ROOSEVELT IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR (continued 4)

Let us put our trust neither in rhetoric nor hypocrisy, whether conscious or unconscious. Let us be honest with ourselves. Let us look the truth in the face. Let us remember what Germany, Austria, and Turkey have actually done. Let us remember what Russia has suffered from Germany and the worse than folly with which she has behaved to every one else. Let us remember what has happened to China and what we have made happen to Haiti and San Domingo. Then let us trust for our salvation to a sound and intense American nationalism.

The horse sense of the matter is that all agreements to further the cause of sound internationalism must be based on recognition of the fact that as the world is actually constituted our present prime need is this sound and intense American nationalism. The first essential of this sound nationalism is that the Nation shall trust to its own fully prepared strength for its own defense. So far as possible, its strength must also be used to secure justice for others and must never be used to wrong others. But unless we possess and prepare the strength, we can neither help ourselves nor others. Let us by all means go into any wise league or covenant among nations to abolish neutrality (for, of course, a league to enforce peace is merely another name for a league to abolish neutrality in every possible war). But let us first understand what we are promising, and count the cost and determine to keep our promises. Above all, let us treat any such agreement or covenant as a mere addition to, and never as a substitute for, the preparation in advance of our own armed power. Next time we behave with the ignoble folly we have shown during the last four years we may not find allies to do what France and England and Italy have done for us. They have protected us with their navies and armies, their blood and their treasure, while we first refused to do anything and then slowly and reluctantly began to harden and make ready our giant but soft and lazy strength.

No proper scheme designed to secure peace without effort and safety without service and sacrifice will either make this country safe or enable it to do its international duty toward others.

An American citizen, personally unknown to me, writes me that his three sons entered the army at the outbreak of the war, and that one of them, an aviator, was killed in battle at the front just two weeks before my own son was killed as he fought in the air. In his letter my correspondent adds:

Would that my country might learn and never forget that not only the winning of peace now, but the maintenance of peace at all times depends not fundamentally on treaties or leagues of nations, but on the readiness of citizens to fly to the aid of the wronged and to give their lives if need be that justice may be secured.

There speaks the true American spirit which holds fast alike to fearlessness and to wisdom, to gentleness and to iron resolution. There speaks the spirit of that fervent nationalism which would forbid America either to inflict or to endure wrong.

THE MAN WHO PAYS AND THE MAN WHO PROFITS

August 9, 1918

The men who do the fighting at the front and their mothers and wives back here are those who in this great and terrible crisis are paying—the blood of the men and the tears of the women, and with the suffering of men, women, and children—for our failure to prepare during the two and a half years before we entered the World War. For this failure to prepare, in spite of the most vivid warning ever given a Nation, the warning that befell the rest of the world during those two and a half years, the professed pacifists and the politicians who pandered to them are more responsible than any one else, except the pro-Germans. If, when the World War broke out, or at latest when the Lusitania was sunk, we had done our plain duty, we had then begun to build ships, field cannon and airplanes, and to train men exactly as we have been doing during the last year and a quarter, except that we should have done the work on a larger scale with more efficiency and with much less waste and extravagance. Remember that failure to provide great numbers of cannon and airplanes means that the infantry has to pay for it with a huge increase of slaughter. All the guns and airplanes we left unbuilt during the first three years of the war has meant so much more bloodshed, so many more Americans killed and crippled, not to speak of the tremendous loss of life to our allies. Moreover, when men in small numbers are put into battle, when only a few hundred thousand are forced to suffer heavy loss in doing work which two or three million men could have accomplished speedily and thoroughly and with very little loss, the responsibility rests on those who prevented the preparation in advance. If we had built quantities of ships and trained large numbers of men in advance, the World War would have ended almost as soon as we entered, and an infinite amount of bloodshed would have been prevented.

The best roll of our army overseas is the American roll of honor. These men have paid with their bodies for the safety of this Nation in the present and the future. They have died, and by their death have earned for the rest of us the right to hold our heads high with pride. But it is no less true that their blood has been shed, but their gallant lives have been spent because we did not prepare in advance. We did not prepare because our people were misled. For this misleading of the people the professional profiteers share the responsibility with the pro-Germans, with sham sentimentalists, with the sordid, short-sighted materialists, and with all the politicians, publicists, and private citizens, rich or poor, whose vanity or folly or self-interest profited thereby. We ought not to remember this in any spirit of revenge, but most certainly, unless we are worse than foolish, we shall remember it and other warnings to teach us how to behave in the future, and as a very stern warning against again trusting to the leadership of the men thus responsible for the deaths of so many fine and fearless young Americans.

Most of the men who are misled, and some of the men who misled them, have come frankly forward to admit their error. What is even more important, most of them have made the real atonement of deeds. They have, if young, themselves gone into the army, and if not young have sent their sons or permitted them to go into the army and fight in freedom’s belated battle. All these men are paying their share of the joint payment in blood of the Nation. They are to be heartily respected. They are not seeking to profit by the valor and blood of others.

So much for the men who pay; now for the men who profit. Some of these men profit in money. If such profit is excessive it is iniquitous. But a proper money profit is absolutely necessary, for no business can be permanent without profit any more than a working-man can permanently work without wages. The unpardonable profit is that of the man, especially the rich man, who, having preached pacifism and unpreparedness, now, when war comes, sees brave men face a death which pacifism and unpreparedness have made infinitely more probable while he himself and his sons profit by these other men’s courage and sit at home in the ease and safety secured by the fact that these others face death. The worst profiteers in this country are the men and the sons of the men who decline to face the death which their own actions have made more probable for others.

Unless in exceptional cases there is no need to discuss individuals in private life. But when a man seeks public office, it becomes a duty to discuss his record. Mr. Henry Ford is a candidate for United States Senator in Michigan. No man in this country strove harder in the cause of pacifism and unpreparedness than he did during the vital two years and a half before this country went to War. He received the cordial applause of the peace-at-any-price people who were themselves, of course, efficiently playing the pro-German game. He is a multi-millionaire. If any of his kin are killed, their families are not merely guarded against poverty, but are sure of wealth. The son of Mr. Ford ought to feel it absolutely obligatory on him to go to the war. There is not in this country any other man who ought to feel it more honorably necessary to pay with his body, if necessary, to atone with his life for the dreadful wrong done this country by the preachers of pacifism and unpreparedness during the two years and a half that preceded our entry into the war. Yet it is announced in the press that Mr. Ford’s son has obtained exemption from military service and is employed in the money-making business of his wealthy father.

Mr. Ford’s proper place is on the mourner’s bench and not at the council board of the Nation.

OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE

August 16, 1918

Judge Ben Lindsey has recently written two or three striking pieces about what Great Britain has done and is doing in this war. Incidentally he points out how far ahead of us she now is in certain types of social legislation, such as that dealing with children. But the lesson he inculcates which is of most immediate concern is the giant part England has played in this war and the debt we owe to her because, in standing up for Belgium and France, she was really defending us during our days of folly when we followed the lead of our worst enemies, the pacifists and pro-Germans.

The English pacifists are, if anything, even more silly than our own. They did their best to make England keep out of this war. If they had succeeded the British Empire would for a few years have trod the broad, smooth road of peaceful and greedy infamy and would then have tumbled into the bottomless pit of utter destruction. But in August, 1914, Great Britain and the gallant overseas commonwealths which share her empire chose the hard path of immediate danger, of ultimate safety, and of high heroism. Thereby they saved their own souls and the bodies of their children, and in so doing rendered an inestimable service to us.

England has raised an immense army which has fought in Europe, Asia, and Africa. If it were not for this army even the highly trained valor of the French could not have averted German victory. At the same time the British fleet has kept the seas free for the food and coal and munitions needed for the Allied people and armies and has furnished the transports necessary to enable us to put under Pershing a force large enough to be of real consequence in the vitally important battle which has been raging for the last thirty days. If Great Britain had not been far-sighted enough to realize what her own welfare demanded when France was invaded, and if she had not been stirred to noble indignation by the Belgian horror, the whole civilized world would now have been cowering under the brutal dominion of Germany. If she had not controlled the seas, not an American battalion could have been sent to the aid of France as she struggled to save the soul of the world, and no help could have been given gallant Italy or any others of these Allied nations to whose stern fighting efficiency we owe it that this earth is still a place on which free men can live.

We must stand by Great Britain precisely as we stand by our other allies—in the first place, by waging the war with all our strength, and in the next place by seeing that the peace is of a kind which justifies them for all the sacrifices they have made.

