By Newell Dwight Hillis.
_Dr. Hillis, who occupies the pulpit of Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn, made famous by the pastorate of the late Henry Ward
Beecher, delivered the following remarkable sermon on the
European War on Sunday, Dec. 20, 1914, choosing as his text
the words: "From whence come wars? Come they not from your own
lusts?"_
Nearly five months have now passed by since the German Army invaded
Belgium and France. These 140 days have been packed with thrilling and
momentous events. While from their safe vantage ground the American
people have surveyed the scene, an old régime has literally crumbled
under our very eyes. Europe is a loom on whose earthen framework
demiurgic forces like Frederick the Great, Bismarck, and Napoleon once
wove the texture of European civilization. Now the demon of war has,
with hot knife, shorn away the texture, and a modern Czar and Kaiser,
King and President, with Generals and Admirals, are weaving the warp and
woof of a new world. One hundred years ago the forces that bred wars
were political forces; today the collision between nations is born of
economic interests. The twentieth century influences are chiefly the
force of wealth and the force of public opinion. These are the giant
steeds, though the reins of the horses may be in the hands of Kings and
Kaisers. In Napoleon's day antagonism grew out of the natural hatred of
autocracy for democracy, of German imperialism for French radicalism.
Today Germany is not even interested in France's republican form of
Government, nor is France concerned with Germany's imperial autocrat.
But all Europe is intensely concerned with the question of economic
supremacy or financial subordination.
Ever since Oliver Cromwell's day England has been the mistress of the
seas, and Germany is envious and believes that she has a right to
supplant England in this naval leadership. France has long been the
banker of Europe, and Germany covets financial leadership. From whence
come wars? Come they not from men's lusts? Now that long time has
passed, it is quite certain that neither Napoleon nor Bismarck nor
William II. understood the future. It is a proverb that yesterday is a
seed, today the stalk, and tomorrow is the full corn in the ear.
Napoleon was a practical man, but he could not see the shock in the
seed. When Napoleon said, "One hundred years from now Europe will be all
republican or all Cossack"--Napoleon was quite wrong. Forty years ago
Bismarck said that he had reduced France to the level of a fourth-class
nation, and that henceforth France did not count; while as for the
Balkan States, "the whole Eastern question is not worth the bones of a
Pomeranian grenadier"--Bismarck was quite wrong. The present Kaiser has
no imagination. A man of any prevision of the future might have foreseen
that any attack upon England would settle the Irish question; that any
treaty with Turkey would force Italy, as Turkey's enemy in the late
Italian-Turkish war, to break with Germany; any man with the least
instinct for diplomacy might have known that the twentieth century man
is so incensed by an enemy's trespass upon his property, that Belgium
would have resisted encroachment, and so cost Germany the best three
weeks of the entire war. If the history of great wars tells us anything,
it tells us that the first qualification of the statesman and diplomat
is an intuitive knowledge of a future that is the certain outcome of the
present. There has been no foresight on the part of the makers and
advisers of this war. Years ago, when the Austrian Emperor visited
Innsbruck, the Burgomaster ordered foresters to go up on the mountain
sides and cut certain swaths of brush. At the moment the man with his
axe did not know what he was doing, but when the night fell, and the
torch was lifted on the boughs, the people in the city below read these
words written in letters of fire, "Welcome to our Emperor." Today the
demon of war has been writing with blazing letters certain lessons upon
the hills and valleys of Europe, and fortunate is that youth who can
read the writing and interpret aright the lessons of the times.
