Part 19

Turkey had inflicted inhuman wrongs on the subject peoples and had infringed our own treaty rights, but President Wilson refused to go to war with her. Yet with our navy at the very outbreak of hostilities and then with a considerable and constantly growing army, if we had been willing we could have materially aided the British and French. In such event Constantinople would doubtless have been taken long ago. As it is, thanks to President Wilson, we Americans can only look on and rejoice that others did better than our rulers let us do. We have had no hand in the freeing of Palestine, Syria, and Armenia. Under the great law of service and sacrifice it is the British and French alone who have the moral right to determine the fate of Turkey. They, and especially the British, have poured out their blood freely, and now, after the victory has been gained, expenditure of ink on our part is of mighty small consequence in comparison. I earnestly hope that permanent justice will be done by expelling the Turk from Europe and making all Armenia independent. But we have lost the right to insist on these points.

The beginning of the end came when, two or three weeks ago, Bulgaria was forced to surrender unconditionally. Here again, thanks to President Wilson, America had no part in the honor and credit of the vital triumph. Our Government was still neutral about Bulgaria, still too proud to fight either Turkey or Bulgaria, still hoping for peace without victory over them.

Now Turkey has surrendered and Austria has broken up. In the case of Austria, after ten months’ unpardonable delay, we did finally go to war, and we have a very small share in the great glory won by Italy and the other Allies.

The greatest contest was on the western front, and here the hundreds of thousands of American troops engaged under Foch and Pershing have shown such extraordinary gallantry and efficiency that we are all forever their debtors. Nearly a month ago President Wilson entered into negotiations with Germany which, if continued along the line he started, might have caused disaster. Fortunately there was such an outburst of protest in the country that our allies took part and President Wilson himself took warning. President Wilson may still serve as a channel of communication. But General Foch will be the real master of the situation. The men with guns and not the men with fountain pens will dictate the terms.

PEACE

NOVEMBER 12, 1918

Four years and a quarter have passed since Germany, by the invasion of Belgium, began the World War and made it at the same time a war of cynical treachery and of bestiality and of inhuman wrongdoing. Almost from the beginning our governmental authorities were well informed of the organized brutality with which it was waged and of the fact that the Kaiser and the leading soldiers, politicians, and commercial magnates of Germany had deliberately plunged the world into war because they expected to profit by conquest, while the Socialist Party aided and abetted them in the hope of sharing some of the profit.

The rest of us ordinary Americans were successfully hoodwinked because the facts were concealed from us. But gradually the truth leaked through to us. First we learned that the stories of the atrocities were true. Then, although not until much later, we found out that there was ample proof that Germany had brought on the war to gratify her greed for gold and her arrogant and conscienceless lust for world domination. Finally we were permitted to learn that Germany intended to strike us down as soon as she had made the free nations her victims. Now our troops have played a manful part, a part not only heroic and efficient, but also of decisive consequence in the final terrible struggle.

It is not pleasant to think that the two first crushing blows in bringing about the end, the overthrow of Bulgaria and the overthrow of Turkey, were due in no way to us, but solely to our allies, England and France. We never made war on either offending nation; we remained neutral, and this exhibition of feeble diplomacy on our part made us onlookers instead of partakers of the triumph. But with Austria, after much hesitation and wabbling, we did finally go to war, and, although our part was very small, we have a modest right to share the general satisfaction over the victory. In the case of Germany, however, we played a really great part, and although until the very end we were unable to put on the fighting line any tanks or field guns or battle planes, and relatively only a small number of machine guns and bombing and observation planes, our soldiers themselves were probably on the average the finest troops who fought in Europe.

And now the German imperial military and capitalistic authority has been beaten to its knees and forced to accept all the terms the Allies have imposed upon it. The able and wicked men who thought to wade through a sea of blood to world domination must now bow their heads before the outside peoples whom they have so cruelly wronged and face the sullen distrust and hostility of their own people, whom they misled by promising them a share in the profits of successful guilt. Their doom has come upon them.

