THE INTERVENTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WAR.
The hostilities, once opened as the direct consequence of Germany's
obduracy, many of the most influential leaders of public opinion in the
United States foresaw that the conflict taking such a wide range, the
great American Republic was most likely to be, sooner or later, involved
in the European struggle. They were of two classes. Those out of office,
holding for the time no official position, were, of course, not bound to
the same careful discretion in judging the daily developments of the
military operations, and their far reaching consequences, as those who
were at the helm of State.
In appreciating the course followed by the United States since the war
commenced, it must never be forgotten that if an autocratic Empire,
trampled upon by a domineering military party, can be thrown in a minute
into a great conflict, a Republic like that of our powerful neighbours
cannot be dragooned into any hasty action. In a free country, under a
responsible government, public opinion is the basis of the success of
any important official decision.
The political men and the numerous publicists who incessantly called the
attention of our neighbours to what was going on in Europe and on the
seas, have rendered a great service in moulding public opinion for the
grand duty the Republic would eventually be obliged to accomplish.
Having ourselves decided to participate in the war at once after its
outbreak, and deeply engaged in the task, we, Canadians, felt somewhat
uneasy about the apparent determination of our neighbours to stand
aside, and let the European Powers settle the ugly question. As a rule,
we were all wishing to see the United States joining with the Allies in
the fray.
Once again, we had some black sheep with us. Whilst all the loyal
Canadians were anxiously waiting for the day when they would applaud the
American Republic's declaration of war against Germany, our Nationalists
were getting more nervous at the increasing signs of the growth of
public opinion amongst our neighbours against the criminal German cause
and the crimes by which the Teutons were supporting it. Their leader,
Mr. Bourassa, was doing his best to persuade the Americans that they had
much better to remain out of the struggle. He expected he would succeed,
as he had done in the Province of Quebec, in influencing, by his
erroneous theories, many of the French Canadian element in the United
States.
The wish being always father to the thought, Mr. Bourassa easily came to
the conclusion that Mr. Wilson, the president of the United States, was
decidedly opposed to any intervention of the Republic in the war, and
would prevent it at all hazards. How prodigal he was of his eulogiums,
of his advices, to the American "pacifists," with the President as their
leader, to know one has only to read his newspaper "_Le Devoir_."
How disappointed, how crest-fallen, he was when he discovered how much
mistaken he had been!
When Mr. Wilson, who had long been waiting for the right hour to strike
the blow at the Teutonic autocratic attempt at domination, rising
grandly to the rank of a great statesman, supported by the splendid
strength of the public opinion he had wisely and skilfully rallied in
favour of the decision he had taken, was a sad day for our Nationalists
and their heart-broken leader. Blind, prejudiced, as they were, meekly
pandering to pan-Germanism which they considered as the best antidote to
the Anglo-Saxonism they abhor, they could not understand that the
Lusitania horror, the slaughtering of hundreds of American citizens in
violation of all the principles of International Law, the crimes of the
Teutonic submarine campaign more than justified the intervention of the
United States in the war.
What our neighbours have done since they have joined with the Allies,
what they are doing and promise to do, is worthy of all admiration. Like
the British Empire, like France, the United States have given the
inspiring example of a most enlightened patriotism, of a splendid unity
of purpose, of a boundless confidence in the triumph of the cause of
Justice and Right.
Such a grand spectacle of true national unity offered a striking
contrast with the sad exhibition of the narrow Nationalism Canada has
had to endure without, however, hindering to any appreciable extent our
loyal and patriotic effort to help winning the war.
Mr. Bourassa, who had been out of his natural vituperative tune in
complimenting Mr. Wilson on his supposed peace proclivities, was sure to
turn his guns against the President of the Republic the moment he boldly
and energetically took his stand against German barbarism as exhibited
since the beginning of the war. Mr. Wilson had especially protested
against such outrages as were perpetrated on the seas by Teutonic
orders. He had repeatedly warned the Berlin Government what the
inevitable consequences of such proceedings would be, and going to the
full length of what friendly relations between two Sovereign States
could permit, had demanded that an end be put to a kind of warfare most
formally condemned by International Law, contrary to all justice, to all
human notions of civilization.