The people of the republic now realize for the first time what are the
inevitable fruits of imperialism and militarism. One of the perils of
America's distance from the scenes of autocracy is that our people have
come to think that the forms of government are of little importance. We
hear it said that climate determines government and that one nation
likes autocracy and another limited monarchy, that we like democracy
self-government, and that the people are about as happy under one form
of control as another. This misconception is based upon a failure to
understand foreign imperialism. Superficially, the fruits of autocracy
are efficiency, industrial wealth, and military power. But now, after
nearly five months of constant discussion, our people understand
thoroughly the other side of imperialism. The 6,000,000 of
German-Americans living in this country, with their high type of
character, millions who have left their native land to escape service in
the army, the burdens of taxation involved in militarism, and the law of
lèse majesté, should have opened our eyes long ago. During the last five
years I have lectured in more than one hundred cities on the New Germany
and the lessons derived from her industrial efficiency, with the
application of science to the production of wealth, but I did not
appreciate fully the far-off harvest of militarism. And, lest an
American overstate the meaning of militarism, let me condense
Treitschke's view. He holds that the nation should be looked upon as a
vast military engine; that its ruler should be the commander of the
army; that his Cabinet should be under Generals; that the whole nation
should march with the force of an armed regiment; that the real "sin
against the Holy Ghost was the sin of military impotence; that such an
army should take all it wants and the territory it needs and explain
afterward." Manufacturers are essentially inventors of cannons and guns
and dreadnoughts, incidentally self-supporting men. Bankers are here to
finance the army and incidentally to make money. Physicians are here to
heal the wounded soldiers. Gymnasiums are founded to train soldiers.
Women are here to breed soldiers, and militarism is the path that will
bring Germany to her place in the sun. The youth is first of all to be a
soldier and incidentally to be a man. No one has indicted Germany's
militarism in stronger language than the distinguished German-American,
Carl Schurz. In words that burn the great statesman expressed his hatred
of the imperialism and militarism against which he helped to organize a
revolution that led to his flight to this country. Of late Americans
have been asking themselves certain questions.
The American Ideal vs. the German.
What will be the result if Germany is allowed to seize any smaller State
whose territory and property she covets? Is all Europe to become an
armed camp? What is the meaning of this German professor's article in
The North American Review, written two or three years ago, in which he
says that once she is victorious the Monroe Doctrine will go and the
United States will receive the "thrashing she so richly deserves"? Must
we then go over to the military ideal? If Germany supports 8,000,000
soldiers out of 66,000,000, must we withdraw from productive industry
12,000,000 men for at least two or three of the best years of their
young life? Must we start in on a programme of ten dreadnoughts a year
instead of building ten colleges and universities for the same sum of
money? Of late Americans who love their country have been searching
their own hearts. Merchants hitherto busied with commerce are asking
themselves whither this country is drifting. Is Germany to compel us to
become a vast military machine? This military question is a subject of
discussion on the street cars and in the stores, at the dining room
table. No articles in paper and magazine are so eagerly read and
analyzed. The American ideal is not a military machine, but a high
quality of manhood. To make men free, with the gift of self-expression;
to make men wise through the public school and the free press; to make
men self-sufficing and happy in their homes, through freedom of
industrial contracts; to make men sound in their manhood through
religious liberty for Jew and Gentile and Catholic and Protestant--these
are our national ideals. America stands at the other pole of the
universe from imperialism and militarism. So far from being willing to
desert the political faith of the fathers, this war has confirmed our
confidence in self-government. Liberty to grow, freedom to climb as high
as industry and ability will permit, liberty to analyze and discuss the
views of President, Congress, Governor--these are our rights. In a
military autocracy there can be no liberty of the printing press. If a
man criticises the Kaiser, he goes to jail; in this republic, if Horace
Greeley criticises Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln does not send the
great editor to jail, but writes the latter, "My paramount object is to
save the Union," and vindicates himself at the bar of the nation. An
American editor or citizen would choke to death in Germany. He could not
breathe because of the mephitic gases of imperialism and militarism. For
a long time some of us did not realize what was involved, but now we do
realize the difference between the fruits of democratic self-government
and the fruits of military imperialism.
