I (continued 2)

"From certain points of view I might have recognized in accordance with the conceptions of my worthy fellow-citizen that if it had been a matter of continuing to have Turkey as our neighbor in our northern frontier, as she formerly was, we could have continued to live on for many years, especially if we could have brought ourselves to endure from her from time to time without complaint certain humiliations and indignities. But now that we have expanded and become a rival to other Christian powers, against whom, in case of defeat in war, we can expect no effective intervention on the part of other nations, from that moment, Gentlemen, the establishment of Greece as a self-sufficing state, able to defend itself against its enemies, is for her a question of life and death.

"Unfortunately, after our successful wars, while we were developing our new territories and organizing this Greater Greece into a model new state, as far as lay within our power, we did not have time to secure at once for the people all the advantages and all the benefits that should result from extending our frontiers. Our unfortunate people up to the present has seen only sacrifices to which it has been subjected for the sake of extending the boundaries of the state. It has experienced the moral satisfaction of having freed its brothers, and the national gratification of belonging to a state which is greater than it was before. From the material point of view however, from the point of view of economic advantage, it has not yet been able to clearly discern what profit it has obtained from the enlargement of the state. It is natural then that to-day as well, we can only hold before our people the sacrifices that are once more required of it. These sacrifices, Gentlemen, according to my personal convictions which are as firmly held as—humanly speaking—convictions can be, these sacrifices, as I see them, are destined to create a great and powerful Greece, which will bring about not an extension of the state by conquest, but a natural return to those limits within which Hellenism has been active even from prehistoric times.

"These sacrifices are to create, I insist, a great, a powerful, a wealthy Greece, able to develop within its boundaries a live industrialism competent, from the interests which it would represent, to enter into commercial treaties with other states on equal terms, and able finally to protect Greek citizens anywhere on earth: for the Greek could then proudly say, 'I am a Greek,' with the knowledge that, happen what may, the state is ready and able to protect him, no matter where he may be, just as all other great and powerful states do, and that he will not be subjected to prosecution and be forced to submit to, the lack of protection as is the Greek subject to-day.

"When you take all these things into account, Gentlemen, you will understand why I said a few moments ago, that I and the whole liberal party are possessed by a feeling of deepest sadness because by your policy, you are leading Greece, involuntarily, to be sure, but none the less certainly, to her ruin. You will induce her to carry on war perforce, under the most difficult conditions and on the most disadvantageous terms.

"The opportunity to create a great and powerful Greece, such an opportunity as comes to a race only once in thousands of years, you are thus allowing to be lost forever."

(Translation, with Notes, by CARROLL N. BROWN)

A Tribute to Italy

Even now, few Americans understand the great service which Italy has done to the Allied Cause. We have expected some sensational military achievements, being ourselves unable to realize the immense difficulty of the military tasks which confronted the Italians. The truth is that the Terrain over which they have fought is incredibly difficult. By the sly drawing of the frontier when in 1866 Austria ceded Venetia to the Italians, every pass, every access, from Italy into Austria was left in the hands of the Austrians. Some of those passes are so intricate and narrow that an Austrian regiment could defend them against an army. And yet, in two years' fighting the Italians have advanced and have astonished the world by their exploits in campaigning above the line of perpetual snow and among crags as unpromising as church steeples.

On lower levels they have captured Gorizia, a feat unparalleled by any thus far accomplished by the English and French on the West. The defense of Verdun remains, of course, the supreme and sublime achievement of defensive action, but the taking of Gorizia is thus far the most splendid work of the Allied offensive.

I do not propose, however, to speak in detail of the Italians' military service. Suffice it to say that they have proved themselves excellent fighters who combine the rare qualities of dash and endurance. I wish to speak of the vital contribution Italy has made from the beginning of the War to the Great Cause—the cause of Democracy and of Civilization.

When Italy at the end of July, 1914, refused to join Austria and Germany she announced to the world that the war which the Teutons planned was an aggressive war, and by this announcement she stamped on the Pan-German crimes that verdict which every day since has confirmed and which will be indelibly written on the pages of history.

For Italy was a partner of Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance and she knew from inside evidence that the Teutonic Powers were not acting on the defensive. Accordingly, her decision had the greatest significance, and when before the actual outbreak of the war she privately informed France that she had no intention of attacking that country she relieved the French of great suspense. If Italy had joined the Teutons the French would have been required to guard their southeastern frontier by a large force, perhaps not less than a million men, which were now set free to oppose the German attack in the north.

The world did not understand why Italy waited until May, 1915, before declaring war on Austria, but the reason was plain. Exhausted by their war in Tripoli the Italians had neither munitions nor food and their soldiers even lacked uniforms. It took nine months, therefore, to prepare for war. Another year passed before Italy could undertake to face Germany; for the Germans had so thoroughly honeycombed Italy's commerce, industry and finances that it took two years for the Italians to oust the Germans and to train men to replace them.

By these delays, which seemed to the outside world suspicious, Italy did another service. If she had plunged in prematurely as the Allies and her friends besought her to do she would have been speedily overwhelmed. Imagine what a blow that would have been to the Allied Cause, especially coming so early in the War. Her prudence saved Europe this disaster. Had Northern Italy become enslaved the Teutonic forces could have threatened France on the southeast, and with Genoa as a port they could have made the Mediterranean much more perilous for the Allied ships and transportation. It is not for the United States, a country of over one hundred million population, and yet checked if not intimidated by a small body of German plotters and their accomplices, to look scornfully on Italy's long deferred entrance into the War. The Pro-German element in Italy was relatively stronger than here and the elements which composed it—the Blacks, the Germanized financiers and business men, many nobles and the Vatican—openly opposed making war on the Kaiser. In spite of all these difficulties, in spite of the very great danger she ran, because if the Germans win they threaten to restore the Papal temporal power, and the Austrians, Italy stood by the Allies.

For her to be untrue tot he cause of Democracy would be almost unthinkable; the great men who made her a united nation were all in different ways apostles of Democracy. Mazzini was its preacher; Garibaldi fought for it on many fields, in South America, in Italy and in France; Victor Emmanuel was the first democratic sovereign in Europe in the nineteenth century; Cavour, beyond all other statesmen of his age, believed in Liberty, religious, social and political and applied it to his vast work of transforming thirty million Italians out of Feudalism, and the stunting effects of autocracy into a nation of democrats.

It was impossible also for Italy, the ancient home of Civilization, the mother of arts and refinement, to accept the standard of the Huns which the Germans embraced and imposed upon their allies. The conflict between the Germans and the Italians was instinctive, temperamental. For a thousand years it took the form of a struggle between the German Emperors and the Italian Popes for mastery. The Germans strove for political domination, for temporal power; the Italians strove, at least in ideal, in order that the spiritual should not be the vassal of the physical. It was soul force against brute force. Looking at it as deeply as possible we see that the Italians, a race sprung out of ancient culture, mightily affected but not denatured by Christianity, repudiated the Barbarian ideals of Teutonism. Men whose ancestors had worshiped Jupiter and Apollo, and who were themselves worshipping the Christian God, Madonna and the great saints, had no spiritual affinity with men whose ancestors could conceive of no Deities higher than Thor, Odin and the other rough, crude, and unmannered denizens of the Northern Walhalla. So Italy stood by Civilization. Her risk was great, but great shall be her guerdon in the approval of her own conscience and the gratitude of posterity.

[signed] William Roscoe Thayer

Sept. 1, 1917.

Al Generale Cadorna

"Io ho quel che ho donato."

Questo che in Te si compie anno di sorte, l'Italia l'alza in cima della spada mirando al segno; e la sua rossa strada ne brilla insino alle sue alpine porte. Tu tendi la potenza della morte come un arco tra il Vodice e l'Hermada; varchi l'Isonzo indomito ove guada la tua Vittoria col tuo pugno forte. Giovine sei, rinato dalla terra sitibonda, balzato su dal duro Carso col fiore dei tuio fanti imberbi. Questo, che in te si compie, anno di guerra splenda da te, avido del futuro, e al domani terribile ti serbi.

Gabriele D'Annunzio

To General Cadorna On his 69th birthday, September 11, 1917

"What I have given, that have I"

This fateful year which thou fulfillest so, Our Italy, her cherisht goal in sight, Exalts upon her sword; and gleameth bright Her ruddy pathway to the gates of snow. The power of death thou bendest like a bow 'Twixt Vodice and bleak Hermada's height; And Victory, guided by thy hand of might, Thro' wild Isonzo forth doth fording go. Reborn from lands of drought, a youth art thou, Upheaved by rugged Carso suddenly With all the lads of thine advancing throng. This bloody year which thou fulfillest now, O may it, onward pressing, shine with thee And keep thee for the fearful morrow strong!