A little over a month ago the Administration embarked upon a career of note-writing with Germany, which, if unchecked, might have meant a peace of practical profit to Germany. But the feeling of the American people, especially in the West, showed itself in such direct and straightforward fashion that this effort was soon abandoned. Moreover, at the recent election, the American people, with the issue squarely before them, declared that they were the masters of their public servants and not rubber stamps, and that this was the people’s war and not the war of any one man or any one party, and that loyalty to ourselves and our allies stood ahead of adherence to any man. Germany has been beaten down abroad and at home. The pro-Germans and the pacifists and the defeatists and the Germanized Socialists, and all the crew who stand for any form of either Bolshevism or Kaiserism, have been warned that they shall not betray this Nation.

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS

NOVEMBER 13, 1918

A friend, a California woman, writes me that there is staying with her a widow whose only son has been in the navy and has just died of influenza, and that the mother said:

I gave my boy proudly to my country. I never held him back, even in my heart. But if only he had died with a gun in his hand--a little glory for him and a thought for me that my sacrifice had not been useless.

My correspondent continues:

There must be so many mothers who feel that they have laid their sacrifice on cold altars. You have written much that will comfort the mothers whose sons have paid with their bodies in battle. Isn’t there something you can say to help these other mothers?

I felt a real pang when I received this letter, because the thought suggested had been in my mind, and yet I had failed to express it. It had happened that my own sons and nephews and young cousins and their close friends were where death or wounds came to them on the field of action. For example, on the day I received this letter we also got news that the closest school and college and army friend of my son, Quentin, who was killed, had himself just been killed. He was a man who had been promoted for a series of hazardous and successful battles with German airmen. He was as gentle and clean and lovable as a girl, yet terrible in his battle, and no more high and fearless soul ever fronted death joyously in the high heavens. My mind had, because of facts like this, turned toward the deaths of the men on the firing line; and I regret that I did not make it evident as I meant to make it, and but for this oversight would have made it, that all who have given their lives or the lives dearest to them in this war stand on an exact level of service and sacrifice and honor and glory.

The men who have died of pneumonia or fever in the hospitals, the men who have been killed in accidents on the airplane training fields are as much heroes as those who were killed at the front, and their shining souls shall hereafter light up all to a clearer and greater view of the duties of life. The war is over now. The time of frightful losses among the men at the front and of heartbreaking anxiety for their mothers and wives, their sisters and sweethearts at home has passed. No great triumph is ever won save by the payment of the necessary cost. All of us who have stayed at home and all the others who have returned safe will, as long as life shall last, think of the men who died as having purchased for us and for our children’s children, as long as this country shall last, a heritage so precious that even their precious blood was not too great a price to pay. Whether they fell in battle or how they died matters not at all, and it matters not what they were doing as long as, high of soul, they were doing their duty with all the strength and fervor of their natures.

The mother or the wife whose son or husband has died, whether in battle or by fever or in the accident inevitable in hurriedly preparing a modern army for war, must never feel that the sacrifice has been laid “on a cold altar.” There is no gradation of honor among these gallant men and no essential gradation of service. They all died that we might live; our debt is to all of them, and we can pay it even personally only by striving so to live as to bring a little nearer the day when justice and mercy shall rule in our own homes and among the nations of the world.

THE RED FLAG AND THE HUN PEACE DRIVE

NOVEMBER 14, 1918

The war is won. A twofold duty is now incumbent on us. We must strive to make the peace one of justice and righteousness and to throw out such safeguards around it as will give us the greatest possible chance of permanency. Then we must turn to setting aright the affairs of our own household. But before we set ourselves to the performance of these two tasks we should thoroughly enlighten our enemies at home and abroad on one or two points.

Let all anti-Americans stand aside. Let them understand that we are not merely against some enemies of the country--we are against all enemies of the country. This week in New York there was a red flag of Anarchy or Socialistic meeting which was the cause of a riot. It was perfectly natural that it should be the cause of a riot. The red flag is as much an enemy as the flag of the Hohenzollerns. The internationalist of the red flag or black flag type is an enemy to this Nation just exactly as much as Hindenburg or Ludendorff was an enemy only a week ago. He is an even more treacherous enemy and equally brutal. Congress should pass a law without waiting a day prohibiting the use of the red flag or the black flag or any other flag of the kind here in America. We have universal suffrage in America. The majority of our people can have what they wish in the way of industrial and political change, if they seriously desire it. There isn’t any excuse in this country for any paltering with revolutionary movements. A riot is riot, without reference to what the people rioting claim to be for. When a mob gets started, it always acts the same way, no matter what the theoretical cause of the outbreak may have been. A Bolshevist mob in New York in all essentials resembles the anti-draft mob of 1863, although the arguments of the parlor Bolsheviki of to-day would be totally different from those of the constitutional copperheads of fifty-five years ago.

