by the sharp edge, but the thick head that crowds forward the cutting edge. The American army is the cutting edge, but the one hundred millions of people behind lend driving power to our regiments. There are three million women in Great Britain either in the munition factories or industries allied thereto. Every twenty-four hours they produce more small cartridges than all England did the first year of the war. Every two days they turn out more large cartridges than all England did the first year of this war. Every six days, with the help of expert men, they produce more heavy ordnance and cannon than all England did the first year of this war. These English women pour the molten steel, tool the shells, run the lathes, make the aeroplanes, mix the explosives, and they literally hand the shells to the British soldiers to aim the cannon. They are driving the munition trucks upon the streets of England and the road to France, they are sowing the fields, reaping the wheat, threshing the grain, and performing ten thousand tasks once given over to men. The daughters of professional men, bankers, manufacturers, as well as of the business classes, are helping to equip the soldiers at the front. If our government should to-morrow commandeer ten thousand luxury-making plants for munition factories, throw them open to millions of women, by next autumn we should be doing our part to help win this war.