Various

“ If Christianity professed to be able by a miracle to transform human nature at once, such a war would be fatal to its claim. But no such claim can be made for Christianity. It is a great human movement, a phase of the gradual evolution of man, governed by conscience and reason, out of the brute, governed by appetite and passion.
Man as he is seen in the world to day is an unfinished product. He is in the making. The best that can be said of a Christian is that he is further along toward the goal of humanity than the barbarian. ”

“ The American ideal is not a military machine, but a high quality of manhood. To make men free, with the gift of self-expression; to make men wise through the public school and the free press; to make men self-sufficing and happy in their homes, through freedom of industrial contracts; to make men sound in their manhood through religious liberty for Jew and Gentile and Catholic and Protestant—these are our national ideals. ”

“ Liberalism not only uplifts democracy; it establishes England in the affection of all vital democracies. If the Conservatives, so liberal and charming in their private lives, combine with the Liberals after this hideous war to reconstruct our national life and to consolidate the empire, how great will be the harvest reaped by our children!
It is in the high and lofty name of civilization that the American people are anxious to make friends with the people of Great Britain. We have both got something to live for greater than patriotism and imperialism, greater because it includes them both. ”

“ We Germans did not want this war, but as it has been forced upon us we shall carry it on bravely and vigorously. In the face of all envy and hatred, all brutality and hypocrisy, Germany feels unshakably conscious of serving a righteous cause and of standing up for the preservation of her national self as well as for sacred goods of humanity; indeed, for the very progress of true culture. It is from this conviction that she draws her unrelenting force and the absolute certainty that she will beat back the assault of all her enemies. ”

“ Every day of my sojourn in this country deepens the desire in my mind to see an increasing unity of understanding between America and England. I feel that the audacity of America, its passion for the Right Thing, and its impatience with the spirit of muddling through are the finest incentives for modern England, England at this dawn of her political renascence. I feel, too, as Americans themselves most willingly acknowledge, that Great Britain has something to give to America out of the ancient treasury of her domestic experience. ”

“ But what will happen if England bows before the worst and the stupidest bigotry the modern world can show? Not only will you strike a blow at Ireland and a blow at Irish-American sympathy, but a blow at the vitals of religion.
"For it is only by sinking religious differences and making a common advance against this universal paganism that religion can save the soul of civilization. If you do not see the truth of that fact in England I think you must be blind. The fullness of civilization hangs upon religious union; religious dissension is the enemy." ”

“ Europe is a loom on whose earthen framework demiurgic forces like Frederick the Great, Bismarck, and Napoleon once wove the texture of European civilization. Now the demon of war has, with hot knife, shorn away the texture, and a modern Czar and Kaiser, King and President, with Generals and Admirals, are weaving the warp and woof of a new world. One hundred years ago the forces that bred wars were political forces; today the collision between nations is born of economic interests. The twentieth century influences are chiefly the force of wealth and the force of public opinion. ”

“ Most persons in this country, including all those who work for peace, agree with you in deploring the vast armaments which European States have been piling up, and will hope with you that after this war they may be reduced—and safely reduced—to slender dimensions. Their existence is a constant menace to peace. They foster that spirit of militarism which has brought these horrors on the world; for they create in the great countries of the Continent a large and powerful military and naval caste which lives for war, talks and writes incessantly of war, and glorifies war as a thing good in itself. ”

“ If Germany supports 8,000,000 soldiers out of 66,000,000, must we withdraw from productive industry 12,000,000 men for at least two or three of the best years of their young life? Must we start in on a programme of ten dreadnoughts a year instead of building ten colleges and universities for the same sum of money? Of late Americans who love their country have been searching their own hearts. Merchants hitherto busied with commerce are asking themselves whither this country is drifting. Is Germany to compel us to become a vast military machine? ”

“ What with Russia's desire to shield her from the consequences of her aggressions and to demonstrate to the world that we are of no account in the Balkans and to establish her own—more or less veiled—protectorate there? And if the case of civilization is advanced by Japan's ousting Germany from Kiao-Chau, why should it not be equally furthered if Japan did the same to England in Hongkong, Singapore, or, if the opportunity offered, in India itself? And a person must be indeed at his wits' end for arguments to proclaim Russia as a standard bearer of freedom in her war against us. ”

