New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 23

In the meantime the American peoples cry with one voice to the German people, like Ezekiel to the House of Israel: "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?"

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Cambridge, Ma.s.s., Dec. 8, 1914.

THE LORD OF HOSTS.

By JOSEPH B. GILDER.

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh."

The warring hosts that gather To ravage, burn, and slay, Turn first to that dread Father To whom the nations pray:

"O G.o.d, our hearts Thou knowest, Our minds Thou readest clear; Where we go, there Thou goest-- With Thee we have no fear.

"The folk that harm and hate us-- Thy enemies, O Lord-- Thou knowest how they bait us: Make brittle their strong sword!

"Against the foe that goaded We heed Thy call to fight: Our guns are primed and loaded, Our swords, how keen and bright!

"Make strong our hearts to serve Thee, Uphold our lifted hands; Let no pet.i.tion swerve Thee To succor alien bands.

"So shall we burn and slaughter, Spread desolation wide, If still, by land and water, Thou fightest on our side."

The Lord of Hosts had listened-- Had heard the rivals' prayer, Upraised where bayonets glistened And banners dyed the air;

And as His people waited An answer to their cry, Two bolts with lightning freighted Flashed from the angry sky.

To left, to right they darted, Impartially they fell: The hosts in terror started As they envisaged h.e.l.l.

For wide their ranks were riven, Night blotted out the sky, As prostrate, dazed or driven, They caught their G.o.d's reply.

Then, as the blinding levin's Twin bolts were buried deep, Who dwelleth in the heavens Was heard to laugh--and weep!

A War of Dishonor

By David Starr Jordan.

Late President of Leland Stanford Junior University, now its Chancellor; Chief Director of the World Peace Foundation since 1910.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

In this war what of right and what of wrong? Not much of right, perhaps, and very much of wrong. But there are degrees in wrong, and sometimes, by comparison, wrong becomes almost right.

The armed peace, the peace of guns and dreadnoughts and sabre rattlers, has come to its predestined end. Its armaments were made for war. Its war makers and war traders, the Pan-Germanists in the lead, have done their worst for the last nine years. They have been foiled time after time, but they have their way at last. Their last and most fatal weapon was the ultimatum. If Servia had not given them their chance they would have found their pretext somewhere else. When a nation or a continent prepares for war it will get it soon or later. To prepare for war is to breed a host of men who have no other business, and another host who find their profits in blood.

When the war began it had very little meaning. It was the third Balkan war, brought on, as the others were, by intrigues of rival despotisms.

The peoples of Europe do not hate each other. The springs of war come from a few men impelled by greed and glory. Diplomacy in Europe has been for years the cover for robbery in Asia or Africa. Of all the nations concerned not one had any wish to fight, and Belgium alone could fight with clean hands.

And this fact gave the war its meaning. The invasion of Belgium changed the whole face of affairs. As by a lightning flash the issue was made plain: the issue of the sacredness of law; the rule of the soldier or the rule of the citizen; the rule of fear or the rule of law. Germany stands for army rule. This was made clear when, a year ago, she pa.s.sed under the yoke at Zabern. However devious her diplomacy in the past, Britain stands today for the rule of law. The British soldier is the servant of the British people, not their master.

The highest conception of human relations is embodied in the word law.

Law is the framework of civilization. Law is the condition of security, happiness, and progress. War is the denial of all law. It makes sc.r.a.p paper of all the solemn agreements men and nations have established for their mutual good.

The rape of Belgium made sc.r.a.p paper of international law. The sowing of mines in the fairways of commerce made sc.r.a.p paper of the rights of neutral nations. The torture of the Belgian people made sc.r.a.p paper of the rights of non-combatants.

War may be never righteous, but it is sometimes honorable. In honorable war armies fight against armies, never against private citizens. If armies give no needless provocation, they will receive none. The sacking of Malines, Aerschot, Dinant--these are not acts of honorable war. The wreck of Louvain, historic Louvain, the venerable centre for 500 years of Catholic erudition, at the hands of blood-drunk soldiers was an act of dishonorable war. It marks a stain on the record of Germany which the ages will not efface.

"A needed example," say the apologists for this crime. The Duke of Alva gave the same "needed example" to these same people in his day. For centuries the words "Spanish blood" struck terror into peoples' hearts throughout the Netherlands. For centuries to come the word Prussian will take its hated place.

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. For a nation in s.h.i.+ning armor the civilized World has no place. It will not wors.h.i.+p them, it will not obey them. It will not respect those who either wors.h.i.+p or obey. It finds no people good enough to rule other people against their will.

A great nation which its own people do not control is a nation without a Government. It is a derelict on the international sea. It is a danger to its neighbors, a greater danger to itself. Of all the many issues, good or bad, which may come from this war, none is more important than this, that the German people should take possession of Germany.

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

Berkeley, Cal., Sept. 19, 1914.

Might or Right

By John Grier Hibben.

President of Princeton University; author of works on logic and philosophy.

_The address printed below was delivered by President Hibben at the opening of the Laymen's Efficiency Convention in New York City, Oct. 16, 1914._

We are all of us sadly conscious of our failure to realize in any adequate measure the standards of right conduct which we set for ourselves. Attainment falls far short of purpose and desire. Through want of courage, or it may be of inclination, or of sheer inertia, we fail to obey perfectly the law of duty which we recognize as imperatively binding upon us. There is, however, a more subtle kind of failure as regards our moral endeavor and achievement which is due to the unconscious s.h.i.+fting of these standards of right and wrong themselves. It is not merely that we fail to do that which we know to be right, but at times the very idea of right itself is strangely altered.

The good insensibly a.s.similates to itself certain elements of evil which we allow and accept without full realization of the significance of this moral alchemy to which the most fundamental of our ideas are often times subjected. The idea of right no longer stands in its integrity, but is compromised and even neutralized by conflicting thoughts and sentiments.

The things which at one time held first place in our estimate of life become secondary. Our att.i.tude toward men, and manners, and affairs experiences a radical change. This in most cases takes place unconsciously, or if conscious of it, we refrain from confessing it even to ourselves.

There are some, however, who are both frank enough and bold enough to announce their belief in the radical doctrine which demands a complete transformation of essential values. For them, good is evil and evil good, and they seem not ashamed to avow it. The conspicuous German philosopher of later years, Nietzsche, with a nave simplicity insists that the great need of our modern civilization is that which he designates as "the transvaluation of all values." By this he means the complete transformation of certain ideas of supreme value into their direct opposites. He declares, for instance, that the central virtues of Christianity, such as those of self-sacrifice, pity, mercy, indicate an inherent weakness of the human race, and that the strong man dissipates his energies through the offices of kindness and helpfulness. Thus the law which commands us to bear one another's burdens must be regarded as obsolete. Every man should be strong enough to bear his own burdens. If not, he is a drag to the onward progress of humanity, and to a.s.sist him is to do evil and not good. If you help the weak, you so far forth a.s.sist in perpetuating an inferior type of manhood.

Nietzsche's "Moralic Acid."