Various

“ What a peerless jewel it was, this cathedral, still more beautiful than Notre Dame in Paris. More open and lighter, more slender also, with its columns like long reeds, wonderful to be so fragile, and yet to hold firm; a wonder of our French religious art, a masterpiece which the faith of our ancestors had caused to blossom there in its mystic purity, before they came to us from Italy, to materialize and spoil everything, the sensual heaviness of what we have agreed to call the Renaissance.... ”

“ If proof be needed that the prevalence of democracy alone can end aggression among nations, secure the rights of small peoples, foster justice and humaneness in man—let the history of this last century and a half be well examined, and let the human probabilities be weighed. Which is the more likely to advocate wars of aggression? They, who by age, position, wealth, are secure against the daily pressure of life and the sacrifice that war entails, they who have passed their time out of touch with the struggle for existence, in an atmosphere of dreams, ambitions, and power over other men? ”

“ She felt that even if Germany, by miracle, kept her faith, the world, after a German victory, would be no place for free men to live in. She was not moved by the care for a few square miles of territory, more or less, but by a strong sense of democratic solidarity and of human dignity. After the events of the past ten months, she felt that, to a self-respecting man or nation, German hate was infinitely preferable to German love. ”

“ I ask the House to testify to the admiration of the whole empire for its gratitude to the illustrious General who has rendered such an inestimable service to the empire, which he entered by adoption and of which he has become one of the most honored and cherished sons, and to his dauntless and much enduring troops, whether of Burgher or British birth, who fought like brethren, side by side, in the cause which is equally dear to them as to us—the broadening of the bounds of human liberty. ”

“ Men in all walks of life, from porters, barbers, clerks in offices, to doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, merchants, Wall Street brokers and bankers, seemed suddenly imbued with the idea of securing or bringing about the placing of a war order. Self-appointed agents, middlemen and brokers sprang up over night like mushrooms, each and every one claiming he had an order or could get an order for war supplies; or, as the case might be, he personally knew some manufacturer, or he knew a friend who had a friend who knew a manufacturer, who in turn wished to secure a contract. ”

“ It is a problem that I, for one, frankly believe will beat the powers and goodwill of all, unless there should come a radical change of Governments in Central Europe; unless the real power in Germany and Austria-Hungary passes into the hands of the people of those countries, as already it has passed in France and Britain. This is in my belief the only chance for the defeat of militarism, of that raw nationalism, which, even if beaten down at first, will ever be lying in wait, preparing secret revenge and fresh attacks. ”

“ We have pooled our resources, and I, for one, have no doubt, that these resources are great enough to stand any strain which we may be called upon to put upon them; nor have I any fear of an ultimate triumph. All the great moral forces of the world are on our side. The Allies are fighting for the freeing of Europe from the domination of militarism; and that is fighting into which every democrat can throw himself heart and soul. Defeat in such a cause is unthinkable. ”

“ It is seldom as easy as all that. Belgium, no doubt, is as one man. Poland is as one man in so far as the Poles are concerned; but what of the Austrians, Russians, Germans settled among them? What of Ireland split into two camps? What of the Germans in Bohemia, in Alsace, in Schleswig-Holstein? Compromise alone is possible in many cases, going by favor of majority. And there will always remain the poignant question of the rights and aspirations of minorities. ”

“ We come to you armed with the facts. It is only these unanswerable witnesses that we have wished to oppose to the gratuitous affirmations of our colleagues beyond the Rhine. We might have taken you into the mazes of twenty frightful dramas, for at every place where the German troops have advanced they have trodden under foot the rights of mankind and counted as nothing the civilization and the patrimony of nations. We have thought it wiser to limit ourselves to the relation of certain events bearing the seal of certainty. ”

“ For that is what it almost amounts to now in Germany, and it is for this reason, no less than to escape military service, that so many millions of Germans have immigrated to this country. Unlike the vast majority of the bourgeois and lower classes, a kindly but stupid people, they were born with an alertness of mind and an energy of character which gave them the impetus to transfer themselves to a land where life might be harder but where soul and body could attain to a complete independence. ”