Poetical Version by

[signed] C.H. Grangent

The Voice of Italy

In the great turmoil of nations it rings with a tone peculiarly true: for Italy is the country that found herself confronted, at the outbreak of the great war, by perhaps the most perplexing situation of any of the present allies. If she had chosen to follow the way which lay open and easy before her, the war would have long since been decided in favor of the Central Powers. Italy had entered the Triple Alliance as a clean contract, for an honest defensive purpose. It was never intended for a weapon of aggression. When Austria and Germany decided upon the outrage to Serbia that was the cause of the conflagration, they did not consult Italy about it, knowing well that Italy would not have consented; in fact, would have denounced it to the world. But they hoped that by surprising her with the "fait accompli," she would have to yield and follow. Italy chose the long hard trail instead, incredibly long, inconceivably hard, but morally right, and it has been made clear once more in the history of humanity, that "Latin" and "barbaric" are two incompatible terms.

True enough, Italy felt in her own heart the cry of her long-oppressed children from Istria, the Trentino and Dalmatia ringing just as loud as that of the children of Belgium and the women of Serbia; but who can blame her if history had it so, that the sudden outrage on other nations was but the counterpart of the long-continued provocation to the Italian nationality, when in the Italian provinces subject to Austrian rule, the mere singing of a song in the mother-language brought women to jail and children to fustigation; and a bunch of white, red and green flowers might cause an indictment of high treason? National aspirations and international honor equally called forth to Italy, and Italy leaped forth in answer as soon as she could make her way clear to the fight. She took it up where the political pressure brought to bear upon her in the name of European peace in 1866 had compelled the fathers of the present leaders to retire from combat.

General Luigi Cadorna leads the offensive of 1917 where his father Count Raffaele Cadoran found it stopped by diplomatic arrangements in 1866; Garibaldi's nephew avenges on the Col di Lana his "obbedisco" from the Trentino; Francesco Pecori-Giraldi's son repels from Asiago the sons of those Austrians who wounded him at Montanara and imprisoned him at Mantova. Gabriele d'Annunzio, mature in years and wonderfully youthful in spirit, takes up the national ideals of the great master Giosuè Carducci (who died before he could see the dream of his life realized with the reunion of Trento and Trieste, Istria and the Italian cities of Dalmatia, to the Motherland); and becomes the speaker of the nation expectant in Genoa and assembled in Rome to decree the end of the strain of Italian neutrality which has to its credit the magnificent rebellion to the unscrupulous intrigues of Prince von Bulow, and the releasing of five hundred thousand French soldiers from the frontier of Savoy to help in the battle of the Marne.

In D'Annunzio's "Virgins of the Rocks" the protagonist expresses his belief that oratory is a weapon of war, and that it should be unsheathed, so to speak, in all its brilliancy only with the definite view of rousing people to action. Surely no man ever had a better chance of wielding the brilliant weapon than D'Annunzio, in his triumphal progress through Italy during that fateful month of May, 1915, when he uttered against neutralism and pacifism, germanophilism and petty parliamentarism, the "quo usque tandem" of the newest Italy.

Nor can we forget how Premier Antonio Salandra in his memorable speech from the Capitol, expressed the living and the fighting spirit of Italy, a spirit of strength and humanity, when he said: "I cannot answer in kind the insult that the German chancellor heaps upon us: the return to the primordial barbaric stage is so much harder for us, who are twenty centuries ahead of them in the history of civilization." To support his, came the quiet utterances of Sonnino (whose every word is a statement of Italian right and a crushing indictment of Austro-German felony) "proclaiming still once the firm resolution of Italy, to continue to fight courageously with all her might, and at any sacrifice, until her most sacred national aspirations are fulfilled alongside with such general conditions of independence, safety and mutual respect between nations as can alone form the basis of a durable peace, and represent the very "raison d'être" of the contract that binds us with our Allies."

This is the voice of right: the voice of victory which upholds it is registered frequently in the admirable war-bulletins of General Cadorna, than which nothing more Caesarian has been written in the Latin world since the days of Caesar. The simple words follow with which the taking of Gorizia was announced to the nation.

"August ninth.

…"Trenches and dugouts have been found, full of enemy corpses: everywhere arms and ammunition and material of all kinds were abandoned by the routed opponent. Toward dusk, sections of the brigades Casale and Pavia, waded through the Isonzo, bridges having been destroyed by he enemy, and settled strongly on the left bank. A column of cavalry and 'bersaglieri ciclisti' was forthwith started in pursuit beyond the river."

Now, the voice of Italy is thundering down from the Stelvio to the sea, echoed by forty thousand shells a day on the contested San Gabriele: a mighty thing indeed, the voice of Italy at war; a thing of which all Italians may well feel proud. And yet, there is another thing of which they are perhaps even prouder in the depths of the national heart: the voice of the children of Italy "redeemed." All along the re-claimed land, from Darzo to Gorizia, sixteen thousand children of Italian speech and of Italian blood, for whom Italian schools and Italian teachers have been provided even under the increasing menace of the Austrian aircraft or gunfire, join daily and enthusiastically in the refrain which the soldiers of Italy are enforcing, but a few miles ahead:

"Va fuora d'Italia, va fuora ch'e' l'ora, va fuora d'Italia, va fuora, stranier!" [From the Inno di Garibaldi: "Get out of Italy, it's high time; get out of Italy, stranger, get out!"]

[signed] Amy Bernardy

Japan's Ideals and Her Part in the Struggle

The people of the world, whether engaged in open resistance to German rapacity, or as onlookers, do well to see, as indeed they have seen since its beginning, that modern civilization is at stake. On every continent, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and both the Americas, recognition of this great fact was instinctive. It was obvious everywhere that, if Germany with its sinister aims, shamelessly avowed, and its terrible methods, relentlessly carried out, was to prevail, all the progress that had been made out of her barbarism and savagery would not only be imperiled but lost.

It was clear that humanity would have to begin anew its weary struggle out of the difficulties it had slowly overcome. Everything of a high order that had been done from the beginning, under great, devoted, far-seeing religious leaders, and by unknown millions who had fought for liberty, would have to be given up. Recognition of the potency of peaceful methods in government and industry; the contribution of the individual to his own progress and that of mankind; the gradual triumph of an ordered freedom over tyranny and anarchy; all the achievements, that have gradually made the world over, would have had to be undertaken again, and that, too, without the free contribution from every quarter, which, in the varied history of men, had assured the one great triumph which is civilization. The dream of individual and national conquest—the cause of so much suffering and bloodshed—was again to be repeated. This attack has demanded thus far, as it will demand until the end, the united efforts of practically all the people of the earth in order to defeat this the most desperate attempt at conquest, undertaken under the most favorable conditions, and after the most perfect preparation known to history. If hesitation or treachery had arisen at any important point the well-laid plot would have succeeded.

Nothing in the history of Europe, or of all the peoples that sprang from it in other parts of the world, is more creditable to humanity than the united resistance which this attempt aroused. All that it meant was attacked without mercy or shame. Its religious teachings and practices, the result of many centuries of growth and experience were defied by one of the nations professing the same creed. Its political development, the result of a struggle under which industry, family, and social growth had proceeded in regular order was defied. Its humane policies were to be replaced by the dictates of might—mercilessly executed. Its small peoples were to be crushed, and its greater ones reduced to the status of vassals. In a word, all its civilization was to be thrown away.

But, at the first cry of alarm every threatened people rose as if by magic. No surprise was effective, no lack of preparation deterred, no peril brought hesitation. One by one, all jealousies were dissipated, all past differences were forgotten, the common danger was recognized, and they united, as humanity had never done before, in that resistance to German ambitions which the world now sees as its one great event, past or present.

If this threat to civilization was thus met by Europe how much more serious was the aspect which it presented to us in Japan! We were more than mere participators in this civilization. We had grafted upon our own life, old, balanced, remote, isolated, the creator of great traditions, the newer and different ideas of Europe, assimilating the best of them without losing these that were strong and potent among our own. They had been fused into our life and, in the process, had enabled us to make an enlarged contribution to human progress. We had become so much a part of the world that nothing in it was alien to us. We had always known, even from the earliest times, what out people were, what they meant and what they could do. We were in no wise ignorant of our own powers and achievements but this new knowledge was akin to the addition of a new sense.

When this threat against mankind came we also saw instinctively that it was even more of a peril to us than to Europe. We saw that civilization was not a thing of continents, or nations, or races, but of mankind, that in the evolution of human forces, men were one in purpose and need. If Europe was to be crushed, it was only a question of time until all that Europe had done for the world in America, or the Antipodes, or in the islands of the sea, would follow it. Then would come our turn, then all Asia would be thrown into tyranny's crucible, and the world must begin anew. It was not a mere diplomatic alliance that drew us into the contest. Our own struggles had not been those of aggression; but it was easy to see what ruthless conquest meant even if it seemed to be far away. Therefore, we acted promptly and we hope with efficiency and have since carried on the work in the sphere allotted to us by nature with a devotion that has never flagged. It has been our duty not to reason why, but to help in saving the world without bargains, or dickerings, or suggestions, thus bearing our part in the rescue of civilization from its perils.

As we see our duty, and the duty of the world, only one thing is left to do. It is to fight out this war which neither we nor any other people or nation, other than the aggressors, have sought. It must be fought to the end without wavering, without thought of national or individual advantages. The victors are to be victors for civilization and the world, not for themselves. The contest upon which we are unitedly engaged will not only end this war; upon its result will depend the extinction of all wars of aggression. No opportunity must ever come again for any nation or people, or any combination of nations or peoples, however, strong or numerous, to seek that universal domination shown by experience to be impossible, which, if it were possible, would mean the destruction of human progress.

