_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
The American people without distinction of party are highly content with
the action of their National Administration on all the grave problems
presented to the Government by the sudden outbreak of long-prepared war
in Europe--a war which already involves five great States and two small
ones. They heartily approve of the action of the Administration on
mediation, neutrality, aid to Americans in Europe, discouragement of
speculation in foods, and, with the exception of extreme protectionists,
admission to American registery of foreign-built ships; although the
legislation on the last subject, which has already passed Congress, is
manifestly inadequate.
Our people cannot see that the war will necessarily be short, and they
cannot imagine how it can last long. They realize that history gives no
example of such a general interruption of trade and all other
international intercourse as has already taken place, or of such a
stoppage of the production and distribution of the necessaries of life
as this war threatens. They shudder at the floods of human woe which are
about to overwhelm Europe.
Hence, thinking Americans cannot help reflecting on the causes of this
monstrous outbreak of primitive savagery--part of them come down from
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and part developed in the
nineteenth--and wondering what good for mankind, if any, can possibly
come out of the present cataclysm.
The whole people of the United States, without regard to racial origin,
are of one mind in hoping that mankind may gain out of this prodigious
physical combat, which uses for purposes of destruction and death all
the new forces of nineteenth-century applied science, some new liberties
and new securities in the pursuit of happiness; but at this moment they
can cherish only a remote hope of such an issue. The military force
which Austria-Hungary and Germany are now using on a prodigious scale,
and with long-studied skill, can only be met by similar military force,
and this resisting force is summoned more slowly than that of
Austria-Hungary and Germany, although the ultimate battalions will be
heavier. In this portentous physical contest the American people have no
part; their geographical position, their historical development, and
their political ideals combine to make them for the present mere
spectators, although their interests--commercial, industrial, and
political--are deeply involved. For the moment, the best thing our
Government can do is to utilize all existing neutrality rights, and, if
possible, to strengthen or develop those rights, for out of this war
ought to come more neutral States in Europe and greater security for
neutralized territory.
The Need for Discussion.
The chances of getting some gains for mankind out of this gigantic
struggle will be somewhat increased if the American people, and all
other neutral peoples, arrive through public discussion at some clear
understanding of the causes and the possible and desirable issues of the
war, and the sooner this public discussion begins, and the more
thoroughly it is pursued, the sounder will probably be the tendencies of
public sentiment outside of the contending nations and the conclusions
which the peace negotiations will ultimately reach.
When one begins, however, to reflect on the probable causes of the
sudden lapse of the most civilized parts of Europe into worse than
primitive savagery, he comes at once on two old and widespread evils in
Europe from which America has been exempt for at least 150 years. The
first is secret diplomacy with power to make issues and determine
events, and the second is autocratic national Executives who can swing
the whole physical force of the nation to this side or that without
consulting the people or their representatives.
The actual catastrophe proves that secret negotiations like those
habitually conducted on behalf of the "concert of Europe," and alliances
between selected nations, the terms of which are secret, or at any rate
not publicly stated, cannot avert in the long run outrageous war, but
can only produce postponements of war, or short truces. Free
institutions, like those of the United States, take the public into
confidence, because all important movements of the Government must rest
on popular desires, needs, and volitions. Autocratic institutions have
no such necessity for publicity. This Government secrecy as to motives,
plans, and purposes must often be maintained by disregarding truth, fair
dealing, and honorable obligations, in order that, when the appeal to
force comes, one Government may secure the advantage of taking the other
by surprise. Duplicity during peace and the breaking of treaties during
war come to be regarded as obvious military necessities.
The second great evil under which certain large nations of
Europe--notably Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary--have long suffered
and still suffer is the permanent national Executive, independent of
popular control through representative bodies, holding strong views
about rights of birth and religious sanctions of its authority, and
really controlling the national forces through some small council and a
strong bureaucracy. So long as Executives of this sort endure, so long
will civilization be liable to such explosions as have taken place this
August, though not always on so vast a scale.
