Chapter 5

Reverting now to the subject of the conscription of men, I know I speak the sentiment of all those beyond the years of young manhood when I say that there is not one of us worthy of the name of a man who would not willingly go to fight if the country needed or wanted us to fight. But the country does not want or call its entire manhood to fight. It does not even call anywhere near its entire young manhood. It has called, or intends to call in the immediate future, perhaps 25 per cent. of its men between 20 and 30 years of age, which means probably about 4 per cent. of its total male population of all ages. In other words, it calls only for such number of men as appears indicated by the needs of the country, and as corresponds to a prudent estimate of the task before it.

I am far from meaning to compare the loss of income or profits with the risk of life or health to which men in the firing line are exposed, or to compare financial sacrifices to those willingly and proudly borne by the youth of our land and shared by those near and dear to them. But I do believe it to be a just contention--not in the interest of the individual, but of the welfare of the community--that the same principle which is applied in the case of the conscription of men should hold good for the conscription of income or profits; _i. e._ so much thereof should be taken by the State as is required by a prudent estimate of the task before it and as best promotes the accomplishment of that task, bearing in mind that the preservation of the country's economic power is next in importance for winning the war to its military power. Vindictiveness, extremist theories and demagogism ought to have no place in arriving at that estimate.

I have no patience with or tolerance for the "war profiteer," as the term is understood. The "war hog" is a nuisance and an ignominy. He should be dealt with just as drastically as is possible without doing damage to national interests in the process. But neither have I patience with or tolerance for the man who would use his country's war as a means to promote his pet theories or his political fortunes at the expense of national unity at a time when we should all be united in mutual goodwill and co-operative effort.

And if we do talk about the formula, "conscription of men--conscription of wealth," let it be understood that we have called less than 5 per cent. of the Nation's entire male population, but have called from incomes, business profits and other imposts falling principally on the well-to-do, approximately 90 per cent. of our war taxation, not to mention the contribution to the Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A. and other war relief activities.

Let me add in passing that _the children of the well-to-do have been taken for the war in proportionately greater numbers than the children of the poor_, because those young men who are needed at home to support dependents or to maintain essential war industries are exempted from the draft.

Moreover, to an overwhelming degree the sons of the well-to-do have not waited to be conscripted. They have volunteered in masses--a far greater percentage of them than those in less advantageous circumstances. That is merely as it should be. Having greater advantages, they have corresponding duties. Not having dependents to take care of, they can better afford to volunteer than those less fortunately situated.

But the patriotic zeal of the sons of the well-to-do in coming forward to offer their lives to the country does give a doubly false and sickening sound to the ranting of the agitator who would arouse class hatred--who calls this "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight" when an overwhelming percentage of the sons of the men of means have eagerly and freely offered themselves for military service, when _the draft exemption regulations, discriminate not, as in former wars, in favour of the rich man's son but in favour of the poor woman's son_, and when capital and business pay more than four-fifths of our war taxation directly and a large share of the remaining one-fifth indirectly.

I do not say all this to plead for a reduction of the taxation on wealth, or in order to urge that no additional taxes be imposed on wealth if need be. There is no limit to the burden which, in time of stress and strain, those must be willing to bear who can afford it, except only that limit which is imposed by the consideration that taxation must not reach a point where the business activity of the country becomes crippled, and its economic equilibrium is thrown out of gear, because that would harm every element of the commonwealth and diminish the war-making capacity of the Nation.

V

The question of the individual is not the one that counts. The question is not what sacrifices capital should and would be willing to bear if called upon, but what taxes it is _to the public advantage_ to impose.

Taxation must be sound and wise and scientific, and cannot be laid in a haphazard way or on impulse or according to considerations of politics. Otherwise, the whole country will suffer. History has shown over and over again that the laws of economics cannot be defied with impunity and that the resulting penalty falls upon all sections and classes.

I realize but too well that the burden of the abnormally high cost of living, caused largely by the war, weighs heavily indeed upon wage earners and still more upon men and women with moderate salaries. I yield to no one in my desire to see everything done that is practicable to have that burden lightened. But excessive taxation on capital will not accomplish that; on the contrary, it will rather tend to intensify the trouble.

We men of business are ready and willing to be taxed in this emergency to the very limit of our ability, and to make contributions to war relief work and other good causes, without stint. The fact is that, generally speaking, capital engaged in business is now being taxed in America more heavily than anywhere else in the world. We are not complaining about this; we do not say that it may not become necessary to impose still further taxes; we are not whimpering and squealing and agitating, but--we do want the people to know what are the present facts, and we ask them not to give heed to the demagogue who would make them believe that we are escaping our share of the common burden.