One item in waging the war ought to be insistence that every American of fighting age who resides in the British Empire and every Englishman of fighting age who resides in the United States be invariably put in either the British or the American armies. One item in making peace ought to be insistence that Britain keep every colony she has conquered from Germany, both in the South Seas and in Africa. Germany has behaved abominably in Africa. The course Germany has followed in Africa has made her a menace of evil to the Boer and British Africanders, and to return to her the colonies which have been taken from her, whether in Africa or Asia, by Australia or Great Britain, or by France or Japan or Belgium, would be a crime against civilization.

THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD

August 20, 1918

Every loyal American citizen in Michigan should read the last two numbers of Mr. George Harvey’s War Weekly. In these numbers there are quotations from Mr. Henry Ford’s speeches made two years ago and again since we entered the war. Mr. Ford has not questioned the accuracy of these quotations given by Mr. Harvey.

Speaking of American flags over his own factory Mr. Ford said: “I don’t believe in the flag. When the war is over these flags shall come down never to go up again.”

The Sedition Act, approved by President Wilson, inflicts a maximum punishment of twenty years in the penitentiary for any man who, while we are at war, utters “language intended to bring the flag of the United States into contempt or disrepute.” During the last year many poor and ignorant men have been convicted and sentenced for using language thus forbidden by law. In my view the fact that Mr. Ford is an enormously wealthy man ought not to give him immunity from the law if he cannot show that he did not use the language quoted in the War Weekly. But whether or not amenable to the law, no patriotic American can afford to put in the Senate, perhaps to help negotiate the peace treaty, a man who announces that as soon as peace comes he wishes to haul down the American flag and never again to hoist it. To send such a man to the Senate professing such sentiments under existing conditions would give the enemy a wholly wrong idea of the pacifist sentiment in our country. There is nothing in the world which would now help Germany as much, or give her so much heart in her struggle for the overthrow of liberty and democracy as the belief that men professing such sentiments would have part in the peace negotiations on behalf of this country.

Among the further utterances of Mr. Ford (as given in the War Weekly) is one that he does “not believe in patriotism” and that he does not care any more for the United States “than for China or Hindustan.” The man who does not believe in patriotism is not fit to live in this country, still less to represent it in the Senate. If these words of Mr. Ford mean anything, then Mr. Ford is unpatriotic and has no more right to sit in the United States Senate than a Hindu or a Chinaman. Unless Mr. Ford can show that he never uttered these words no man worthy to be called an American, and least of all any religious or patriotic man, can afford to support him for the Senate.

Mr. Ford has been given immensely valuable war contracts of the Government. No doubt he has executed them as well as the thousands of other contractors who now render service to the Government for pay. But no service he can thus render the Government can offset the frightful damage he did our people by the lavish use he made of his enormous wealth in a gigantic and profoundly anti-American propaganda against preparedness and against our performance of international duty during the two and a half years before we entered the war. This crusade against righteousness included the sending of the ridiculous “peace ship” to Europe. This particular manifestation was too absurd even to do harm, but so far as it had any effect at all it encouraged Germany to believe that we were as neutral between right and wrong as Pontius, and that as far as we were concerned she could safely proceed with wrongdoing because we held the scales of judgment even between the wrongdoer and his victim. The crusade also included an extraordinary series of advertisements issued long after the Lusitania was sunk, in which Mr. Ford violently opposed and denounced preparedness, advocated and approved the McLemore resolutions, and announced that it was our duty to keep out of war; and not merely himself kept silent about the wrongdoing of Germany, but assailed those who set forth this wrongdoing on the ground that they “had bred racial hatred by the printing of incendiary news stories and articles.” It may well be doubted whether this propaganda did not do more damage to the American people than the propaganda carried on at the same time by Ambassador Bernstorff.

If we had seen our duty and had fully prepared during these two and a half years, either we would never have had to enter the war or we would have brought it to a close immediately after we entered it. The best and bravest of the young men of the Nation are now paying with their blood for our unpreparedness and therefore for the pacific propaganda quite as much as for the pro-German propaganda carried on in this country during the two and a half years before we entered the war. But wealthy Mr. Ford’s son is not among these men. He is of draft age. He applied for exemption. The local board refused his application. He applied to the President. The President did not act for two months. Then the revised draft regulations were promulgated, and Mr. Ford was excepted under the deferred or exempted class which included a married man with a child, however wealthy that man might be. He has exercised his legal right. Very many thousands of young Americans, men of small means who are not sons of multi-millionaires, have declined to take advantage of this legal right. They have left their wives and babies to go to war for a great ideal, for love of country, for love of liberty and of civilization. But Mr. Ford’s son stays at home. These other young Americans face death and endure unspeakable hardships and misery and fatigue for the sake of America and have surrendered all hope of money-getting, of comfort and of safety. But young Mr. Ford, in ease and safety, is in the employ of his wealthy father.

In private relations I understand that Mr. Ford is an amiable man. But I am not dealing with him in his private relations. I am discussing him as a candidate for high office. We are bound truthfully to set forth what we believe will be the effect of his election, and therefore we are bound to say that it would be damaging to the United States and would be encouraging to Germany. No patriotic American should support Mr. Ford.

SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY AND GIVE ALL WHO ENTER IT FAIR PLAY

August 23, 1918

Our Government must learn that needless delay is worse than a blunder. We are sending troops to Siberia. This is good, but it would have been ten times better to have sent them last spring when the need was precisely as evident as it is now. The Administration is now preparing to ask Congress to arrange for putting between three and four million men in France by next July. Six months ago our best military advisers and our most far-sighted civilian leaders were urging that we prepare to put five million men in France by next March. The delay has been absolutely needless and may be very harmful. When last spring the demand for five million men was being incessantly urged, President Wilson treated it as merely a case for competitive rhetoric, and asked, with dramatic effect, why we should limit the number at all. But he actually has limited it to a much smaller number at a much later date. Therefore let there at least be no further delay. And above all let us not be misled by the persons who say that Germany will make peace before next spring. Our business is to act on the assumption that we shall have to put forth our utmost effort next spring and not to take any unnecessary chances.

The Government is now very properly proposing to enlarge the draft age limits to include all the men of fighting age, all the men of the ages which furnished the enormous majority of the soldiers of the Civil War. The number of men in the excepted classes should be greatly reduced. There are too many exceptions. It is earnestly to be hoped that the plan will include the institution of universal obligatory military training of all our young men of eighteen to twenty years old as a permanent policy.

But we ought not to adopt the plan recently proposed for special advantages to be given by the Government to young men who go to college and take certain special courses with a view to becoming officers. This would amount to giving a special privilege to persons with money enough to send their boys to college in order to have them escape the draft and secure commissions. This is not fair. It means giving a privilege to money. There is no excuse for giving such a preference to young men of eighteen or nineteen at this time when we have been at war eighteen months. There is still need to give some of the older men a special chance to train. But there is no such need in the case of men under twenty-one.

There was every reason of sound public policy at the outset of the war to take advantage of the forethought and self-denial of the young men who at the Plattsburg and similar camps had at their own expense prepared themselves before the war began, and when, owing to the failure of the Government to do its duty, they were the only men who did prepare. There has been good reason for similar camps for young men during the last eighteen months before our general training camps began to show their full results. But from now on every young officer should be chosen on his merits from the men who enter the army in the ranks. Only the men who show their fitness, by whatever tests are deemed necessary after service in the ranks, should be sent to officers’ schools, and money should play no part whatever in the matter.

SENATOR LODGE’S NOBLE SPEECH

September 1, 1918

Senator Lodge’s speech dealing with the principles for which we are fighting and setting forth in detailed outline the kind of peace which alone will mean the peace of victory was a really noble speech. Nothing is easier, and from the national standpoint as distinguished from the standpoint of personal benefit to the speaker, nothing is less useful than a speech of such glittering generalities that almost anybody can interpret it in almost any manner. Only a great statesman possesses the courage, the knowledge, and the power of expression to set forth in convincing fashion the detailed statement of the objects which must be attained if such a war as that in which we are engaged is to be crowned by a peace wholly worth the terrible cost of life and happiness caused by the war. This is the service which Senator Lodge has rendered to this Nation and to our allies.

From time to time in our history the Senate has rendered services of exceptional magnitude to the Nation. Never in our history has it rendered greater service than during the last nine months. The greatest men who have ever sat in it, men such as Clay and Webster and Calhoun and Benton, did not stand forth in leadership more clearly than a dozen of the Senators who, during the last nine months, have fearlessly and disinterestedly borne the burden of speeding up the war and endeavoring to place our international relations on exactly the right lines.

