Clarence W. Barron

“ There was not in the brain of Bismarck or of Von Moltke, or of the Emperor under whom they prosecuted the wars against Austria, Denmark, and France, any idea of Germany as the Conqueror of the world.
"Never be at enmity with the Russian Bear," was the saying at the time of Bismarck and before. "Always contrive that yours shall be a defensive war; let the other party attack," was the declaration of Bismarck.
The policy of Bismarck was: "If you have an enemy, make friends with all the other powers, so that your enemy be isolated diplomatically and politically." ”

“ I have had closer associations with the German people than with the French, and have liked them better as a people: they are so industrious, efficient, and ambitious in the world's work. I know the German country better than the country of France or England. I think I understand something of the over-self-sufficiency of the English, and I have no prejudice against the Germans, or even their form of government, which may be better adapted to their needs than a broader democracy. But of the German modern war-philosophy the world outside can hold but one opinion. ”

“ In an age which has abolished human slavery, broken the walls of China, which is bringing the yellow races into the labor and white light of civilization, which has made Germany a nation, and spanned a continent with the human voice so that Boston talks with San Francisco, is it too much to expect that it can bring the boon of an international civilization, abolishing national wars? ”

“ This is just a simple, practical question in human advancement. The world should now be big enough to grasp and effectively deal with it. The true meaning of this war is, therefore, human progress: humanity taking on larger responsibilities—the whole world answering the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" with a thunderous, "Aye! we are one and all our brother's keeper, and we may well keep the peace of the world!"
There is no question, national or international, no question of the individual or collection of individuals, which cannot be settled by the laws which belong in the human heart. ”

“ As the shadows fall, no guard comes as in England to pull your curtain down according to military orders; and, as you approach Paris, you see families dining by uncurtained windows in blazing light. You are astonished after your London experience of semi-darkness to find the boulevards ablaze and no apparent fear of aerial enemies or sky-invasion, although aeroplanes and Zeppelins and bombs may be flying and fighting only eighty miles away. Now and then a searchlight illumines the heavens, but even searchlights are far less conspicuous than in London. ”

“ In the German conception a government comes down from above and not up from the people. It is not the people who rule or govern, but the government from above rules the people, and the people must implicitly follow and obey; thus is national progress and human progress. The whole of Germany believes in the government of the Kaiser: that law and war flow down through him and that neither can be questioned by the individual. Obedience, union, efficiency, progress, and progress through war, if necessary, are cardinal virtues. ”

“ A mighty nation surrounded and besieged, yet still fighting on foreign soil, is the position of Germany to-day. Her triumph would mean, not alone a European conquest, but a world-conquest. Her defeat within a reasonable time does not mean her destruction or dismemberment. It means only the destruction of Prussian militarism and that theory of national existence into which the German people have been led under the present emperor, that theory which teaches:—
"War and courage have done more great things than Charity."
"What is good? All that increases the feeling of power; the will to power." ”

“ When Germany's conquering hosts came through Belgium, the war soon became a battle of human beings rather than of fortifications. Neither the French nor the Germans had learned from practical experience the modern art of fighting human legions in ground trenches, but both sides quickly betook themselves to this rabbit method of warfare.
To-day from Switzerland to the North Sea is a double wall of 4,000,000 men, all fighting, not only for their own existence but for the existence of their nationality—their national ideals. ”

“ Patriotism and nationality should no more be a basis of war than civic pride or family pride.
Perhaps the first error to be blotted out before a universal peace is that which arises from the German teaching that the state is a distinct entity or individuality apart from ourselves; that a state has no moral status, no moral principles, and can do no wrong; that while we may not steal individually, we will justify ourselves in stealing, murdering, and plundering collectively, in the name of the state. ”

“ If Germany is to grow other navies, and England is still to build two for one, North and South America must in time have navies, the support of which will burden the western hemisphere and the progress of humanity. It ought to be clear that this audacious war can mean nothing unless it means tremendous progress toward universal peace; unless it means that nations are to be guided by the same principles, practices, and morality that should guide individuals. ”

“ Lastly, we have the example of President Wilson, who has decreed that government by assassination in the countries to the south of us must cease, and that the United States will not recognize any government thus set up in Mexico.
It is, however, not yet incumbent upon any nation, as upon individuals, to say to its neighbor, "You shall not arm; you shall not build a war machine of aggression; your offense against one is an offense against all; your military invasion against one for purposes of expansion or self-aggrandizement will be resented by all." ”

“ There is only one safety for America, and that is the rule of right and of reason. Tariffs should be neighborly; life and property made secure wherever the United States extends its sphere of influence; and arbitration should take the place of all wars.
Indeed, the United States, from every standpoint, is the one nation in the world to be the promoter of peace, and to assist in its enforcement. There is no other policy for us from the standpoint of both national righteousness and national safety. ”

“ The world may now see that the business of Germany was war from the beginning under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and that Germany was to be made great on land and sea by the sword of war hacking the way for German commerce, German tariffs, and German commercialism. The old feudal idea of trade expanded and supported by a war lord has been the idea of Germany since the pilot, Bismarck, was dropped by the young Emperor from the ship of state. War for aggression, war for business, war for German expansion, has been the scheme. ”

“ She is not unmindful in any respect of what the war may send her way. In the breaking-away and the breaking-up of Turkey, she sees a clear field for Egypt, the realization of the dream of Cecil Rhodes of the development of the whole of Africa by a Cape to Cairo Railroad, and she sees her own empire and peoples belting the world in power, usefulness, and justice, and with a sweep and scope for enterprise and development beyond all the previous dreams of this generation. ”