May I hope that I have measurably succeeded in demonstrating that the allegations with which the propagandists of disunion have been assailing the public mind are without foundation in fact. And may I add, in conclusion, that the charge of "big business" having fomented our entrance into the war is one which, apart from its intrinsic absurdity, is a hateful calumny. Business men, great or small, are no different from other Americans, and we reject the thought that any American, rich or poor, would be capable of the hideous and dastardly plot to bring upon his country the sorrows and sufferings of war in order to enrich himself.

Business men are bound to be exceedingly heavy financial losers through America's entrance into the war. Every element of self-interest should have caused them to use their utmost efforts to preserve America's neutrality from which they drew so much profit during the two and a half years before April, 1917. Every consideration of personal advantage commanded men of affairs to stand with and support the agitation of the "peace-at-any-price" party. They spurned such ignoble reasoning; they rejected that affiliation; they stood for war when it was no longer possible, with safety and honour, to maintain peace, because they are patriotic citizens first and business men afterwards.

The insinuation that "big business" had any share in influencing our Government's decision to enter the war is an insult to the President and Congress, a libel on American citizenship, and a malicious perversion or ignorant misconception of the facts. Those who continue to circulate that insinuation lay themselves open to just suspicion of their motives and should receive neither credence nor tolerance.

LETTER TO A GERMAN

_PUBLISHERS' EXPLANATORY NOTE_

Some months ago a leading American lawyer, while visiting Paris, was discussing with a group of prominent Frenchmen the attitude and sympathies of various Americans towards the nations engaged in the European War.

The discussion turned toward the disposition of Mr. Y. of New York. Some one said that he assumed that his sympathies and views were pro-German, because of his German ancestry and his business connections in Germany.

"Oh, no," spoke up one of the distinguished Frenchmen present. "I happen to know the contrary to be the fact, because some time ago I saw a long and comprehensive letter from Mr. Y. to a relative in Germany, in which he showed not only pronounced sympathy for the Allies, but a thorough understanding of their cause, and scathingly arraigned the German Government and policy."

It appears that this letter had been singled out in the operation of the censorship of letters between the United States and Germany and had been brought to the attention of official representatives of the Allied Governments. It should be noted that at the time the letter was written, namely in the early part of 1915, the censorship of letters between the United States and Germany had not yet been officially established, and it was believed that only correspondence from and to suspected persons and firms was being opened, and the writer had no reason to expect that this particular letter would come under the scrutiny of the censor.

The American lawyer, upon returning to New York, related to Mr. Y. the incident of the conversation and asked to be allowed to read a copy of the letter in question. Having perused it, he urged Mr. Y. to have it printed. In accordance with the suggestion, the letter, together with the correspondence which preceded it, is reprinted in the following pages.

This letter was written in June, 1915, to a prominent business man in Germany. A few of the passages contained in the letter as here given are taken from an earlier letter (March, 1915) written to the same person.

The original letters were in German. The following translation was made by the author.

It is needless to inform the reader as to the identity of Mr. Y.

August, 1918.

LETTER TO A GERMAN

_New York_, _June_ 28, 1915.

DEAR X.:

Many thanks for your very interesting letter of April 27th. The spirit which animates Germany is indeed a great and mighty one. It is a spirit of unity and brotherhood among her people, of willing sacrifice and heroic striving, coupled with the passionate conviction and faith that her cause is just and righteous, that it must and will win, and that not only is victory a necessity for national existence, but that in its train it will bring blessings to the whole of the universe.

Wherever and whenever in the world's history such a spirit--born of the stirring of the profoundest depths of national or religious feeling--has manifested itself, it has invariably been attended by a more or less marked fanaticism among the people concerned; by a condition of mind easily comprehensible as a psychological phenomenon, yet acutely prejudicial to the ability to preserve an objective point of view, and to arrive at an impartial judgment.

It is but natural that in the atmosphere which surrounds you and under existing circumstances, a man even of such sober, clear and independent mentality as yourself should think and feel in the way manifested by your letter. Even if it were in my power, I would not try _at this time_ to shake your faith and patriotic determination. Since, however, you ask me to continue this exchange of opinions, I will endeavour further to make plain to you my ideas as to this most deplorable and accursed war.