“ That is one side that American statesmen have to consider. There is, of course, another.
The United States visibly form the greatest force the world has yet seen to bring together, to unite, to assimilate, in the development of their vast territories, measureless resources, and complicated industries, all that is best from all the other great nations, welding slowly but surely, through free institutions, these new elements into instruments for the fuller realization of the generous and noble ideals for which America stands. ”

“ There can, indeed, be no security for future peace in Europe until every European nation recognizes the fact that there is to be no such thing in the world as one dominating nation—no such thing as world empire for any single nation—Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, or China. There can be no sense of security against sudden invasion in Europe so long as all the able-bodied men are trained to be soldiers and the best possible armies are kept constantly ready for instant use. ”

“ America stands also as the chief signatory of the great world conventions which have settled new rules for the conduct of war, to mitigate its horrors, especially for non-combatants.
America has taken a noble part in framing machinery for securing peace and justice, and in moving forward the landmarks of civilization as against savagery, and of human mercy as against cruel terrorism.
Can America safely or wisely divest herself of the duty thus placed upon her, logically and morally, by her participation in this, the noblest work of our age? ”

“ Unless our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of barbarism; unless the law of the world is in fact only the ethics of the rifle and the conscience of the cannon; unless mankind after uncounted centuries has made no real advance in political morality beyond that of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany cannot satisfy the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Germany's contention that a treaty of peace is "a scrap of paper," to be disregarded at will when required by the selfish interests of one contracting party, is the negation of all that civilization stands for. ”

“ All your best qualities, straight dealing, honesty, fearless justice, and faith in the goodness of human nature are devoted now to the only ideals which can save progress from rot and decay. Your democracy is master. It has no overlords. And, from what we can gather since this war broke out, it would seem that your aristocracy is coming more and more into line with the democracy, making great sacrifices, showing a deeper appreciation of the democracy and shedding the worst of its prejudices in the common love of liberty and right. ”

“ He cherishes a partly new conception of the State as a collective entity whose function is to develop and multiply, not the free, healthy, and happy individual man and woman, but higher and more effective types of humanity, made superior by a strenuous discipline which takes much account of the strong and ambitious, and little of the weak or meek. He rejects the ethics of the Beatitudes as unsound, but accepts the religion of valor, which exalts strength, courage, endurance, and the ready sacrifice by the individual of liberty, happiness, and life itself for Germany's honor and greatness. ”

“ A comparison of the German people with other nations gives us painful feelings, which I try to overcome by all possible means; and in science and art I have found the wings which lift me above them. But the comfort which they afford is, after all, only a miserable comfort, and does not make up for the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation strong, respected, and feared. However, I am comforted by the thought of Germany's future. Yes, the German people has a future. ”

“ It is easy to see why American public opinion should have condemned by an overwhelming majority the diplomatic acts of Austria and Hungary which have been the immediate occasion of the terrific explosion which now shakes the foundations of the whole civilized world. Austria's break with Servia and Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality—the one leading to war between Russia and Germany, the other bringing England into the fray—must appear to the uninitiated as reckless and indefensible provocations and as wanton attacks upon the laws of nations. ”

“ Will not the civilized world learn from this horrible European war—the legitimate result of the policies of Bismarck and his associates and disciples—that these democratic ideals constitute the rational substitute for the imperialistic ideal of fighting force as the foundation of national greatness? The new ideals will still need the protection and support, both within and without each nation, of a restrained public force, acting under law, national and international, just as a sane mind needs as its agent a sound and strong body. ”

“ Needless to say, the European war will not involve the United States in actual hostilities. It is highly improbable that either our army or our navy will see service. We are too distant from the seat of war; too entirely devoid of interests the combatants might seriously injure which a resort to war could remedy; too completely incapable of aiding or abetting one or the other in arms to cause them to assail us. ”

“ But no matter what the outcome, let no man think that God and justice are not fully equal to this emergency. The great vine of Liberty was planted by Divine hands in the Eden garden. Just now men are feeding the blossoms of the tree of life to their war horses and splitting the boughs of that tree into shafts for their spears. ”

