Chapter VI (2)

We must now fight with all our might on European soil beside our allies or else fear the day when we will have to fight without allies beside our burning homes. While this war lasts, the cause of our allies is our cause, their defeat would be our defeat, and whoever assails them or defends Germany is a traitor to the United States. There must be no negotiated peace. Belgium is entitled to an enormous indemnity and France to annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. By her marine murders and her shore raids and her utter treachery and abominable cruelty, Germany has made herself the outlaw among nations, and with her we should negotiate only through the mouths of our cannon. All who now advocate a negotiated peace with her are seeking to betray civilization in the interest of brute force and international outrage. The United States owes her entrance into this war almost as much to the American pacifist as to the German militarist, and now the former is meanly eager once more to serve the latter by securing an unjust peace. Let every brave and patriotic American spurn the base counsels of the pro-Germans and pacifists, and insist that this country, at whatever cost, fight steadfastly until the war closes with Germany’s complete overthrow.

FIGHTING WORK FOR THE MAN OF FIGHTING AGE

OCTOBER 25, 1917

The Y.M.C.A. is one of the most powerful agencies for good in our military camps here at home and with our armies abroad. It would be a veritable calamity not to have it do this work. The women and the elderly men who have gone abroad under present conditions are rendering a patriotic service of high value, but every young man of fighting age who has gone abroad for the Y.M.C.A. at this time is a positive damage to the work and should be instantly sent home. It is an ignoble thing for an able-bodied man to be in such a position of bodily safety where his example must naturally excite contempt and resentment among the men who, unlike him, are risking their lives and have left their families for the sake of a great ideal. Of course, no man of draft age should be sent over, but this is not enough. The draft represents merely the minimum performance of duty. No man of age to permit his entering the army abroad or at home should be sent over. If any such man is not in the army, it should be either because he has been turned down by the army authorities for physical reasons or because his work at home either for his family or for the Government imperatively demands his presence here. If he is able to go abroad at all, he should go abroad in the army. The fact that he is abroad for the Y.M.C.A. is proof positive that he has no business to be there.

An officer in high command in France recently wrote home a letter, which I have seen, describing the experiences of the junior officers of his command with some of the young able-bodied Y.M.C.A. representatives. He began by an emphatic testimony to the admirable work the Y.M.C.A. had done and to its great importance, and by an emphatic statement that it had a thoroughly bad effect on the enlisted men to see a young man of their own age engaged in such work. He then illustrated its effect on the young officers with whom these Y.M.C.A. men messed, writing:

Two young Y.M.C.A. men have been at two of the battalion messes. They are of the age whose presence here is an annoyance to the army because they seem to have been exempted from the draft. They have obtained bullet-proof jobs and their presence here is a bad example to all the young men in the army. Last night at one mess the officers were so disgusted with the Y.M.C.A., who was actually wearing a uniform with an officer’s belt on, that they began to chaff him, telling him that they were married men and were entitled to play safety first themselves and thought they would apply for jobs in the Salvation Army. The Y.M.C.A. had to stand for this because he was the only unmarried man there, and it is said that his mother persuaded him that he owed her a duty not to go in a dangerous place. He evidently feels his duty keenly. The other young fellow from the Y.M.C.A. was a real man and he left the soft job and has enlisted as a private.

The Y.M.C.A. is so very useful an organization that it is profoundly to be regretted that it should in any way damage its usefulness. Its work with the armies abroad should be done exclusively by women and elderly men. No able-bodied man under forty-five should represent the Y.M.C.A. in the war zone or with the army camps.

WISE WOMEN AND FOOLISH WOMEN

OCTOBER 27, 1917

There are wise and foolish women just as there are wise and foolish men, and in any great crisis the welfare of this country depends upon the extent to which the wise and patriotic men and the wise and patriotic women can offset or overcome the folly of the foolish.

The woman who bravely and cheerfully sends her men to battle when the country calls takes her place high on the national honor roll. She stands beside the mothers and wives of the men of ’76 and of the men who wore the blue and the gray in the Civil War. Where would this country now be if Washington’s mother had not raised her boy to be a soldier for the right?

But the women who do not raise their boys to be soldiers when the country needs them are unfit to live in this republic. The women who at this time try to dissuade their husbands or sons who are of military age from entering the army or navy are thoroughly unworthy citizens. The kind of affection which shows itself by refusing to allow the boy to face hard work when it is his duty to do so, the mother who brings up her boy to be a worthless idler, because she is too fond of him to see him suffer the discomfort of hard work, and the mother who desires her boy to play the coward or the shirk, in time of war, are not merely foolish; they are poor citizens. They are the real enemies of their sons, for there can be no more dangerous enemy than the human being, man or woman, who teaches another human being to lose his soul in order to save his body. The wise mother is the best of all good citizens and the foolish mother stands almost at the other end of the scale. I wish every mother in the land could read Theodosia Garrison’s poem, recently sent out by that stirring body of patriots, the Vigilantes. It describes the youth of twenty years, eager to play a manly part while his mother seeks to hold him from the post of danger and duty, and two of the verses run:

Mother of his twenty years, who holds against his will
The eager heart, the quick blood, and bids them to be still,
What of the young untrammeled soul you seek to blunt and kill?