We are proud to be associated with America as Allies in so great a cause. Our duty thus keeps pace with our obligation and both are guided by our highest desires. We, like you, have enlisted until the war is settled and settled right; you, like ourselves, have no favors to ask, both merely ask that they may live their own lives, settle their own problems, smooth out their common differences or difficulties, and do their best, along with all other peoples, to make the world a better, not a worse, place to live in.

[signed] K. Ishii

Tropical Interlude

I Tropical Morning

In the mornings—Oh, the tropical mornings When the bells are all so dizzily calling one to prayer!— All my thought was to watch from a nook in my window Indian girls from the river with flowers in their hair.

Some bore Fresh eggs in wicker boxes For the grocery store; Others, baskets of fruit; and some, The skins of mountain cats and foxes Caught in traps at home.

They all passed so stately by, they all walked so gracefully, Balancing their bodies on lithe unstable hips, As if music moved them that swelled in their bosoms And was pizzicatti at their finger-tips.

II Tropical Rain

The rain, in Nicaragua, it is a witch they say; She puts the world into her bag and blows the skies away; And so, in every home, the little children gather, Run up like little animals and kneel beside the Mother, So frightened by the thunder that they can hardly pray.

"Sweet Jesu, you that stilled the storm in Galilee, Pity the homeless now, and the travelers by sea; Pity the little birds that have no nest, that are forlorn; Pity the butterfly, pity the honey bee; Pity the roses that are so helpless, and the unsheltered corn, And pity me…."

Then, when the rain is over and the children's prayer is said, Oh, joy of swaying palm-trees with the rainbows overhead, And the streets swollen like rivers, and the wet earth's smell, And all the ants with sudden wings filling the heart with wonder, And, afar, the tempest vanishing with a stifled thunder In a glare of lurid radiance from the gaping mouth of hell!

III Tropical Park

The park in Leon is but a garden Where grass and roses grow together; It has no ordinance, it has no warden Except the weather.

The paths are made of sand so fine That they are always smooth and neat; Sunlight and moonlight make them shine, And so one's feet

Seem always to tread on magic ground That gleams, and that whispers curiously, For sand, when you tread it, has the sound Of the sea.

Sometimes the band, of a warm night, Makes music in that little park, And lovers haunt, beyond the bright Foot-paths, the dark.

You can almost tell what they do and say Listening to the sound of the sand,— How warm lips whisper, and glances play, And hand seeks hand.

IV Tropical Town

Blue, pink and yellow houses, and, afar, The cemetery, where the green trees are.

Sometimes you see a hungry dog pass by, And there are always buzzards in the sky. Sometimes you hear the big cathedral bell, A blindman rings it; and sometimes you hear A rumbling ox-cart that brings wood to sell. Else nothing ever breaks the ancient spell That holds the town asleep, save, once a year, The Easter festival…. I come from there, And when I tire of hoping, and despair Is heavy over me, my thoughts go far, Beyond that length of lazy street, to where The lonely green trees and the white graves are.

V Tropical House

When the winter comes, I will take you to Nicaragua— You will love it there! you will love my home, my house in Nicaragua, So large and queenly looking, with a haughty air That seems to tell the mountains, the mountains of Nicaragua, "You may roar and you may tremble for all I care!"

It is shadowy and cool, Has a garden in the middle where fruit trees grow, And poppies, like a little army, row on row, And jasmine bushes that will make you think of snow They are so white and light, so perfect and so frail, And when the wind is blowing they fly and flutter so.

The bath is in the garden, like a sort of pool, With walls of honeysuckle and orchids all around; The humming birds are always making a sleep sound; In the night there's the Aztec nightingale; But when the moon is up, in Nicaragua, The moon of Nicaragua and the million stars, It's the human heart that sings, and the heart of Nicaragua, To the pleading, plaintive music of guitars!

[signed] Salomon De La Selva.

Latin America and the War

In common with many other parts of the world, even some of those immediately involved, Latin America received the outbreak of the European War with dismayed astonishment, with a feeling that it could not be true, with mental confusion as to the real causes and objects of the conflict. A survey of newspapers from Mexico to Cape Horn during August, 1914, to the end of that year shows plainly that for several months public opinion had not cleared up, that the conflict seemed to be a frightful blunder, a terrific misunderstanding, that might have been avoided, and for which no one nation in particular was to blame.

The deep love of Latin America for Latin Europe undoubtedly meant great sympathy for France; England, too, the great investor in and developer of South America, was watched with good feeling; but Germany has done much for Latin America commerce and shipping facilities, a work performed with skillfully regulated tact, and very many sections of the southern republics were loath to believe that a nation so friendly and so industriously commercial had deliberately planned the war.

But as time went on evidence accumulated; the martyrdom of Belgium and Northern France, the use of poisonous gas, the instigation of revolts in the colonies of the Entente Allies, the sinking of the "Lusitania," the shooting of Nurse Cavell, and above all the proofs of the enormous military preparations of Germany, slowly convinced Latin America that a great scheme had long been perfected; the book of Tannenburg which showed huge tracts of South America as part of the future world dominion of Germany was seen to be no crazy dream of an individual but the revelation of a widely held Teutonic ideal. Many incidents occurring in the United States and Canada, such as explosions and fires in factories of war materials, exposure of spies and diplomatic intrigue, demonstrated a callous abuse of American hospitality which the more southerly lands took to heart as lessons; their dawning perception of the network of German effort was further clarified by the floods of Teutonic propaganda which covered every Latin American Republic and which was in many instances speedily ridiculed by the keen-witted native press.

Frank in their expression of opinion, no sooner had Latin Americans resolved in their own minds the questions of responsibility for the war than they gave utterance to their opinions; journals avowed themselves pro-Ally, large subscriptions were raised in many sections for the relief of the European sufferers, particularly Belgium, and a number of young men joined the Entente armies. In Brazil, which was always supposed to have a German bias on account of her large German colonies, some of the foremost publicists and writers voluntarily formed the "Liga pelos Alliados" (League in favor of the Allies) with the famous orator, Ruy Barbosa, at its head, and the prince of Brazilian poets, Olavo Bilac, as one of its most active members; the League was organized early in 1915 and its meetings were characterized by the warmest pro-Ally utterances; many members of the Brazilian Congress joined it, and I never heard any Administrative protest on the score of neutrality.

Later in the same year Bilac, who is the object of fervent admiration, for Latin America often pays more attention to her poets than to her politicians, showed that he foresaw the entry of his country into the conflict by a passionate appeal to the youth of Brazil to fortify themselves with military discipline, in 1916 repeating his "call to arms" in a tour throughout that great country. By this time the whole of Latin America was lined up, the overwhelming mass of press and people declaring pro-Ally, and especially pro-French, sympathies, while the few ranged in the opposite camp generally had special reasons for their choice, consisting of some individual Germanic link. The fact of the prevalence of pro-Ally feeling, long before any of the American countries became politically aligned is, I think, a remarkable tribute to the response of Latin America to the weight of genuine evidence; no propaganda was made by any one of the Allied governments, and the solidification of public opinion was due to Latin American feeling and not to outside pressure.

When, in April of this year, the United States was driven to a breach with Germany on account of the torpedoing of her ships and loss of her citizens' lives, she was the greatest material sufferer from German submarine aggression; if Latin America in general maintained at that date, and still in some sections maintains, diplomatic relations with the Central Powers, it is largely because they have endured no specific injury at German hands. Few Latin American States possess a merchant marine traversing the sea danger zones. But the entry of the United States was regarded with warm approval; her cause was acknowledged to be just and the Latin American press reflects nothing but admiration for her step. The Republics of Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, and in an informal manner, Costa Rica, as well as the more or less American-controlled Nicaragua, Haiti and Santo Domingo, quickly aligned themselves with the United States, with whose fortunes their own are closely connected.

Brazil, revoking her decree of neutrality in June, 1917, was perhaps influenced to some degree by the action of the United States, but she had her own specific reason in the sinking of three of her merchant vessels by German submarines; Brazil possesses an enterprising and good mercantile marine, has been carrying coffee and frozen meat to Europe during the war and her ships have thus been constantly exposed to risk. The sinking of her vessels raised a storm of anger, the popular voice warmly supporting the acts of the government. Nor is the alignment of Brazil a mere declaration; she has taken over the forty-six German and Austrian ships lying in her ports, and much of this tonnage, totaling 300,000 tons, is already in service after three years' idleness, two of the vessels having been handed over to the use of the Allies. Brazil is also taking over the patrol of a big strip of the south-western Atlantic with fifteen units of her excellent navy.

Bolivia was another South American country which quickly followed the United States in breaking relations with Germany, and this was done not because Bolivia had suffered at the hands of the Teutonic powers but because she "wishes to show her sympathy with the United States and felt it the duty of every democracy to ally itself with the cause of justice." With no coast and therefore no mercantile marine, Bolivia is however greatly interested in the shipments of rubber and minerals which she sends abroad and some of which have been sent to the bottom of the sea by torpedoes; her sympathies with the Entente Allies are undoubted.