The last five months have brought a new realization to American citizens
as to the rights and liberties of small States. In the republic the sin
of trespass is one of the blackest of sins. Here we hold to the
sanctity of property. A man's home is his castle, a citadel that cannot
be invaded even by the power of the State. So deep is the American
hatred of trespass against property rights that imperialism finds it
impossible to understand this. Here the individual is a king of kings in
his native right, and takes out an injunction against the city that
wishes to trespass upon his property. This antagonism manifests itself
in the laws that safeguard the small shopkeeper against the big firm,
and the small manufacturer against any company with its billion dollars
of capital. This antagonism to the sin of trespass has lent a peculiar
sanctity to treaties between Canada and the United States. We have one
hundred millions of people, and Canada nine millions. We need many
things that Canada has, but it is intellectually unthinkable that "we
should take what we want and explain afterward," or that we should
violate our treaty guaranteeing neutrality to Canada. Our frontier line
is three thousand miles long. There is not a fort from Maine to
Victoria. If we adopted Germany's position we would have to build one
thousand forts, withdraw two million young men from the farm, factory,
store and bank, and load the working people with taxes to support them.
In a free land, and in God's world, there should be a place for the poor
man and for the small nation. In the olden time there was a king who had
herds and flocks, and a poor man who had one pet lamb. It came to pass
that a stranger claimed the right of hospitality at the rich man's
palace, and the king sent out and took the poor man's one lamb and gave
it for food to the stranger. And, soon or late, the time will come when
history will tell the story of Germany's taking little Belgium, and
conscience, like a prophet, will indict the militarism that seized the
one lamb that belonged to the poor man. This episode is not closed. The
German representative who says that Belgium is a part of Germany may be
right in terms of future government and war, but the incident has just
begun in the memory of the soldiers who never can forget that they first
broke their sacred treaty, and then, when the Belgian defended his home
as his castle, butchered the man, who died with a sacred treaty in his
hand. Why, all over this land, teachers, fathers, editors, authors, have
found it necessary to say to the young men and women of the republic,
"Do not sign your name to an obligation unless you intend to keep it."
Keep your faith. Remember that your word given should be as good as your
bond. "Swear to your own hurt, and change not." All this is inevitable,
as the result of Germany's trespass upon the property and the homes of
Belgium. In some European lands the State is everything and the
individual nothing. In this republic the individual is first, and the
State is here to safeguard his rights and see to it that no one
trespasses upon his property. The time will come when the nation that
breaks its treaties and sows to the wind shall of that wind reap the
whirlwind. It is an awful thing for a nation to make it inevitable that
hereafter when other people sign a treaty with that country, that our
representatives shall say: "Before we sign this treaty with you, we wish
to ask one question. Later, if it is to your interest to break this
treaty, is this document to be sneered at as a scrap of paper? Or does
this treaty mean the faith of a nation that will die rather than break
its word, given before the tribunal of civilized States?"
The Death of the Tribal God Idea.
This great war and one or two of the leaders thereof have killed the old
tribal idea of God. In the twentieth century it seems almost ludicrous
to find that the conception of the ancient Hebrews is still held by some
rulers. Be the reasons what they may, of late there has been a strange
recrudescence of the tribal God idea. This is the twentieth century, not
the tenth! Think of a man sending his soldiers into Belgium, saying,
"Make yourselves as terrible as the Huns of Attila, and the Lord our God
will give you victory." Just as if God were not the God of the whole
earth, a disinterested God, a God who makes His sun to shine and His
rain to fall upon all His children, without regard to race or clime or
color. Why, it is as artless as the way the old Hebrew peasant called on
God to blast his enemy's field, and drown his children with floods, and
smite his herds with the plague. The tribal idea of God belongs with the
ox cart, the medicine man, the cave dweller. This is an era of science.
Whatever is true is universal, not racial. If the heart beats and the
blood circulates in a German soldier's veins, the blood flows in the
veins of the people of England and France. If the earth goes around the
sun in Berlin, the earth goes around the sun in Petrograd and Edinburgh.
