PRESIDENT WILSON AND PEACE
Once the Kaiser said to me, "I wish I had as much power as your
President. He has far more power than I have."
What would the Kaiser say of the power and prestige now enjoyed
by the President of the United States?
At first blush it seems almost ridiculous for us to rush to war
shouting against autocracy while the man with the greatest power
the world has ever seen announces to the world that we fight "to
make the world safe for Democracy."
Charles I must turn enviously in his grave when his spirit sees
the obedient Parliament of Washington; and a line of fallen
Kings, from Charles to Nicky Romanoff, must wish that they had
had the opportunity to attend lectures at Princeton University
where our President, Woodrow Wilson, once held forth on the
science of government.
But it is characteristic of the high intelligence of our people
that we have recognised that war to be waged effectively must be
directed by one head. We know that after the war we shall be able
to recover all the powers delegated to the President. We have
gained by our temporary surrender all the efficiency of
autocracy and risked none of its dangers, and have simply
followed the custom of the free German tribes which elected a
leader for war and gave him a power never given the chiefs in
time of peace.
How much more enduring is our Government! Since the war the
government cabinets of England have twice changed radically, that
of France five times, and Italy very frequently indeed. Few
realise that our Constitution is the oldest in the world to-day.
Since its adoption the government of every land in some material
particular has changed many times, France, for instance, from
King and Republic, then to citizen kingship, then to Republic,
then to Empire, and finally to Republic. In England the form has
remained the same, but the power passed, in 1830, with the
passage of the Reform Bill, from nobles to commoners, as great a
revolution as any in France.
And I admire the very inaccessibility of President Wilson. He
does not waste time on non-essentials, on useless polite
conversation or pointless discussion. This may add to his enemies
but makes for efficiency.
When I saw the President on one occasion about German affairs we
talked for four and a quarter hours without intermission. In that
period he extracted from me all the information he required at
the time. He is a wonderful man to have at the head of our nation
in war or peace.
Gradually the splendid peace message of our President (Jan. 8,
1918) will sink into the consciousness of the German people.
There are liberal and reasonable men among them striving for
peace and for disarmament.
In January of 1917, just at the moment when the military
autocracy brought on war with America by their sudden announcement
of ruthless submarine warfare, the liberals of Germany were
preparing to co-operate with our President in the efforts that he
was then making for peace.
A Socialist member of the Reichstag, a man whose name is known
throughout the world, wrote at that time two articles to be used
in the effort for peace, and I print them in order that those
outside of Germany may obtain a glimpse of the mind of one of the
leading Socialists of that country. These articles have never
before been published.
I feel that now when we are at war with Germany perhaps it would
cause embarrassment to this man should I publish his name. In a
country where a man may be sent to jail for speaking without
respect of some act of the Kaiser's ancestors, committed more
than four hundred years ago, it is dangerous for any German to
put his name to utterances which might not march with the wishes
of despotic Germany.
It has always been the desire of the Kaiser's government to draw
the Allies into a peace conference with the hope of detaching
some of the Allies from their combination. Perhaps these
articles, although written by a Socialist, were part of a clever
governmental peace propaganda to which the majority Socialists
so readily lent themselves during the year 1917. But on the other
hand I think these articles represent the sincere real expression
of the writer who is still a member of the Minority or Haase
faction of the German Socialist Party. Though written a year ago
they discuss points still unsolved and which must come before the
peace conference that settles the war:
HOW AMERICA CAN HELP EUROPE.
BY ---- ----, MEMBER OF THE REICHSTAG
The immediate reply of the Central Powers to
President Wilson's note (Dec., 1916) has been a
polite refusal to indicate, beyond some
generalities open to the blame of ambiguity, in a
clear way what their demands of peace would be. It
has been followed by their note to the neutrals of
the 11th of January, which also avoids giving a
distinct delineation of their demands. The Central
Powers maintain that only a peace conference of
the belligerents themselves would be the proper
place to bring forth the respective peace
conditions, and they state they would produce
theirs when once the conference has met. Putting
aside every insinuation of motives one cannot help
being reminded by this of the attitude of the
Central Powers during the fateful twelve days of
July-August, 1914, when they refused any outside
mediation and insisted on direct conversations
between Russia and Austria, whilst the punitive
military expedition of the latter against Servia
had to take its course. In so far their suggestion
would not augur well for the execution.