You would save the body stainless and complete,
Fetters on the hands of it, shackles on the feet;
And in the crippling of them make soul and body meet.

WHY CRY OVER SPILT MILK?

OCTOBER 28, 1917

Nice, short-sighted persons, when the evil effects of our folly in failing to prepare are pointed out, sometimes ask, “Why cry over spilt milk?” The answer is that we wish to be sure that we do not spill it again, and, unfortunately, the nice persons who bleat against any one who points out our shortcomings in preparedness or who excuse and champion those responsible for this unpreparedness, are doing all they can to invite future disaster for the Nation.

The bleat assumes different expressions in different localities. Recently the Mayor of Abilene, Texas, expressed his disapproval of my pointing out that we, as a Nation, had wholly failed to prepare, by saying that I was “a seditious conspirator who ought to be shot dead,” and that the editor of the newspaper publishing the article “should be tarred and feathered.” Although differing in method of expression, this slightly homicidal bleat of the gentle-souled (and doubtless entirely harmless) Mayor of Abilene, Texas, is exactly similar in thought to the utterances of all these sheeplike creatures who raise quavering or incoherent protests against every honest and patriotic man who points out the damage done by our failure to prepare.

These persons cannot deny one fact I state. Nine months have passed since, on January 31, Germany sent us a note which was practically a declaration of war. We have only just put troops in the trenches; many of the troops of our draft army training at home have until recently only had broomsticks, and now only have one old Spanish War rifle for every eight soldiers; most of the artillery regiments in these camps either have no guns or wooden guns. After nine months we are still wholly unable to defend ourselves or to render efficient military aid to our allies, and we owe safety from invasion only to the protection of the fleets and armies of the war-worn and weary nations to whose help we nominally came. No man can truthfully deny these statements, no man can seriously regard this situation as satisfactory. To try to cover up the truth by bluster and brag and downright falsehoods may possibly deceive ourselves, but will deceive no one else, whether friend or foe. Is such foolish deceit worth while?

Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. We were not wise in time. Let us learn from our past folly future wisdom. Our first duty is to win this war, and therefore the Shadow Hun within our gates is our worst internal foe. Our next and equally important duty is to prepare against disaster in the future, and therefore our next worst internal foe is the sheeplike creature who invites national disaster for the future by bleating against the telling of the truth in the present.

SAVE THE FOODSTUFF

OCTOBER 30, 1917

Mr. Hoover has been appointed as the man to lead us of this Nation in the vitally important matter of producing and saving as much food as we possibly can in order that we can send abroad the largest possible amount for the use of our suffering allies and for the use of our own gallant soldiers. Mr. Hoover’s preëminent services in Belgium pointed him out as of all the men in this country the man most fit for the very position to which he has been appointed. Let us give him our most hearty and loyal support.

In this great and terrible war the slaughter, starvation, and exhaustion are on a scale never before known. They are nation-wide. Therefore every individual of every nation engaged must do his full part or else must be held to have failed in his duty. The man of fighting age must fight. The man with especial business capacity or mechanical skill must produce arms or equipment or ammunition. And every man, woman, or child must help produce food if possible, and in any event must help economize it.

Mr. Hoover has asked us during this week to devote ourselves to getting all our people voluntarily to pledge themselves to certain forms of food economy,--which are of great consequence from the standpoint of sending abroad the foodstuffs needed by our Allies and by our own troops. There are certain foods which are easily transported which are nourishing and which are peculiarly suited for the use both of our allies and of our troops in the field. Mr. Hoover’s plan is that we shall all of us voluntarily limit along strict lines our consumption of these food products and replace them by other foods which are not suitable for sending abroad, and that we shall rigidly avoid waste. Full particulars are given in the pamphlets sent out by Mr. Hoover from his Washington Bureau of Food Conservation.

What Mr. Hoover asks entails not the slightest real hardship on any of us. It merely requires each of us to exercise a little self-control and perhaps to make some trivial sacrifice of personal preference in what we eat. Surely this is a very, very small service to be rendered by us stay-at-homes in support of our sons and brothers who have gone or are going to risk their lives in battle for us and mankind.

ON THE FIRING LINE

OCTOBER 31, 1917

Our men are now actually on the firing line, and while, of course, they are as yet there primarily for purposes of instruction, nevertheless, they are there. They are at times under fire. They are at any moment liable to death in upholding the honor of their country, of your country, my reader, and of mine.