These leaders have in actual fact adjourned politics. They have considered only their patriotic duty in all matters concerning this war and our relations with our allies and our enemies. The most efficient service toward speeding up the war and enabling this Nation to do its duty that has been rendered by any civilian public servants of the Nation is the service rendered by Senator Chamberlain and the Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, who acted with him on the Military Affairs Committee in the investigation of the War Department last winter. Within the last fortnight a service of similar character has been rendered by Senator Thomas and his associates in both parties on the sub-committee which has at last put before the people the truth about the breakdown of our aircraft programme. The fact that this summer we have put masses of armed men into France is primarily due to Senator Chamberlain and the Senators of both parties who have acted with him. The fact that next summer we shall at last back up American troops with American airplanes will be due primarily to Senator Thomas and his associates.

APPLIED PATRIOTISM

September 8, 1918

The official record of the Illinois branch of the United Mine Workers of America furnishes an instructive lesson in applied patriotism. The president of the branch is Mr. Frank Farrington. The United Mine Workers are affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

President Farrington’s circulars to the Illinois mine workers set forth the need and the justice of this war and the duty of patriotic Americans in the most straightforward and clear-cut fashion. He states that this is the war for liberty and humanity and for American rights, and that there rests “upon every American and upon every man who has partaken of America’s bounty the solemn obligation of loyally doing their part to win victory for the cause America represents.” He promises the mine workers that their rights shall be protected and secured, but insists that they shall lend every energy to increase the output of coal so as to help our army at the front, which, as he finely says, includes “sons of the rich and sons of the poor men who love life as one, but who prefer death to life without liberty and who have made common cause and entered the lists in answer to the Nation’s need.”

The improper practices are specifically pointed out and condemned, such as shutting down mines in violation of agreement in order to force some desired condition, or making improper restrictions to curtail production. The appeal is solemnly made to, and on behalf of, the miners’ union that there must be full service to the Nation and no shirking of duty, and that no agreement into which the union enters shall be treated as a scrap of paper, but shall be in good faith fulfilled. President Farrington in his official circulars lays constantly increasing stress upon the seriousness of the obligation resting upon the miners to aid and sustain the Allied armies in their fight for the freedom of humanity by hard, steady work and by increasing the output of coal. He condemns with genuine loftiness of feeling and expression all who fail to give the utmost help to the men who at the front are doing so much and suffering so much.

The Illinois mine workers number about ninety thousand members. They are divided into three hundred and twenty local unions. Of these I have figures from only one hundred and twenty. They have sent over four thousand men into the army and navy of the United States, have purchased over two million dollars’ worth of Liberty bonds, $700,000 of War Savings Stamps, and have contributed over $90,000 to the Red Cross and over $20,000 to other war funds.

The Illinois mine workers have made a fine showing in applied patriotism.

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS OF KANSAS

September 12, 1918

The absolute prerequisite for successful self-government in any people is the power of self-restraint which refuses to follow either the wild-eyed extremists of radicalism or the dull-eyed extremists of reaction. Either set of extremists will wreck the Nation just as certainly as the other. The Nation capable of self-government must show the Abraham Lincoln quality of refusing to go with either. The dreadful fall which has befallen Russia is due to the fact that when her people cast off the tyranny of the autocracy, they did not have sufficient self-control and common sense to avoid rushing into the gulf of Bolshevist anarchy.

In this country there are plenty of highbrow Bolsheviki who like to think of themselves as intellectuals, and who in parlors and at pink teas preach Bolshevism as a fad. They are fatuously ignorant that it may be a dangerous fad. Some of them are mere make-believe, sissy Bolsheviki, almost or quite harmless. Others are sincere and foolish fanatics, who mean well and who do not realize that their doctrines tend toward moral disintegration. But there are practical Bolsheviki in this country who are in no sense highbrows. The I.W.W. and the Non-Partisan League, just as long and so far as its members submit to the dominion of leaders like Mr. Townley, represent the forces that under Lenine and Trotzky have brought ruin to Russia. If these organizations obtained power here, they would cast this country into the same abyss with Russia.

The I.W.W. activities may have been officially set forth by the Chicago jury which found the I.W.W. leaders guilty of treasonable practices. These leaders protested that they were only trying to help “the wage slave of to-day,” and had not taken German money. But the jury found them guilty as charged. The American people, when fully awake and aroused, will tolerate neither treason nor anarchy. No Americans are more patriotic than the honest American labor men, and these above all had cause to rejoice in the verdict. Undoubtedly there are plenty of poor ignorant men who join the I.W.W. because they feel they do not receive justice. We should all of us actively unite in the effort to right any wrongs from which these men suffer. But we should set our faces like flint against such criminal leadership as that of the I.W.W.

The Non-Partisan League endeavored to ally itself with the I.W.W. since we entered the war. When the League was started, I felt much sympathy with its avowed purposes. I hope for and shall welcome wisely radical action on behalf of the farmer. But only destruction to all of us can come from the venomous class hatred preached by the present leadership of the League. Some of its leaders have been convicted and imprisoned for treasonable activities. Some of the League’s representatives have been actively pro-Germans. Some are Socialists or Socialist-Anarchists. For the first six months of the war and until it became too dangerous, they were openly against the war, against our allies, and for Germany. The only half-secret alliance between these leaders and certain high Democratic politicians is deeply discreditable to the latter. The victory of the League in its recent efforts to gain control of the Republican Party in Minnesota and Montana would have given immense strength to the pro-German and Bolshevist element throughout the country and its defeat was a matter of rejoicing to all right-minded and patriotic men.

Mr. Townley’s leadership in its moral purpose and national effect entitles him to rank with Messrs. Lenine and Trotzky, and the utterances of the League’s official organ, especially in its appeals to class hatred, puts the official representatives of the League squarely in the clan with the Bolshevist leaders who have done such evil in Russia.

I have before me an official letter from the League written in January last refusing to coöperate in non-political work for the benefit of the farmers, saying, “This organization is a political one, the farmers being organized for the purpose of controlling legislation in their own interests.” In other words, the title, Non-Partisan, is a piece of pure hypocrisy, and its league is really partisan in the narrowest and worst sense. Americans should organize politically as Americans and not as bankers, or lawyers, or farmers, or wage-workers. To organize politically on the basis adopted by the League is thoroughly anti-American and unpatriotic, and if copied generally by our citizens, would mean the creation in this country of rival political parties based on cynically brutal class selfishness.

I have no doubt that the rank and file of the members of the League are good, honest people who have been misled. I am certain that there has been much neglect of the rights of the farmers and that it is a high duty for this country to begin a constructive, practical agricultural policy. But no good American can support the League while it is dominated by its present leadership. The Kansans who have joined to fight the League because it represents Bolshevism are rendering a patriotic service to America.

THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN

September 17, 1918

The Government of the United States is asking us Americans, is asking us, the citizens of the United States, to subscribe to the Fourth Liberty Loan, a bigger loan than any yet issued. It is our duty to back up the Government by floating the loan. Moreover, the performance of this duty should be treated by us as a high privilege. It opens to us a fine opportunity to put our shoulders with all the strength we have into the great shove which is pushing the German barrier back across the Rhine.

The Liberty bonds are the best of all possible investments. Their security and their interest returns give them a peculiar position. Moreover, every one can invest in big or little amounts, exactly as his resources permit. All the people of this country can now become bondholders if they wish. Therefore, all investors in the bonds will get benefits, but what is vastly more important, they will give benefits. They will therefore render service to the country.

We Americans are not, and must not permit ourselves to become, swayed by question of material gain in this war. We must think primarily of our duties. We must keep our minds fixed on what we owe to others, and what we owe to ourselves. We owe a service to humanity. Our sons and brothers at the front pay this service in blood. The rest of us must pay it in money.

Commensurate with the great resources and unparalleled prosperity with which our Nation has been blessed, we owe all the more because for three years the debt accumulated, while other nations were bearing the burden for us. We thank God we have begun to pay. From every village and city of every state the best of our young men are streaming across the Atlantic to join the victorious army under Foch and Pershing. The men and women of America are keeping mill and shipyard and munition factory and mine busy to the limit, so that the troops may not fail nor the supplies on which they depend be lacking.

All this is not one whit more than we ought to do; it is what we owe to the world and owe to ourselves. We are glad and proud to do it. Let us, as part payment of our great debt, subscribe and oversubscribe to the bonds of the Fourth Liberty Loan. This is a service which lies within the ability of the poorest of us. It is the duty and privilege of every right American. Every dollar put into Liberty loans is a dollar working for the downfall of the system of greed and treachery, of tyranny and callous brutality which has drenched the world in blood.