The Entente Allies, on their side, have been
somewhat more explicit. Their answer to President
Wilson includes the delineation of demands that
certainly are open to criticism, but just for this
call for a reply or even compel it. At the time
these lines are written only newspaper comments
have so far come forward, and it is not necessary
to dwell upon these. Nor does it seem appropriate
to anticipate the reply of the Chancellor, which
in some form or other will surely be given in the
course of the next weeks. What matters is that
there is a programme given for discussion and we
are able to scrutinise its nature and bearing.
The demands explicitly or implicitly contained in
the note of the Allies can be summarised under
five heads, viz.:
1. Restitution of occupied territory to its former
political community,
2. Reparation for inflicted material and moral
wrongs,
3. Territorial changes motivated by alleged
a. rights of nationality,
b. need for freeing suppressed or protecting
consistently maltreated nationalities,
4. Reform of International Law,
5. National and international treaties for the
protection of inland and maritime boundaries.
Of these the demands under 1 and 2 are certainly
in their principle quite reasonable, and if it
comes to actual and exact formulation are apt to
lead to a fair agreement.
The demands under 3 are partly on principle also
unobjectionable, whilst some, as e.g., the cession
of the Polish provinces of Prussia to a Polish
state under Russian tutelage or the cession of the
European vilayets of Turkey to Russia or some
newly created community under Russian tutelage,
can hardly be supported by reasonable argument in
the face of the fact that they could only be
carried out by dictation after a complete and
crushing victory of the Allies over the Central
Powers. That is to say, after a prolonged war more
murderous and more embittered than that behind us.
It is to be expected that public discussion will
in regard to demands of this nature create an
opinion resulting in their reduction if not
disappearance. What is reasonable in them falls
either under number 3, letter "a," or under
numbers 4 and 5.
Now as regards the demands under 4 and 5, the
settlement of most of them belongs rightly to an
International Conference of all the nations. In
their good and efficient regulation all are
interested. They are also of the greatest concern
to the future of mankind as a whole. The demands
or questions can as regards their general
character also be divided under three other heads,
viz.:
Firstly, questions of justice to nations or
nationalities as political or sociological
entities,
Secondly, questions of the most expedient
settlement of disputes between individual Powers
or groups of such where no fundamental principles
of nationality or similar rights are concerned,
and
Thirdly, questions which concern all the nations
through their common interest in general security
and protection against the disturbance of
international peace and traffic.
Both the Allies and the Central Powers agree to
the idea of settling these latter questions in a
better way than before; i.e., by an International
League of the Nations to enforce peace. But both
want the creation of this League to be settled
after the war. It can, however, with good reason
be upheld that there is in this a fault against
logic which would have to be paid dearly by them
as well as by the neutral world. Both base a
number of their demands on the necessity of
protecting themselves against renewed onslaughts
by their opponents. Now such protection might be a
necessary thing under the present state of an
International Law which has been outraged and
partly been made inane by themselves and has
partly turned out not to meet the conditions of
modern warfare as they result from the modern
weapons of destruction. But it would be made
unnecessary or its requirements be greatly reduced
if the League of the Nations, such as is in
principle accepted by them, did already exist or
had its rules and regulations already laid down in
detail. Is it reasonable to allow this
contradiction to cause now innumerable deaths and
mutilations of human beings and unbounded
destruction of material wealth instead of seeking
means to dissolve it as early as possible? Ought
not all our wits be exerted to find this earlier
solution?
There are within the means of the neutrals, if
acting together, two ways to bring the war to an
earlier end than that to be expected from the free
decision of the belligerents. The one is to drop
all considerations of neutrality such as at
present regarded and, without directly supporting
the one section to the detriment of the other,
withdraw from both of them all supplies in food,
raw material, half and wholly manufactured goods,
not minding which section would by this be more
damaged than its opponents. In fact, it would most
likely be a decidedly unneutral measure against
the one section which now benefits more than the
other by these supplies, and because of this and
from other reasons there is little probability
that it would find general acceptance. The other
way is to reduce the justification of the
continuation of the war by minimising the objects
for which it is led in the belief of the great
masses of the people engaged as much as in the
eyes of the outside world.