When the cup of German iniquities overflowed with new crimes, American
reprobation was also raised to the high water mark. Indignation was at
the height of its exasperation. Public opinion had rapidly rallied and
ripened at the horrible sight of so many American citizens, women and
children, murdered in mid-ocean, their dead bodies floating over the
waves, and their souls from above crying for vengeance.
Then the President, Congress, statesmen, politicians, publicists, loyal
Americans numbering almost a hundred million, all of one mind, of one
heart, pledged their national honour to avenge the foul deeds of
Teutonic barbarity, and to do their mighty share in rescuing Freedom and
Civilization from the threatening sanguinary cataclysm which was cruelly
saddening our times and darkening the prospects of our children.
How powerfully, how grandly, how admirably they have kept their word,
all know. The laws necessary to prosecute the war with the utmost vigour
were unanimously passed by Congress. The organization of the man-power
of our neighbours has been made on a grand scale. The calls to the
financial resources of the Republic have been patriotically answered by
the people who poured out billions and billions of their hard earned and
prudently saved money to support the national cause so closely
identified with that of the Allies. Besides spending innumerable
millions for their own gigantic military effort, the United States are
lending billions of dollars to their associates in the great struggle to
curb down German autocratic criminal ambition.
The universe, as a whole, gratefully applauded the magnificent effort
of the leading nation of the New-World in defending the old continents
of Europe, Asia and Africa against the new invasion of the Huns.
The only shadow to this ennobling picture is that which our
Nationalists, from this side of the boundary line, try to breathe on it,
expecting that their treacherous whisper will find some echo amongst the
French Canadian and the German elements of the Republic.
The following lines are a sample of the kind words Mr. Bourassa has
addressed to Mr. Wilson--the warrior--not the pacifist. On August 30,
1917, respecting the answer of the President of the United States to the
Pope's appeal in favour of peace, he wrote in a gentle mood:--
"_Truth and falsehood, sincerity and deceit, logic and sophism are
sporting with gracefulness in this singularly astonishing document. One
would imagine that the President, persuaded that the European
Governments are playing an immense game of "poker" having the life of
the peoples at stake, wanted to go further and to prove to them that at
such a game the great American democracy is their master. Perhaps did he
believe that the "bluff" outbidding would succeed in tearing to pieces
the mask of falsehoods, of ambiguities and hypocrisy, by which the
national Rulers are blinding the peoples in order to lead them more
readily to be slaughtered._"
On perusing such outrageous writing, one cannot help being convinced
that Mr. Bourassa considers all the distinguished and most patriotic
political leaders who, for the last four years, have guided with so much
talent and devotion France, the British Empire, and their Allies through
the unprecedented crisis they have had to face, are a criminal gang of
murderers.
So, in Mr. Bourassa's kind opinion, when Mr. Wilson and all the members
of the two Houses of Congress, with a most admirable unanimity of
thought and aspirations, called upon the American nation to avenge their
countrymen, countrywomen and children, murdered on the broad sea, they
were criminally joining with European Rulers in a game of "bluff", going
further than all of them in order to tear to pieces the falsehoods and
hypocrisy they were using to blind their peoples to the facile
acceptance of the slaughtering process. A very strange way, indeed, of
unmasking others' hypocrisy by being more hypocritical than them all.
The next day, in a second article on the same subject, the Nationalist
leader said:--
"_Since the outbreak of the war, more especially since the exhausted
peoples have commenced to ask themselves what will be the result of this
frightful slaughter, the supporters of war to the utmost have tried hard
to create the legend that Germany wants to impose her political,
military and economical domination over the whole universe. To this
first falsehood, they add another one, still more complete: the only way
to assure peace, they say, is to democratize Germany, Austria and all
the nations of the Globe._"
Two falsehoods no doubt there are, but they are not asserted by those
who affirm Germany's aspiration at universal domination, and who believe
that if true free democratic institutions were to replace autocratic
rule in many countries, peace could be much more easily maintained. They
are circulated by those who deny that such are the two cases.
