Belgium has been stripped to the bone. Her recovery will require
centuries. Never again will Belgium be able to block Germany's pathway,
never again shall there be an epic of Liège. So Germany will give back
Belgium.
She will give back Serbia, but she cannot give back the Serbians. Those
that have survived the battlefield, the famine, plague and pestilence
are being, or have been, massacred. Her farms are tenantless, her cities
empty, the grass is growing in her streets. Never again shall Serbia
bar Germany's drive to the east. Her abandoned leaseholds invite true
Germans to move in and take possession. So Germany will give back
Serbia. But England must give back Mesopotamia and let Germany come down
to the Persian Gulf! England must give back Syria and let Germany come
down to the Suez Canal! England must give back the colonies in Africa
that her own colonists have won and suffer anew Germany's let and
hindrance to the Cape to Cairo railroad!
What wonder Germany desires a "Peace without indemnities or
annexations"? But we have not yet exhausted Germany's profits in this
war. Without counting her recent advances into Finland, Roumania and
the Ukraine, without counting her last conquest in Russia, Germany has
seized 500,000 square kilometers of conquered soil occupied by a
population of forty-two millions; from these millions Germany has been
drawing that forced labor which she has been paying at the biblical wage
of a penny a day. I am often asked to admire the great fight Germany has
put up against the entire world. But I know that that fight has been
made possible only because, against all the instincts and laws of
civilization, Germany has been enslaving huge populations, setting them
to forbidden tasks in order to release every German for her armies.
Without that slavery Germany could not have raised such armies or
endured so long. Not to Germany, but to England and to France,
which--while enslaving no nation, have given twenty per cent of their
entire population to this war, is honor and reverence due! And this
Germany wants peace because she is already dreaming of another war.
Frederick Nauman, member of the Reichstag, tells us that she will build
barns and granaries to hold a supply of food sufficient for her entire
population for ten years; that she will build concrete entrenchments,
impregnable lines of defence, along all her frontiers. Germany has
already enforced a dreadful kind of concubinage, to avoid a worse term,
upon the women of the occupied territories, and now we have evidence
that she is enforcing that same dreadful system upon the women of her
own land in utter disregard of all ethics, religion and the dignity of
womanhood. At any expense Germany means to have boys that, twenty years
from now, when France is still exhausted from this struggle and before
England shall have regathered her strength, Germany shall have a new
army to send over the Rhine, through spent Belgium and unrecuperated
France. Then there shall be no halt before the walls of Paris, no battle
of the Marne, no failure at Calais!
And let America keep in mind the fact that this Germany has expressed
the greatest hostility for America. "Let America look out when this war
is finished," and "I will stand no nonsense from America after this
war," said the Kaiser to Ambassador Gerard. In 1898 Count von Goetzen
said, in substance, "About fifteen years from now my country will begin
a great war; in a few weeks we shall have taken Paris; in three months
we shall occupy London; then we will turn to America. We will take some
billions of dollars from America in indemnities; we will put you in your
right relation with Germany and we will take charge of the Monroe
Doctrine for ourselves." "We are keeping books on you Americans," said
Major Liebster. "It is a long account, and we have not missed a detail.
We are keeping the account in black and white; rest assured that it will
be presented to you some day for settlement." In 1901 Freiherr von
Edelsheim of the German General Staff wrote a book on sea power, in
which he briefly outlined a German plan for the conquest of America and
said: "Germany is the only power in a position to conquer America." If
once we and our allies let go our grip, if we grow soft, if we falter
and fail, be very sure we and our children shall pay to the full the
penalty.
I heard Major Murphy say that the Captain of the Arabic, who had gone
down with his torpedoed ship and had been rescued from the sea, told him
that as long as he stayed on the bridge of that sinking vessel, every
time he rang a bell to the engine room he got the answering signal. I
know no story of heroism in all this war that moves me more than this.
Have you ever been in the engine room of a great liner where the sides
come close together and you can put your fingers on the steel plates
and know that just a fraction of an inch beyond, the deep green waters
of the sea are running? Then take your stand with these thirty or forty
stokers and engineers; the ship is sinking, you know that the life boats
are putting off, rafts are being launched and men are leaping into the
sea. Now turn and look up that narrow and twisting iron stairway and
watch for the first green gleam of foam-flecked waters to come cascading
down, and then every time the bell rings give back the answering signal.