On October 6 relations with Germany were broken by Peru, the determining factor being the torpedoing of the Peruvian vessel "Lorton;" on October 7 the National Assembly of Uruguay voted for a break with Germany, thus completing the attitude which she had frankly declared many months previously, when she protested against Germany's methods in submarine warfare. Paraguay, although still formally neutral, has expressed her sympathy with the United States.

Before I pass to a few quotations from Latin American sources on the subject of their spirit, it is well to look across the seas to the Mother Countries, whose sentiments and actions have more effect upon Latin America than is always remembered. There is, for instance, no doubt that the entry of Portugal into the war on the side of her ancient ally, England, profoundly affected the Brazilian mind; the friendship between England and Portugal dates from 1147, and an unbroken political treaty has lasted since 1386—the longest in history;

[An English poet wrote in the Fourteenth Century: "Portingallers with us have troth in hand Whose marchindise cometh much into England. They are our friends with their commodities And we English passen into their countries."]

Brazil as the child of Portugal inherited the English good feeling, her independence from the Mother Country was effected without any prolonged bitterness, and with the actual assistance of England. When, then, Brazil saw the people sprung from the cradle of her race fighting side by side with the ancient friend of both she was deeply stirred. Portuguese merchants prosper in large numbers in Brazil, Portuguese news daily fills space in the Brazilian newspapers; the cry of that great Portuguese, Theophilo Braga, found echoes in many a gallant Brazilian heart:

"And with what arms shall Portugal engage, So little as she is, in such great feats? They call on her to play a leading part Who know that in the Lusitanian heart Love beats!"

In a corresponding degree there seems to be little doubt that the neutral attitude which Spain has maintained is partly responsible for the neutrality of several South American countries; they do not forget the bloody years of struggle before they attained independence from Spain, but they are wise enough to differentiate between the policy of Ferdinand VII and the heart of Spain. Dr. Belisario Porras, the ex-President of Panama, and a distinguished scholar and writer said in May, 1917:

"For us of Central and South America, Iberianism is a matter of sentiment, affection and veneration, not a matter of politics. Spain is our Mother Country, whence we came, where the names we bear are also borne, where the memories and ashes of our ancestors are guarded, of whose deeds we are proud, whose tongue we speak, whose religion we share, whose heroic character and customs we admire…. Spain is our pole star, the star to which we raise our eyes when we are despairing and when we face a sacrifice for God, for a woman, a child, or our country."

Spain has had, of course, up to the present, no direct national injury to resent; she has on the other hand several reasons for remaining politically neutral and can at present do so with honor; although she is weak and poor, still exhausted by the long conflicts of her past, without resources, without any notable strength in army or navy, she is serving as an indispensable channel of communication. She, as well as many South American countries, can best aid the world by concentrating upon production; in addition to this, she is, in company with Holland, rendering excellent service in feeding unhappy Belgium, replacing American workers.

Spain is not intellectually neutral or unmindful of the effect of her attitude upon Latin America, and this is shown by the number of newspapers on the Allies' side, as "La Epoca" and "La Correspondencia de España." An immediate response was given to the pro-Ally utterances of the Conde de Romanones, who said on April 17:

"Spain is the depository of the spiritual patrimony of a great race. She has historical aspirations to preside over the moral confederation of all the nations of our blood, and this hope will be definitely destroyed if, at a moment so decisive for the future as this, Spain and her children are shown to be spiritually divorced."

If Spain fails in leadership the love of Latin America for France will be the more emphasized, is the conclusion one draws from the speeches and writings of Ibero-America. The degree to which South America feels herself involved in the fate of France is displayed in such dicta as this of Victor Viana, a Brazilian writer:

"In the great Latin family, France is the educator, the leader, the example, the pride. Thus Brazil, in common with all Latin countries, seeing in France the reservoir of mental energy, constantly renewed by her splendid intellectuals, has as much interest in the victory of French arms as France herself. The overthrow of France would have produced a generation of unbelievers and skeptics, and we, in another clime and a new country, should not have been able to escape this influence, because we share all the movements of French thought. The reaction of French energy which created the present generation spread throughout Brazil new sentiments of patriotism…. The entire world, except naturally the combatants on the other side, recognize the justice of the cause of France, which is the cause of all the other Allies, of Belgium which sacrificed herself, of England which pledges her all to save the right, of the United States, of the entire Americas."

While I have been writing these notes the political situation of Argentina in regard to the war has suddenly crystallized; extending over several months there has been a series of submarine attacks upon vessels of Argentina, indignant protests in each case being met by apologies and promises of indemnity on the part of Germany. There has been much irritation in spite of these promises, cumulative irritation, which however might have remained submerged had it not been for the revelations of the acts of Count Luxburg, which have made the expression "spurlos versekt" a byword. This exhibition of callous plotting against Argentine lives immediately resulted in the handing of passports to the German Ambassador to Argentina, and during the third week in September both houses of Congress voted by large majorities for a severance of relations with Germany. That this step was not, at the moment, consummated, was due to President Irigoyen's wish to accept the satisfaction offered by Germany; but the sentiments of Argentina as a whole have been fully demonstrated.

Their action plainly showed the temper of the Argentine people, who have certainly never been unsympathetic to the Entente Allies' cause although they have shown some restiveness under rather tactless attempts on the part of a section of the United States press to tutor them into line. The best thought of Argentina has all along been with the Allies and this is exemplified by an article, "Neutrality Impossible," widely published and applauded in June of this year by the brilliant Argentine writer and poet Leopoldo Lugones:

"Inevitably War knocks at our door. We are compelled to make a decision. Either we must respect the integrity of our past in the name of the American solidarity which is the law of life and honor for all the nations of the continent, revealing at the same time intelligence with regard to our own future, or we must submit ourselves, grossly cowardly, to the terrorism of despots."

CUBA

The United States broke relations with Germany on April 6. On April 7 Dr. José Manuel Cortina, speaking before the Cuban House of Representatives, when the decree of war against Germany was passed, said:

"We have resolved to give our unanimous and definite consent to the proposition submitted to the House to declare a state of war between the Republic of Cuba and the German Empire, and to join, in this great conflagration of the world, our efforts to those of the United States of North America. We fight in this conflict, which will decide the trend of all morality and civilization in the universe, united tot he great republic which in a day not long distant drew her sword and fired her guns over Cuban fields and seas in battle for our liberty and sovereignty. We go to fight as brothers beside that great people who have been ever the friends and protectors of Cuba, who aided us during the darkest days of our tragic history, in moments when opposed by enormous strength, we had nearly disappeared from the face of the earth, when we had no other refuge, no other loyal and magnanimous friend than the great North American people."

HAITI

Speech of the President of Haiti, M. Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave, on May 12, previous to Haiti's breach with Germany:

"What cause could be more holy than that defended at this moment, with unanimous and admirable enthusiasm by the people of the United States, by Cuba, by a great deal of Latin America, in moral cooperation with the Entente Powers! At Savannah, we fought with the soldiers of Washington for the independence of the country of Franklin, of Lincoln, of John Brown…. At the cry of distress of Bolivar, did we not throw ourselves into the South America's struggle for independence? The task before us in this supreme moment is worthy, glorious, because it is that of international justice, the liberty of nations, of civilization, of all Humanity."

CENTRAL AMERICA

As we have seen above, four of the Central American Republics have aligned themselves with the United States since her entry into the war, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany very shortly after the definite action of the United States was known, the statement of Don Joaquin Mendez representing the prevalent feeling: "The rupture has aligned Guatemala 'ipso facto' with those who are the defenders of the modern ideas of democracy and freedom." Small in size and limited in resources, it is not likely that any active part will be taken by Central America in the war; she is removed from the most dangerous zones and will not suffer, it is to be hoped, more than the inevitable and temporary economic embarrassments due to dislocation of the world's industrial systems. But her spirit is reflected in such announcements as this notice from the front page of a little daily paper published in S. Pedro Sula, Honduras:

"This periodical is Latin and as such professes its sympathy in favor of the Allied nations now struggling so nobly in defense of Liberty with, as their aim, the establishment of a lasting peace which will render impossible the future development of schemes of conquest."

The position of Costa Rica, informally aligned with the Allies and the United States, is peculiar in that she cannot formalize her position until her new government has received the recognition of these countries. Don Ricardo Fernandez Guardia, the foremost writer of Costa Rica, says that, "The fact that we have offered the use of our ports, since April 9, 1917, to the navy of the United States, undoubtedly constitutes a breach of neutrality, and in consequence Costa Rica considers herself as enlisted in the ranks of the Allies 'de facto.' There is an overwhelming sentiment of sympathy with the Allies both on the part of the government and the great majority of the people of Costa Rica."

Panama, immediately following the news of the United States' breach with Germany, declared herself "ready to do all within her power to protect the Panama Canal"; Uruguay, although making no breach of relations with the Central Powers, supported United States action and denounced submarine warfare as carried on by Germany; Paraguay, too, expressed her sympathy with the United States which she said "was forced to enter the war to establish the rights of neutrals."

