New York Times Current History The European War, Vol 1, No. 1 Part 37

In conclusion, we beg to express the deep consideration which we feel for your science, hitherto so unerring.

*To Americans In Germany*

*By Prof. Adolf von Harnack.*

Citizens of the United States, ladies and gentlemen: It is my pleasure and my privilege to address to you today a few words.

Let me begin with a personal recollection. Ten years ago I was in the United States and I came away with some unforgettable memories. What impression was the strongest? Not the thundering fall of Niagara, not the wonderful entrance into New York Harbor with its skysc.r.a.pers, not the tremendous World's Fair of St. Louis in all its proud grandeur, not the splendid universities of Harvard and Columbia or the Congressional Library in Was.h.i.+ngton--these are all works of technique or of nature and cannot arouse our deepest admiration and make the deepest impression.

What was the deepest impression? It was two-fold: first, the great work of the American Nation, and next, American hospitality.

The great work of the American Nation, that is, the nation itself! From the smallest beginning the American Nation has in 200 years developed itself to a world power of more than 100,000,000 souls, and has not only settled but civilized the whole section of the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the great lakes to the West Indies. And not only civilized: everything which has drifted to it has been welded together by this nation with an indescribable power, welded together to the unity of a great, n.o.ble nation of educated men--such a thing as has never before happened in all history. After two or at the most, three generations, all are welded together in the American body and the American spirit, and this without petty rules, without political pressure. In the definite frame of this people every individual character fits in without coercion, becomes American and yet retains its own quality. The world has never witnessed such a spectacle but it is witnessing it continually now. On the one side it hears and sees the fact that every alien after a short time announces, "America is now my Fatherland!" and on the other hand the old country still continues undisturbed the bond between them. Yes, here is at once a national strength and freedom which another could not copy from you very easily.

*The Spirit of America.*

But, further: Among those who have wandered to your sh.o.r.es are millions of Germans--several millions! For more than two years--where shall I begin to relate--since the days of Steuben and of Carl Schurz--but how can I name names?--they have been all received as brothers, bringing their best; and their best was not lost. More I cannot say.

Furthermore, what sort was the spirit which received them? Upon each one, without and within, that spirit has imprinted its seal. Concerning this spirit I shall speak later, but for the present I will only say, it is the spirit of common courage and common freedom! And from this unity I saw had developed a tremendous contribution as the work of this nation, a contribution to agriculture, to technology, and, as we of the German universities have known for several decades, an extraordinary contribution to science. And this contribution has been derived from a combination such as we in Europe cannot effect, of the good old traditional wisdom which has been brought down out of the history of Europe and a youthful courage, I might almost say, a childlike spirit.

These two combined, this circ.u.mspection and at the same time this courage of youth, which I met everywhere and which has stamped itself upon all American work, is what I have admired.

And the second was the American hospitality!

Like a warm breeze, this hospitality surrounded me and my friends.

Wherever we went we breathed the air of this friends.h.i.+p, indeed, it almost took away our powers of will, so thoroughly did it antic.i.p.ate every plan and every need. Like parcels of friends.h.i.+p, we were sent from place to place, always the feeling that we had all known each other forever. That was an experience for which all of us--for who of us Germans who have come over here has not experienced it?--will be perpetually thankful. That will never be forgotten.

*Friends.h.i.+p for Germany.*

But beautiful and n.o.ble as that was, your nation has furnished ours with something still more unforgettable. In those horrible days of 1870, when a great number of Germans were shut up in unfortunate Paris, the American Amba.s.sador a.s.sumed the care of them, and what America did at that time she is again doing for all of our country--men who, surprised in the enemy's country by the war, have been detained there. They are intrusted to the special care of the American Amba.s.sador, and we know with as much certainty as though it were an actual fact already that that care will be the best and the most loyal. That, my friends, is true service of friends.h.i.+p, which is not mere convention but such as it is in the Catechism: "Give us our daily bread and good friends." They belong together.

But to answer the question why you are our good friends we must reflect a little for the answer which we might have given a few days ago--"You are our good friends as our blood relations"--alas! that answer no longer holds. That is over! G.o.d grant that in later days we may again be able to say it, but by a circ.u.mstance which has torn our very heartstrings it has been proved that blood is not thicker than water.

But where then is the deep-lying reason for this friends.h.i.+p? Does it rest in the fact that we have so many Germans over there; that they have been received so cordially; that they have done so much for the building up of America, soul and body, or that we find friends in so many Americans on this side of the water? This is an important consideration, but it is not the ultimate cause we are seeking.

My friends, when it is a powerful relations.h.i.+p, imbedded in rock as it were, which is under consideration, then the matter is more than superficial, and that which is at the bottom of this deeper fact, history is at this very moment showing us as she writes in characters of bronze before our eyes; because we have a common spirit which springs from the very depths of our hearts, for that reason are we friends!

And what is that spirit? It is the spirit of the deep religious and moral culture which has possessed us through a succession of centuries and out of which this powerful American offshoot has sprung. To this culture belong three things, or, rather, it rests upon three pillars.

The first pillar is the recognition of the eternal value of every human soul, consequently the recognition of personality and individuality.

These are respected, nourished, striven for. Second is the recognition of the duty at any time to risk this human soul, which is to each one of us so dear, for that great ideal--"G.o.d, freedom, and the Fatherland."

