Newell Dwight Hillis

“ To win this war our girls and women must join the world movement. The outstanding lesson of the first two years of the war for Great Britain and France is that the beginning of their victories came with the entrance of women into the war. The steel wedge splits the log, not alone by the sharp edge, but the thick head that crowds forward the cutting edge. The American army is the cutting edge, but the one hundred millions of people behind lend driving power to our regiments. There are three million women in Great Britain either in the munition factories or industries allied thereto. ”

“ When Germany is beaten to her knees, becomes repentant, offers to make restitution for her crimes, then and not till then can this war stop. Autocracy too must go. There is no room left in the world for a kaiser or a sultan. The hangman's noose awaits the peasant murderer, and already the hemp is grown to twist into the noose for the royal neck. At all costs and hazards we must fight this war through to a successful issue. Our children must not be made to walk through all this blood and muck. The burden of militarism must be lifted from the shoulders of God's poor. ”

“ No horrors in history are so overwhelmingly evidenced as the German atrocities. The nature, the number, and the extent of their crimes have been documented more thoroughly than the scalpings of settlers by Sioux Indians, the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta, or the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition. No American to-day can cross the threshold of Belgium or Northern France, Poland or Serbia, without recalling the words that Dante saw above the gate of Hell: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." ”

“ Every boy will give three or four years to the life of the soldier. The Atlantic Coast and the Pacific must bristle with forts, and the harbours be filled with mines. The ploughman in the furrow and the workman in the factory will have to carry a soldier upon their shoulders. The whole world must become one vast volcano, with Berlin as the crater, spouting forth passion and hate like lurid lava. Not since Judas brought Jesus to the piteous tragedy of His cross has there been an hour so black as this moment when Germany is trying to crucify mankind upon a cross of bayonets. ”

“ In the nature of the case, one brigand with his revolver is equal to a hundred business men and manufacturers in a railroad car. In the nature of the case also, Germany, with her military preparedness, should have been equal to a score of countries like Belgium and France and Great Britain and the United States—industrious, hard-working, but unmilitary, peacefully disposed. The deadly virus of avarice and militarism has burned like a fever in Germany's soul, even as avarice burned in the soul of Judas Iscariot, and made him a traitor that crucified not Belgium, but Jesus upon the cross. ”

“ With infinite cunning, the German diplomats built a German kingdom within our kingdom. How thoroughly they alienated many German-Americans is proven to-day by this fact, that many members of the German Societies in the United States, the moment any American comes out against Germany, break with the banker, drop the newspaper, give up the pew in the church, for while their lips announce that they are Americans, in their heart they feel that their first loyalty is to the Kaiser, and not to our government. ”

“ Ignorant of the real situation, underestimating the peril that is upon the United States, many of our citizens refuse to support the government, discourage enlistment on the one hand, or else carry about with them an atmosphere of ignorant optimism. They talk loudly about America winning this war. They never tire of telling about our one hundred millions of people, our two hundred and fifty billions of wealth, our possible ten millions of soldiers, and upon the basis of these considerations they count the war ended, and win battles by waving perils into thin air. ”

“ Germany Constructs a Philosophy to Justify Herself
Having entered upon war as her chief national industry, and looking with greedy eyes upon the steel plants, the looms and factories of rich Belgium; envying France her unique supremacy as the leader of the fine arts; tempted by the little states like Holland and Denmark on the west and Rumania and Poland on the east, states that seemed like purple clusters, bursting with wine for German lips, it became necessary for Germany to find a philosophy that would break down the great convictions of morality inherited from Martin Luther. ”

“ The breakdown of Russia, the massing of German troops on the western front, the accumulation of cannon and munitions against the day of account, make it certain that the coming inevitable battle is to be the greatest battle of the most terrible war that ever shook our earth. All the issues vital to democracy, independence, freedom, and self-government are now at stake. ”

“ Thoughtful men doubt whether the German will ever learn the wickedness of his own atrocities and the [55] crimes of militarism until his own land is laid waste, until he sees the horrors of war with his own eyes, and hears the groans of his own people with his own ears, sees his own land laid desolate, finds his own heart crushed under anguish. Yet retribution in kind would be unthinkable for the Allies! ”

“ At last the woven web was spread all over the world through spies. Could any man have been lifted up above Berlin, and had full power to survey the whole world, he would have seen a spider's web, with its center in Berlin, with the Kaiser as the big black spider, sending out along the sinuous threads into every capital of every country and of every continent his evil plans and plots. ”

“ We owe Great Britain and her colonies a debt of service because she placed her army and her navy between us and our enemy and preserved us. When, therefore, an occasional pro-German, who does not dare defend the Kaiser, stands on the street, and in his harangue vilifies Great Britain, we should remember that the Allied cause has three armies, Haig's, Petain's and Pershing's. Whoever vilifies one of the hosts is the enemy of all three. ”

“ What scholar does not thrill with pain at the very thought of the brutal regiments that destroyed the temples, the libraries, the statues, the galleries of Athens! Phocion believed, as did Plato and his pupils, that society had outgrown forever brute force, wars and savagery. Athens put her emphasis upon the intellect. She founded schools, and made her sons to be scholars. She became the mother of the arts, science and philosophy, and prided herself upon her artists and statesmen. ”

“ The murder of Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt, the sinking of women and children on steamers, the rape of Belgium and Northern France, the assassination of Poland, the deliberate, cold-blooded plots by the German officers with the Turkish soldiers to exterminate the Armenians, so that they could settle on the lands, are the outer exhibition in deeds of the inner philosophy of the Germans. That is why their favorite philosopher Nietzsche says that Germany's gift is brute force and not intellect. ”