Both belligerents, to say it again, put in the
first line of their requirements security against
renewed attacks, protection against the
continuation of the insecurity of peace. Both
admit that the proposed League of the Nations has
become a necessity; both admit that it might
indeed protect mankind against new wars and a
state of incessantly endangered peace. Why then
wait and let the disaster go on instead of
proceeding at once to lay the foundation of this
League?
The step is not so impossible as it might appear.
Supposing one neutral state took the matter in
hand and, after having ascertained the consent of
the other neutrals or at least a majority of
them--which it is almost sure to obtain--would
invite all the nations, the belligerents included,
to a conference or a congress at a neutral place
for the discussion and the arrangement of the
principles and rules of the proposed League of the
Nations. Would the belligerent nations refuse to
send their delegates to such a conference? Could
they do it without damaging their case before the
world of the neutrals and the masses of their own
people? It is most improbable that they would do
such a thing. And even if they did they would not
by this put the conference to naught. It would be
there and would give palpable substance to an idea
which until now lived, in spite of great and most
ingenuous work spent on it, politically only in
the sphere of lofty speculation or projects.
And the conference could do more. Starting from
the maxim which finds such impressive accentuation
in President Wilson's note that war in general
must not, and the present war in particular can
not, be regarded as the private affair of the
individual states that engage in it, the
conference could also take into consideration some
questions of consequence connected with the
present war. It could, e.g., whilst laying the
foundations for the security of countries against
wilful attacks lay down opinions about the just
settlement of disputed questions of nationality
and the liberation of nations or part of such from
allegiance to a state or empire of different or
mixed nationalities. It seems to become a
necessity to make clear whether a Power or
coalition of such can be justified to put in the
list of their war aims the liberation of
nationalities without sufficient proof that the
latter all want to sever their connection with the
state or empire to which they just belong.
The Tcheques in Austria and the Finns in Russia
strive for their full autonomy within these
empires, but they have very little shown of a
desire to become a separate state. An opinion that
wars for abstruse benefits never asked for can
under no circumstances be regarded as liberation
wars would wrong nobody because it would apply to
all, but it may contribute much to have designs
given up which otherwise would uselessly cause
bloodshed and prolonged enmities.
The conference would also be justified in taking
measures to procure an impartial expert opinion on
the origin and the legal conduct of the war and
the general principles of national and
international right involved.
If the conference would invite neutral experts in
international law of general renown to investigate
the questions indicated above and draw up reports
it would not by this offend in the smallest degree
against the requirements of impartiality. But the
reports could, if based on careful examination and
considerately worded, contribute very much to
soften the excited minds in the countries engaged
and facilitate the preliminaries of a genuine
peace.
There are, no doubt, all sorts of objections that
could be raised against this suggestion. But they
can be met satisfactorily if the matter is taken
up in earnest and with practical mind. The
principal difficulty to overcome is _time_; no
time must be wasted by research in far-fetched
details. It is a comparatively short list of
pertinent questions which would have to be
answered, and the materials of their examination
are already at hand in the declarations and
documentary publications of the different
governments themselves which want to be verified
by juxtaposition with the corresponding
publications of the other side and to be
scrutinised upon their intrinsic significance.
Works of conscientious legists and historians that
could serve as specimens are not missing. But they
are occasioned by private enterprise and express
opinions not always in the measured language that
would alone fit the purpose here in view.
This purpose is to direct the minds of the
greatest possible number of people in the affected
countries to such way of regarding the questions
of the war and to such comprehension of the
feeling of the other side as are the necessary
conditions of a sane and sober appreciation of the
nature and the possibilities of a reasonable
peace. The present feeling in these sections of
the public which form public opinion in this
country as in England and in France, is as full of
bitterness as can be. A cure is badly wanted, but
it does not proceed automatically. Weariness of
the war is there, but it is counteracted partly by
the manifold incidents of the war itself, by the
appetites it has awakened, by the mutual distrust
it has created.
