_From the Brooklyn Eagle._
A frank declaration that he was opposed to Germany in the present great
war was the answer returned today [Dec. 21, 1914] by the Rev. Dr. Newell
Dwight Hillis to the protests against his sermon at Plymouth Church last
night, in which he scored militarism and the Kaiser.
Not only did Dr. Hillis come out with the statement that he had said and
meant all to which exception was taken in his sermon, but, in an
interview today in his study, in the Arbuckle Institute, he asserted as
well that he had told but little of what he had come to believe about
Germany. This position, he said, was that America and all the world must
hope for German defeat, and must see that Germany was in the wrong.
"I was for Germany five months ago," said Dr. Hillis. "I have been
lecturing for five years about the lessons we might learn from Germany.
Five months ago, it may be remembered, I gave an interview, in which I
praised Germany and in which I took the part of the German people in the
dreadful war that had come.
"But I have changed my mind. I have seen that I was mistaken. Several
months ago I gave instructions to my lecture bureau to withdraw my
lecture, 'The New Germany,' from my list. That was about the middle of
September, and it was only then that I realized what a German success
would mean to the world--how there could be nothing else but a world of
armed camps, how we in this country, too, would have to adopt militarism
in order to live.
"Just prior to that time, in the first of my Sunday evening sermons in
this course, I had praised the Kaiser. I believed in the German ideals,
I believed in German progress, German inventions, German principles. But
I was wrong. I have now become convinced of what I never imagined
before--that in the German viewpoint the only sin against the Holy Ghost
is military impotency, and, to use Treitschke's words again, the only
virtue is militarism."
The pastor of Plymouth uttered this attack upon Germany with a
scornfulness which the printed word can hardly indicate. He was as
strongly against Germany--more strongly against Germany now than he had
before been in favor of Germany, he said. It was a position, he said, to
which everybody in the United States was turning, and it was inevitable
that Germany should find the world against her.
In his frank avowal of his position regarding Germany and the Kaiser,
Dr. Hillis admitted, too, that his sermon last night had contained more
than appeared on the surface. When he stated in the sermon that 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, he had the Kaiser in mind,
said Dr. Hillis. The sermon is published in full in today's sermon pages
of The Eagle.
In addition, Dr. Hillis said that while he believed that his sermon
could not be considered in any way a violation of President Wilson's
appeal for neutrality, yet, indirectly, the passages to which exception
had been taken could be rightly construed as an attack upon Germany and
the Kaiser.
"You believe that it is right for a minister to use the pulpit to
express his own views upon a subject like this?" was asked.
"I do not believe that it is right for a minister to air his peculiar
political views upon any subject--personal, social, or economic,"
answered Dr. Hillis, emphatically. "The church is a conservatory where a
warm, genial atmosphere should be created. My conception of the work of
a minister is that he is to create an atmosphere in the church on Sunday
so that the Republican with the tariff, the Democrat who believes in
free trade, and the Single Taxer can all grow and express their judgment
during the week.
"The sun and the Summer shine for all kinds of seeds and roots, and the
minister and the church should create an atmosphere in which all
temperaments and races and faiths can grow. It is quite true that there
were some of my German friends and members who rather protested against
my view last night. But they had the same right and liberty to protest
that I have. A German physician told me plainly that he thought that
within six months I would change my view, and with the new light go over
to the position of his native land, and even thought that I might
retract all my studies, that are apparently prejudiced in favor of the
republic and self-government and the liberty of the press. Well, if I do
change my views and am converted to his viewpoint, I certainly will
retract my statements. But I think this improbable. The task of
converting me should be let out as a Government contract--in piecemeal."
Dr. Hillis was reminded here that a number of people were said to have
left the church last night in the course of his sermon as a sign of
protest against the expression of his views. Asked if it were true, Dr.
Hillis answered:
"I did not see many leave," and then declared that it was impossible to
imagine that war should not be discussed in the churches as it was being
discussed everywhere else. He continued with the assertion that he
believed it was his duty as the minister of Plymouth Church to say what
he had, and then made this assertion with a vehemence that was almost
startling:
"Whenever the time comes that I have to add God and the devil together
and divide by two in the name of neutrality, I'll withdraw. I'm not
going to sacrifice my manhood for what some people call neutrality."
It was on this score that Dr. Hillis came out with his unequivocal
declaration that he was against Germany and against the Kaiser. He
asserted that the viewpoint of the German people would have to be
changed if they were to take the place in the world he had thought their
due, five months ago, and he stated there could be no doubt but that the
war was occasioned by Germany's lust for power--political, industrial,
economic.
"I believe that the real issue of this war is largely industrial,"
continued Dr. Hillis. "It is an industrial war and not a political war.
Some days ago I said that the real fight between Germany and the nations
opposed to her was a fight for the possession of the iron fields
recently discovered in Northern France. That statement regarding
Germany's iron deposits and the whole economic situation has been
challenged.
"Instead of modifying my position, I wish to reaffirm it. This is an age
of steel. Without hematite iron deposits Germany cannot build her
steamships, her cannon, her railways, her factories. German engineers
have been saying for five years that another five years will exhaust her
present iron supply. On Page 221 of the volume 'Problems of Power,' the
author says that within a generation 20,000,000 of Germany's people will
have to leave their native land. The pressure of iron and the call of
steel led to Germany's development of the Morocco situation, where there
are valuable iron mines. A short time ago French engineers discovered
the largest and richest body of iron ore in Europe. Fullerton, in his
book on the subject, expresses the judgment that one province has enough
hematite iron ore to last Europe for the next 150 years.
"This diplomat and author said plainly two years ago, in one of his
review articles, that Germany would go to war to obtain the iron
deposits in Northern France, and that if she loses the war, she will
fall behind in the manufacturing race, and that the French bankers and
French engineers will make France the great manufacturing force and the
richest people in Europe. The Napoleonic wars were wars between
political ideas. The collision was between autocracy and bureaucracy and
French democracy and radicalism. The new antagonism grows out of
economic conditions. Germany wants to supersede England upon the seas,
and Germany wants the iron mines of France, and this is the whole
situation in a nutshell.
"No, I am not sinning against the law of neutrality. I am trying to
freshen the old American ideals of self-government for the young men and
women in Plymouth Church. If the whole-hearted support of America's free
institutions involves indirectly a dissent from imperialism and
militarism, I am not responsible. I admit there is a necessary
condemnation of autocracy involved in the mere publication of the
Declaration of Independence. Ours is a Government of laws and not of
men, and I have been discussing the principles of self-government and
not rulers who represent imperialism.
"Neutrality does not mean the wiping out of conviction. There are some
men who think that neutrality means adding God and the devil together
and dividing by two. And there are some statesmen who seem to think that
neutrality means adding together autocracy and democracy, and halving
the result. I do not share that view. I believe it is the first duty of
the German-American and the native-born American to uphold the
fundamental principles of self-government, and of an industrial
civilization as opposed to a military machine, and if this means protest
and criticism, then that protest must be accepted."