“ Those who war for justice and humanity find that the stars in their courses fight with them, and their soldiers shall be fed on angels' bread. Truth is stronger than error, liberty is stronger than tyranny, justice is the genius of our universe, God is omnipotent, and at last, love and sympathy must prevail. ”

“ The lesson for us, from England's experience, is this: that every factory in the United States, now turning out luxuries, should be taken over by the government to turn out munitions; that every loom and lathe, forge and hammer, every mine and forest and shipyard should be dedicated to this one task—of winning this war for humanity and liberty. ”

“ The traveller would become utterly hopeless and broken-hearted, and give himself up to black despair, were it not that everything that German savagery has done to destroy one's faith in the divine origin of the human soul has been more than recovered by the gentleness, the self-sacrifice, the fortitude, the sympathy, the heroism of the British, the Belgians, and the French. The Germans have at last compelled all unprejudiced minds to recognize the atrocity as the German notion of scientific efficiency. ”

“ They thrust women and little children between themselves and the Belgian and French soldiers defending their native land. The affidavits, photographs, and mutilated bodies are witnesses that destroy forever the last shred of doubt and incredulity. For men who are open to testimony, the German atrocities are more surely established than any of the hideous cruelties recorded in history. Now, for the first time, wildest savagery has been reduced to a science, and damned into existence under the name of German efficiency. ”

“ He saw his Frenchmen fall side by side with the troops of Washington. When at length Cornwallis surrendered his sword to the Commander of our army, Lafayette shared in the ceremony. What treasure of lives and fortune France lavished upon this republic more than one hundred years ago! We owe France our generals, our admirals, our soldiers and sailors, our munitions, our physicians, our nurses, our admiration, our love, our lives and our sacred honour. ”

“ Civilization is a solid texture, that belongs to the noble dead, to the living, but chiefly to the unborn. Every motive, therefore, of reverence and loyalty to our fathers, and of affection for our children, bids us dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour to the overthrow of autocracy and militarism, and the establishment upon abiding foundations of the institutions of our fathers. ”

“ To-day it is peace that is hell. The soldier's life is a life of poverty, obedience, self-sacrifice; we know what the civilian's life is. But for the chastisement of this war, Berlin and Vienna, London and Paris would [137] have descended into hell within three generations. I once spoke in your Plymouth on the blessings of peace; if ever again I have that privilege, I shall speak on the blessings of war. I never dreamed that men could be so noble. ”

“ But at last all alike perceive that the German war-deeds differ from the usual abuses of war, as a cunning fiend differs from a drunken man. Germany believes in militarism, in forty-two centimeter guns, in submarines, in liquid fire and poisoned gases. This republic and our Allies believe in the manufacture of souls of good quality. We believe in schools, colleges, libraries, churches, factories, banks, fruitful fields and a self-sufficing, intelligent and moral manhood. ”

“ Intellectually we cannot understand how a shepherd can watch wolves tearing the throat of the lamb in the Belgian sheepfold and the French sheepfold, while he stands by and waits until the wolf tears some lambs and sheep in the American sheepfold. When a brave man has seen a wolf tear the throat of one lamb he ought to leap from his place of safety and take his place beside the lamb. Of course, the wolf has many explanations to offer, but the explanations of the wolf do not interest some men. There are some foul diseases, like slavery, that have to be cut out by the surgery of war. ”

“ For years she has been beside herself with military success. The Kaiser for twenty years has been rattling his sword and bullying the nations. Standing in the market-place, like some huge Goliath, in the spirit of the common braggart he has shouted, "I can lick anybody in the world." ”

“ Let all our people say to the Kaiser and his War Staff, "You shall not skewer babes upon your bayonets; you shall not crucify officers upon the trees; you shall not nail young nuns to the doors of the schoolhouses; you shall not violate the sanctities of infancy and old age; you shall not mutilate the bodies of little [140] girls and noble women; you shall not call that unspeakable butcher, the Sultan, a dear friend, and organize his soldiers for the assassination of the whole Armenian race; you shall not play fast and loose with your solemn treaties ”

“ You shall not grind God's children beneath the iron heel of despotism. And so help us God, despite all your atrocities, government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from God's earth! ”

“ Americans oftentimes marvel at the praise that the British and the French bestow upon the armies of the other. Each insists upon considering the other superior to himself. One August day, in a Paris restaurant, a young English captain, quiet, reserved, modest to a degree, was praising the French soldiers and officers whom he had met. Having just returned from the front of Ypres and La Bassée he was so filled with admiration for the fortitude, the endurance, and the heroism of the French soldiers, that he sought in vain for words bright enough with which to describe their achievements. ”

“ This new philosophy of militarism teaches that crimes become virtues if they promote the interests of the Fatherland. To accept the hospitality, to plot arson, bombing and sedition; to play false to all the higher considerations of honour, through the treachery of Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, is beautiful and glorious for a German. The blackest deeds become sacred because they promote German interests. ”

“ All that Germany won in three hundred years through the teachings of Martin Luther has been lost in twenty-five years through the influence of the Kaiser and his militarists. In the presence of all the world we have seen Germany lose her soul. All that John Milton taught, as to the fall of Satan as an angel, becoming a devil, has been literally enacted on the stage before the nations of the earth. What in 1900 was efficiency, in 1914 became the science of lying, theft, rape, poison and assassination. ”