“ The Germans know no other system of government. Outside of Prussia, in the more than thirty states of Germany, there was the local reign. Now over all is the reign of the Kaiser. The present generation has seen a united Germany become great among the nations of the earth. The English-speaking people cannot appreciate the feudalism and the fealty of the German people to their war lord. They say, "Are not the German people great thinkers; do they not know that the power of government is from the governed?" ”

“ The Emperor is the center of industry, finance, and military power,—three degrees of empire, each distinct in itself, but each intertwined with the others, but so intertwined that the word of power, command and influence comes down from the military seat of power through finance and into industry. Industry does not speak back through the powers of finance to the military center. The flow of the German dispensation of power or of governmental organization runs downward from the Kaiser. No power goes up from the people or industry or finance to the war lord at the center. ”

“ Man has come up from the individual, or dual, unit through family and tribal relation, the walled city, the policed state, into the armed nation. He is now steadily stepping forth into the world as ruler of himself, the creator of his own government, the heir and sovereign of the world. ”

“ The German nation is a fighting unit under the dominion of Prussia, the greatest war state, not only of the empire, but of the world. Having welded Germany by the Franco-Prussian war into a nation with unified tariffs, transportation, currency, and monetary systems, Prussia has been able to point to the war as the cause of the phenomenal prosperity of Germany. ”

“ But the great hero throughout Europe to-day is the King of the Belgians, of that little country that grew daily bigger in the eyes of the world as it grew daily smaller in possessed territory. There are those who believe that France and Belgium will be hereafter closer together than before, and that—stranger things have happened—the King of the little Belgians might be no greater miracle for France than the little Corsican more than one hundred years ago. ”

“ The laws of brotherhood—brotherhood of individuals, brotherhood of nations, or aggregations of individuals—are unchanged and unchangeable. It is only for the world to hear and to do.
The doctrine that war is a biological necessity must go by the board. The teaching that war is needed to harden men and nations must be placed in the realm of pagan fiction.
If war is a necessity for man, it is a necessity for woman. If it is good for men, it is good for children. If it is good for nations, it is good for states. If it is good for states, it is certainly good for cities. ”

“ In this financial situation France was suddenly plunged into war, and while Germany and England have been raising money by the billion, the marvelous thing is that France has made no public issue beyond one-year notes, but continues to pay her bills in gold and has the exchanges all in her favor. Money is flowing in, and not out.
It was most marvelous to find in France, in the fifth month of the war, prompt payment, no distrust of the government paper issues, gold and paper circulating side by side, and no strain for gold as in Germany. ”

“ When you travel by rail, if you did not know that war was in the country you would never suspect it, unless you wondered why a red-hatted, blue-coated guard, with a rifle carelessly swung over his shoulder, is noticeable now and then by a cross-road or near the buttress of an important railroad bridge. You pass trains of troops, but the uniforms are quiet, the men jovial and unwarlike. The wounded are not conspicuously moved by day. ”

“ He can step into the kingdom of manhood suffrage or government only so far as the rights of his fellow men are recognized. Evil holds its own destruction, and nations that live by the sword perish by the sword.
For the United States to rush into the maelstrom of war, with organization of armies and the building of armaments, is to invite its own destruction.
For just one hundred years the North American continent has held the practical example of the impotency of the war-spirit where there is no war machinery. ”

“ There is nothing left for Germany but a defensive warfare, a warfare now conducted upon foreign soil just over her own borders—the burden upon the enemy, the supply base near at hand.
Germany must reduce and conserve her shell-fire. The Krupp works have no ability to turn out daily the number of shells that Germany was exploding, and the United States in its own arsenals could not in a year make a week's supply of shells at the rate at which they were being exploded from Switzerland to the English Channel.
Greater than progress in the arts of peace is progress in the art of war. ”

“ It is declared that the people of Europe have wanted this war; that the Germans wanted to expand by war; that the French have wanted to fight for Alsace-Lorraine; that the Russians must war for a water outlet; that the English have favored war for a readjustment of the European balances in power. There are many individuals who want their neighbors' goods, or redivision; there are many cities jealous of their commercial rivals; there are many states jealous of the progress of others; but all these no longer think of war as a method of readjustment, or even of redress of grievances. ”

“ The English are the greatest fighters in the world in retreat, while the French can fight best in a forward movement. The little expeditionary army of England, originally 100,000 men but at this time 180,000 men, held the right flank of Von Kluck in the retreat from river to river, from hill to hill, although pounded by 350,000 trained German troops massed on this flank. This retreat put the stamp of English bravery and dogged determination, as before, on the map of Europe. Paris was open and exposed to any entry which the Germans wished to make. ”

“ Russia lacks military railroads and scientific means of communication. But just as America was surprised ten years ago to find the Japs, as the ally of England, giving, as the English predicted, "a good account of themselves," so the Russians as the allies of Great Britain may be found giving a very good account of themselves in this war. Russia is certainly unconquerable from either the Austrian or the German standpoint, and the smashing of Austria between Russia, Roumania, Servia, and Italy may be the real military campaign of this most Audacious War. ”

“ A hundred years ago the United States desired to be free from Europe,—from its political system, its wage system, and its social system. To-day the United States cannot desire to be freed from any country in the world. Its Panama Canal, its demand for a mercantile marine, for countries to take its cotton and cotton goods, and its inquiry as to where it can get potash salts and chemical dyes, all show the interrelation of modern business which has broken all national boundaries.
England is talking to-day of a closer federation in her empire to follow this war. ”