It might be objected that one can hardly expect a
number of even neutral experts to come to a
concerted opinion on these points. But it would be
of little consequence if the experts, instead of
agreeing on a common report, would publish
majority and minority reports. What matters is
that opinions of qualified experts are at all
drawn up and published, so that discussion is as
much as possible free from the effects of the
biased speeches of interested statesmen and other
politicians and their press. The report or reports
would also be of use when an armistice at least
had been agreed upon and a conference for the
conclusion of a peace is sitting. And even if the
work of the invited experts should take more time
than the conclusion of the peace itself, the
reports might still be of considerable value. For
what matters is not only that a peace is come to
but also that the nations should afterward possess
authoritative impartial opinions on the main
questions of consequence connected with the origin
and the conduct of the war. For such opinions
would educate the poisoned minds to an objective
and argumentative discussion of the means to
prevent a repetition of the present disaster.
Only those who live in the affected countries can
be aware how great the need is for providing the
general public with unbiased authoritative
expositions of these questions.
Finally the conference could and should also
discuss in a pertinent way the question of
_disarmament_. This question has to-day reached a
stage much beyond that of mere desirability. It is
now a question of commanding necessity, one can
justly say of life and death of the reached stage
of civilisation. Not pious wishes or theoretical
expositions will in regard to it now suffice. We
must have practical proposals, proposals of a
scheme to put disarmament into practice and
proposals of the means to induce the different
states to accept the scheme and to carry it out.
It is a big and pretentious programme here
suggested, the first to be decided by breaks with
the old principle of non-interference in state
affairs. But the times are so exceptional that
extraordinary measures cannot be shunned. If one
sees two lads fight each other with their fists or
even sticks one may well say, "Let them first
fight it out and then we shall see to bring them
to reason." But if they stand on board a ship and,
mad with rage, and, without interruption and
unremittingly, throw incendiary matter at each
other you would rather stop them before the ship
is in flames. Under other conditions it might be
the right thing to convoke a conference to be held
after the war is over. As it is now, reason would
demand not to adjourn the term to that juncture.
This is not the place to adjudicate
responsibilities. Suffice it to say that the
present aspect of the conflict is the worst since
its beginnings and threatens aggravations of its
horrors.
Of all the neutrals none is more predestined to
take the initiative in this grave matter than the
United States of America, by their great power, by
their geographical position, by the ethnological
composition of their citizens and last, but not
least, by their historical traditions they before
all are called to act. The small European nations
are already, as it were, too much under the fire
around them to be so free in their action as is
the government of the giant republic on the
western hemisphere. But that they would with the
greatest readiness join in the convocation of a
conference for the settlement of at least the two
first of the described subjects is sure beyond any
doubt.
The leader in the arrangement of this conference
is, in my opinion, the least objectionable, and at
the same time it is the most promising help that
in the present appallingly entangled situation
America can give Europe. The Old World is
poisoned. The virus of the most irrational hatred
of its component sections against each other,
inoculated into them by all sorts of false
leaders of opinion, eats deeper and deeper and
threatens to mortify all the roots of a wholesome
life. May the United States of America help a
disunited Europe to find the way out of the deadly
miasmatic jungle into which it has lost itself.
THE HELPLESSNESS OF EUROPE
BY ---- ----, MEMBER OF THE REICHSTAG
Europe is in the position of a wanderer who has
gone astray into a swamp. In vain he labours to
regain firm ground. The more frantically he
struggles the surer he is to become submerged.
Like an infant child he is unable to help himself.
Help must come from people outside the swamp.
We are now in the third year of the biggest, the
most fratricidal and the most hopeless war the
world has ever seen. It is hopeless in so far as
on the one side none of the two coalitions is
likely to be in a visible time as much the victor
over the other that it can dictate it its own
terms, and as on the other side there is no common
basis to be seen for a sensible compromise. It is
not the extravagance of demands that forms an
insuperable barrier for peace. Extravagant terms
of peace have indeed been formulated by
unauthorised persons or groups but they have
nowhere received the sanctioning stamp of the
responsible governments. The latter prefer rather
to shine by the moderation of their demands, at
least as far as territory is concerned. But it is
just this apparent moderation that makes peace
such an almost insoluble problem.