Americans are not quitters. The Kaiser’s troops cannot stop our men at the front. Nothing must be permitted to stop the flow into the treasury of the money with which we back up these men. Sloth and easy living have no place in America now. We must give, give to the utmost. If putting our money at the disposal of the Government requires us to work harder and live more simply, we shall be the better for it. Let us buy these Liberty bonds to the utmost of our capacity and thereby show the men at the front that the people at home will back them to the limit.

FAIR PLAY AND NO POLITICS

September 20, 1918

A Democratic member of the Senate has introduced a resolution to investigate the primary campaign expenses of certain Republican candidates for the Senate, including Commander Truman Newberry, whose recent triumph over Mr. Henry Ford in the Michigan Republican primaries was greeted with heartfelt thanks by every sincere and far-sighted American patriot.

This Senate, which comes to an end on March 4 next, has the same, and only the same right to investigate the election conduct of candidates for the Senate, which comes into existence on March 4 that it has to investigate the campaign conduct of any other candidates for office.

Moreover, any such proposed investigation undertaken on the eve of an election is tainted with bad faith unless it is conducted with conspicuous fairness and impartiality and is undertaken at once so that it can be finished at least a month before the elections. Personally, I shall be glad if the election expenses or any other conduct of any of the candidates be investigated, provided that the investigation be undertaken at once and finished within the next fortnight, and provided that it be entirely impartial. Therefore, it must deal comprehensively with all serious charges affecting the desirability of candidates as governmental representatives of the American people at this time.

If the men backing the proposal are acting in good faith they will investigate Mr. Ford’s record on the following points in order to determine his fitness to represent patriotic Americans at this time. They will find out how much money he spent on the peace ship, and on his lavishly expensive newspaper advertising campaign against preparedness, and against our standing up for Belgium’s rights, and against our taking action about Germany’s sinking the Lusitania and her other assaults on us, and in favor of the McLemore resolution. This was part of the great pacifist campaign of which another part, as our government investigations show, was financed by the German authorities themselves or by their affiliated societies in this country.

The investigation should include Mr. Ford’s contributions in the last presidential campaign and the names of the candidates he supported, for his politics seem to have been purely personal and pacifist.

Moreover, the investigation should include a full examination of the justification for Mr. Ford’s aiding and abetting his son Edsell in escaping draft and staying at home when the great majority of young Americans of his age are eagerly striving for places of honor and peril at the front. Mr. Ford is an enormously wealthy man. Mr. Newberry is not. Mr. Newberry himself at once entered the military service of the United States. His two sons have wives and children, but they immediately entered the service, striving eagerly to get to the front. Mr. Edsell Ford waited until he was drafted, then fought hard for an exemption, which the local board disallowed. He succeeded, however, in escaping service and is at home.

Unless the investigation takes up these matters, it will be stamped with the stamp of unworthy and improper partisanship. The simple truth is that all patriotic Americans rejoice in the nomination and will rejoice in the election at this time of such Americans as Mr. Newberry in Michigan and Mr. Medill McCormick in Illinois.

SPIES AND SLACKERS

September 24, 1918

Mercy to the German spy or pacifist slacker in America is foul injustice to the American soldier in France and to his brother, who is preparing to go to France. Our Government has been altogether too weak in dealing with the pacifist slackers and so-called conscientious objectors. It has actually issued elaborate instructions for and to these creatures practically telling them how to escape doing the duty which all patriotic Americans are proudly eager to perform.

There is not the slightest excuse for such weakness. No man has any right to remain in a free country like ours if he refuses, whether conscientiously or unconscientiously, to do the duties of peace and of war which are necessary if it is to be kept free. The true lovers of peace recognize their duty to fight for freedom. The Society of Friends has furnished the same large proportion of soldiers for this war that it did for the Civil War.

It is all wrong to permit conscientious objectors to remain in camp or military posts or to go back to their homes. They should be treated in one of three ways: First, demand of them military service, except the actual use of weapons with intent to kill, and if they refuse to render this service treat them as criminals and imprison them at hard labor; second, put them in labor battalions and send them to France behind the lines, where association with soldiers might have a missionary effect on them and cause them to forget their present base creed and rise to worthy levels in an atmosphere of self-sacrifice and of service and struggle for great ideals; third, if both of the above procedures are regarded as too drastic, intern them with alien enemies and send them permanently out of the country as soon as possible.

As for the spies, there is no question as to the treatment needed. They should be shot or hung. They are public enemies and this is war-time and they should no more be dealt with by the civil law than the enemy armies should be so dealt with. The German spies and secret agents and dynamiters and murderers in this country are as much a part of Germany as the soldiers of von Hindenburg. Bismarck employed thirty thousand of them to disorganize Germany’s foes fifty years ago, and now Germany is employing them by the hundred thousand. They are as formidable as the visible German army. It was these German Spies, agents, and propagandists who, in 1917, disintegrated and destroyed Russia, and inflicted a crushing disaster on Italy, and conducted the most dangerous intrigue in France, and aided and abetted the British pacifists.

In this country Senator Overman has estimated their number at four hundred thousand, and Mr. Flynn, the recently resigned chief of the secret service, has put them at a quarter of a million. Our official government reports have shown that in obedience to orders from the German Government they have carried on in all hostile and even neutral countries a systematic warfare by means of aiding pacifists’ movements, inciting strikes, fomenting disloyalty, and employing direct action dynamiters and murderers. They have received aid and coöperation, conscientiously and unconscientiously, by many evils in pacifist and Bolshevist societies and in organizations like the I.W.W. and Non-Partisan League.

The activities of the German spies, agents, and sympathizers vary from mere disloyal utterances, which the Attorney-General of the United States has stated to be the cause of most of the disorder in the country, up to seeking to corrupt our soldiers and practicing sabotage in our munitions works and factories for war materials. All offenders of the latter type, wherever committed, can, under the existing law, be tried by court-martial and executed, and this is the proper course to follow. It was the course followed under Lincoln’s administration, which is one of the reasons why Lincoln’s administration differed so markedly from Buchanan’s.

The former chief of the secret service says that there are a quarter of a million of these German spies and agents in this country. We have ample law to warrant these being punished with death by summary court-martial, under military law as military enemies. We have been at war eighteen months, but not one Spy has thus been punished. This means grave remissness in the performance of our duty.

QUIT PLAYING FAVORITES

September 30, 1918

It is announced that the young men of eighteen or nineteen included in the draft will be sent free to college by the Government and will there be given the chance to earn commissions and escape service in the ranks.

Either this represents sheer deception or it will mean gross favoritism. We now have plenty of young men who have been serving in the ranks for nearly eighteen months. Scores of thousands of these left college to go or had just finished high school when they went. All these boys, whether they have or have not been to college, are entitled to the first chance for commissions on equal terms with one another, except that preference should be given those who have been engaged in the fighting overseas. Almost all the second lieutenancies should now be filled in this manner by promotion from the ranks. To give to boys now about to enter college the preference over those who have actually served in the ranks, and especially over those who have actually faced death overseas, would be a cruel injustice.

But the injustice would be equally great among the new recruits themselves. It is wholly illusory for the Government to say it will send to college all who wish to go. The average working-man or small farmer has not had money enough to educate his son so that the boy can now enter college without further training. Yet that boy may have in him the qualities of leadership which especially fit him for command. Such a working-man or farmer ought to wish, and does wish, that his son be tested on his merits by actual service in the ranks, alongside of all other boys, no favors being shown either him or them. For the Government at this time to send some of these boys to college and thus give them a start over the bulk of their fellows represents privilege given to money and is thoroughly unfair.

For the two years before we entered the war the only important piece of preparedness was that of the men who at their own expense went to the Plattsburg training camp established by General Wood, and when Germany forced us into war it was imperatively necessary at once to establish many additional camps of this kind or we should have had no officers whatever for our army. It is still advisable to keep a few training camps for older men whose age and qualifications especially fit them for certain kinds of service. But it is not wise nor right for the Government now to put certain especially favored classes of boys of eighteen and nineteen into college with a view to giving them an advantage over their fellows. This is undemocratic. It is not fair to the other boys of their age who are not in the army. It is exceedingly unfair and unjust to the young men who are already enlisted in the army, and especially to those who have seen service overseas.