If there are seven rays in the sunbeam, why, the discussion is closed,
and it is a universal fact. And if Jesus was right when He said, "God is
our Father, and all the races are our brothers, and the world has been
fitted up by God as an Eden garden for His children," then no man or
ruler should ever adopt the view of the peasant and the cave man, and
try to make the Eternal God a tribal God. The unconscious humor in the
statements of one or two men as to their tribal God idea has added to
the gayety of nations. But when any view is laughed at, it is doomed.
From the very moment that the doctrine of election, that made God love a
few aristocrats and pass the non-elect by, became a matter of joke in
the comic papers, that theory was dead. Not otherwise is it with this
idea of a tribal God. When Barry Paine begins to say,
Led by William, as you tell,
God has done extremely well,
the tribal idea has been relegated to the theological scrap-heap. The
peasant's view must go. In this age men must be citizens of all
countries and of the universe. God is a sun Who shines for the poor
man's hut as truly as for the rich man's palace. The Judge of all the
earth is also the Father of all the races, and He will do men good and
not evil.
In view of the events of the last few months, all Americans now realize
as never before the futility of war as a means of settling disputes.
Indeed, it may be doubted whether any war has ever settled any question.
Defeat did not convince the South that they were wrong in their idea of
State rights or slavery. If the South has given up both ideas today it
is because time, events, and social progress have changed their view,
not because the sword convinced them. Bismarck's victory at Versailles
and von Moltke's at Sedan did not settle the dispute with France. To
keep one billion dollars of indemnity Germany must have spent five
billions on forts and armies in the government of Alsace and Lorraine.
Germany's apparent victory simply put Germany's trouble with France out
at compound interest, and left the next generation of Germans to pay
several billions of dollars of accrued debt through hatred. Plainly it
is folly not to reconstitute the map of Europe. The frontier lines of
the geographer should exactly coincide with the racial lines. The German
race, with their peculiar ideals, ought not to try to govern the French
race. It is an expensive experiment. It is an impossible experiment. The
plan is doomed to failure in advance. And when the day of payment comes
it is quite certain that the questions at issue will not have been
settled by regiments of soldiers. They must finally be settled by an
appeal to some court of arbitration that will do justice and love mercy;
that will insist upon the rights of the smaller States, and make it
impossible for the great ones of the earth to trespass upon the property
and the liberties of brave little peoples.
Imperialism Confuses Men's Judgments.
Out of the smoke of battle another lesson is written for all who have
eyes to read. In view of the mistakes made by men who have absolute
power it is now certain that exemption from criticism is a bad thing for
any man, and that endless adoration destroys the ruler's power to think
in straight lines. There never lived a man who was not injured by
perpetual compliments. Strong men are willing to pay cash for criticism.
Flattery will conceal the weakness, and they know that pitiless
criticism will expose the danger and perhaps save them. No man is so
unfortunate as the man who is put on a throne lifted up beyond the
reach of plain truth telling. It is doubtful if so many blunders were
ever made by statesmen and diplomats as were made at the beginning of
this war. Just think of one Government being wrong in all these
particulars at the same time! Lincoln said, "You can't fool all of the
people all of the time." Yes, that may be true in a republic, but you
certainly can fool all the diplomats and Generals and do it all the
time--during July and August, in any event. Call the roll of the
diplomatic blunders, and the list is long. First, England will be
neutral and Ireland will keep her from going to war; second, Italy will
be our ally; third, Belgium will be neutral and allow us to trespass
upon her property and her homes; fourth, France is unprepared and Paris
will fall within three weeks; fifth, an alliance with Turkey, despite
her polygamy and butcheries in Armenia and the civilized world's hatred
for her cruelties, will help us; sixth, Japan will hold Russia in check;
seventh, the Czar will be attacked by Bulgaria, Italy, and China. It
seems incredible that any ruler and group of diplomats could be so
entirely wrong, all the time, on every question, for a whole Summer! Was
there no man as diplomat who had the wisdom to see that an attack upon
England would end the disputes in Ireland? And bind together Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India into a new United States of
Great Britain? Was there no statesman with enough prevision of the
future, and with courage to tell the people in Wilhelmstrasse that the
certain result would be the United States of Balkany, to stand
henceforth as a barrier between Germany and the Bosphorus? Was there no
one to remind Berlin that Italy had just completed a war with Turkey and
that any treaty with Turkey meant inevitably the breaking of friendship
with Italy? Alas! for the man who is elevated to a throne, in whose
presence men burn incense, pour forth flattery that he may breathe its
perfume, sing songs of praise that he may slumber!