Far behind this moderation in regard to
territorial demands looms the desire to destroy
the opponents' chances of political predominance.
The war is, for the present at least, in the
first instance a struggle about the supremacy in
Europe. And this perhaps more in a negative sense
than otherwise. Jingoes are, of course, everywhere
in high and low quarters, but it is very doubtful
whether one of the responsible heads of the
belligerent nations pursues for himself or his
nation seriously and consistently what might be
called the mastery of Europe. All are, however,
dead against the idea that this mastery might pass
into the other camp. Comparatively easy as it is
to settle a dispute on questions of territory by
arbitration or to work out schemes for compromise
in regard to such, so difficult or almost
impossible it would be to arbitrate on a question
of actual supremacy or to settle it by compromise.
Particularly in the camp of the Allies is the
possibility lest Germany might emerge out of the
war the actual arbiter of Europe conceived as an
unbearable thought. None of the allied Powers,
neither England nor France and not even Russia,
Italy being in this respect quite out of question,
has during the last decades shown a disposition or
a pretence to play up to such a part.
But Germany is suspected of nourishing ideas of
this kind, and utterances of some of their
prominent men, _occasional sayings of the Kaiser
included_, tend to give substance to this
suspicion. In vain Germans object that their
country has all the 44 years since 1870 kept the
peace in Europe. We have done the same, would the
others reply, and we have not, as Germany has
done, again and again threatened war when things
did not run according to her wishes or humours.
_Germany has in fact abstained from actual peace
breaking. But she was regarded and has not a
little done to acquire the fame, as the latent or
virtual disturbing element in European politics._
This view in regard to political Germany has
greatly been enhanced through many of her actions
during the present war. It is natural enough,
though not particularly edifying, that in a war
each party ascribes all the guilt thereof to the
opponents and poses as the innocent who
maliciously was surprised when not dreaming of any
harm. But the cantankerous way in which almost the
whole political and intellectual Germany has
handled this question and has treated it as a
crime not to take in every respect the German view
of the case and of all the details of warfare has
strengthened the feeling that this nation has come
to regard itself as a sort of high judge of
Europe. People were reminded of that
ill-considered harangue to German soldiers at the
time of the China expedition when they were
entreated to act towards the Chinese like the Huns
under Attila. _This and the eagerness to crush by
overwhelming power every small nation that
ventures to take sides with the Allies as well as
the proclaiming of rights for submarines and
Zeppelins upon her own authority--these and
similar measures have only been too suited to
nourish the conception that Germany places herself
in the rôle of the scourge of God._
How this feeling reacts upon political thought is
illustrated by a conversation a German socialist
has had in the summer of 1915 on neutral ground
with a French socialist politician of no jingoish
leanings at all on the possibilities of peace.
Even if Germany declared herself ready to
relinquish Belgium and to return to France every
inch of ground occupied, his countrymen would not
accept peace from her, explained the Frenchman.
And on the question, "Why not?" he replied
passionately: "Because it would be the German
peace; because it would yet leave Germany the all
powerful of Europe; because it would make us
depend upon the whims and tempers of that
conceited military nation."
"But are you going to bleed yourself to death?"
was the next question, and the reply, uttered in a
voice where sadness mingled with determination,
was:
"Yes, rather be ruined!"
This is a specimen of the feeling created by the
present war, and I am afraid the sentiment has not
abated a whit yet. Germans have done a good deal
in attempts to detach the French from the English.
They have told them that they are only the poor
seduced tools of the base and egotistic
Britishers, that Germans did not bear them any
malice, that they rather pitied them and would
fain be ready to come to terms with them. But
declarations of this sort proved only how little
the French mentality was understood this side of
the Vosges. The French nation is too much
impressed by the memory of her great past and the
part played by her in European politics to stand
being pitied and patted like children of tender
age. It will be respected as an equal who acts
with the full knowledge of the state of things and
is too much given to political reflection to
accept willingly any view of the war that visibly
is coloured by the interest of Germany in the
dissension between the two great Powers of Western
Europe. The anti-German feeling runs still very
high in France; her leading papers excel without
any exception in extremely harsh language against
everything German, and the great mass of those who
in former years had propagated the idea of a
Franco-German understanding are now dead against
it.