General Pershing’s original division under his direction and the direction of his lieutenants, such as Major-General Sibert, Brigadier-General Duncan, and their associates, has evidently been trained to a high point of efficiency. The accounts show that the infantry effected their entrance to the trenches with the precision of veterans. Evidently the artillery is being handled with similar efficiency. Apparently, from the account, our artillerymen are using French guns.

All Americans must feel a glow of pride as he reads of the soldierly manner in which our American troops have made their entry into the fire zone. But we must not confine ourselves merely to feeling pride in our fellow countrymen who are at the front risking their lives in doing their duty on behalf of all of us. We must back them up. We must support the Government in every movement taken efficiently to put the strength of this Nation behind our soldiers, and we must vigilantly insist upon the efficiency including the speed absolutely indispensable. We must support the Liberty Loans, conserve food, cheerfully pay taxes, and tolerate neither improper profit-making out of the war by capitalists or strikers,--nor slackness and malingering which interferes with our military efficiency by laboring men. Every American civilian should now do his work with the same sense of duty as is shown by the soldiers in the field.

And now let good patriots keep in mind that the Huns within our gates from this time on are the allies of the Huns who are actually doing battle against our soldiers at the front. The men who directly or indirectly advise people not to take Liberty bonds, the men who clamor for an early peace, an inconclusive or negotiated peace, the men who condone the offenses of Germany directly or indirectly, the men who say we have not ample cause for war against Germany, the men who attack our allies or seek to breed dissension between them and us, are each and every one to a greater or less degree acting as friends of Germany and therefore as enemies of the United States. Every patriotic American should now clearly understand what is really implied in the attitude taken during the last nine months by the Stones and La Follettes, the Hearsts and Hillquits. These men are out of place in America. It is sincerely to be regretted that they cannot be put where they belong--under the Hohenzollerns.

NINE TENTHS OF WISDOM IS BEING WISE IN TIME

NOVEMBER 1, 1917

A few days ago I expressed in The Star the regret and uneasiness felt by all men with knowledge of international matters at the failure of this country to declare war on Austria and Turkey. Various Administration, and, of course, the leading pro-German, newspapers took exception to this statement and announced that the procedure advocated would be unwise or improper. Since then the great defeat of the Italian army by the Germans and Austrians has occurred, and among the Italians there has been much bitter criticism of our failure to help them, although we have now for many months been at war, at least in theory, with Germany.

A leading Administration newspaper of high standing, the Brooklyn Eagle, accurately states the case as follows:

Italy’s defeat is shocking and alarming. Only its unexpectedness excuses the failure of Italy’s allies, including ourselves, to meet it. This Government cannot evade responsibility if Italy is lost, for we have been up to the present, quite as indifferent as the rest of the Entente to Italy’s fate. Italy suffers and is endangered by our own negative attitude. We have loaned her money, but we are not at war with Austria, and we have failed to give Italy such whole-hearted support as her critical position demands. No time should be lost in reversing this policy. Italy is fighting our battles as well as her own. She is a valuable ally; her cause is just. No effort should be spared to save her. There is no time to compromise or equivocate. Our own soldiers in Europe will have to pay in blood for every hour’s delay in throwing all possible help to Italy.

This is the exact truth. I call attention to the fact that it is from a strong supporter of the Administration and that it takes the view I have for months been taking, and which various well-meaning but sheeplike creatures have bleated against on the ground that it implies criticism of the Administration. I was merely advocating before the event the course, which, after the event, all will agree ought to have been followed. It is in this matter precisely as it was in regard to our building ships to meet the terrible U-boat menace. We should, with the utmost energy and speed, have begun to build them within a week, within a day, of the German note of January 31. Instead of this we dawdled and wrangled for six months before seriously beginning. In the one case as in the other foolish creatures did immense harm by protesting against pointing out our blunders on the ground that we must not speak of spilt milk, whereas, of course, we can only stop future spilling by showing where it has been spilt in the past.

Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time, is the lesson as taught afresh by the Italian disaster and the shortage of cargo ships. Let us at last profit by it.

WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH

NOVEMBER 2, 1917

The disaster to our Italian ally should make every American worth calling such awake to the real needs of the hour and should arouse in him the inflexible purpose to see that this war is fought through to a victorious conclusion, no matter how long it takes, no matter what the expense and loss may be.

Our first troops are now actually in the trenches; American infantry and American artillerymen are under fire; blood has been shed. Our sons and brothers have begun the trench life of wearing fatigue, of cold, of inconceivable hardship and exposure and of cruel danger. A few women at home suffer as much. Otherwise, no civilians outside the regions conquered by the Germans can begin to realize the terrible strain to which constantly increasing numbers of our soldiers will be exposed as additional divisions are trained for and put into the actual fighting.