Thus the only Latin American nations which have rigidly preserved a neutral attitude are Mexico, whose own internal problems form an entirely sufficient reason; Ecuador, Venezuala and Colombia. They are still political neutrals, but no one who knows the Latin soul can doubt that there is in each of these lands a strong feeling of admiration for the vindication of Latin elasticity which France and Italy and Portugal have show, and for the dogged might of England whose naval skill has prevented the strangulation of the commerce of the world; in this matter all these lands are interested, since all are raw-material producers shipping their products abroad. This sentiment was concisely expressed by Ruy Barbosa, the Brazilian orator, when on August 5 the "Liga pelos Alliados" held a meeting of "homage to England" on the third anniversary of her entry into the war, and he declared it "an honor and pleasure to salute the great English nation to whom we owe in this war the liberty of the seas and the annihilation of German methods upon the ocean, without which European resistance to the German attack and the preservation of the independence of the American continent would be impossible."

Nothing would, I think, be more improper than that any nation should be urged to enter the war against her own feelings; but for those who have taken or may yet take that step there is one very high consideration which cannot be forgotten—the effect upon the national spirit of To-morrow of a gallant and decisive attitude Today. Who has more finely expressed this sense of the formation of the heritage of ideas than the modern Portuguese poet Quental?

Even as the winds the pinewood cones down cast Upon the ground and scatter by their blowing And one by one, down to the very last, The seeds along the mountain ridge are sowing. Even so, by winds of time, ideas are strewn Little by little, though none see them fly— And thus in all the fields of life are sown The vast plantations of posterity.

["Odes Modernas, by Anthero de Quental, translated by George Young.]

[signed] Lilian E. Elliott.

October 20, 1917.

Drill

Williams College, April, 1917

One! two, three, four! One! two, three, four! One, two!… It is hard to keep in time Marching through The rutted slime With no drum to play for you. One! two, three, four! And the shuffle of five hundred feet Till the marching line is neat.

Then the wet New England valley With the purple hills around Takes us gently, musically, With a kindly heart and willing, Thrilling, filling with the sound Of our drilling.

Battle fields are far away. All the world about me seems The fulfillment of my dreams. God, how good it is to be Young and glad to-day!

One! two, three, four! One, two, three!…

Now, as never before, From the vastness of the sky, Falls on me the sense of war. Now, as never before, Comes the feeling that to die Is no duty vain and sore. Something calls and speaks to me: Cloud and hill and stream and tree; Something calls and speaks to me, From the earth, familiarly. I will rise and I will go, As the rivers flow to sea, As the sap mounts up the tree That the flowers may blow— God, my God, All my soul is out of me!

God, my God, Your world is much too beautiful! I feel My senses melt and reel, And my heart aches as if a sudden steel Had pierced me through and through. I cannot bear This vigorous sweetness in your air; The sunlight smites me heavy blow on blow, My soul is black and blue And blind and dizzy. God, my mortal eyes Cannot resist the onslaught of your skies! I am no wind, I cannot rise and go Tearing in madness to the woods and sea; I am no tree, I cannot push the earth and lift and grow; I am no rock To stand unmovable against this shock. Behold me now, a too desirous thing, Passionate lover of your ardent Spring, Held in her arms too fast, too fiercely pressed Against her thundering breast That leaps and crushes me!

One! two, three, four! One! two, three, four! One, two, three!…

So it shall be In Flanders or in France. After a long Winter of heavy burdens and loud war, I will forget, as I do now, all things Except the perfect beauty of the earth. Strangely familiar, I will hear a song, As I do now, above the battle roar, That will set free my pent imaginings And quiet all surprise. My body will seem lighter than the air, Easier to sway than a green stalk of corn; Heaven shall bend above me in its mirth With flutter of blue wings; And singing, singing, as to-day it sings, The earth will call to me, will call and rise And take me to its bosom there to bear My mortal-feeble being to new birth Upon a world, this world, like me reborn, Where I shall be Alive again and young again and glad and free.

One! two, three, four! One! two, three, four! One, two, three!…

All the world about me seems The fulfillment of my dreams.

[signed] Salomon De La Selva.

The People's Struggle

"Let no free country be alien to the freedom of another country."

"Portugal is going solemnly to affirm on the field of battle her adhesion to this precept, though uttered by German lips. In defense of it, Portuguese will fight side by side with Englishmen, as they fought with them at Aljubarrota, side by side with Frenchmen, who fought with them at Montes Claros. Were it necessary to appeal to a motive less disinterested than the noble ideal proclaimed by Schiller, we have this: the payment of an ancient debt to which our honor binds us. Let us go forward to defend territories of those who defended ours, let us maintain the independence of nations who contributed to the salvation of our own independence.

"But the objective is a higher one, I repeat. This has been made quite clear within the last few months, through the revolution in Russia, the participation of the United States, and the solidarity, more or less effective, of all the democracies. It is the people's struggle for right, for liberty, for civilization against the dark forces of despotism and barbarism. Portugal would betray her historic mission were she now to fold her arms, the arms which discovered worlds. When the earth was given to man, it was not that it should be peopled by slaves. The sails of Portuguese ships surrounded the globe like a diadem of stars, not as a collar of darkness to strangle it."

Henrique Lopes De Mendonca

of the Academy of Science of Lisbon, speaking at Lisbon in May, 1917.

Translation by L. E. Elliott.

Portugal

Lisbon, 18th August, 1917

I have received your letter of August 2nd, in which you ask me, as representing Portugal, to send a message to the American people to be printed in the book "Defenders of Democracy," and state that a distinguished Portuguese official has been good enough to mention my name to you as that of "an authoritative writer on Portuguese affairs."

I am sensible of the honor done me, but not being a citizen of Portugal, I dare not presume to speak for that country.

A foreigner however, with friends in both the camps in which Portuguese society is divided, may perhaps be able to state some facts unknown to the American public and of interest at the present time.

And first let me remark that the entry of America into the war, which is a pledge of victory for the Allies, has been a surprise and a relief to the Portuguese, who are by nature pessimists. We Anglo-Saxons are considered to be mainly guided in our conduct by material considerations—did not Napoleon call the English "a nation of shopkeepers"?—and the saying "Time is money" is frequently quoted against us; hence hardly any Portuguese imagined that America would abandon the neutrality which seemed commercially profitable, and even after the decision had been taken, few though that the United States were capable of raising a large army and of transporting it overseas.

Now that America and Portugal are fighting side by side, in a common cause, it is well that they should understand one another. For all their differences of race, religion and language, their ideas are similar. The Portuguese being kindly, easy-going folk, hate militarism and the reign of brute force which is identified with German "Kultur." As they prize their independence and know their weakness, both inclination and necessity lead them to the side of the powers who may be supposed to favor the continuance of their separate existence and the retention by them of their colonies; as they have a keen sense of justice, and respect their engagements, they feel and have shown their sympathy with violated and outraged Belgium and with the other victims of German aggression. Why then, it may be asked, did they not support whole-heartedly the Government of the Republic when it determined to take part in the war? The answer is simple.

They felt that their first duty was to protect their colonies, threatened by the enemy, and that in a war where the combatants are counted by millions, the small contingent that Portugal could furnish would be of little weight on the battlefields of Europe. Unless treaty obligations and considerations of honor forced them to be belligerents, they considered that as Portugal was poor and had relatively to population almost the heaviest public debt of any European Country, they ought to remain neutral—that this view was mistaken is daily becoming clearer to them, thanks in part to the propaganda of the Catholic paper "Ordem" and the official Monarchist journal "Diario Nacional," which have insisted as strongly as the Republican press on the necessity of Portuguese participation in the war, in accord with her ancient traditions. He who risks nothing, gains nothing. By her present heavy sacrifices for a great ideal, Portugal wins a fresh title to universal consideration, and by helping to vanquish Germany she defends her oversea patrimony, which the Germans proposed to annex.

I have said that the ideas of the United States and Portugal are similar. But the pressing needs of Portugal are a competent administration, public order and social discipline, which Germany possesses to a remarkable degree, and admiration of these has laid Portuguese Conservatives open to the charge of being pro-German. Many of them judge from experience that the desiderata I refer to cannot be secured in a democracy, while a few of them have gone so far as to desire a German triumph, because they foolishly thought that the Kaiser would restore the monarchy. None of them, I think, sympathize with German methods; but they have suffered from a century of revolutions, dating from 1820, and attribute these disasters to the anti-Christian ideas of the French Revolution. In America that great movement had beneficent results, as I understand, which only shows that one man's drink is another's poison.

Divergent ideals and other considerations led Portuguese Conservatives to throw their influence into the scale in favor of neutrality, but now that their country is at war they have accepted the fact and can be trusted to do their duty. At the front political and other differences are forgotten and the soldiers, whatever their creed, are honoring the warlike traditions of their race and reminding us of the days when Wellington spoke of Portuguese troops as the "fighting-cocks" of his army.