When the Romanoffs were overthrown the Russian people lacked self-control and they permitted the dominion of a Bolshevist gang, which has brought wholesale robbery, murder, and starvation in its trail. The overthrow of the Hohenzollerns in Germany has been accompanied by Bolshevist uprising in that country also. There is some excuse for excesses in a revolution against a despotism, but in this country there is no more excuse for Bolshevism in any form than there is for despotism itself. Any foreign-born man who parades with or backs up a red flag or black flag organization ought to be instantly deported to the country from which he came. Appropriate punishment should be devised for the even more guilty native-born.

Our National Government should take the most vigorous action and have it understood that America is a bulwark of order no less than of liberty. We must make it evident that we will stamp out Bolshevism within our borders just as quickly as Kaiserism.

Moreover, let us realize the nonsense of the pretense that the German people have not been behind the German Government. They were behind their Government with hearty enthusiasm until the Government was smashed by the military powers of General Foch. The effort now being made by the German Government to bring dissensions between the Allies by appealing to the United States against the Allies proper should be spurned by our Government. The French, English, Italians, and Belgians have been fighting side by side with our men under Foch. They have acted as comrades under Foch, and we could not have done anything if we had not acted as comrades like the rest. Now let’s play the game when the effort is made to divide us by the German peace drive.

Senator Poindexter was entirely right in his proposed bill. The United States must make absolutely common cause with the Allies. We regret that the German and Russian people should suffer; the fault lies solely with the past or present governments. To the very minute of the closing of the war the hideous German brutalities continued unabated, and apparently the Turks are still slaughtering Armenians. We will do our best to help even our enemies now that they have been stricken down, but we will not do so at the cost of doing injustice to our friends. We will not permit Hun hypocrisy to succeed where Hun violence has failed. And we are equally uncompromising foes of Bolshevism and Kaiserism at home and abroad.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

NOVEMBER 17, 1918

There are so many prior things to do and so much uncertainty as to the form of agreement for permanently increasing the chances of peace that it is difficult to do more than make a general statement as to what is desirable and possibly feasible in the league of nations plan. It would certainly be folly to discuss it overmuch until some of the existing obstacles to peace are overcome. That such discussion may be not futile, but mischievous, has been vividly shown in the last six weeks. During the first week of October President Wilson and Germany agreed on the famous fourteen points of Mr. Wilson’s as a basis for peace. But this agreement amounted to nothing whatever except for a moment it gave Germany the hope that she could escape disaster by a negotiated peace. The emphatic protest of our own people caused this hope to vanish, and just five weeks later peace came, not on Mr. Wilson’s fourteen points, but on General Foch’s twenty-odd points, which had all the directness, the straightforwardness, and the unequivocal clearness which the fourteen points strikingly lacked.

Nevertheless, it is well to begin considering now the things which we think can be done and the things that we think cannot be done in making a league of nations. In the first place, we ought to realize that the population of the world clearly understands that in this war they have been involved to a degree never hitherto known. In consequence the horror of the war is very real, and people are at least thinking of the need of coöperation with much greater fixity of purpose and of understanding than ever before. Of course, fundamentally war and peace are matters of the heart rather than of organization, and any declaration or peace league which represents the high-flown sentimentality of pacifists and doctrinaires will be worse than useless; but if, without in the smallest degree sacrificing our belief in a sound and intense national aim, we all join with the people of England, France, and Italy and with the people in smaller states who in practice show themselves able to steer equally clear of Bolshevism and of Kaiserism, we may be able to make a real and much-needed advance in the international organization. The United States cannot again completely withdraw into its shell. We need not mix in all European quarrels nor assume all spheres of interest everywhere to be ours, but we ought to join with the other civilized nations of the world in some scheme that in a time of great stress would offer a likelihood of obtaining just settlements that will avert war.

Therefore, in my judgment, the United States at the peace conference ought to be able to coöperate effectively with the British and French and Italian Governments to support a practical and effective plan which won’t attempt the impossible, but which will represent a real step forward.