Whose fault is it if the almost universal opinion, outside the Central
Empires and their few allies, is that Teutonic ambition, for many years
past, has been to dominate the world?
Whose fault is it if, for the last forty years, autocratic rule has once
more proved to be the curse of the nations which it governs, and of the
peoples it subjugates?
Has not Germany only herself to blame? If she had respected the eternal
principles of Divine Morals; if she had been contented of her lot and
mindful of the rights of other nations; if she had been guided by the
true law that Right is above Might; if she had followed the ever
glorious path of Justice, she would not be presently under the ban of
the civilized world rising in a mighty effort to crush her threatening
tyranny out of existence.
So much the worse for her, if she falls a victim to her insane ambitious
dreams and to the atrocious crimes they have inspired her to commit. In
her calamity, the Nationalists' sympathies will avail her very little,
as they will everywhere meet with the contempt they fully deserve.
At page 116, in a virulent charge, Mr. Bourassa says that Mr. Wilson
_though a passionate and obstinate pedantic of democracy, is as much of
an autocrat as William of Prussia_.
Blinded by his fanatical antipathies towards every one and every thing,
directly or indirectly, favouring England, the Nationalist leader fails
to see any difference between the man who blasphemously claims by Divine
Right the power to hurl his whole Empire at the throat of staggering
Humanity, to satisfy his frenzied lust of domination, denying to his
subjects any say whatever in the matter, and the responsible chief of
State who, holding his temporary functions from the expressed will of
the people who trusted him, calls upon that same nation to avenge the
murder of a large number of her citizens, of her women and children, and
the barbarous crimes committed in violation of her Sovereign Rights.
If Mr. Bourassa is conscious of the enormity of the stand he has taken,
and of the views he has expressed, he is indeed much to be blamed; if he
is not, he is greatly to be pitied.
At page 109 of his pamphlet--entitled:--"_The Pope, arbiter of peace_,"
Mr. Bourassa has written the following monstrous proposition, after
having said that peace must be restored "_without victory_":--
"_The more the results of the war are null, for both sides, the more
chances there are for the peoples, astounded at the frightful
uselessness of those monstrous slaughters, to protect themselves against
a new fit of furious folly. To become odious to men, war must be
barren._"
So Mr. Bourassa has emphatically proclaimed that the war must be barren
of any practical results, that the extraordinary sacrifices of lives, of
resources of wealth, must be without reward of any kind; that the world
must return to the ante-war conditions. And this, he asserts, would be
the best means of preventing a renewal of the monstrous slaughters which
have been the outcome of Germany's horrible attempt at dominating an
enslaved Humanity.
In all sincerity, it is very difficult to suppose that the exponent of
such outrageously abominable views is conscious of what he says.
A red hot "pacifist," Mr. Bourassa clamoured as best he could for "PEACE
WITHOUT VICTORY," claiming that it was _the only kind of peace that
could be "just and durable."_ The time was when he pretended--surely
without any show of reason--that such was the sort of peace Mr. Wilson
wanted and suggested.
Even as far back as December 31, 1915, Mr. Bourassa, no doubt desirous
of giving full vent to his new year's wishes to all, had written:--
"_In spite of the lies, of the impudent "bluff," of the sanguinary
appeals and of the false promises of victory of the partisans of war to
excess, in all the warring countries, popular good sense commences to
discern truth.... The more victory_ (the issue) _will be materially null
and sterile for all the nations at war, the more chances there will be
that peace will be lasting and that the peoples will be convinced that
war is not only an abominable crime but an incommensurable folly_."