“ In my convinced belief the one solid hope for future peace, the one promise of security for the rights and freedom of little countries, the one reasonable guarantee of international justice and general humanity, lies in the gradual growth of democracy, of rule by consent of the governed. When this has spread till the civilization of the Western world is on one plane—instead of as now on two—then and then only we shall begin to draw the breath of assurance. ”

“ It has been pointed out over and over again how diametrically opposed are the German and American ideals; therefore, it seems incredible that every American who champions the cause of a powerful and sublimely egotistic nation does not realize that what he hopes to see is not only the victory of the German arms in Europe, but the eventual destruction of democracy, the annihilation of the spirit of America as epitomized in the Declaration of Independence. ”

“ We trust that evil will finally become extinguished in the hearts of men, that mutual ill-feeling will be bitter and poignant no longer, and that, when ears of corn will be again fluttering upon the fields, mutilated by trenches and ramparts, and drenched in human blood, when wild flowers will begin to grow over the countless unknown graves, time will come, when the nations that are separated by such a tremendous gulf today, will come together again upon the one great road of humanity and will turn back once more to the great, universal words, that are common to all men. ”

“ That cannot be a matter of indifference for any thinking human being. An equilibrium of view, a real neutrality is as little possible here as it would have been in the Persian or Punic wars, or, a hundred years ago, in the revolt of Europe, against the domination of Napoleon. He who, invoking the neutrality of his state, does not takes sides in this decisive question, debases himself and his people with him. For to stand indifferent, taking no part in the mightiest events of history, is a degradation of humanity. ”

“ A separate peace would be the best chance for certain Powers to change their international policy. To my mind the issues of this war will greatly change the attitude of some hostile States toward us, and will bring about more intimate relations between them and ourselves, besides widening the foundations of the alliance between Hungary and her allies. And this is to be the rock upon which the European balance of power is to rest in the future. Our war is not a war of conquest, and the boundary changes of which some people speak are not the sine qua non of a good peace. ”

“ If we were able—at this hour, when, through the act of the Teutonic Empire, the world may witness unnamable deeds—if we were able to cite the most odious of them, we should say that, after the massacre of innocent people and all the assaults on the rights of mankind committed by the German armies, the worst has seemed to us the shameless manner in which the superior intellects beyond the Rhine have dared to cover up these crimes. ”

“ And we know that only the winged words live on, the words that are intelligible to the whole of mankind, that appeal to the whole of humanity, to the common human mind, the common heart.
We know the vast power of the English word. We know what a marvellous contribution the English writers have made to the life not of England alone, but to that of the whole world, the whole humanity. ”

“ We know what immense efforts she has put forth, which have been a surprise not only to us but to the enemy as well, and we have every reason for believing and knowing that these immense resources will continue to be used in the service of the Allies.
Understand me, I do not say that our common task is an easy one, nor do I say that we are on the eve of a speedy victory; but what I do say is that be the struggle long or short, we are both ready to double, to treble, to quadruple, and, if necessary, to increase tenfold the output of munitions of war. ”

“ And we think that, in spite of the power and the dogmatic authority of its élite, the activity of its emissaries in all parts of the world, and, finally, all its vast apparatus of conquest—military and civil—Germany cannot long make its stand against the humble little truth, which advances, noiselessly but also fearlessly, with the tenacious light in its hand that it received from Reality—from unquenchable and ardent Reality. ”

“ Germany's offensive is a strategical manœuvre. As a matter of fact, she is fighting like a wild animal surrounded on all sides. And, of course, she will carry on the war until the last degree of exhaustion is reached. She has accumulated within her many forces—technical forces. Mere technical forces cannot stand their ground in the end. But no little time must still elapse. And the war must continue for a long time still, if the "nest of militarism" is to be annihilated. ”

“ Germany must be paid that she has deserved. When the triumphant Allies shall have made good their footing on her soil, they will not indeed rival her exploits or violating women and butchering children, of murdering prisoners and wounded, of slaying unoffending and peaceful peasants, of destroying shrines of religion and learning. But they will assuredly shoot or hang such of the chief perpetrators of these and the like atrocities as may fall into their hands. They will strip her of ill-gained territory. They will empty her arsenals and burn her war workshops. ”