The views I am expressing are, I believe, the views as well of the great majority of thinking people in America. And I would remind you that America as a whole, by reason of the racial composition of her population, is essentially free from national prejudice or racial bias. With her many millions of inhabitants of German origin, her disposition could not be anti-German in the ordinary course of affairs--and indeed never was so before the war.

With her millions of Jews and her liberal tendencies she cannot be pro-Russian. With her historical development in the course of which her only serious wars have been fought against Great Britain (which country, moreover, during certain critical periods in the Civil War between North and South, evidenced inclination to favour the South and thus aroused long continuing resentment in the Northern States), and for many other reasons, her disposition cannot be that of an English partisan--and was not so before the war.

The predominant sentiment of the American people in the Boer War was anti-English; in the Balkan War their sympathies were pro-Turkish; in the Italian-Turkish War, anti-Italian; in the Russo-Japanese War, pro-Japanese, although it was fully realized that from the point of view of America's material and national interests, the strengthening of Japan was hardly desirable.

It may sound to you very improbable, yet it is none the less true that America, of all the great nations, is probably the one least swayed by eagerness to attain material advantage for herself through her international policies. I do not claim that this arises necessarily from any particular virtue in her people. It may be rather the result of her geographical and economic situation.

America returned to China the indemnity growing out of the Boxer Rebellion. To Spain, conquered and helpless, she paid, entirely of her own free-will, $20,000,000 for the Philippines. She refused to annex Cuba. In spite of strong provocation she abstained from taking Mexico.

Although not a land as yet of the highest degree of culture, America is a land of high and genuine humanitarianism and of a certain naïve idealism.

I hear your ironic rejoinder, "and out of pure humanitarianism, you supply arms to our enemies, and _thus prolong the war_."

The answer lies in the accentuation of the last four words, which can only mean that, but for the American supply of arms, the Allies, from lack of ammunition, would speedily be defeated, _i. e._ America is to co-operate in preserving for that country which has most extensively and actively prepared for war, the full and lasting advantage of that preparation.

That would put a premium on war preparations--on an armed and therefore necessarily precarious peace--since it is but human nature that, given a difference which he considers serious enough for ground for a quarrel, a man armed to the teeth would be less inclined to settle the matter peaceably than one who is not so well prepared for a fight.

Apart from this, the German complaint about the prolongation of the war through the American supply of arms is proof in itself that the refusal of such supplies would constitute a positive act of partiality in favour of Germany.

And the great majority of Americans are convinced that the ruling powers of Germany and Austria, though not perhaps the people themselves, are responsible for the outbreak of the war; that they have sinned against humanity and justice; that at least France and England did not want war; that therefore its advent found them in a comparatively unprepared state, and that it would constitute a decided, serious and unjustifiable action of far-reaching effect _against the Allies_ if America were to put an embargo on war munitions--especially so in view of the fact that as a direct consequence of the treaty-defying invasion of Belgium you are in possession of the Belgian arms factories and iron mines and of about 75 per cent. of all the ore-producing capacity of France.

For neutrals to supply war materials to belligerents is an ancient, unquestioned right, recognized by international law and frequently practised by yourselves. To alter, during the course of a war, a practice sanctioned by the law of nations and hitherto always followed, would constitute a flagrant breach of neutrality, in that it would necessarily help one side and harm the other.

The fact that at one time we forbade the export of arms to Mexico affords no argument in favour of the German contention, for there it was not a case of war between nations, but of civil war. There was also the danger that such arms might eventually be used against America herself, given the possibility that intervention by us in Mexico might later on become necessary.

Commissions from Germany for the supply of arms would have been as acceptable to our factories as were those from the Allies. It is not America's fault if the German fleet does not break through the British cordon and open the way for sea communication with Germany. The superiority of the British fleet and the resulting consequences must have been known to Germany before she permitted the outbreak of this horrible war. She has no more right to make a grievance of these consequences than the Allies have a right to complain of Germany's superior preparedness and the greater perfection of her instruments of war.

To believe American public opinion influenced by the profits which come to this country from the supply of arms, is to misunderstand completely the American mode of thought and feeling. Moreover these profits go to very few pockets, and public opinion here being anything but unduly complacent towards large corporations and capitalists is by no means inclined to view with favour the gathering in of these huge profits by a very limited number of individuals and concerns.

You quote with approval General von Schlieffen's remark that "in war, after all, the only thing that matters is those silly old victories."