“ You see that while I am not neutral to the extreme, while I fervently hope and pray that Germany may not be wrecked and that she may emerge from the war with full ability to maintain her own, I cannot believe that it would be good for her or good for the world in general if she found herself absolutely and incontrovertibly victorious at the end of the great struggle. In other words, I wish Germany to be victorious, but I do not wish her to be too victorious. ”

“ It was undoubtedly the most unfortunate thing not only for Germany but for France and the rest of Europe, for it kept open a wound which might have been healed either by a return of the lost provinces, with or without compensation, or by granting them autonomy, or, better still, by leaving it to the inhabitants to choose for themselves, as France did with Nice and Savoy.
The ruthless methods of a Bismarck are no longer of this age. They are too odious, and the human conscience revolts at them. ”

“ For the history of the last 300 years proves that England has habitually considered as her mortal enemy any nation which dared to contest her commercial and industrial supremacy—first Spain, then Holland, then France, and now Germany. As long as German firms, by the manufacture of artificial indigo, keep on ruining the English importation of indigo from India, and as long as the German steamship lines keep on outstripping the prestige of the English boats, there can be no real friendship between England and Germany. ”

“ The good people of Germany do not burn universities. Neither do they make war for war's sake. They are helpless in the hands of a monster of their own creation. The affair at Zabern a year ago testifies to their complete subjugation. All the virtues are left to them, save only the love of freedom. This the mailed fist has taken away.
The Germany of today is an anachronism. Her scientific ideals are of the twentieth century. Her political ideals hark back to the sixteenth. Her rulers have made her the most superb fighting machine in a world which is soul-weary of fighting. ”

“ In concluding our survey of the nations and the stake of each country in the war, there is one reflection that must be obvious to all thinking men. This little fire of last August has become a world conflagration. The nation that first sent out her armies was Germany. There is a high-water mark of battle in every war, and after that, the invading waves begin their retreat. ”

“ It may be that the convulsion of war will do for Europe what the earthquake did for the rude folk of Greece—cracked the solid rock and exposed the silver veins that gave the wealth with which rude men built Athens, with its art, its literature, its law and its liberty. ”

“ But the action of the German Government in violating the neutrality of Belgium when France had assured us that she would respect it, the invasion of a small State whose neutrality and independence she and England had joined in guaranteeing, evoked in this country an almost unanimous sentiment that the faith of treaties and the safety of small States must be protected. There has been no war for more than a century—perhaps two centuries—into which the nation has entered with so general a belief that its action is justified. ”

“ The Slav individually and in his primitive culture is altogether charming. He is a son of the soil, picturesque in life and creative; he is minstrel and poet, seer. But so far he is the carrier of a low civilization, the prophet, priest, and king of autocracy and absolutism. Never has there been a time in history when the higher civilization was not in a savage struggle for existence. It is almost the first time in three centuries that the highest civilizations were in alliance with the lowest; not since the pugnacious Western powers of Europe sued for favor at the Sublime Porte. ”

“ Is it too much to expect that the whole civilized world will take to heart the lessons of this terrible catastrophe and co-operate to prevent the recurrence of such losses and woes? Should Germany and Austria-Hungary succeed in their present undertakings, the whole civilized world would be obliged to bear continuously, and to an ever-increasing amount, the burdens of great armaments, and would live in constant fear of sudden invasion, now here, now there—a terrible fear, against which neither treaties nor professions of peaceable intentions would offer the least security. ”

“ There is perhaps no age in the history of the world which has so emphasized the idea of the brotherhood of man as our own, and never in all history has there been such a denial of this idea as by the present European war. If the brotherhood of man had been the living, dominant idea of our civilization, could this present tragedy of the nations have occurred? ”

“ Germany is now fighting for her very existence, and I, who am not without knowledge of German conditions, am convinced that never has there been a war more wholly that of a whole people than is this present conflict, as far as Germany is concerned.
Any one who has been in even superficial touch with German public opinion and individual feeling in any part of the empire, since the war began, must know that there is hardly a man, woman, or child throughout the empire who would hesitate if called upon to sacrifice possessions or life in order to insure victory to the Fatherland. ”