Americans now see these things more clearly than European lovers of
liberty, because Americans are detached from the actual conflicts by the
Atlantic, and because Americans have had no real contact with the feudal
or the imperial system for nearly 300 years. Pilgrim and Puritan,
Covenanter and Quaker, Lutheran and Catholic alike left the feudal
system and autocratic government behind them when they crossed the
Atlantic. Americans, therefore, cannot help hoping that two results of
the present war will be: (1) The abolition of secret diplomacy and
secret understandings, and the substitution therefor of treaties
publicly discussed and sanctioned, and (2) the creation of national
Executives--Emperors, Sultans, Kings, or Presidents--which cannot use
the national forces in fight until a thoroughly informed national
assembly, acting with deliberation, has agreed to that use.
Opposite Tendencies.
The American student of history since the middle of the seventeenth
century sees clearly two strong though apparently opposite tendencies in
Europe: First, the tendency to the creation and maintenance of small
States such as those which the Peace of Westphalia (1648) recognized and
for two centuries secured in a fairly independent existence, and,
secondly, a tendency from the middle of the nineteenth century toward
larger national units, created by combining several kindred States
under one executive. This second tendency was illustrated strongly in
the case of both Germany and Italy, although the Prussian domination in
Germany has no parallel in Italy. Somewhat earlier in the nineteenth
century the doctrine of the neutralization of the territories of small
States was established as firmly as solemn treaties could do it. The
larger national units had a more or less federative quality, the
components yielding some of their functions to a central power, but
retaining numerous independent functions. This tendency to limited
unification is one which Americans easily understand and appreciate. We
believe in the federative principle, and must therefore hope that out of
the present European horror will come a new development of that
principle, and new security for small States which are capable of
guaranteeing to their citizens "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness"--a security which no citizen of any European country seems
today to possess.
Some of the underlying causes of the horrible catastrophe the American
people are now watching from afar are commercial and economic. Imperial
Germany's desire for colonies in other continents--such as Great Britain
and France secured earlier as a result of keen commercial ambitions--is
intense. Prussia's seizure of Schleswig in 1864-5 had the commercial
motive; and it is with visions of ports on the North Sea that Germany
justifies her present occupation of Belgium. The Russians have for
generations desired to extend their national territory southward to the
Aegean and the Bosphorus, and eastward to good harbors on the Pacific.
Later they pushed into Mongolia and Manchuria, but were resisted
successfully by Japan. Austria-Hungary has long been seeking ports on
the Adriatic, and lately seized without warrant Herzegovina and Bosnia
to promote her approach toward the Aegean, and is now trying to seize
Servia with the same ends in view. With similar motives Italy lately
descended on Tripoli, without any excuse except this intense desire for
colonies--profitable or unprofitable. On the other hand, the American
people, looking to the future as well as to the past, object to
acquisitions of new territory by force of arms; and since the twentieth
century opened they have twice illustrated in their own practice--first
in Cuba, and then in Mexico--this democratic objection. They believe
that extensions of national territory should be brought about only with
the indubitable consent of the majority of the people most nearly
concerned. They also believe that commerce should always be a means of
promoting good-will, and not ill-will, among men, and that all
legitimate and useful extensions of the commerce of a manufacturing and
commercial nation may be procured through the policy of the "open
door"--which means nothing more than that all nations should be allowed
to compete on equal terms for the trade of any foreign people, whether
backward or advanced in civilization. No American Administration has
accepted a "concession" of land in China. They also believe that
peaceable extensions of territory and trade will afford adequate relief
from the economic pressure on a population too large for the territory
it occupies, and that there is no need of forcible seizure of territory
to secure relief. It is inevitable, therefore, that the American people
should hope that one outcome of the present war should be--no
enlargement of a national territory by force or without the free consent
of the population to be annexed, and no colonization except by peaceable
commercial and industrial methods.
Aggressive Force a Failure.
One of the most interesting and far-reaching effects of the present
outbreak of savagery is likely to be the conviction it carries to the
minds of thinking people that the whole process of competitive
armaments, the enlistment of the entire male population in national
armies, and the incessant planning of campaigns against neighbors, is
not a trustworthy method for preserving peace. It now appears that the
military preparations of the last fifty years in Europe have resulted
in the most terrific war of all time, and that a fierce ultimate
outbreak is the only probable result of the system. For the future of
civilization this is a lesson of high value. It teaches that if modern
civilization is to be preserved, national Executives--whether imperial
or republican--must not have at their disposal immense armaments and
drilled armies held ready in the leash; that armaments must be limited,
an international Supreme Court established, national armies changed to
the Swiss form, and an international force adequate to deal with any
nation that may suddenly become lawless agreed upon by treaty and held
always in readiness. The occasional use of force will continue to be
necessary even in the civilized world; but it must be made not an
aggressive but a protective force and used as such--just as protective
force has to be used sometimes in families, schools, cities, and
Commonwealths.