A similar feeling has step by step got hold of the
British nation. From not being very popular at its
beginning in England, the war has come to be
regarded as a greater national concern than any of
its predecessors. The frantic if not hysterical
outbursts of hatred against England in Germany
when the former decided to stand by France in the
war were at first not taken too seriously. But by
and by the unceasing utterances of spite have,
together with the known acts of German aerial and
submarine warfare, deeply reacted on the British
mind. The feeling is now general that England has
never before had an enemy so full of hatred
against her, so ardently desirous of causing her
irreparable harm as she now has in present day
Germany.
Even such socialist papers as the _New Statesman_,
which before the war had no anti-German bias at
all, have arrived at the same conclusion
concerning what may be called a German peace as
the French socialist politician whose opinions
were given above characterised it. In an article
called "The Case for the Allies," and especially
addressed to Americans, the _New Statesman_
explains in its number of December 30th that peace
with an unbeaten Germany would mean "Mittel Europa
from the Baltic to the Black Sea," that nothing
would prevent its expansion through the Balkans to
El Arish and Bagdad, that throughout this vast
area the authority, if not the suzerainty, of
Berlin would be acknowledged and that the small
European States north and northwest of Germany
would without any resistance--by the mere force of
things--come to be subjected to the dictate of
Germany. In the words of the _New Statesman_, as
the result of an inconclusive peace, "militarism
would be more firmly established than ever by the
record of its marvellous success and by the
manifest need for a military organisation
proportionate to so vast an expansion."
Is this feeling justified? Does it appreciate
facts at their exact value? _There is undoubtedly
an influential section in Germany which entertains
feelings of this kind._ It has its adherents
particularly in naval circles and amongst the
intellectuals of the nation and in a considerable
degree also in the financial world. These sections
hate in England partly the happy possessor of what
in their opinion ought by right to belong to the
German race and partly the power without which
German expansion would meet with no resistance
worth speaking of by European nations. _This
section of anti-English on principle or by deeply
rooted hatred, influential as it is, is, however,
not the whole nation._ It has only now the hold of
her mind because it has succeeded in instilling
into her the belief that England is the secret
manufacturer of the present war, that she is the
selfish fermenter of hatred in Europe, the
scheming brewer of strife on the Continent.
England has become to the average German mind a
real nightmare, a sort of a Frankenstein or any
such spookish monster, and as she now, by the
vicissitudes of the war, has indeed become the
most dangerous of Germany's opponents it is not
possible to educate people from the inside to a
more rational view of her part in this war and in
European politics altogether.
There you have the greatest hindrances to peace in
Europe. I did not mention Russia. But the war
between Germany, inclusive of Austria-Hungary, and
Russia is of quite a different nature. It is more
of a war of the older order. It has, of course,
also evoked a good deal of hatred. But on the
whole it is as wars go, more of an objective
nature. There are material differences on which it
would not be impossible to compromise. But there
is no such deeply-seated irrational opposition,
which now sets Germans and English and French and
Germans against each other. The war between the
Central Powers and Russia is, comparatively
speaking, an accident in the political history of
Europe. _The war between England, France and
Germany is a catastrophe in European civilisation.
As a war it is most irrational, and just because
of its absurdity it is so utterly difficult to
find a solution for it, and there is little hope
that unless some outside force intervenes, it may
end otherwise than by absolute general
exhaustion._
Things would be otherwise if there were reasonable
hopes of a concerted action on the part of the
international union of the socialist parties. But
such hopes, if they ever could be entertained,
have by now become a thing of the past. In the
three countries named the majority of the leaders
of organised labour have taken sides in the war
alongside of their governments and have by this
more or less given up independency and lost the
confidence of their former comrades in the
opposite camp. Distrust, which in general has so
much contributed to bring about this war, prevails
also in the ranks of the socialists in regard to
the leaders of the movement on the other side of
the frontier. Minorities everywhere work for a
greater independency as a step to a better
international understanding. But they have as yet
nowhere succeeded in winning the majority of the
movement over to their views and policy, and even
if they did, all sorts of hindrances would by the
governments be put in the way of these Socialists
to assemble internationally in sufficient number
for work of this nature.