From now on no young officer should be appointed saving after service in the ranks out of which he is chosen by fair test in comparison with his fellows as fit to enter an officers’ training camp. Moreover, there should be a resolute effort to give preference to the men who have served in the front in France, the very men who are now apt to be neglected.

WAR AIMS AND PEACE PROPOSALS

October 12, 1918

Our war aim ought to be unconditional surrender of Germany and of her vassal allies, Austria and Turkey. We ought not to consider any peace proposals from Germany until this war aim has been accomplished by the victorious arms of our allies and ourselves.

It is worthy of note that the Central Powers show a greedy eagerness to accept the so-called “fourteen points ”laid down by President Wilson. I earnestly hope that when the time for discussing peace proposals comes, we shall ourselves repudiate some of these fourteen points, and that we shall insist on having all of them put into plain and straightforward language before we assent to any of them. Let us remember that Congress shares with the President the right to make treaties and that the people are bound to insist that they, the people, are the ultimate arbiters and that their will in the peace treaty is followed by both the President and the Congress.

For example, what does that one of the fourteen points referring to the freedom of the seas mean? If it means what Germany interprets it to mean, then every decent American ought to be against it. The kind of freedom of the seas upon which it is really vital to count is freedom from murder. International law at present condemns exactly the kind of murder which Germany practiced in the case of the Lusitania and in hundreds of other cases, and is still practicing. We ought to make her atone heavily for such conduct and explicitly renounce it before we ever discuss any other kind of freedom of the seas.

Again, we ought to know just what the President means by freedom of commercial intercourse. If he means that he proposes to allow Germany to dump her manufactures on us without restriction, we ought to be against it. We ought to insist on keeping in our hands the complete right to handle our tariff as the vital interests of our own citizens, and especially our own working-men, demand.

Again, what is meant by the league of nations? If it means that Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Russia, as at present constituted, are to have the say-so about America’s future destiny, we ought to be against it. They would treat any agreement with us as a scrap of paper wherever it suited their interests, and we ought to realize this fact. Moreover, we already belong to a de facto league of nations which is a going concern. Let us stand by our allies before entering into a league with our enemies. Therefore, let us at once declare war on Turkey. Any such league is of value only if all its members are willing to make war on the same offenders, and the culpable failure of our Government to make war on Turkey and Bulgaria makes it absurd and hypocritical for us to promise to enter such a league in the future until this failure is confessed and atoned for. And let us at once send Major-General Wood and fifty thousand men to aid the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia and establish our front well to the west of the Ural Mountains.

Again, the talk of merely giving autonomy to the subject races of Austria amounts to betrayal of the Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs, the Italians, and the Rumanians. The first should be given their independence and the other three united to the nations with which they really belong. Moreover, it is a betrayal of civilization to leave the Turk in Europe and fail to free the Armenians and the other subject races of Turkey.

Again, let us define what is meant by abolishing secret diplomacy. If it means that the Administration is to renounce the system of secret and furtive diplomacy which it now perseveres in concerning what has happened in Mexico, Haiti, and San Domingo, I heartily agree; but I do not see why it needs an international mandate before it tells our people the truth in these matters. Moreover, before it undertakes a fresh agreement, let it explain why for two years it kept secret from our people the full knowledge it had of Germany’s conduct and attitude toward us, including all the matters set forth in Ambassador Gerard’s books. The American Nation has never seen such secret diplomacy practiced by its Government as it has seen during the last five years.

It is evident, before these fourteen points are accepted as the basis for peace discussion, they should be stated in such straightforward language that we may understand what they mean. The prime necessities at present are simplicity of language and the squaring of deeds with words. The thing we do not need is adroit and supple rhetoric which can be interpreted to mean anything or nothing.

PERMANENT PREPAREDNESS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

October 15, 1918

The vital military need of this country as regards its future international relations is the immediate adoption of the policy of permanent preparedness based on universal training. This is its prime duty from the standpoint of American nationalism and patriotism. Then, as an addition or supplement to, but under no conditions as substitute for, the policy of permanent preparedness, we can afford cautiously to enter into and try out the policy of a league of nations. There is no difficulty whatever in prattling cheerfully about such a league or in winning applause by rhetoric concerning it prior to the effort to make it work in practice; but there will be much difficulty in making it work at all when any serious strain comes, and it will prove entirely unworkable if the effort is made to unload upon it, in the name of internationalism, duties which in the present state of the world will be efficiently performed by the free nations only if they perform them as national duties.

In a recent adverse, but courteous and friendly article on my attitude in this matter which appeared in a great daily paper, the following language was used: “The colonel is letting himself be bothered, irritated, and sidetracked by fools. There is no way of preventing a fool from saying that he is in favor of the league of nations. The American people will be making up their minds about the league of nations and about permanent preparedness. They will be told by certain sorts of pacifists that if they accept the league they can safely reject preparedness. They will be told that the two ideas are opposites.”

The “certain sort of pacifist” who has made this statement to the people of the United States is the President of the United States in the now famous “fourteen points” which he enunciated last January. He advocated as one part of his plan the league or association of nations, as he has elsewhere advocated it, and he advocated as another part of his plan “the guarantees that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.” Unless this language was used with intent to deceive, domestic safety must mean merely freedom from riot, and the President’s proposal is that America’s national preparedness be limited to a police force to prevent domestic disorder. Therefore, the President has told the American people that if they accept the league they can safely reject preparedness.

The President may change his mind, and I sincerely hope he will do so. Until he does so it is the duty of every sincere American patriot to lay far more emphasis on the onerous and indispensable duty of national preparedness than on the wholly untested scheme of a league of nations, which the President has presented as an alternative. I heartily favor true internationalism as an addition to, but never as substitute for, a fervid and intensely patriotic nationalism. I will gladly back any wise and honest effort to create a league of nations, but only on condition that it is treated as an addition to, and not as a substitute for, the full preparedness of our own strength for our own defense.

HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES OF MUDDY MEANING

October 17, 1918

A keen observer of what is now happening in the world writes me that there is very grave danger that this country will be cheated out of the right kind of peace if our people remain fatuously content to accept high-sounding phrases of muddy meaning, instead of clear-cut and truthful statements of just what we demand and just what we intend to do.

The recent action of President Wilson in connection with Germany has shown the imperative need of our people informing themselves of his announced purpose and keeping track of what he does toward the achievement of this purpose. Therefore, we should insist upon the purpose being stated in understandable fashion and being adhered to after it has been stated. This isn’t the President’s war. It is the people’s war. The peace will not be a satisfactory peace unless it is the people’s peace. As a people we have no right to permit the President to commit us to that of which we do not approve or to that which, after honest effort, we are unable to understand.

President Wilson’s first communication to the German Government, if words mean anything, meant an effort to treat on the basis of his so-called “fourteen points.” The German Government answered that it accepted these fourteen points and approved of them. This made them public property, and it behooves the Americans to examine them. I believe that such an examination will show the American people that their meaning is so muddy that we should insist upon their being clearly defined before we in any way accept them as ours. When the peace terms come to be reduced to action, we cannot afford to accept empty competitive rhetoric for straightforward plain dealing.

As regards some of the points, either the meaning is so muddy as to be wholly incomprehensible or else the proposals are very treacherous. The fourth article, for example, proposes guarantees for the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. If this article means anything, it means that this Nation, for instance, is only to keep whatever armed forces are necessary to police the country in the event of domestic disturbance. Now, let our people face what this really implies. It is a proposal that we give up our navy, which, of course, cannot be used for such police purposes, and that we give up all of our army that could be used against a foreign foe. And according to point fourteen of his address to Congress of January 8 last, and according to point three in his speech of September 27 last, this lack of armament on our part is to be supplied by mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity within the league of nations covering the world.

Now, such guarantees are precisely and exactly the scraps of paper to which the German Chancellor likened them when his Government tore up those affecting Belgium. The proposal of President Wilson is that this country shall put itself in the position of Belgium; shall trust to guarantees precisely such as those to which Belgium trusted four and one quarter years ago, and he also proposes, as far as his meaning can be made out at all, that the very powers that treated these guarantees as scraps of paper in the case of Belgium shall be among the powers to whose guarantee we are to trust to the exclusion of all preparation for our own self-defense. All nations are to be asked to render themselves helpless with fatuous indifference to the obvious fact that every weak-minded nation which accepted and acted in the proposal would be at the mercy of every ruthless and efficient nation that chose to treat the proposal as a scrap of paper.

I gravely doubt whether a more silly or more mischievous plan was ever seriously proposed by the ruler of a great nation. Yet, this is exactly the plan to which President Wilson, by his correspondence with Germany, has sought definitely to commit the United States. If his words do not mean exactly what is above set forth, then their meaning is so muddy that no two disinterested outsiders would be warranted in interpreting them the same way.