At present Americans do not close their eyes to the plain fact that the
brute force which Germany and Austria-Hungary are now using can only be
overcome by brute force of the same sort in larger measure. It is only
when negotiations for peace begin that the great lesson of the futility
of huge preparations for fighting to preserve peace can be given effect.
Is it too much to expect that the whole civilized world will take to
heart the lessons of this terrible catastrophe and co-operate to prevent
the recurrence of such losses and woes? Should Germany and
Austria-Hungary succeed in their present undertakings, the whole
civilized world would be obliged to bear continuously, and to an
ever-increasing amount, the burdens of great armaments, and would live
in constant fear of sudden invasion, now here, now there--a terrible
fear, against which neither treaties nor professions of peaceable
intentions would offer the least security.
It must be admitted, however, that the whole military organization,
which has long been compulsory on the nations of Continental Europe, is
inconsistent in the highest degree with American ideals of individual
liberty and social progress. Democracies can fight with ardor, and
sometimes with success, when the whole people is moved by a common
sentiment or passion; but the structure and discipline of a modern army
like that of Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia, has a despotic or
autocratic quality which is inconsistent with the fundamental principles
of democratic society. To make war in countries like France, Great
Britain, and the United States requires the widespread, simultaneous
stirring of the passions of the people on behalf of their own ideals.
This stirring requires publicity before and after the declaration of war
and public discussion; and the delays which discussion causes are
securities for peace. Out of the present struggle should come a check on
militarism--a strong revulsion against the use of force as means of
settling international disputes.
America Cannot Be Indifferent.
It must also be admitted that it is impossible for the American people
to sympathize with the tone of the imperial and royal addresses which,
in summoning the people to war, use such phrases as "My monarchy," "My
loyal people," "My loyal subjects"; for there is implied in such phrases
a dynastic or personal ownership of peoples which shocks the average
American. Americans inevitably think that the right way for a ruler to
begin an exhortation to the people he rules is President Wilson's way:
"My fellow-countrymen."
It follows from the very existence of these American instincts and hopes
that, although the people of the United States mean to maintain
faithfully a legal neutrality, they are not, and can not be, neutral or
indifferent as to the ultimate outcome of this titanic struggle. It
already seems to them that England, France, and Russia are fighting for
freedom and civilization. It does not follow that thinking Americans
will forget the immense services which Germany has rendered to
civilization during the last hundred years, or desire that her power to
serve letters, science, art, and education should be in the least
abridged in the outcome of this war upon which she has entered so
rashly and selfishly and in so barbarous a spirit. Most educated
Americans hope and believe that by defeating the German barbarousness
the Allies will only promote the noble German civilization.
[Illustration: JOHN W. BURGESS
_(Photo by Alman & Co.)_
_See Page 507_]
[Illustration: WILLIAM M. SLOANE
_(Photo by Pach.)_
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The presence of Russia in the combination against Germany and
Austria-Hungary seems to the average American an abnormal phenomenon;
because Russia is itself a military monarchy with marked territorial
ambitions; and its civilization is at a more elementary stage than that
of France or England; but he resists present apprehension on this score
by recalling that Russia submitted to the "Concert of Europe" when her
victorious armies were within seventeen miles of Constantinople, that
she emancipated her serfs, proposed The Hague Conferences, initiated the
"Duma," and has lately offered--perhaps as war measures only--autonomy
to her Poles and equal rights of citizenship to her Jews. He also
cannot help believing that a nation which has produced such a literature
as Russia has produced during the last fifty years must hold within its
multitudinous population a large minority which is seething with high
aspirations and a fine idealism.
For the clarification of the public mind on the issue involved, it is
important that the limits of American neutrality should be discussed and
understood. The action of the Government must be neutral in the best
sense; but American sympathies and hopes cannot possibly be neutral, for
the whole history and present state of American liberty forbids. For the
present, thinking Americans can only try to appreciate the scope and
real issues of this formidable convulsion, and so be ready to seize
every opportunity that may present itself to further the cause of human
freedom, and of peace at last.