You would surely not say that in the individual's daily struggle for existence or in competitive industrial strife, "the only thing that matters" is success. Rather you would be the first to grant, as you have always demonstrated in your acts, that there are certain ethical limitations laid down by the conscience and the moral conceptions of humanity, which must be respected in the struggle for success, however keen, even though the very existence of the individual and the maintenance of wife and child be at stake.

Schlieffen's utterance, in the meaning which your quotation gives it, throws overboard everything that civilization and the humanitarian progress of centuries has accomplished towards lessening the cruelty, the hatred and the suffering engendered by war, and towards protecting non-combatants, as far as possible, from its terrors. It is tantamount to the doctrine of the fanatical Jesuit: "The end justifies the means."

And it is something akin to this very doctrine which Germany has made her own and applied in her conduct of this war as she has done in none of her previous wars. _The conviction that everything, literally everything, which tends to ensure victory is permitted to her, and indeed called for, has now evidently assumed the power of a national obsession._ Thus, the violation of innocent Belgium in defiance of solemn treaty; the unspeakable treatment inflicted on her people; the bombardment, without warning, of open places (which Germany was the first to practise); the destruction of great monuments of art which belonged to all humankind, as in Rheims, and Louvain; the _Lusitania_ horror, the strewing of mines broadcast, the use of poisonous gases causing death by torture or incurable disease; the taking of hostages; the arbitrary imposition of monetary indemnities and penalties, and so forth. It is these facts that the non-combatant nations charge against Germany, and quite apart from the responsibility for the war, it is in them that may be found the main reason why public opinion in neutral countries has more and more turned against Germany as the war has continued.

I say "innocent Belgium," for it is entirely evident that the Belgian-English pourparlers, of which Germany discovered documentary evidence, _related merely to the eventuality of Germany's violating Belgian neutrality_, and therefore in no way constituted a relinquishment of neutrality on Belgium's part. _In so far as these pourparlers did not keep strictly within these limits_ (manifestly as a result of excessive zeal on the part of the English military attaché in question) _they were formally and categorically rejected and disavowed, by both the Belgian and English Governments_. This is shown by official papers which have been published. It cannot be doubted that these proceedings of disavowal were entirely _bona fide_, for they took place at a time and under circumstances such that no one could possibly have imagined that the correspondence evidencing them would ever see the light of day. Inasmuch as you mention these Anglo-Belgian pourparlers as among the reasons justifying Germany's invasion of Belgium, it is worth pointing out that this treaty defying invasion was perpetrated _before_ Germany had discovered the existence of the documents which evidenced that such pourparlers had taken place.

Germany's reasoning that she was compelled to take the initiative in violating the treaty of neutrality in order to avoid the imminent danger that England and France would do so first and thereupon advance troops against her through Belgium, is, even if such reasoning were morally admissible, no valid argument; for, only a few days before, England and France had solemnly pledged themselves in the face of the whole world to respect Belgium's neutrality.

If, as you believe, England had been planning for years to attack Germany via Belgium, would she not then have had in readiness an invading force somewhere near adequate for such an undertaking? Instead she had the mere bagatelle of 75,000 or 100,000 men, which in the first months of the war actually constituted her whole available continental fighting force.

To any one of unprejudiced judgment there remains, therefore, no choice but the conclusion that Germany's violation of Belgium did not even have the excuse of being a measure of self-defence, but, as the Chancellor in effect admitted in his first speech on the subject in the Reichstag, was undertaken simply because "in war the only thing that matters is those silly old victories."

Not, as you say, in obedience to England's command (what power had England either to command or enforce her commands?), but from a compelling impulse of national honour did Belgium oppose the German breach of neutrality with force of arms, though it would evidently have been to her material interest to comply with Germany's summons or at any rate to offer merely nominal resistance.

Holland and Switzerland would have done the same thing under similar circumstances, as would any other self-respecting nation. Moreover, what weight could Belgium attach to Germany's promise of immunity in case she yielded, when at the very moment Germany, by her own act, was demonstrating but too clearly how little she considered herself bound by her promise or indeed by a solemn international treaty?

What the Germans have accomplished on the battlefields, as well as within their own country, is proof of such great national qualities, that it compels the tribute of admiration, even from your enemies. These qualities would indeed have gone far to justify her claim to hegemony, had they not been linked unfortunately--at least among your ruling classes and intellectual leaders--with ways of thought and action which are anti-humanitarian, oppressive and generally intolerable to the rest of the world.