There is small cause for wonder that Germany eagerly accepted and made her own President Wilson’s fourteen points to which he, without any warrant whatever, seemed to commit this Nation. Incidentally I may add that Mr. Wilson has at different times enunciated at least as many other points, some of them contradictory to the fourteen which he enumerated in January last. The outburst of popular indignation led by such men as Senators Lodge, Poindexter, and Thomas, which forced him to repudiate the negotiations which he had begun with Germany, should be supplemented by a resolute insistence upon the duty of the American public to inform itself as to what it wishes in the peace before the President, without authority, commits it to any peace proposal, and above all to peace proposals which may mean anything or nothing.

Secretary McAdoo, with fine family loyalty, announced that the acceptance by Germany of the fourteen points would have meant Germany’s unconditional surrender. He might as well have said that the acceptance of disunion and the perpetuation of slavery in 1864 would have meant a surrender by the Confederate states. Not only Germany, but every pacifist and pro-German here at home, hailed the fourteen points as representing what they desired. I recently spoke to a body of loyal Americans of German descent on behalf of the Liberty Loan. A member of their organization who was not a straight American, but a hyphenated American, and who did not venture to do more than sign himself as “German-American,” wrote me that in view of my repudiation of President Wilson’s so-called fourteen points he could not, as a loyal German-American, do otherwise than condemn me. The individual himself is doubtless as unimportant as the anonymous letter writer usually is, but there is a real significance in his endorsement of President Wilson’s fourteen points in view of his calling himself so emphatically not a straight-out American, but a German-American. Evidently his loyalty is to Germanism and not to Americanism, and this German loyalty of his made him back the President’s fourteen points, which Germany had so gladly accepted.

The American people should insist that these fourteen points and any other points are stated in clear-cut language, and that there be a full understanding of just what is meant by them and a full knowledge of how far the American people approve of them before any foreign power is permitted to think that they represent America’s position at the peace council.

AN AMERICAN PEACE VERSUS A RUBBER-STAMP PEACE

October 22, 1918

In Wallace’s Farmer, a journal devoted to the interests of the farmer, and also to the interests of every good American citizen, but which has no concern with partisan politics, there is a strong editorial against our acceptance of a peace on the terms of the famous fourteen points laid down by President Wilson in his message of January last. It reads in part as follows:

Of course, Germany would like to make peace on the terms laid down by President Wilson in his speech of January 8, for it would allow Germany to escape the just penalty of her crimes and restore her to her condition before the war.

On the other hand, the leading Socialist paper of New York enthusiastically champions the fourteen points, especially those demanding a league of nations, freedom of the seas according to the German party, and the removal of all economic barriers. This championship is natural, for the Socialists, like the I.W.W. of this country, who have been bitterly pro-German and anti-American, and like the worst Russian Bolsheviks, have steadily worked in Germany’s interests; and like all its professional internationalists they hate the liberty-loving nations so bitterly that they are eagerly working for peace satisfactory to the German autocracy. All such persons, so far as they are not merely silly, seek their own profit in the destruction of civilization, and they would hail an inconclusive peace, which would mean the triumph of militarism, rather than see the free nations triumphant over both militarism and anarchy.

But in his last note to Austria, President Wilson himself flatly repudiates one of his fourteen points—that relating to autonomy for the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugo-Slavs under the Austro-Hungarian yoke. He announces that he has changed his position because facts have changed, but in reality the facts have not changed in even the smallest degree between January and October so far as these two nationalities are concerned. Many persons, including myself, had then been demanding for over a year this complete independence. Nothing whatever has changed in the situation except Mr. Wilson’s mind, and obviously this has changed merely because the American people have gradually waked up and have forced him in this matter to take a course diametrically opposed to the one he had been advocating, precisely as a week ago an aroused and indignant public opinion forced him to absolutely reverse the course of negotiation on which he entered with Germany. The popular feeling would have been inarticulate and helpless if it had not received expression from various patriotic public servants and private citizens and from those fearless newspapers, which, at the risk of grave financial disaster, have ventured when the crisis was serious to defy the sinister efforts of the Administration to do away with the freedom of the press. Senators Lodge, Poindexter, and Thomas and Congressman Fess are examples of the public servants, and Professor Hobbs, of the University of Michigan, and Professor Thayer, of Harvard, are examples of private citizens who have well served the people of the United States in this crisis.

Of course, the entire cuckoo or rubber-stamp tribe of politicians tumbled over themselves in the effort to assure the President that no matter what somersault he turned they would flop with equal quickness, and that their responsibility was solely to him and not to the people of the United States or to the cause of right and of fearlessness and of honorable dealing. Senator Lewis, of Illinois, introduced a resolution stating that “the United States Senate approves whatever course may be taken by the President in dealing with the German Imperial Government and the Austrian Imperial Government and endorses and approves whatever methods he may employ.” Senator Lewis is, in private life, an amiable and kindly gentleman, but the above resolution is a somewhat abject announcement that in public life he aspires only to be a rubber stamp. If such position is proper, then there is no need of Senators or Congressmen, and our people should merely send written proxies to Washington and should otherwise copy the example of those big private corporations which are controlled by one man according to his own will and for his own benefit.

I do not believe that the American people will accept a view which is both so abject and so profoundly unpatriotic. This is the war of the American people and the peace which concludes it should be the peace imposed by the American people. Therefore, they should send to Washington public servants who will be self-respecting Americans and not rubber stamps.

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

October 26, 1918

When the American people speak for unconditional surrender, it means that Germany must accept whatever terms the United States and its allies think necessary in order to right the dreadful wrongs that have been committed and to safeguard the world for at least a generation to come from another attempt by Germany to secure world dominion. Unconditional surrender is the reverse of a negotiated peace. The interchange of notes, which has been going on between our Government and the Governments of Germany and Austria during the last three weeks, means, of course, if persisted in, a negotiated peace. It is the abandonment of force and the substitution of negotiation. This fact should be clearly and truthfully stated by our leaders, so that the American people may decide with their eyes open which course they will follow.

Those of us who believe in unconditional surrender regard Germany’s behavior during the last five years as having made her the outlaw among nations. In private life sensible men and women do not negotiate with an outlaw or grow sentimental about him, or ask for a peace with him on terms of equality if he will give up his booty. Still less do they propose to make a league with him for the future, and on the strength of this league to abolish the sheriff and take the constable. On the contrary, they expect the law officers to take him by force and to have him tried and punished. They do not punish him out of revenge, but because all intelligent persons know punishment to be necessary in order to stop certain kinds of criminals from wrongdoing and to save the community from such wrongdoing.

We ought to treat Germany in precisely this manner. It is a sad and dreadful thing to have to face some months or a year or so of additional bloodshed, but it is a much worse thing to quit now and have the children now growing up obliged to do the job all over again, with ten times as much bloodshed and suffering, when their turn comes. The surest way to secure a peace as lasting as that which followed the downfall of Napoleon is to overthrow the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns as Napoleon was overthrown. If we enter into a league of peace with Germany and her vassal allies, we must expect them to treat the arrangement as a scrap of paper whenever it becomes to their interest to do so.

WHAT ARE THE FOURTEEN POINTS?

October 30, 1918

The European nations have been told that the fourteen points enumerated in President Wilson’s message of January last are to be the basis of peace. It is, therefore, possible that Americans may like to know what they are. It is even possible that they may like to guess what they mean, although I am not certain that such guessing is permitted by the Postmaster-General and the Attorney-General under the new theory of making democracy safe for all kinds of peoples abroad who have never heard of it by interpreting democracy at home as meaning that it is unlawful for the people to express any except favorable opinions of the way in which the public servants of the people transact the public business.

The first point forbids “all private international understandings of any kind,” and says there must be “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at,” and announces that “diplomacy shall always proceed frankly in the public view.” The President has recently waged war on Haiti and San Domingo and rendered democracy within these two small former republics not merely unsafe, but non-existent. He has kept all that he has done in the matter absolutely secret. If he means what he says, he will at once announce what open covenant of peace he has openly arrived at with these two little republics, which he has deprived of their right of self-determination. He will also announce what public international understanding, if any, he now has with these two republics, whose soil he is at present occupying with the armed forces of the United States and hundreds of whose citizens have been killed by these armed forces. If he has no such public understanding, he will tell us why, and whether he has any private international understanding, or whether he invaded and conquered them and deprived them of the right of self-determination without any attempt to reach any understanding, either private or public.