Probably the first essential would be to limit the league at the outset to the Allies, to the peoples with whom we have been operating and with whom we are certain we can coöperate in the future. Neither Turkey nor Austria need now be considered as regards such a league, and we should clearly understand that Bolshevist Russia is, and that Bolshevist Germany would be, as undesirable in such a league as the Germany and Russia of the Hohenzollerns and Romanoffs. Bolshevism is just as much an international menace as Kaiserism. Until Germany and Russia have proved by a course of conduct extending over years that they are capable of entering such a league in good faith, so that we can count upon their fulfilling their duties in it, it would be merely foolish to take them in.

The league, therefore, would have to be based on the combination among the Allies of the present war--together with any peoples like the Czecho-Slovaks, who have shown that they are fully entitled to enter into such a league if they desire to do so. Each nation should absolutely reserve to itself its right to establish its own tariff and general economic policy, and absolutely ought to control such vital questions as immigration and citizenship and the form of government it prefers. Then it would probably be best for certain spheres of interest to be reserved to each nation or a group of nations.

The northernmost portion of South America and Mexico and Central America, all of them fronting on the Panama Canal, have a special interest to the United States, more interest than they can have for any European or Asiatic power. The general conduct of Eastern Asiatic policy bears a most close relationship to Japan. The same thing is true as regards other nations and certain of the peculiarly African and European questions. Everything outside of what is thus reserved, which affects any two members of the league or affects one member of the league and outsiders, should be decided by some species of court, and all the people of the league should guarantee to use their whole strength in enforcing the decision.

This, of course, means that all the free peoples must keep reasonably prepared for defense and for helping well-behaved nations against the nations or hordes which represent despotism, barbarism, and anarchy. As far as the United States is concerned, I believe we should keep our navy to the highest possible point of efficiency and have it second in size to that of Great Britain alone, and we should then have universal obligatory military training for all our young men for a period of, say, nine months during some one year between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three inclusive. This would not represent militarism, but an antidote against militarism. It would not represent a great expense. On the contrary, it would mean to give to every citizen of our country an education which would fit him to do his work as a citizen as no other type of education could.

There are some nations with which there would not be the slightest difficulty in going much further than this. The time has now come when it would be perfectly safe to enter into universal arbitration treaties with the British Empire, for example, reserving such rights only as Australia and Canada themselves would reserve inside the British Empire; but there are a number of outside peoples with whom it would not be safe to go much further than above outlined. If we only made this one kind of agreement, we could keep it, and we should make no agreement that we would not and could not keep. More essential than anything else is it for us to remember that in matters of this kind an ounce of practical performance is worth a ton of windy rhetorical promises.

AN AMERICAN CONGRESS

NOVEMBER 18, 1918

The election of a Republican Congress a fortnight ago was first and foremost a victory for straight Americanism. To the Republican Party it represents not so much a victory as an opportunity. To the American people, including not only Republicans and independents, but all patriotic Democrats who put loyalty to the Nation above servility to a political leader, the victory was primarily won for straight-out Americanism. A very important feature to remember is that this victory was won in the West. On the whole, the East also showed gains, but the greatest gains were in the West. The South, of course, and most unfortunately, never permits its political or patriotic convictions to alter the result at the ballot box.

Now the Westerners, the strong, masterful, self-reliant men who won such exacting victories in Kansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota, are just as opposed to what may be called Kaiserism in our political and industrial life as they are to Bolshevism. I firmly believe that this is true of the rank and file of the Republican Party everywhere. They haven’t the slightest patience with Townleyism in agricultural districts or I.W.W.-ism in labor circles. But resolutely they intend to shape our internal policy for the real substantial benefit of the average man, of the ninety per cent of our people who are farmers, working-men, small shopkeepers, doctors, and the like. They haven’t the slightest patience with the Bolshevist desire to establish proletariat class tyranny, which is just as odious as aristocratic class tyranny. They haven’t the slightest patience in persecution of, or failure generously to reward, the man who by nature or by training is a leader in industrial matters. They want to see farming, for instance, offer a chance to the man of ability to become a scientific farmer on a large scale. They wish to see the young business man whose leadership in manufactures or commerce is of incalculable worth to everybody receive in generous fashion the big reward to which he is entitled.