Nor is it to be expected that revolts of the
discontented masses will be vast enough to force
the governments into peace negotiations against
their will. The possibilities of centralised
governments against revolutionary upheavals as
long as these remain locally isolated, which in
the face of the enormous extent of the section of
the globe directly drawn into the war is most
probable, are too great to let these movements
have a great chance of changing the policy of the
rulers. This would only happen when at least some
of these classes or parties which at present
support the war come round to their opinion, of
which very few signs are at present to be seen.
The work of small minorities everywhere, the war
has got hold of the minds of the millions in all
countries and has filled nations against nations
with such distrust and spite as in the history of
civilised mankind never before have been
witnessed.
How little we are justified to expect peace from
the action of these socialists who stand by
governments in the war is, as far as my own
country is concerned, shown by the fact that the
big meetings now (and, I am willing to admit, it
is the intention of the initiators to hold them in
favour of peace) led by the leaders of the
majority of the social-democratic party, such as
Messrs. Scheidemann, David, Ebert and others, turn
out in practice as meetings in support of the
policy of the government in regard to the question
of war and peace. In order to defend their own
political attitude the speakers are compelled to
shift the responsibility for the war and its
continuation wholly on the shoulders of the
governments of the opposite countries and their
supporters, and by this they increase in the mind
of their hearers the conviction that nothing short
of a defeat of these countries will bring the war
to a desirable end. In England the majority of the
Labour Party and a considerable number of the best
known socialist leaders and in France the most
influential leaders of socialist party support
also the war policy of their respective
governments in all principal issues. The well
meant and praiseworthy attempts to convene a full
International Socialist Congress for the purpose
of settling these differences by finding a common
line of action are, I am sorry to say, under the
circumstances most likely to prove abortive. _They
will founder on the self-contradiction that the
Socialists of the Entente countries argue that
their governments hate the idea of German
militarism coming out unbeaten and unreduced out
of this war which in their opinion was provoked by
it, whilst the leaders of the German Socialists in
power would rather see this same militarism which
they in former years have so violently attacked
and denounced, come out victorious than have it
interfered with by outside influence._
In short, sections of the socialist movement will
assist other forces in the action for peace, but
the movement as a whole is incapable to act in the
matter as a force of compelling strength.
Help must in the main come from outside.
Consequently President Wilson's action in his note
to the belligerents of December 20th would have
been the right thing, even if it had offended in
some way against the rules of diplomatic
procedure. Under so exceptional circumstances as
these occasioned by the present war extraordinary
steps are certainly justified and breaches of
etiquette of little significance. But the note was
faultless in this respect, and it can moreover be
said that in no way did it endanger legitimate
interests of the one or the other section of the
belligerents. It offends only in spirit against
Cain's word, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and in
distinct words against the conception that war is
a private affair of states may it ever so much
interfere with the material and moral welfare of
other nations.
The step has not at once succeeded. But it has
opened the way; nay, it has forced the door open
for discussion in a fashion that nobody will be
strong enough to shut it again. True, the Central
Powers have by their offer of peace negotiations
forestalled the note by a week. But this offer
would have come to naught without Mr. Wilson's
action. Harsh as the reply of the Allies is to the
offer, it would most likely have been put in much
more negating terms had not the American note
caused the Entente Allies to avoid a blunt "No"
and content themselves with raising objections and
interjecting accusations. By this they have
willy-nilly provoked a debate and instead of
shutting the door kept it well open.
People may call this a small success. In fact it
is a beginning, and for the first as such
sufficient. The question is now what shall the
next step be and how can the debate be directed to
positive proposals?
Of course, as these articles were given by this Socialist-Author
for publication any one is at liberty to reproduce them.
In conducting the peace negotiations, President Wilson will have
the benefit of the services of Colonel House, the one man who, I
believe, is best fitted to protect the interests of America and
of humanity at such a conference. I, of course, saw Colonel House
during the war in Berlin and in America and I consider that no
man alive is his superior in either knowledge of the whole
situation or in ability to cope with the trained diplomats of
Europe. Human nature is much the same and the gentle mannered
Texan who has been so successful in American politics will not
fail when representing us at the table of Peace.