By organizing with great efforts and sending a properly trained and equipped expeditionary force to France, the Government of the Republic has deserved well of the country and the Allies, and I believe that it has unconsciously been the agent of Divine Providence. The men, when they return will bring with them a firmer religious faith, the foundation of national well-being, and a higher standard of conduct than prevails here at present; they may well prove the regenerators of a land which all who know it learn to love, a land, the past achievements of whose sons in the cause of Christianity and civilization are inscribed on the ample page of history. Portugal which produced so many saints and heroes, which founded the sea road to India and discovered and colonized Brazil, cannot be allowed longer to vegetate, for this in the case of a country means to die.

[signed] Edgar Prestage

Roumania

An Interpretation

A Serbian politician, conversing with a traveler from Western Europe, mentioned the words "a nice national balance;" and when the other, bored to death with the everlasting wrangle of the turbulent Balkans, tried to lead the conversation to Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses, away from Macedonia and Albania and "komitadjis" and Kotzo-Vlachs, the Serbian remarked with a laugh that the nice national balance of which he was speaking was not political, but economic and social.

"You see," he said, "we Serbians are born peasants, born agriculturists, men of the glebe and the plow. The Roumanian, on the other hand, is a born financier. Gold comes to his hand like fish to bait. He comes to Serbia to make money—and he makes it."

"But," said the Western European, "isn't that rather hard on the Serbian?"

"No! Not a bit! For it is the young Serbian who marries the Roumanian's daughter, and the young Serbian girl who marries the Roumanian's son. Thus the Serbian money, earned by the Roumanian, is still kept in the country. You know," he added musingly, "the Roumanians are a singularly handsome, a singularly engaging people. I myself married a Roumanian."

"A rich Roumanian's daughter, I suppose?"

"Heavens, no! A poor girl."

And he added with superb lack of logic:

"Who wouldn't marry a Roumanian—be she rich—OR poor!"

WHO WOULDN'T MARRY A ROUMANIAN?

The secret of the Balkans is contained in that simple rhetoric question.

For, clear away from the days when the Slavs made their first appearance in Southern Europe and, crossing the Danube, came to settle on the great, green, rolling plain between the river and the jagged frowning Balkan Mountains, the proceeded southwards and formed colonies among the Thraco-Illyrians, the Roumanians, and the Greeks, to the days of Michael the Brave who drove the Turks to the spiked gates of Adrianople and freed half the peninsula for a span of years; from the days when gallant King Mirtsched went down to glorious defeat amongst the Osmanli yataghans to the final day when the Russian Slav liberated the Roumanian Latin from the Turkish yoke, the Roumanian has held high the torch of civilization and culture.

Latin civilization!

Latin culture!

Latin ideals!

Straight through, he has been the Western leaven in an Eastern land.

Geographically, the Fates were unkind to him.

For he stood in the path of the most gigantic racial movements of the world. His land was the scene of savage racial struggles. His rivers ran red with the blood of Hun and Slav, of Greek and Albanian, of Osmanli and Seljuk. His fields and pastures became the dumping-ground of residual shreds of a dozen and one nations surviving from great defeats or Pyrrhic victories and nursing irreconcilable mutual racial hatreds.

But the old Latin spirit proved stronger than Fate, stronger than numbers, stronger than brute force. It proved strong enough to assimilate the foreign barbarians, instead of becoming assimilated by them. It was strong enough to wipe out every trace of Asian and Slavic taint. It was strong enough to keep intact the Latin idea against the steely shock of Asian hordes, the immense, crushing weight of Slave fatalism, the subtleties of Greek influence.

The Roumanian is a Roman.

His cultural ideal was, and is, of the West, of Rome of France—AND of Himself; and he has kept it inviolate through military and political disaster, through slavery itself.

Roumania has remained a window of Europe looking toward Asia as surely and as steadily as Petrograd was a window of Asia looking toward Europe.

The Roumanian is proud of his Latin descent; and he shows his ancestry not only in his literature, his art, and his every day life, but also, perhaps chiefly, in his government which is practically a safe and sane oligarchy, modeled on that of ancient Florence, and, be it said, fully as successful as that of the Florentine Republic.

Latin, too, is his diplomacy. It is clean—AND clever. It is the big stick held in a velvet glove. It is supremely able. He seeks a great advantage with a modest air, in contrast to the Greek who seeks a modest advantage with a grandiloquent air.

He seeks no "réclame," but goes ahead serenely, unfalteringly, sure in his knowledge that he is the torch-bearer of ancient Rome in the savage Balkans.

[signed] Achmed Abdullah

The Soul of Russia

There is a strange saying in Russia that no matter what happens to a man, good results to him thereby. No matter what hair-breadth escapes he has, what calamities he faces, what hardships he undergoes, he emerges more powerful, more experienced from the ordeal. Danger and privation are more beneficial in the long run than peace and joy. A nation of some fifty different races gradually melting into one, a country covering a territory of one-sixth of the surface of the earth and a population of 185,000,000, the Russians have remained to the outside world the apaches of Europe, wild tribes of the steppes. In the imagination of an average American or Englishman, Russia was something Asiatic, something connected with the barbaric East, a country beyond the horizon. It was considered as lacking in culture and civilization, and as a menace to the West. "Nichevo, sudiba!"—(It doesn't matter, everything is fate) replies a Russian, crossing himself. The whole psychology of the Slavic race is crystallized in these two impressionistic words.

What John Ruskin said in his famous historic essay applies to Russia: "I found that all the great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war." Every great Russian reform has taken place suddenly as a consequence of some nation-wide calamity. The Tartar invasion united Russia into one powerful nation; the Crimean War abolished the feudal system; the Russo-Turkish War gave the judicial reforms and abolished capital punishment; the Russo-Japanese War gave the preliminary form of Constitutional government in the Duma; the present war is opening the soul of Russia to the world by giving an absolute democratic form of government to the united Slavic race. The present war will reveal that Russia the known has been the very opposite extreme of Russia the unknown.

The outside world is wondering how the Russian character will fit in with the aspirations of democracy. They cannot reconcile the Russia of pogroms and Serbia with the Russia of wonderful municipal theaters, great artists, writers, musicians and lovers of humanity. The world has known the tyrants like Plehve, Trepoff, Orloff and Stolypin, or others like Rasputin, Protopopoff and forgets that Russia has also produced geniuses like Dostoyewsky, Turgenieff, Tchaikowsky, Tolstoy, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mendeleyeff and Metchnikoff. The world has looked at Russia as a land of uncultivated steppes, of frozen ground, hungry bears and desperate Cossacks, and forgets that in actuality this is the Russia of the past very extreme surface and next to it is a Russia of great civilization and the highest art, unknown yet to the West generally.

One of the strangest peculiarities of Russian life is that you will find the greatest contrasts everywhere. Here you will see the most luxurious castles, cathedrals, convents, villas and estates; there you will find the most desolate huts of the moujiks and lonely hermit caves in the wilds of Siberia. Here you will meet the most selfish chinovnik, the most fanatic desperado or reckless bureaucrat; there you face the noblest men and women, supermen, physically and mentally. You will find that all Russian life is full of such mental and physical contrasts.

This is the dualism that confronts like a sphinx the foreigners. In the same way you will find that the Russian homes are full of contrasting colors, bright red and yellow, white and blue. The Russian music is the most dramatic phonetic art ever created; it reaches the deepest sorrow and the gayest hilarity and joy. Dreamy, romantic, imaginary, simple, hospitable and childlike as an average moujik, is the soul of the people. Nowhere is there a hint of those qualities which are thrown up as dark shadows on the canvas of his horizon. While with one hand Russia has been conquering the world, with the other she has been creating the most magnificent masterpieces of humanity. In the same generation she produces a Plehve and a Tolstoy, both in a way, true to national type.

In the popular American imagination, which invariably seizes upon a single point, three things stand out as representative of Russia: the moujiks, the Cossacks and the Siberian penal system. The vast unknown spaces between these three have been filled in with the dark colors of poverty and oppression, so that a Russian is looked upon as an outcast of evolution, an exile of the ages.

the Russia of the dark powers is past; thus soon will pass the Russian chinovnik, the Russian spy and the Russian gloom, who have been a shadow of the Slavic race. From now all the world will listen to the majestic masterpieces of the Russian composers, see the infinite beauty of the Russian life and feel the greatness of the Russian soul. Not only has Russia her peculiar racial civilization, her unique art and literature, and national traditions, but she has riches of which the outside world knows little, riches that are still buried. The Russian stage, art galleries, archives, monastery treasuries and romantic traits of life remain still a sealed book to the outsiders. Take for instance, Russian music, the operas of Rimsky-Korsakoff, the plays of Ostrowsky and the symphonies of Reinhold Gliere or Spendiarov and you will have eloquent chapters of a modern living Bible. No music of another country is such a true mirror of a nation's racial character, life, passion, blood, struggle, despair and agony, as the Russian. One can almost see in its turbulent-lugubrious or buoyant-hilarious chords the rich colors of the Byzantine style, the half Oriental atmosphere that surrounds everything with a romantic halo.