Moreover, he has just sent abroad on a diplomatic mission Mr. House, of Texas. Mr. House is not in the public service of the Nation, but he is in the private service of Mr. Wilson. He is usually called Colonel House. In his official or semi-official biography, published in an ardently admiring New York paper, it is explained that he was once appointed colonel on a governor’s staff, but carried his dislike of military ostentation to the point of giving his uniform to a negro servant to wear on social occasions. This attitude of respect for the uniform makes the President feel that he is peculiarly fit to negotiate on behalf of our fighting men abroad for whom the uniform is sacred. Associated with him is an editor of the New York World, which paper has recently been busy in denouncing as foolish the demand made by so many Americans for unconditional surrender by Germany.

I do not doubt that these two gentlemen possess charming social attributes and much private worth, but as they are sent over on a diplomatic mission, presumably vitally affecting the whole country, and as their instructions and purposes are shrouded in profound mystery, it seems permissible to ask President Wilson why in this particular instance diplomacy does not “proceed frankly in the public view”?

This first one of the fourteen points offers such an illuminating opportunity to test promise as to the future by performance in the present that I have considered it at some length. The other thirteen points and the subsequent points laid down as further requirements for peace I shall briefly take up in another article.

FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE FOURTEEN POINTS

October 30, 1918

The second in the fourteen points deals with freedom of the seas. It makes no distinction between freeing the seas from murder like that continually practiced by Germany and freeing them from blockade of contraband merchandise, which is the practice of a right universally enjoyed by belligerents, and at this moment practiced by the United States. Either this proposal is meaningless or it is a mischievous concession to Germany.

The third point promises free trade among all the nations, unless the words are designedly used to conceal President Wilson’s true meaning. This would deny to our country the right to make a tariff to protect its citizens, and especially its working-men, against Germany or China or any other country. Apparently this is desired on the ground that the incidental domestic disaster to this country will prevent other countries from feeling hostile to us. The supposition is foolish. England practiced free trade and yet Germany hated England particularly, and Turkey practiced free trade without deserving or obtaining friendship from any one except those who desired to exploit her.

The fourth point provides that this Nation, like every other, is to reduce its armaments to the lowest limit consistent with domestic safety. Either this is language deliberately used to deceive or else it means that we are to scrap our army and navy and prevent riot by means of a national constabulary, like the state constabulary of New York or Pennsylvania.

Point five proposes that colonial claims shall all be treated on the same basis. Unless the language is deliberately used to deceive, this means that we are to restore to our brutal enemy the colonies taken by our allies while they were defending us from this enemy. The proposition is probably meaningless. If it is not, it is monstrous.

Point six deals with Russia. It probably means nothing, but if it means anything, it provides that America shall share on equal terms with other nations, including Germany, Austria, and Turkey, in giving Russia assistance. The whole proposition would not be particularly out of place in a college sophomore’s exercise in rhetoric.

Point seven deals with Belgium and is entirely proper and commonplace.

Point eight deals with Alsace-Lorraine and is couched in language which betrays Mr. Wilson’s besetting sin—his inability to speak in a straightforward manner. He may mean that Alsace and Lorraine must be restored to France, in which case he is right. He may mean that a plebiscite must be held, in which case he is playing Germany’s evil game.

Point nine deals with Italy, and is right.

Point ten deals with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and is so foolish that even President Wilson has since abandoned it.

Point eleven proposes that we, together with other nations, including apparently Germany, Austria, and Hungary, shall guarantee justice in the Balkan Peninsula. As this would also guarantee our being from time to time engaged in war over matters in which we had no interest whatever, it is worth while inquiring whether President Wilson proposes that we wage these wars with the national constabulary to which he desired to reduce our armed forces.

Point twelve proposes to perpetuate the infamy of Turkish rule in Europe, and as a sop to the conscience of humanity proposes to give the subject races autonomy, a slippery word which in a case like this is useful only for rhetorical purposes.

Point thirteen proposes an independent Poland, which is right; and then proposes that we guarantee its integrity in the event of future war, which is preposterous unless we intend to become a military nation more fit for overseas warfare than Germany is at present.

Point fourteen proposes a general association of nations to guarantee to great and small states alike political independence and territorial integrity. It is dishonorable to make this proposition so long as President Wilson continues to act as he is now acting in Haiti and San Domingo. In its essence Mr. Wilson’s proposition for a league of nations seems to be akin to the holy alliance of the nations of Europe a century ago, which worked such mischief that the Monroe Doctrine was called into being especially to combat it. If it is designed to do away with nationalism, it will work nothing but mischief. If it is devised in sane fashion as an addition to nationalism and as an addition to preparing our own strength for our own defense, it may do a small amount of good; but it will certainly accomplish nothing if more than a moderate amount is attempted and probably the best first step would be to make the existing league of the Allies a going concern.

As to the supplementary points or proposals, the four advanced or laid down in February were sound moral aphorisms of no value save as they may be defined in each particular case.

But the supplementary five proposals set forth by President Wilson last September were, on the whole, mischievous and were capable of a construction that would make them ruinous in their essence. They set forth the doctrine that there must be no discrimination between our friends and our enemies and no special economic or political alliances among friendly nations, but uniform treatment of all the league of nations; the said league, therefore, to include Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Russia upon a footing of equality of our allies. Either the words used mean nothing or they mean that we are to enter a league in which we make-believe that our deadly enemies, stained with every kind of brutality and treachery, are as worthy of friendship as the Allies who have fought our battles for four years. No wonder that the proposal is enthusiastically applauded by Germany, Austria, and Turkey and by all our own pro-Germans and pacifists and Germanized Socialists and anti-American internationalists. It is the kind of proposition made by cold-blooded men who at least care nothing for the sufferings of others. It is eagerly championed by foolish and hysterical sentimentalists. It is accepted and used for sinister purposes by powerful and cynical wrongdoers. When the President was making this proposition and during the subsequent month Germany was committing inhuman murders of the people on the Ticonderoga and Leinster at sea, and on shore was committing every species of murder, rape, enslavement, plunder, and outrage as her armies withdrew from France and Belgium.

President Wilson’s announcement was a notice to the malefactors that they would not be punished for the murders. Let us treat the league of nations only as an addition to, and not as a substitute for, thorough preparedness and intense nationalism on our part. Let none of the present international criminals be admitted until a sufficient number of years has passed to make us sure it has repented. Make conduct the test of admission to the league. In every crisis judge each nation by its conduct. Therefore, at the present time let us stand by our friends and against our enemies.

FOURTEEN SCRAPS OF PAPER

October 31, 1918

In my article yesterday I discussed Mr. Wilson’s fourteen peace points which had been accepted by Germany. After the article was sent in, Mr. Wilson explained one of the points by stating that it meant exactly the opposite of what it said. A New York paper has asked for the election of a Congress that shall see eye to eye with Mr. Wilson. But only a Congress of whirling dervishes could see eye to eye with Mr. Wilson for more than twenty-four hours at a time.

When Germany broke her treaty with Belgium, the German Chancellor called it a scrap of paper. Any individual who proposes a treaty which plainly means one thing, and then, as soon as he finds it disagreeable to adhere to that obvious meaning, instantly interprets it as meaning exactly the opposite, is treating it as a scrap of paper. Mr. Wilson’s recent interpretation of what he meant in the point about economic barriers makes all the fourteen points scraps of paper unworthy of serious discussion by anybody, because no human being is supposed to say what any one of them means or to do more than guess whether to-morrow Mr. Wilson will not interpret each and all of them in a sense exactly the opposite to their meaning.

Mr. Wilson’s language in the point in question was that he intended the removal “of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations.” By no honest construction of language can this be held to mean anything except that this Nation, for example, could have no tariff of its own, but must live under exactly the same tariff, or no tariff, conditions with all other nations. But Mr. Wilson now notifies a Democratic Senator that he did not mean any “restriction upon the free determination by any nation of its own economic policy.” If he meant this, why did he not say it? Why did he say the exact opposite? His first statement is wholly incompatible with the interpretation he now puts on it. If anybody in private life entered into a contract in such manner and then sought to repudiate it by interpreting it in such manner, there is not a court in Christendom that would not adjudge him guilty of having used language with deliberate intent to deceive.