In concluding our survey of the nations and the stake of each country
in the war, there is one reflection that must be obvious to all thinking
men. This little fire of last August has become a world conflagration.
The nation that first sent out her armies was Germany. There is a
high-water mark of battle in every war, and after that, the invading
waves begin their retreat. The high-water mark of Napoleon's was
Austerlitz and the waves ebbed away at Waterloo. The high-water mark of
the civil war was Gettysburg, and the tide ebbed out at Appomattox.
Belgium's defense cost Germany the three most important weeks of the
war, and her high-water mark was when she was within twenty miles of
Paris. Occasional eddies and returns of the tide there may be, but
nothing is more certain than that there are ten nations and six hundred
millions of men that had rather die than have militarism imposed upon
themselves and their children. Americans who admire German efficiency,
the German people, and want to see German science preserved, and feel an
immeasurable debt to Martin Luther, do not want Germany destroyed. But
Germany will not listen to England, nor France, nor America. There is
only one voice that can reach Germany--it is the voice of the
German-Americans in this country. They are six million strong. They are
among the most honored and esteemed folk in American life. Their
achievements are beyond all praise. The Germans have built Milwaukee and
have done much for St. Louis. The Germans have been great forces in
Cincinnati and Chicago and New York. What wealth among their bankers!
What prosperity among German manufacturers! What solidity of manhood in
these German Lutherans! Was there ever a finer body of farming folk than
the German landowners of the Middle West? The republic owes the
German-American a great debt as to liberty through men like Carl Schurz.
Take Martin Luther and German liberty of thought out of the republic and
this land would suffer an immeasurable loss. Many of these
German-Americans own great estates and have investments in the
Fatherland. Today these six million German-Americans have the centre of
the world's stage. This war is a conflagration that will probably burn
itself out. But if the six million German-Americans organize themselves
and hold great meetings of protest in New York and Brooklyn and Chicago
and Milwaukee, in St. Louis and Cincinnati; if German-American editors
and bankers and business men united their voice, they would be heard.
German-American Man of the Hour.
And do they not owe something to this republic? Having come to the
kingdom for such a crisis as this, should they not use their influence
with the Fatherland? Having escaped conscription and years of military
service, with heavy taxation and enjoyed the liberty of the press;
having become convinced that militarism does not promote the prosperity
and manhood of the people, why should they not as one man ask the
Fatherland now to present their cause to arbitrators? To no body of
American citizens has there ever come a more strategic opportunity, or a
responsibility so heavy. Some of the most thoughtful men in this land
believe that the destiny of Germany rests now largely with the leaders
of the 6,000,000 German-Americans in our country. But no matter what the
outcome, let no man think that God and justice are not fully equal to
this emergency. The great vine of Liberty was planted by Divine hands in
the Eden garden. Just now men are feeding the blossoms of the tree of
life to their war horses and splitting the boughs of that tree into
shafts for their spears. The storm roars through the branches, but the
storm will die out. Better days are coming. It may be that the
convulsion of war will do for Europe what the earthquake did for the
rude folk of Greece--cracked the solid rock and exposed the silver veins
that gave the wealth with which rude men built Athens, with its art, its
literature, its law and its liberty. Take no counsel of crouching fear,
God is abroad in the world. With Him a thousand years are as one day.
When a long time has passed let us believe that self-government will be
found to be the most stable form of government, and that these golden
words, Liberty, Opportunity, Intelligence, and Integrity, will be the
watch-words not only of the republic, but of all the nations of the
earth.