We who stay at home must back up those men in every way. We must stand by and energetically support every effort of the Government to add to their efficiency and to back them up, including the sending over of constantly increasing numbers of soldiers to the aid of the men already there. We must back up the loans and taxes necessary in order to supply them with arms, munitions, equipment, food, hospitals. We must hold to the strictest accountability before the bar of public opinion any Government official responsible for needless delay, or for shortage in shipping, clothing, or material, or for deficient ammunition, or faulty gas-masks, or for any other shortage which exposes our men at the front to needless danger and hardship. We must make their effort and their suffering avail by highly resolving that the whole power of this Nation, and all its resources in men and in wealth, shall be used to bring the peace of complete and overwhelming triumph over Germany and over Germany’s subject allies, Austria and Turkey.

Finally, every brave and patriotic American owes it to the men at the front to make the lash of scorn felt by the Hearsts and La Follettes and by all others like them. These men have given or now give aid and comfort to Germany, and therefore show themselves enemies to the soldiers in the American uniform by opposing the war, or by asking for an inconclusive peace, or by assailing the allies of the United States, or by condoning or keeping silent concerning the hideous atrocities which have made the Prussianized empire of the Hohenzollerns the arch enemy of every liberty-loving and self-respecting civilized nation on the face of the globe.

SINISTER ALLIES

NOVEMBER 3, 1917

There are well-meaning, but not overwise, persons who bleat against any sincere and truthful effort to make us more efficient in this war by protesting against grave shortcomings. These worthy persons should realize that they are acting against the interest of the United States and in the interest of Germany. If they doubt this, they have only to ponder the fact that in their attitude they stand beside such sinister allies as German papers like the New York Staats Zeitung and Illinois Staats Zeitung and the various papers of Mr. Hearst.

These papers have opposed our going to war, or have assailed our allies, or have condoned or passed over in silence the brutal infamy of Germany. They have opposed the Government in its actions against Germany. In so doing they have been the enemies of America. And they have been no less the enemies of America when they have eagerly defended the Government from criticism for shortcomings which impair our efficiency and therefore tell in favor of Germany. Exactly as they once opposed preparedness, or excused the murderous sinking of the Lusitania, or protested against our going to war, so they now zealously exhibit a sham loyalty of the most hurtful kind by denouncing honest and truthful men because they tell the truth.

In order really to serve this country, it is necessary to point out the dreadful damage done by our failure to prepare; of the evil effect of trying to train our troops with broomsticks and wooden guns; the worse than folly of failing to declare war on Austria and Turkey, and the harm done by the delays, including the dawdling for six months before we began the vitally necessary work of shipbuilding. To cover up such shortcomings deceives no one but ourselves. Germany knows all about them. We help her to find out by our failure to treat her spies with drastic severity. And the men who suffer know all about them; the artillerymen with only a wooden cannon, or the sentry in a cotton uniform on a cold night stands in no need of enlightenment on the subject. When these pro-German papers with loud professions of loyalty protest against telling our people the truth about such matters, they are merely serving Germany against the United States.

Loyalty to the Nation demands that we subscribe to the Liberty Loans; that we practice food conservation; that we ardently support sending our soldiers abroad until we have millions of men on the firing line; that we stand for universal obligatory military training and service; that we heartily uphold our allies and condemn as traitors to America all who attack them; that we insist on prosecuting the war to complete victory and condemn as false to this country all who seek an inconclusive peace. Loyalty to the Nation no less demands that we make our people understand the lasting harm done by our failure to prepare during the two and a half years before the war broke out and the grave damage now caused by needless delay, by irresolution, by the appointment or retention of inefficient men, and by any and all types of half-heartedness in waging the war.

THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION

NOVEMBER 8, 1917

The triumph of Tammany in New York City and the large Socialist vote have in some quarters been hailed as showing that New York City is for peace at any price and that it is against the Administration. Neither statement is warranted by the facts.

The Socialist vote was about one-fifth of the total vote. It included most of those who wished the war stopped at once, this number being made up of professional pacifists, of red flag Anarchists, and of poor, ignorant people who pathetically believed that a Socialist mayor would somehow bring peace at once. But it also included its professional Socialists and poor, ignorant people who did not think of the war, but who pathetically believed that a Socialist mayor would somehow give them five-cent milk. The voters in New York City who wish immediate peace without any regard to national honor, or to what future horrors such a peace would bring, are certainly less than a fifth of the whole.

The vote was not anti-Administration. A far larger proportion of the supporters of the Administration voted for Mr. Hylan than for Mr. Mitchel, and officially the Administration was neutral between the two. A goodly number of pro-Germans supported Mr. Hylan, but he was also supported by a large number of entirely loyal men, and he himself, unlike the Socialist candidate, Mr. Hillquit, was avowedly for America against Germany, and for the prosecution of the war. The election in actual fact turned directly on local issues. New York occasionally witnesses an occasional insurrection of virtue, but the city has never in fifty years given a good administration a second term. The insurrection of virtue at one election is followed by a Tammany revival at the next.