Nor is this all. In his new interpretation of what he did not originally mean, the President now says that he proposes to prevent any nation, including the United States, from using its tariff to discriminate in favor of friendly nations and against hostile nations. This is what he now says and what he now means, but, of course, to-morrow he may say that in this new interpretation he again meant exactly the opposite of what he says. However this may be for the future, President Wilson at this moment says, for instance, we ought to abandon reciprocity treaties; that we ought to refuse to make such treaties with our friends, such as Cuba and Brazil, and ought to punish these friends by treating them on an exact equality with our embittered and malevolent enemy, Germany. I hold this to be thoroughly mischievous doctrine.

The great scientist, Huxley, who loved truth and abhorred falsehood, said that “the primary condition of honest literature is to leave the reader in no doubt as to the author’s meaning.” Evidently this primary condition is not fulfilled by Mr. Wilson’s fourteen points. They should now be treated as scraps of paper and put where they belong, in the scrap-basket.

THE TURKS SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY

November 3, 1918

The British have beaten Turkey to her knees and she has surrendered unconditionally. America has no share in the honor of what has been done. President Wilson, although we were at war with Germany, has refused to aid our allies against Turkey and has preserved the same cold neutrality between the Armenians and their Turkish butchers that he formerly did between the Belgians and their German oppressors.

Turkey had inflicted inhuman wrongs on the subject peoples and had infringed our own treaty rights, but President Wilson refused to go to war with her. Yet with our navy at the very outbreak of hostilities and then with a considerable and constantly growing army, if we had been willing we could have materially aided the British and French. In such event Constantinople would doubtless have been taken long ago. As it is, thanks to President Wilson, we Americans can only look on and rejoice that others did better than our rulers let us do. We have had no hand in the freeing of Palestine, Syria, and Armenia. Under the great law of service and sacrifice it is the British and French alone who have the moral right to determine the fate of Turkey. They, and especially the British, have poured out their blood freely, and now, after the victory has been gained, expenditure of ink on our part is of mighty small consequence in comparison. I earnestly hope that permanent justice will be done by expelling the Turk from Europe and making all Armenia independent. But we have lost the right to insist on these points.

The beginning of the end came when, two or three weeks ago, Bulgaria was forced to surrender unconditionally. Here again, thanks to President Wilson, America had no part in the honor and credit of the vital triumph. Our Government was still neutral about Bulgaria, still too proud to fight either Turkey or Bulgaria, still hoping for peace without victory over them.

Now Turkey has surrendered and Austria has broken up. In the case of Austria, after ten months’ unpardonable delay, we did finally go to war, and we have a very small share in the great glory won by Italy and the other Allies.

The greatest contest was on the western front, and here the hundreds of thousands of American troops engaged under Foch and Pershing have shown such extraordinary gallantry and efficiency that we are all forever their debtors. Nearly a month ago President Wilson entered into negotiations with Germany which, if continued along the line he started, might have caused disaster. Fortunately there was such an outburst of protest in the country that our allies took part and President Wilson himself took warning. President Wilson may still serve as a channel of communication. But General Foch will be the real master of the situation. The men with guns and not the men with fountain pens will dictate the terms.

PEACE

November 12, 1918

Four years and a quarter have passed since Germany, by the invasion of Belgium, began the World War and made it at the same time a war of cynical treachery and of bestiality and of inhuman wrongdoing. Almost from the beginning our governmental authorities were well informed of the organized brutality with which it was waged and of the fact that the Kaiser and the leading soldiers, politicians, and commercial magnates of Germany had deliberately plunged the world into war because they expected to profit by conquest, while the Socialist Party aided and abetted them in the hope of sharing some of the profit.

The rest of us ordinary Americans were successfully hoodwinked because the facts were concealed from us. But gradually the truth leaked through to us. First we learned that the stories of the atrocities were true. Then, although not until much later, we found out that there was ample proof that Germany had brought on the war to gratify her greed for gold and her arrogant and conscienceless lust for world domination. Finally we were permitted to learn that Germany intended to strike us down as soon as she had made the free nations her victims. Now our troops have played a manful part, a part not only heroic and efficient, but also of decisive consequence in the final terrible struggle.

It is not pleasant to think that the two first crushing blows in bringing about the end, the overthrow of Bulgaria and the overthrow of Turkey, were due in no way to us, but solely to our allies, England and France. We never made war on either offending nation; we remained neutral, and this exhibition of feeble diplomacy on our part made us onlookers instead of partakers of the triumph. But with Austria, after much hesitation and wabbling, we did finally go to war, and, although our part was very small, we have a modest right to share the general satisfaction over the victory. In the case of Germany, however, we played a really great part, and although until the very end we were unable to put on the fighting line any tanks or field guns or battle planes, and relatively only a small number of machine guns and bombing and observation planes, our soldiers themselves were probably on the average the finest troops who fought in Europe.

And now the German imperial military and capitalistic authority has been beaten to its knees and forced to accept all the terms the Allies have imposed upon it. The able and wicked men who thought to wade through a sea of blood to world domination must now bow their heads before the outside peoples whom they have so cruelly wronged and face the sullen distrust and hostility of their own people, whom they misled by promising them a share in the profits of successful guilt. Their doom has come upon them.

A little over a month ago the Administration embarked upon a career of note-writing with Germany, which, if unchecked, might have meant a peace of practical profit to Germany. But the feeling of the American people, especially in the West, showed itself in such direct and straightforward fashion that this effort was soon abandoned. Moreover, at the recent election, the American people, with the issue squarely before them, declared that they were the masters of their public servants and not rubber stamps, and that this was the people’s war and not the war of any one man or any one party, and that loyalty to ourselves and our allies stood ahead of adherence to any man. Germany has been beaten down abroad and at home. The pro-Germans and the pacifists and the defeatists and the Germanized Socialists, and all the crew who stand for any form of either Bolshevism or Kaiserism, have been warned that they shall not betray this Nation.

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS

November 13, 1918

A friend, a California woman, writes me that there is staying with her a widow whose only son has been in the navy and has just died of influenza, and that the mother said:

I gave my boy proudly to my country. I never held him back, even in my heart. But if only he had died with a gun in his hand—a little glory for him and a thought for me that my sacrifice had not been useless.

My correspondent continues:

There must be so many mothers who feel that they have laid their sacrifice on cold altars. You have written much that will comfort the mothers whose sons have paid with their bodies in battle. Isn’t there something you can say to help these other mothers?

I felt a real pang when I received this letter, because the thought suggested had been in my mind, and yet I had failed to express it. It had happened that my own sons and nephews and young cousins and their close friends were where death or wounds came to them on the field of action. For example, on the day I received this letter we also got news that the closest school and college and army friend of my son, Quentin, who was killed, had himself just been killed. He was a man who had been promoted for a series of hazardous and successful battles with German airmen. He was as gentle and clean and lovable as a girl, yet terrible in his battle, and no more high and fearless soul ever fronted death joyously in the high heavens. My mind had, because of facts like this, turned toward the deaths of the men on the firing line; and I regret that I did not make it evident as I meant to make it, and but for this oversight would have made it, that all who have given their lives or the lives dearest to them in this war stand on an exact level of service and sacrifice and honor and glory.

The men who have died of pneumonia or fever in the hospitals, the men who have been killed in accidents on the airplane training fields are as much heroes as those who were killed at the front, and their shining souls shall hereafter light up all to a clearer and greater view of the duties of life. The war is over now. The time of frightful losses among the men at the front and of heartbreaking anxiety for their mothers and wives, their sisters and sweethearts at home has passed. No great triumph is ever won save by the payment of the necessary cost. All of us who have stayed at home and all the others who have returned safe will, as long as life shall last, think of the men who died as having purchased for us and for our children’s children, as long as this country shall last, a heritage so precious that even their precious blood was not too great a price to pay. Whether they fell in battle or how they died matters not at all, and it matters not what they were doing as long as, high of soul, they were doing their duty with all the strength and fervor of their natures.

The mother or the wife whose son or husband has died, whether in battle or by fever or in the accident inevitable in hurriedly preparing a modern army for war, must never feel that the sacrifice has been laid “on a cold altar.” There is no gradation of honor among these gallant men and no essential gradation of service. They all died that we might live; our debt is to all of them, and we can pay it even personally only by striving so to live as to bring a little nearer the day when justice and mercy shall rule in our own homes and among the nations of the world.

THE RED FLAG AND THE HUN PEACE DRIVE

November 14, 1918

The war is won. A twofold duty is now incumbent on us. We must strive to make the peace one of justice and righteousness and to throw out such safeguards around it as will give us the greatest possible chance of permanency. Then we must turn to setting aright the affairs of our own household. But before we set ourselves to the performance of these two tasks we should thoroughly enlighten our enemies at home and abroad on one or two points.