The fundamental purpose of the pathfinders of Russian art, music, literature and poetry was to create beauties that emanated, not from a certain class or school, but directly from the souls of the people. Their ideal was to create life from life. Though profound melancholy seems to be the dominant note in Russian music and art, yet along with the dramatic gloom go also reckless hilarity and boisterous humor, which often whirl one off one's feet. This is explained by the fact that the average Russian is extremely emotional and consequently dramatic in his artistic expressions. Late Leo Tolstoy said to me on one occasion: "In our folksong and folk art is evidently yearning without end, without hope, also power invisible, the fateful stamp of destiny, and the fate in preordination, one of the fundamental principles of our race, which explains much that in Russian life seems incomprehensible for the foreigners."

Thus the Russian art and soul in their very foundations are already democratic, simple, direct and true to the ethnographic traits of the race. In the same way you will find the Russian home life, the peasant communities, the zemstvoe institutions, offsprings of an extremely democratic tendency, perhaps far more than any such institution of the West. Instead of the rich or noblemen absorbing the land of the peasants, we find in Russia the peasant commune succeeding tot he property of the baron. An average Russian peasant is by far more democratic and educated, irrespective of his illiteracy than an average farmer of the New World. He has the culture of the ages in his traditions, religion and national folk-arts. Russia has more than a thousand municipal theaters, more than a hundred grand operas, more than a hundred colleges and universities or musical conservatories. Russia has a well-organized system of cooperative banks and stores and a marvelous artelsystem of the working professional classes which in its democratic principles surpasses by far the labor union systems of the West. Herr von Bruggen, the eminent German historian writes of the Russian tendency as follows: "Wherever the Russian finds a native population in a low state of civilization, he knows how to settle down with it without driving it out or crushing it; he is hailed by the natives as the bringer of order, as a civilizing power."

I have always preached and continue to do so in the future, that Russia and the United States should join hands, know and love each other, the sooner the better. Russia needs the active spirit, the practical grasp of the things, which the people of the United States possess. Nothing will help and inspire an average Russian more than the sincere democratic hand of an American. A dose of American optimism and active spirit is the best toxin for free Russia. On the other hand, the American needs just as much Russian emotionalism, aesthetic culture and mystic romanticism, as he can give of his racial qualities.

The old system having gone, Russia is free to open her national, spiritual and physical treasures. For some time to come neither Germany nor other European countries, will be able to go to Russia, for even if the war does not last long, its havoc will take years to repair. Endless readjustments will have to take place in each country affected by the war. Russia, being more an agricultural, intellectual-aristocratical country, will fell least of all the after effects of the past horrors, therefore has the greatest potentialities. There is not only a great work, adventure and romance that waits an American pioneer in Russia, but a great mission which will ultimately benefit both nations. It should be understood that the Russian democracy will not be based upon the economic-industrial, but aesthetic-intellectual principles of life. It is not the money, the financial power that will play the dominant role in free Russia, but the ideal, the dramatic, the romantic or mystic tendency. Money will never have that meaning in Russia which it has in the West. It will be the individual, the emotional, the great symbol of the mystic beyond, that will speak from future democratic Russia only in a different and more dynamic form, as it has been speaking in the past.

As Lincoln is the living voice of the American people, thus Tolstoy is and remains the glorified Russian peasant uttering his heart to the world. The voice of this man alone is sufficient to tell the outside world that the Russian democracy is a creation not of form and economics but of spirit and aesthetics.

[signed]Ivan Narodny

Author of "Echoes of Myself," "The Dance," "The Art of Music," X Volume, etc.

The American Bride

Petka had been for years a village tailor but he had never been able to save enough money to open a grocery-store. He hated his profession and hated to think that he could never get anything higher in the social rank of the place than what he was. While the name of a tailor sounded to him so cheap, that of a merchant flattered his ambition immensely. But there was no chance to earn the five hundred rubles, which, he thought, was necessary to change the profession.

"If I marry a poor peasant girl like Tina or Vera, I'll never get anywhere," soliloquized Petka and made plans for his future.

Petka knew a girl with two hundred ruble-dowry, but she was awfully homely and deaf; and he knew a widow with three hundred rubles, but she was twenty years older than himself. It was a critical situation.

One day Petka heard that the daughter of an old peddler had a dowry of five hundred rubles, exactly the amount he needed. After careful planning of the undertaking he hired a horse and drove to the lonely cottage of the rag peddler to whom he explained as clearly as he could, the purpose of his visit.

"My Liz ain't at home," the old man replied. "She is in that distant country called America. Good Lord, Liza is a lady of some distinction. If you should see her on the street you would never take her for my daughter. She wears patent-leather shoes, kid-gloves, corsets and such finery. Why, I suppose she has a proposal for every finger, if not more. She is some girl, I tell you."

Petka listened with throbbing heart to the thrilling story of the old man, scratched his head and said:

"I suppose that she is employed in some high class establishment or something like that?"

"Of course, she is," grunted the peddler proudly. "She might be employed or she might not. She has written to me that she is a lady all right."

"What is her special occupation?"

"She is employed as the waitress in a lunch-room on the so called Second Avenue corner at New York. And her salary reaches often thirty dollars a month, which represents a value in our money of something over sixty rubles. Now that is not a joke. She has all the food and lodging free. Why, it's a real gold-mine."

"Has she saved already much?"

"She has five hundred dollars in the savings bank, and she has all the hats and shoes, and gloves and such stuff that would make our women faint. So you see she is the real thing."

The happy father pulled the daughter's letter from the bottom of his bed and reached it over to the visitor. Petka read and reread the letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting enough to the ambitious tailor. For a long time he was gazing at the picture and thinking.

"Do you think that Liza would marry a man like me? I am a well known tailor. But I have now a chance to become a merchant in our village. I need some money to make up the difference, and why not try the luck? Liza might be a well known waitress in New York, but to be a merchant's wife is a different thing. Don't you think she might consider my proposal seriously?"

The old peddler puffed at his pipe, walked to the window and back as if measuring the matter most seriously.

"It all depends—you know Liza is a queer girl—it all depends on how you strike her with a strong letter. You could not go to New York and make the proposal personally. It has to be done by mail. It all depends how well the letter is written, how everything is explained and how the idea of being a merchant's wife strikes her. She is a queer girl, like all the American women are."

"Can your Liza read and write letters?"

"Of course, she can. Liza is a lady of some standing. She can write and read like our priest. She is a highly educated girl."

"So you think a strong letter will fix her up?"

"Exactly. And tell her everything you plan to do."

Petka took Liza's address, drank a glass of vodka to the success of the plan and left the old peddler still harping on his daughter. All the way home and many days afterwards Petka could think of nothing else. It seemed to him the greatest opportunity in the world to marry a girl from America. But now and then he got skeptical of his ability to get such a prize. However, he decided to try. He admitted that the whole success lay in the shaping of a strong and convincing letter and sending it to her properly. Petka knew how to write letters, but the question was would his style be impressive enough to influence a girl in America to come to Russia and marry a man whom she had never seen? However, Petka knew Platon, the village saloon-keeper, as the most gifted man for that purpose. But in a case like this he hated to take anybody into his confidence.

After arriving home Petka began to practice, writing a love letter every day. But nothing came of it. One letter was too mild, the other too extravagant. Finally he gave it up, and whispered his secret to the inn-keeper, saying:

"Now, old man, do me the great favor and I'll fix you up when I get her dowry. I want the letter to be strong and tender at the same time."

The inn-keeper consented. But Petka had to tell all the details and the specifications. Evan Platon admitted that it required some skill to write the letter. When he had thought the matter over carefully, made some notes and discussed the subject with Petka from every angle, he took a long sheet of paper, glued a rose in the corner and wrote as follows:

"Highly respected Mademoiselle Liza:—You have never been in our village, but it is a peach. I am the cream of the place. I have here all the girls I need. I have a house and my business. But the point is I want to open a store and need a wife with experience. We have all the money. But I need some capital to begin. As you have all that and besides, I have fallen in love with you, I lay the offer before your tender feet. Your beautiful image has haunted me day and night, and your wonderful eyes follow me in my dreams, oh, you lovely rose! If you are ready to marry a merchant like myself, do not waste any time, but come over and let's have a marriage ceremony as the world has never seen here. However, before you do come, send me an early reply with a rosy yes. Most affectionately and respectfully, Petka Petroff."

"It's bully, it's superb," praised the tailor. "But it lacks the tender touch. It lacks that style which the city women like."

"I put in the punch, but you can add a love poem from some school-book if you like," protested the inn-keeper. "The city girls are funny creatures. Sometimes they like the finger, other times the fist. Who knows the taste of your Liza! The waitresses of big cities are usually broad-minded and highly educated."

After the poem was added and another rose glued on the corner of the letter, it was mailed, registered, with a note "highly urgent," and Petka breathed freely, like one who had survived a great ordeal.

Two months of heavy waiting passed and still no reply from Liza. Petka was like one on thorns. His strange romance was already known to his neighbors and now everybody was expecting the letter from America to furnish the most sensational news in all the world.