The dearer that human soul, that life, is prized by us, Germans and Americans, the more surely do we give it up willingly and joyously when a high cause demands it. And the third pillar is respect for law and therewith the capability for powerful organization in all lines and in all manner of communities.

*A Different Culture.*

But now before my eyes I see rising up against the culture which rests upon these three pillars--personality, duty to sacrifice all for ideals, law and organization--another culture, a culture of the horde whose Government is patriarchal, a civilization of the mob which is brought together and held together by despots, the Byzantine--I must extend it further--Mongolian-Muscovite culture.

My friends, this was once a true culture, but it is no longer. This culture was not able to bear the light of the eighteenth century, still less that of the nineteenth, and now, in this twentieth century, it breaks out and threatens us--this unorganized mob, this mob of Asia; like the sands of the desert it would sweep down over our harvest fields. That we already know; we are already experiencing it. That, too, the Americans know, for every one who has stood upon the ground of our civilization and who with a keen glance regards the present situation knows that the word must be: "Peoples of Europe, save your most hallowed possessions!"

*"I Cover My Head!"*

This, our culture, the chief treasure of mankind, was in large part, yes, almost wholly, intrusted to three peoples: to us, to the Americans, and--to the English. I will say no more! I cover my head! Two still remain, and must stand all the more firmly together where this culture is menaced. It is a question of our spiritual existence, and Americans will realize that it is also their existence. We have a common culture, and a common duty to protect it!

To you, American citizens, we give the holy pledge that we shall offer our last drop of blood in the cause of this culture. May I in addition say to you, since I have made this pledge, that we shall as a matter of course protect those of you here in our land and care for you and do everything for you? If we have made the greater pledge, surely we can manage these trifles.

But you, my dear fellow-countrymen, we are all thinking with one mind on what is now going on about us. It is a very grave but a splendid time.

Whatever in the last a.n.a.lysis we shall go through, at present there is no longer any one of us who any longer regards life in the role of a blase or critical spectator, but each one of us stands in the very midst of life, and, indeed, in the very midst of a higher life. G.o.d has of a sudden brought us out of the wretchedness of the day to a high place to which we have never before spiritually attained. But always where life emerges, a higher life or merely life itself, wherever there is a thirst for life, there is it set close around by death, as at every birth when something new comes to the light of day, and so if the most precious thing is to be gained, then death will stand close by life. But this we also know, that when death and life intertwine in this fas.h.i.+on, the fear of death vanishes away; in the intertwining, life only appears and full of life man goes through death and into death. It brings to my mind an old song, the powerful song of victory of our fathers:

It was a famous battle, Fought 'twixt Life and Death; Life came out the victor, Triumphant over Death; Already it was written How one Death killed the other, So making mock of Death!

Death which is willingly met kills the great death and secures the higher life. Death makes us free. Thus spake Luther.

Let me say a few words in closing. Before all of us there stands in time of crisis an image under which are the plain words: "He was faithful unto death, yea, even to death on the cross." Now the time for great faithfulness has come for us, for this obedience for which our neighbors in former times have ridiculed us, saying: "See, these are the faithful Germans, the men who do all on command and are so obedient!" Now they shall see that this great obedience was not mere discipline, but a matter of will. It was and still is discipline, but it is also will.

They shall see that this great obedience is not pettiness and death, but power and life.

From the east--I say it once more--the desert sands are sweeping down upon us; on the west we are opposed by old enemies and treacherous friends. When will the German be able to pray again, confessing:

G.o.d is the Orient, G.o.d is the Occident; Northernmost and Southern lands Rest in peace beneath His hands.

We shall hope that G.o.d may give us strength to make this true, not only for us but for all Europe.

Until then, since we see the very springs of our higher life and our existence threatened, we shout: "Father, protect our springs of life and save us from the Huns."

*A Reply to Prof. Harnack*

*By Some British Theologians.*

Prof. Harnack.

Honored Sir: We, the undersigned, a group of theologians who owe more than we can express to you personally and to the great host of German teachers and leaders of thought, have noticed with pain a report of a speech recently delivered by you, in which you are said to have described the conduct of Great Britain in the present war as that of a traitor to civilization.

We are quite sure that you could never have been betrayed into such a statement if you had been acquainted with the real motives which actuate the British Nation in the present crisis.

Permit us, in the interests of a better understanding now and subsequently, to state to you the grounds on which we, whose obligations to Germany, personal and professional, are simply incalculable, have felt it our duty to support the British Government in its declaration of war against the land and people we love so well.

We are not actuated by any preference for France over Germany--still less by any preference for Russia over Germany. The preference lies entirely the other way. Next to the peoples that speak the English tongue, there is no people in the world that stands so high in our affection and admiration as the people of Germany. Several of us have studied in German universities. Many of us have enjoyed warm personal friends.h.i.+p with your fellow-countrymen. All of us owe an immeasurable debt to German theology, philosophy, and literature. Our sympathies are in matters of the spirit so largely German that nothing but the very strongest reasons could ever lead us to contemplate the possibility of hostile relations between Great Britain and Germany.

Nor have we the remotest sympathy with any desire to isolate Germany, or to restrict her legitimate expansion, commercial and colonial. We have borne resolute witness against the endeavor made by foes of Germany to foment anti-German suspicion and ill-will in the minds of our fellow-countrymen.

*The Sanct.i.ty of Treaties.*