Evidently it had already become a hobby on the brain of the Nationalist
leader. He dogmatically proclaims that war between peoples--not the wars
formerly fought by mercenary armies,--is a _crime_,--_abominable_,--and
a _folly_,--_incommensurable_.
True it is on the part of a State tramping upon all the principles of
Justice and of International Law to gratify her guilty ambition.
But honourable, glorious, is war on the part of peoples rising in their
patriotic might to resist a sanguinary enemy, to defend their countries,
their homes, their mothers, their wives and their children from
oppression, to stem the conquering efforts of barbarous invaders.
No doubt it was a crime on the part of Germany to break her pledged
honour by solemn treaties, and to violate Belgium's territory.
No doubt it was a crime for Germany--and one abominable--to overrun
Belgium, spreading everywhere desolation, devastation, incendiarism,
murder.
But can it be said that the admirable and heroic resistance Belgium has
opposed to her tyrannical invaders was a dastardly crime?
No doubt it was a crime--and one most abominable--for Germany to order
the sinking of the Lusitania and hundreds of merchant ships, without the
warning required by the Law of Nations, murdering by hundreds
non-combatants, children, women, and old men.
But can any one be justified in asserting that, after exhausting, for
the redress of such abominable wrongs, all the resources of diplomacy,
the United States were committing a crime when they accepted the
criminal teutonic challenge and decided to join with the British Empire,
with France, Italy and their Allies, to rescue human Freedom and
Civilization from the impending destruction?
It is an aberration of mind--incommensurable in depth--for a publicist,
or any one else, to be so blinded by prejudices, so lost to all sense of
justice, as to place on the same footing, on the same level, the
assailant and he who defends his all, the murderer and the victim.
I positively affirm that I am not actuated by the least ill-will or
ill-feeling against the Nationalist leader, in judging his course and
his views as I do. Thank God, I know enough of the teachings of
Christianity to wish good to all men. But I cannot help being deeply
sorry and deploring that one of my French Canadian compatriots is buried
in such mental darkness as to be unable to perceive the
difference--incommensurable--there is in the present war between the
hideous Teutonic guilt, and the commendable and meritorious defence by
the Allied nations of the most sacred cause on earth:--outraged Justice.
And with all sincerity, I express the profound wish that during the
prolonged recess the timely war measure adopted to censure and prevent
all utterances detrimental to the best Canadian effort in the conflict,
the Nationalist leader has the pleasure to enjoy, he will reconsider the
whole situation and his opinions--too much widely circulated. Is it yet
possible to hope that, at last, he will see the dawn which will lead him
to the full light with which the great and noble cause of his country
and of the world is shining?
It is no surprise that such opinions utterly failed to have any echo
amongst the liberty loving people of the neighbouring Republic. They
died their merited shameful death before crossing over the boundary
line, buried deep under the heap of the profound feelings of reprobation
they provoked.
The Nationalist leader even missed the mark where he felt sure his shot
would strike. We can rest assured that the large majority of the United
States Germans, by birth or origin, would not change the responsible
President of their new country for the autocrat Kaiser from whose
absolutist power so many of them fled to breathe freely in the new land
of promise it was their happy lot to enter.
Mr. Bourassa met with a complete failure in his expectation to arouse
the feelings of his compatriots over the frontier against the
intervention of the Republic in the war.
It has been a profound satisfaction for us, French Canadians, to learn
that from the very moment war was declared by the Republic against
Germany, the French Canadian element in the United States has been to
the forefront of the most loyal of our friendly neighbours in fighting
the common enemy.
The French Canadians of the United States, either by birth or origin,
have wisely turned a deaf ear to the Nationalist leader's seductive but
prejudiced theories, to the wild charges he was wont to level at all the
national rulers of the Allies, and, as a final attempt, at those of the
American Republic. They have rallied to their Colours with enthusiastic
patriotism.
They have nobly done their duty. They are doing it, and will continue to
do so to the last: to the final victory for which they are fighting with
the patriotic desire to share in the glory of the triumph of their
country.