Our Ship of State has pushed out into a stormy sea; the officers are on
the bridge, the lookout at the prow; the fortunate men are at the gun.
To us, far in the interior, there comes the humbler task of keeping the
fires burning on which depends the vital element of speed, but wherever
you stand, whatever your work, see to it that when your call comes you
can give back the answering signal.
And there is so much that we can do.
In the first place this war has been made possible only by the ghastly
education which Germany has been giving her children through the past
forty years. Dr. Van Dyke said that there was an American professor, I
think of Columbia University, who had written a life of Goethe. When he
was in Germany the Minister of Education sent for him and asked
permission to translate that Life into German for use in German
schools. Permission having been readily given he said: "But there is
one chapter that must come out before we can put that book into the
hands of German children. You have a chapter on Goethe as a lover of
liberty; we would like that omitted from our text book." To the credit
of America let it be said the book never was translated nor has it yet
appeared in German schools; but it is significant that German children
must not be taught that a great German could be a lover of liberty.
Professor Kusian, of Hollins College, Virginia, said that in his day
William Tell could not be read in German schools. There is a song that
German school children are singing to-day that was written by a school
master and this is the translation: "Over there in the cowardly
trenches lie the enemy, and no one but a dog will say that mercy should
be given to-day. Shoot down everything that cries for mercy; kill
everything like dogs; more enemies, more enemies, be your prayer in this
day of retribution."
Can you imagine teaching children lessons like that?
There is a juvenile paper published in Germany that recently contained
an article whose substance follows: "War is divine, it is glorious. When
the soldier falls upon the battlefield, his spirit goes directly to the
gates of Paradise, where all good soldiers go, but none of those old
women in petticoats who say that war is brutal; there a Prussian Lance
Corporal throws wide the door." (It is worth noting that St. Peter has
lost his job, that a Prussian Lance Corporal now bears the key and
determines who shall be and who shall not be allowed to enter.) "While
old Fritz leaps from his golden throne to welcome each home-coming
Prussian soldier." It sounds blasphemous, but it appears that Prussian
militancy has dethroned even the Lord God Omnipotent, and has placed the
Thief of Silesia on the Golden Throne. I wonder how he ever entered in.
We are told that "Nothing that worketh abomination or maketh a lie can
ever enter in," and it was old Fritz who once said "If it pays us to be
honest; let us be honest. But if it is necessary to lie, let us be
cheats."
There is, then, this that we can do. We can see to it that every child
in our schools, in our churches, in our homes, nay, that every man and
woman, too, in all America shall be brought up to love and reverence
every star in our flag, to such a consecration of life to all for which
that flag stands as shall produce a devotion and loyalty that shall
outmatch the best that Germany can do.
Our Flag!
"We who in the old days, the easy days of pleasuring,
Loitered in the distant lands, we know the thrill that came
When, in far foreign places, above the stranger faces,
The sight of it, the might of it, would wake us like a flame.
Our own flag, the one flag, it stirred our blood to claim.
"We who in these new days, these days of all confusion,
Look upon it with the eyes of one long blind who sees,
We know at last its beauty, its magnitude of duty,
Dear God! If thus it seems to us, what will it mean to these
Who wait for it, who pray for it, our kindred over seas?
"These who face the red days, the white nights of fury,
Where Death, like some mad reaper, hacks down the living grain,
They shall see our flag arise like a glory in the skies,
The Stars of it, the Bars of it, that prove it once again
The new Flag, the true Flag, that does not come in vain."
(THEODOSIA GARRISON.)
It is for every one of us, if it costs all that we have and all that we
are, to see to it that that Flag comes swiftly, with the maximum of
power, and that it "does not come in vain."
There is another thing that we can do. We can remember that Loyalty to
America to-day means also Loyalty to her allies.
A great propaganda is being waged throughout this country which is
intended to arouse suspicion, distrust and antagonism towards England.
The Germanic value of that propaganda is obvious. It is dangerous to-day
to advocate sympathy for Germany, but if German agents can sow seeds of
distrust among the Allies and can divide England, France and America or
hinder their perfection of coöperation Germany will be the gainer.
That propaganda may be found in books on the shelves of our libraries;
it appears occasionally in the pages of some of our newspapers; it is
working among the soldiers in our cantonments. It is playing on the
memories of 1776 and of 1861; it is working on all Irish loyalties and
sympathies; it is striking every note of passion and of prejudice. In
view of this propaganda, it is time for us to review the relations of
America with England and to strike a balance.