The result of the election in New York City was not heartening to patriotic persons, but right next door, in the Connecticut congressional district which includes Bridgeport, a contest for a vacant congressional seat resulted in a way that speaks well for the Republic. The Republican candidate, Schuyler Merritt, a man of high probity and capacity, with a forward look in international affairs, came out in bold and straightforward fashion, saying he would support the President in all measures for the efficient prosecution of the war until victory came, that he would do all he could to prevent our again falling into the condition of shameful unpreparedness we had for three years occupied, and that he was for universal obligatory military training for our young men. He won by a majority much greater than that which his predecessor received at the time of the presidential election last year.

GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA

NOVEMBER 13, 1917

There have recently been published various books by Americans who, during the Great War, have officially represented this country in Germany and in Belgium, when the Germans conquered it. Ambassador Gerard is one writer. Mr. Gibson, secretary of our legation at Brussels, is another. Mr. Curtis Roth, until recently vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, is a third. Their testimony is of profound significance because of their official position and personal standing.

Two facts leap to the eye from their writings. The first is that the German people have stood practically united behind their Government in upholding and insisting upon the systematic infliction of hideous brutality upon their foes. With deliberate purpose the German Government has carried on a war of horror, a war of obscene cruelty, of wholesale slaughter, of foul treachery and bestiality, a war in which civilians, including women, children, nurses, doctors, and priests, as well as wounded soldiers, have been murdered wholesale. The German people have enthusiastically supported and approved their acts. Our war is as much with the German people as with their Government, and we should regard with loathing all Americans, whether men or women, who any way attempt to justify or defend Germany’s action. The Americans who so act are traitors to their country and to humanity at large.

The second fact is the extreme malevolence of hatred with which Germany regards America, a hatred which blossomed into full growth before we went to war, and which was immensely aggravated because of the contempt inspired by our tame submission to outrage for over two years. Mr. Roth’s testimony is peculiarly interesting. He shows that the Berlin Government actively stimulated the campaign of hatred and revenge against America, that the German people eagerly accepted the view that Americans were cowardly, avaricious, and effeminate, and that in Germany it was constantly announced that, sooner or later, there would be a day of reckoning when America would have to pay a huge indemnity or suffer the fate of Belgium.

Mr. Roth shows that the German people think exactly as their leaders think. They now hate and despise us Americans as they hate others of their foes. Says Mr. Roth:

They are resolved to make our country drink to the dregs out of the bitter cup of humiliation. Nothing do they find more despicable than our talk about peace, which they attribute to cowardice and flabbiness. They look on the American pacifist as a weakling, as a God-given tool in the hands of German interest.... The Germans, if possible, feel more bitterly towards Americans of German extraction than towards Americans of other lines of descent.

Germany has definitely decided on America’s ruin. She has definitely decided that there must be an intense anti-American spirit in both Government and people. She may bide her time, and she will doubtless try to separate us from our allies, but her purpose towards us is both relentless and ruthless.

If we are true to ourselves, if we prepare our armed strength and keep it prepared, if we show farsightedness and valor of soul, we can be sternly indifferent to this foul and evil hatred. But we must keep steadily in mind that Germany respects nothing whatever except courage and prepared strength and that the pacifists and pro-Germans, the Huns within our gates, the Hearsts and the La Follettes, are playing the game of our German foes, and if they have their way will bring shame and disaster to our land.

START THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING AT ONCE

NOVEMBER 17, 1917

Lieutenant-General S. B. M. Young, U.S.A., retired, gave long, faithful, and efficient service to this country, from the beginning of the Civil War, for nearly half a century. But he never has rendered greater service than by his steady insistence upon the immediate introduction by law in this country of the system of obligatory universal military training as our permanent policy. This should be done at once; and all the young men from nineteen to twenty-one should be called out as soon as there are means of training them. They need not fight until they are twenty-one. But they are least needed as economic assets; they are most needed as military assets; and it is cruelty to them not to train them in advance.

The selective draft was far better than nothing. But let us never forget that it represented doing imperfectly after the event that which ought to have been done thoroughly long before the event. We have been at war three quarters of a year, and the drafted men, admirable material though they are, are only just beginning to be trained and as yet are not even armed and properly clothed. We are trying to train our soldiers to perform the duties of soldiers after the war has begun; and we can attempt the experiment at all only because the English and French protect us from our enemies while we make it. Hereafter let us train the man to perform the tasks of a soldier before he is called to be a soldier in war. Only thus can we be just both to him and to the country.

The present economic disturbance in the Nation was inevitable, in view of our failure at the outset of the Great War to introduce the system of universal, obligatory military training; and this failure is also responsible for the fact that our national army, nine months after our entry into the war, has only begun training, instead of being already trained. Let us now at least provide for the future. The amendment to the law above outlined, as advocated by the National Association for Universal Military Training, of which General Young is president, would add nearly two million men to our army, would cause the minimum of interference with our economic life, and would not necessitate any additional expense for training quarters.