“ That is why, at the present moment, when the last act of the Balkan tragedy, begun long ago, is being played, we can look history in the face with calm eyes. Whatever may be formed after the end of this war, whether a Slavonic Federation, in which Russia could hardly take much interest, since she requires, first of all, the concentration of her own forces, or a series of independent, separate Slavonic kingdoms, we may say that, in having summoned the Slavs to unity, Russia has not deceived them, has not led them along a false road to destruction. ”

“ If I remained too long in that lovely land—so admirably governed that I could not have lost myself, or my cat, had I possessed one—I should in no long course yield utterly to a certain resentfully admitted tendency to dream and drift and live for pure beauty; finally desert my own country with the comfortable reflection: Why all this bustle, this desire to excel, to keep in the front rank, to find pleasure in individual work, when so many artistic achievements are ready-made for all to enjoy without effort? ”

“ Man for man, a soldier of the Allies is better than a soldier of the Central Powers—or ten thousand observers have been deceived. As for the intelligence of the publics upon whose moral the opposing forces ultimately depend, it is undeniable that the German public is extremely hysterical, and far more gullible even than ourselves at our very worst. The legends believed by the German public today are ridiculous enough to stamp Germany for a century as an arch-simpleton among nations. ”

“ The most irreparable loss is that of the great stained glass windows, which the mysterious artists of the thirteenth century so religiously composed, in meditation and dream, gathering the saints by hundreds, with their translucent draperies, their luminous halos. There also German scrap-iron rushed in great stupid bundles, crushing everything. The masterpieces, which no one will ever reproduce, have scattered their fragments on the flagstones, forever impossible to separate, the golds, the reds, the blues, whose secret is lost. ”

“ In the present war, we Germans have clear consciences, for we know, concerning ourselves and our government, that we strove for nothing but the maintenance of our position as a world-power, bought with heavy sacrifices, and the free, peaceful expansion of our sphere of action in the world. On the other hand, Russia desired to get to Constantinople ahead of Berlin and Vienna, France desired to win back Metz and Strassburg, England desired to destroy our sea-power and commerce—goals which could only be reached over prostrate Germany. ”

“ The result might be an inconclusive peace, and another war, say, in twenty years, when we probably should be fighting for our very existence as a nation. But we are not now, and at the worst shall not be for a long time, fighting for our very existence as a nation. Nobody believes such an assertion; pessimists themselves do not believe it. And when statesmen give utterance to it in the hope of startling the working-class into a desired course of conduct, they under-rate the intelligence of the working-class and the result of such oratory is far from what they could wish. ”

“ Let us by all means clear the air by righting glaring wrongs, removing palpable anomalies, redressing obvious injustices, securing so far as possible the independent national life of homogeneous groups; but let us not, dazzled by the glamour of a word, dream that by restoring a few landmarks, altering a few boundaries, and raising a pæan to the word Nationality, we can banish all clouds from the sky of Europe, and muzzle the ambitions of the stronger nations. ”

“ If in the present war the principles which should be the ideal of the future have been traversed more and more, the longer its duration, the German Government has no guilt therein. It is known to the American Government how Germany's adversaries, by completely paralyzing peaceful traffic between Germany and neutral countries, have aimed from the very beginning and with increasing lack of consideration at the destruction not so much of the armed forces as the life of the German nation, repudiating in doing so all the rules of international law and disregarding all rights of neutrals. ”

“ We have always been amazed by the incessant and constantly growing power of civic life in England; we have always known that the English people was the first among the peoples of the world to enter upon a struggle for civic rights, and that nowhere does the word freedom ring so proud and so triumphant as it does in England. ”

“ And now that Italy is ranked with us against the powers of evil, it becomes more than ever our duty to strain every nerve for their defeat. We are now taking our share in the guardianship of the world's great treasure house of historic memories and of the creations of genius. ”