We have recently celebrated the Centennial Anniversary that commemorated
the conclusion of one hundred years of unbroken peace with England. In
view of that Centenary, we might consider the books of 1776 as
definitely closed, although still we should remember that Burke and
Chatham together with a host of English Whigs fought the battle for the
American revolutionists no less bravely and staunchly than did the
armies of the Americans themselves. We might also recall the words of
George III to Mr. Adams, the first Minister of the United States to
Great Britain: "Sir," said the King, "I wish you to believe, and that it
may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late
contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty
which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last
to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made I have
always said, as I say to you now, that I would be the first to meet the
friendship of the United States as an independent power." That message
of friendship surely closes the issues of the Revolution.
In 1861 and throughout the Civil War, it is admitted that the majority
of the English aristocracy, the Parliament and the Cabinet were in
sympathy with the South. But it is also true that the great mass of the
scholars, writers and almost the whole of the English middle class were
strong in their sympathies with the Government at Washington. Let me
quote passages from Prof. Willis Fletcher Johnston's "American Foreign
Relations," "The next step of the British Government was even more
marked in its friendship to the United States. This was on June 1st,
the issuance of an order forbidding the naval vessels or privateers of
either belligerent to carry prizes into any British port or territorial
waters. The Confederate Commission in London earnestly protested against
the order, but in vain, while Seward remarked that it would probably
prove a death blow to Southern privateering. The example set by England
was followed by France, Spain, Prussia, Holland, etc." "Adams reported
to Seward that he was assured on every hand that sympathy with the
Federal Government was universal." "The blockade brought to England the
greatest industrial distress the land had ever known, for which at first
the North was held responsible. Against this judgment several influences
were in time triumphant." "Punch," attacking the attitude of the
English Government wrote:
"Though with the North we sympathise it must not be forgotten
That with the South we've stronger ties which are composed of Cotton.
The South enslaves their fellowmen, whom we all love so dearly
The North keeps commerce bound again, which touches us more nearly.
Thus a divided duty we perceive in this hard matter.
Free Trade, or sable brothers free?
Oh, won't we choose the latter?"
"BATTLE OF HUMANITY"
"Bright, Forster, the Duke of Argyll and 'Tom' Hughes spoke
effectively to convince England that the United States was fighting
the great battle of humanity. 'The question of intervention between
the Federal and Confederate Governments arose early in the War. It
was practically considered only by England and France. The latter
was far more inclined to such action; it proposed it earlier, more
frequently and in a more extreme form.' When the purpose of the
Emancipation Proclamation was understood, the heart of the English
people responded to it with an impulse no power could withstand and
which no Government could defy. A great public meeting was held in
London on New Year's Eve which hailed the dawn of an era of
universal freedom and of closer friendship between England and
America. At the same time a similar gathering in Manchester,
stricken as it was with the cotton famine, adopted similar
resolutions addressed to the President of the United States. At
Sheffield a vast gathering passed resolutions to the effect that it
was the duty of England to give her sympathy and moral support to
the Northern States. All England took up the cry within the next few
weeks. Deputations waited upon the American Minister with addresses
of sympathy and encouragement. At least two members of the Cabinet,
the Duke of Argyll and Milner Gibson, spoke publicly for the Federal
Cause. Vast meetings at Spurgeon's Tabernacle and at Exeter Hall
applauded the name of Lincoln and cried down that of Jefferson
Davis. In Gloucestershire any apparent complicity of England with
the Confederacy in the equipment of warships was condemned and in
almost every considerable city or town in England, Scotland or Wales
such sentiments were expressed at great popular assemblies. An
increasing number of statesmen, including such men as Lord Disraeli
and Lord Derby, openly espoused the Federal side."
Since the Civil War, the evidences of England's friendship have been as
many as they have been valuable. We have good reason to believe,
although it never can be proved as the proposals were never reduced to
writing, that at the time of our war with Spain an effort was made by
the Powers of Continental Europe, who were all strongly pro-Spanish and
anti-American in their sympathies, to band Europe together and to
intervene unitedly between the United States and Spain, but in the
interests of Spain and to the detriment of the United States. This
scheme was only blocked by the attitude of England.