The men thus trained will be immensely benefited from the standpoint of their success in civil life; for universal training would be of immense economic benefit to the Nation. As Cardinal Gibbons has well said, “The legislation proposed will benefit youths from nineteen to twenty-one years, morally as well as physically, and help to prepare them for their work in peace as well as for the sterner needs of war.”

This is the only democratic system. General Young himself rose from being an enlisted man in the ranks to being the lieutenant-general of the army of the United States. Under universal training let all candidates for West Point and all other candidates for commissions be chosen with absolute fairness from among the men who have served a year in the field with the colors. And in the navy let all candidates for Annapolis be chosen from enlisted men of the navy who have served at least a year as such and who are still serving.

A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE

NOVEMBER 20, 1917

The attitude of the United States at this moment toward Germany’s three vassal allies, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, is a fifty-fifty attitude between peace and war. It is not honest war, neither is it honest neutrality. It is the attitude of the backwoodsman, who, seeing a black animal in his pasture at dusk and not knowing whether it was a bear or a calf, fired so as to hit it if it was a bear and miss it if it was a calf. Such marksmanship is never happy.

Bulgaria is now simply the tool of Germany and Turkey. I was formerly a stanch champion of Bulgaria, and would be again if she returned to her senses. But she now serves the devil, and shame be upon us if we do not treat her accordingly. No one can doubt that the Bulgarian Legation is an agency for German spies in this country. The Administration has published reports showing that for over a year, previous to our entry into the war, the German Embassy was the center of the spies and dynamiters with whom Germany was already waging war against us. These papers show that Germany’s allies are her mere tools and that Germany is withheld by no scruple from the commission of every conceivable treacherous intrigue and brutal outrage against us. Under these conditions it is a grave offense against our allies not to declare war on all of Germany’s allies.

Turkey has been and is the tool of Germany, but Germany has permitted her on her own account to perpetrate massacres on the Armenian and Syrian Christians which renders it little short of an infamy now to remain at peace with her. It is hypocritical to express sympathy with the Armenians and appoint messages to be read in the churches about them and yet refuse to do the only thing that will permanently help them which is to declare war on Turkey.

With Austria our present relations are less definable than our relations with any other power. No one can truthfully say exactly whether our attitude is one of peace or war. We have not declared war on Austria and yet we are furnishing money, coal, and munitions to Italy in order to enable her to fight Austria. If we really are at peace with Austria, we are flagrantly violating our duty as a neutral and we ought to be condemned in any international court. But if we are really at war, then we are committing the cardinal crime of hitting soft. If we had gone to war with Austria when we broke with Germany and had acted with proper energy, the disaster to Cadorna would probably not have occurred.

We are now taking part in the general council of our allies. The only way in which to make our part in the war thoroughly effective and our leadership felt to the utmost is whole-heartedly to throw ourself into the war on the side of all our allies and against all their and our enemies.

THE GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS AND PEACE

NOVEMBER 26, 1917

The American Socialist party at the present time is a thoroughly Germanized annex of the Prussianized militaristic and capitalistic autocracy of the Hohenzollerns. Honest social reformers have left it. No patriotic American ought longer to stay in it. It is purely an aid to the capitalist and militarist Hohenzollern party of Germany. It is a bitter enemy of the United States and a traitor to the cause of liberty throughout the world. Its leaders are the supporters of an alien autocracy and are seeking to secure a peace which would immensely benefit this Prussian autocracy. They stand beside the Bolsheviki, whose antics have made Russia at this moment a by-word, both of derision and hope to every believer in despotism and every opponent of liberty throughout the world.

Any man who feels that there is the slightest exaggeration in the above statements would do well to read the articles in which the New York Tribune has recently set forth the connection of Mr. William Bayard Hale with the pro-German propaganda in this country, with the Hearst papers and with the Socialist campaign in New York on behalf of Mr. Hillquit and a peace satisfactory to Germany. These articles should be published in permanent form and circulated as a tract among all decent Americans who still believe that the Germanized Socialist party in America to-day is anything except the foe of America, the foe of democratic liberty throughout the world, and the tool and ally of the autocrats, the capitalists, and the brutal and unscrupulous military chiefs of the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns.

Exactly as the reactionary is in the end the worst foe of order; exactly as the conscienceless and greedy man of wealth is in the end the worst foe of property and of honest and duty-performing holders of property, so the Anarchist and the wild Socialist, whose doctrines when applied necessarily lead to Anarchy and the I.W.W., and the crack-brained professional pacifists inevitably themselves are the worst enemies of freedom, of true democracy, and of righteousness. It is natural that in this terrible and melancholy world crisis these men should have struck hands with the sordid tools of German intrigue in this country. The masters of Germany find all these men, whatever their nominal differences, united in the evil bond of a common subserviency to German purposes. The German rulers, who at home trample on the Socialists and dragoon the labor organizations and bully the leader of democratic thought, cynically profit by aiding in other countries the men who in the name of social reform seek to overthrow orderly liberty and thereby show themselves the sinister allies of tyranny and despotism.

MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER

DECEMBER 1, 1917

It has been announced from Washington that, in view of the shortage of labor on the farms, there will be an effort in Congress to permit the importation for temporary use on the farms of Chinese coolies. I do not believe the effort will be successful, and if it were successful it would be one of the greatest calamities that could befall the American people.

Never under any condition should this Nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen and the father of other citizens who are to live in this land as fellows with our children and our children’s children. Our immigration laws, permanent or temporary, should always be constructed with this fact in view. No temporary advantages from the importation of Chinese coolies would offset the far-reaching ultimate damage it would cause.

Neither ought we to approve the plan, sometimes set forth by zealous and high-minded men, to get the Government to open up vast tracts of land and farm it with wage labor. This is a proposal to substitute a wage-earning agricultural proletariat for a farming population which owns the land it tills. It is a move in exactly the wrong direction. We ought by law to do everything possible to put a stop to the growth of an absentee landlord class and of huge estates worked by tenant farmers. Methods identical with or similar to those advocated by me, in my recent book, “The Foes of Our Own Household,” point the way to the proper permanent solution of the question.

As a war measure, rather than adopt either of the proposals above enumerated, let us deal boldly with the situation created by the existence of such vast numbers of men in good physical condition, who are not being utilized. The best war asset and labor asset in this country is the mass of young men from eighteen to twenty-one. This draft law explicitly and unjustifiably excepts this class, although in the Civil War most of the soldiers entered the army when they were under twenty-one. Let us proclaim as our policy that while this war lasts no man shall be excused from doing the full duty which the Nation finds it necessary to demand from him. Make all the young men from eighteen to twenty-one immediately liable to service, permit no exceptions for any men, no matter how wealthy, who are not already in the army. Use as many of the men thus taken as are necessary to fill the camps when the present drafted men of the national army leave them. Use all the others, and use these men, too, until the camps are ready for them, as labor which the Nation shall mobilize for farm work or any other work which it is imperative to do, and mobilize all the alien labor now in the country in similar fashion.

THE LANSDOWNE LETTER

DECEMBER 2, 1917

Lord Lansdowne’s proposal is for a peace of defeat for the Allies and of victory for Germany. Such a peace would leave oppressed peoples under the yoke of Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Such a peace would leave the liberty-loving nations of mankind at the ultimate mercy of the triumphant militarism and capitalism of the German autocracy.

It merely makes such a peace worse to try to hide the shame of the defeat behind the empty pretense of forging a league of nations, including Germany, to secure future peace. Such a peace would mean that Germany saw her unspeakable brutality and treachery crowned by essential triumph and therefore would put a premium upon her repeating the brutality and treachery at the earliest convenient moment. It is mere hypocrisy to promise to put a stop to wrongdoing in the future unless we are willing to undergo the labor and peril necessary to stop wrongdoing in the present. In our own country nothing but harm was done by the worthy persons who, a couple of years ago, formed a league to enforce peace in the future, while at the same time they nervously declared that they would have nothing to do with enforcing peace by stopping international wrong in the present. Lord Lansdowne’s proposal to hide the admission of present defeat behind the camouflage of pretended international peace agreements for the future is unworthy of his distinguished services and reputation.

Our people ought never to forget that Germany respects nothing but strength and the readiness and ability to use it. Germany has made a fetish of able brutality. She regards with utter derision the pacifists and pro-Germans in this country. She will use them as her tools and pay them when necessary, but if through this aid she was able to conquer this country after previously separating us from our allies, she would with utter indifference break these tools and throw them on the scrap-heap with the rest of the American people.

There is but one safe course to follow, and that is to fight this war through to victory at no matter what cost. This Nation should declare war on Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, this week. Let us definitely announce that our aims include restoring and indemnifying Belgium, giving back Alsace and Lorraine to France, creating a Poland which shall include all the Poles and a greater Bohemia and a great Jugo-Slav commonwealth and restoring Rumanian Hungary to Rumania, and Italian Austria to Italy, and driving the Turk from Europe and freeing Armenia and Syria and Arabia. After victory let us join in any arrangement to increase the likelihood of future international peace, but let us treat this as an addition to, and never as a substitute for, the preparedness which is the only sure guarantee against either war or measureless disaster. Therefore let us at once introduce as our permanent national policy the system of universal obligatory military training of all our young men.

THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

DECEMBER 5, 1917

The President has in admirable language set forth the firm resolve of the American people that the war shall be fought through to the end until it is crowned by the peace of complete victory. He states unequivocally that our task is to win the war, that nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is accomplished, and that every power and resource we possess will be used to achieve this purpose. He states that there shall be no peace until the war is won. He says that this peace must deliver, not only Belgium and Northern France, but the peoples of Austria-Hungary, of the Balkan Peninsula, and of Turkey in Europe and Asia from “the impudent and alien dominion of the Prussian military and commercial autocracy.” He emphatically states that we have no purpose to wrong the German people or subject them to oppression, but merely to prevent others from being oppressed by them. He states that if Germany persists in adherence to her present rulers and their policies, it will be impossible, even after the war, to treat her as other nations are treated, but that, although we intend to right the wrongs inflicted by Germany on other nations, we have no intention to inflict similar wrongs on Germany in return. He says that the mind of the Russian people has been poisoned by the rulers of Germany, exactly as the latter have poisoned the minds of their own people.

To all of this the heart of the American people will answer a devout amen. The message is a solemn pledge on behalf of this Nation that we shall use every energy we possess to win the war, and that we shall accept no peace not based on the complete overthrow of Germany. The American people must now devote themselves with grim resolution and whole-hearted purpose to the effective translation of this pledge into action, for, of course, the sole value of such a promise lies in the manner in which it is actually made good. The people must back the Government in every step to carry into effect this pledge and must tolerate no failure in any official charged with the duty of carrying it into effect.

I shall shortly discuss the proposals of the President in reference to Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. But in this editorial I wish merely, as one among the countless Americans to whom the honor and welfare and high ideals of America are dear, to say amen to the President’s expressed purpose to wage this war through to the end with all our strength and to accept no peace save that of complete victory.

FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY

DECEMBER 7, 1917

In his recent message to Congress President Wilson stated that in order “to push our great war of freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion we must clear away with a thorough hand all impediments to success,” and added, “The very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our way is that we are at war with Germany, but not with her allies.” He recommended that we declare war on Austria, and added, “The same logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria.” But inferentially and for reasons not apparent he advised against such action.

The President is entirely right in stating that our failure hitherto to declare war on the allies of Germany has been a very embarrassing obstacle to our success, and he is entirely right in advising a declaration of war against Austria. Incidentally I wish to point out that this is precisely what I insisted upon in these columns two months ago, and what I had elsewhere advocated six months ago, and it is worth while remembering that the Administration papers then assailed me for urging the course which, although there has not been the slightest change in the situation, the President now urges.

There was no justification whatever for failure to declare war on Austria when we declared war on Germany, and there is now no justification for failure to declare war on Bulgaria and Turkey when we declare war on Austria. There is no use in making four bites of a cherry. There is no use in going to war a little, but not much. The President has sent a message pledging support to Rumania, but it is worse than an empty form to send such a message unless we forthwith declare war on Bulgaria. The President has appointed a Sunday for the special expression of sympathy with Armenia, but such expression of sympathy is utterly meaningless unless we go to war with Turkey. The Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires must be broken up if we intend to make the world even moderately safe for democracy. There must be a revived Poland, taking in all the Poles of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; a greater Bohemia, taking in Moravia and the Slovaks; a great Jugo-Slav commonwealth, including Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, while the Rumanians in Hungary should become part of Rumania and the Italians in Austria part of Italy. The Turk must be driven from Europe and Christian and Arab freed. Only in this manner can we do justice to the subject peoples tyrannized over by the Germans, Magyars, and Turks. Only in this way can we remove the menace of German aggression, which has become a haunting nightmare for all civilizations, especially in the case of small, well-behaved, liberty-loving peoples.

By declaring war on Germany’s allies we do not commit ourselves to asking anything that is not just for our own allies. But by failing to declare war on Germany’s allies we are ourselves guilty of injustice to our own allies.

THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

DECEMBER 12, 1917

Next week, the week before Christmas, the Red Cross wishes to add ten million new members to the five million members it already possesses. Last June the Red Cross War Council asked the people of the United States to raise one hundred millions of dollars for Red Cross work, and the people responded by raising one hundred and nineteen millions. The purpose now is to increase threefold its membership.

This is the people’s war. All people should, so far as possible, share the burden and the glory. The whole fighting manhood of the Nation, without any exception save in the interest of the Nation, should be trained to arms and made ready for the front. The Liberty Loans should be taken by every one so that the bondholders of the Nation may be the people of the Nation, and now this Red Cross membership campaign is one more Nation-wide effort to bring home to all our people their obligations to this country and to suffering humanity.

We must realize that every single individual in this country is derelict to his duty unless according to his capacity he does his part in helping organize for the war. Individual effort alone will not avail and Germany’s strength has come from her keen realization of this fact. We must have an organized Nation, both at the front and at home. There can be no organization without discipline, and the Red Cross is one of the great agencies through which we can make progress toward such self-discipline.

The Red Cross does not ask for the new members primarily because of the money they bring. The money will do great good, for the need is pressing; but even more important than the money will be the effect if on Christmas morning the Red Cross can flash around the world the news that ten million more Americans have joined its ranks and thereby put themselves unqualifiedly behind our army and navy.