One afternoon as the tailor was sewing a pair of trousers the alderman of the village brought him a registered letter from America. Nearly half the village population had gathered outside, curious to hear the content of the letter. Petka took tremblingly and greatly excited the letter and rushed to Platon, the inn-keeper, all the time followed by the crowd. All the audience gathered in the inn and Platon was instructed to read it aloud to the gathering. As it was a ceremonial event of rare occasion, the inn-keeper stood up, and began in a solemn voice:

"My dear Petka: I am most happy to reply to your valued letter of the fifteenth of July, that I am glad to accept your proposal. But everything must be all right. I can marry only a man of the merchant class. I know the business and I can supply you with the capital you need. But you must remember that I do not like to be fooled and marry a man beneath me. No peasant or tailor for me. I stand here very high and cannot ruin my name. You have not told me your age, but I suppose you are not an old fogey. I will follow this letter next month, so you fix the wedding ceremony, secure all the musicians and manage the meals, drinks and such necessities. If this is not agreeable cable me. Your Liza."

While Platon was reading the letter Petka gazed dreamily out of the window and built, not an air castle, but a large grocery store, with showy windows. It seemed as if he saw his store already opened, the people going and coming, the shelves filled with cans and packages. The sign "Merchant Petka" hung in his eyes.

The letter was like a bomb in the idyllic village. Plans were made of the wedding date and elaborate ceremony. The village Luga had never witnessed yet a marriage ceremony of this magnitude. The American bride was like a fairy princess of some ancient times. Petka was like one in a trance. But Vasska, the blacksmith, opposed to the idea of such a strange marriage, pounded his hand against the bar, exclaiming:

"Liza may be all right, but Petka should not marry her. What do we know about an American woman? What do we know about her habits? I've been told funny stories about such strange women. I've heard that nearly every American woman paints her cheeks, dyes her hair, wears false teeth, puts up bluffs and does everything to deceive a man. Spit at her capital. Besides, this American Liza is a woman whom nobody here knows."

The blacksmith's arguments were taken seriously by the others and a gloom came over the gathered gossips. But the inn-keeper, who was always optimistic, replied:

"American Liza must be a refined girl, and she has the money. That's what Petka wants, and that's what he will get. So we better let the wedding take place and see what will happen. I've heard that an American woman looks at the marriage as a business proposition, so we let her do what she pleases."

"Business or no business, but we take the marriage seriously. If a man makes up his mind that he likes a woman, he must marry her, and once he has married her, no ax or pike shall separate them. No monkeying with married men or women thereafter," argued the serious blacksmith.

Petka turned the conversation to the subject of the wedding meals and music. The whole program of the ceremony was analyzed and discussed in detail, some maintaining that the American custom was to eat with forks and knives from the plates, others that only uncooked meat was eaten and frogs served as delicacies. Finally the entertainment was arranged and the blacksmith remarked:

"All city women like fun and don't care about serious affairs. They have the theaters and operas for amusements, so we better get a real amusement for American Liza. The best fun would be a huge hurdy-gurdy or something of that kind, an instrument with sensation. Our village violins and harps are too mild for women like that Liza."

After discussing the matter at length, the inn-keeper agreed to take care of the entertainment. A short cable was composed and sent to Liza and the wedding date clearly explained. All the village got alive with the news that Petka was to marry an American girl by mail.

The three weeks of preparation for the wedding festival passed like a dream. The Sunday, that was to be the final date, began bright and cheerful. Petka was hustling to and fro in his newly rented house, the front of which was to be arranged for the grocery store, strutted like a big rooster preparing the affairs of his flock. At the entrance of the house was hung a big flag. Long tables were arranged in all the rooms, covered with meats, drinks and delicacies, all prepared in the village. Women were still busy baking other foods, frying meats and boiling water for tea or drinks. Everybody was busy and everything looked most solemn and impressive. The host was dressed in a picturesque new suit of clothes with a silk scarf around his neck.

While the groom was busy with preparing his heart for joy, the inn-keeper was solving the problem of the entertainment. He had constructed, what he thought to be distinctly American, a huge music-box, which was to produce the most wonderful tones ever heard. This instrument had the appearance of a big wine-cask and yet a street-organ at the same time, and was an invention of the ingenious inn-keeper. It was practically a barrel, covered with illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of the village, Ivan with his violin, Semen with his concertina and Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange instrument looked like a mysterious engine, one knew not whether to expect it to develop into a flying or moving picture machine.

At last everything was ready. The guests began to arrive and the carriage was sent to the town to bring the bride. Everybody was in festival attire and all tuned to expect the utmost excitements the village had ever had. One could see the people in groups of three or four, discussing in a high pitch of voice the wonders of the wedding festival or venturing various guesses about the American bride. The village girls, who were not a little jealous, nudged each other and exchanged meaning glances, that Petka was to get in a fix he had never been before. All were anxious to see the arrival of the two thousand-ruble bride. The blacksmith and the inn-keeper were discussing something excitedly.

"Say what you want, but this kind of matrimonial affair is the limit," argued the blacksmith, pushing back his hat. "I can't see how a woman comes such a distance and so many weeks to marry Petka, whom she has never seen, and how Petka gets the crazy thought to marry a city woman whom he does not know. Something is wrong somewhere. This is going to bust sooner or later."

"My dear Vasska, it's the education, the refinement and all that which I and you can do without," grunted the inn-keeper.

Vasska rubbed his fists and spat vigorously. The inn-keeper tried to mollify him by saying that he should not take the matter so seriously.

Suddenly the dogs began to bark and the boys shouted:

"The American bride! Here comes the lady from abroad!"

All the guests rushed out to see her. And there she was, in a big flower-trimmed hat, with a silk parasol, and all the wonderful fineries. She looked so elegant, so superior that the village women, accustomed to their rural simplicity, felt overawed. The groom hurrying with throbbing heart to open the gates of the front-yard bowed almost to the ground to the dazzling reality of his romantic dreams. He was so confused by this apparition that he did not know whether to shout or cry.

"My gracious, how she is made up!" whispered the women.

"What a wonderful dress!" whispered the girls.

"Ain't you Petka? You deary!" exclaimed the bride, affecting a foreign accent.

"Yes, mademoiselle, gracious yes," stammered the groom nervously, wiping the tears of joy from his eyes.

"Gee, Petka, you are a nice boy!" gushed the bride, trying to show the quality of her refinement.

She took his both hands and whispered that he should kiss them gracefully in the American manner. Then she leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed. These American manners so embarrassed the groom that he blushed and dropped his eyes. But after all, was she not a highly educated American lady? And of course, she knew what was proper.

Though Liza looked ten years older than Petka, yet she had all the city air, the American manners and style, and most important of all, she had the capital. The first question Liza asked was whether they had a manicure, hair-dresser and boot-black in the village. No one had ever heard that such functionaries existed, so the groom explained excitedly that he would take her after the wedding to the town where she could get what she wanted. Petka carried the trunk and the five suit-cases into he house, implements which on one had ever seen. All the novelties and sensations were so great that the guests and the groom felt dazed for a moment.

"Have you got here champagne?" asked the bride, entering the house.

"We do not have such American drinks. We have kvas, beer, vodka and all the home-made cordials," stammered the groom.

"But you must have some high-balls or cocktails at least," went on the bride with an affected gesture.

"My gracious, there we are!" groaned the groom, and shrugged denyingly his shoulders. "We've never handled those things here, so you must forgive us."

"Mademoiselle Liza, I beg your pardon," interrupted the inn-keeper seriously. "We can arrange the balls and the tails, but you see we are simply country people and keep our bowels in order. City amusements put our stomachs in a bad fix and don't agree with us."

The groom felt embarrassed and did not know what to do. He bowed apologetically before his bride and tried to please her in every possible way. He imitated her gestures and manners, her shrugs and voice. He even kept his hands on his breast, as was Liza's manner. Finally the bride asked whether there was any entertainment prepared as she had asked. The groom gave the inn-keeper a hint and the latter said that he would do his best. The three musicians were already concealed with their instruments in a big barrel and the imposing organist began his function. Strains of an unique music issued from the decorated music-box. Everybody at once rushed into the room. All stared amazed at the strange contrivance which played at one and the same time concertina, violin and drum. It was like a miracle, gripping and inspiring.

"I bet you this would interest your American audiences," remarked the inn-keeper to the bride.

"It beats the Coney Island noise," stammered Liza, and took up the conversation with a village woman.

All the house now was jollity. The room was bursting of the powerful music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the guests. How it happened no one knows, but one of the women had placed a bowl with hot punch on the music box. Whether through an accident, or the excitement of the organist, the vessel broke, and the punch leaked through the cracks and holes into the instrument. Suddenly the music stopped, although the conductor was still industriously turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices and sounds as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at the music-box, which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were within. Then arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with loud curses. Before anybody could realize what had happened, three angry musicians leaped from the music instrument, the steaming punch dropping from their heads.

"Good Lord, what's this?" gasped the men while the women shrieked and fled. One of the musicians put his fist under the frightened organist and shouted:

"I'll pay for this joke, you scoundrel!"

"Semen, don't be a fool. I didn't do it. By Jove, I didn't do it," exclaimed apologetically the organist, trembling.

"Damn, who did it?" asked the groom excited.

No one replied. And when the people realized what had happened, everybody roared. No one who glanced at the overturned music instrument and at the musicians, with their punch-dropping heads could restrain their laughter. Even the pompous bride found it so funny that she laughed with the rest.