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.