The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cloud, by Sartell Prentice.

Transcriber's Note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including non-standard spelling and a misquotation of John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields".

In the paragraph starting "Advertisements appear in the Berlin papers," "Advertisements" is a correction for "Advertisments".

THE CLOUD

A Cloud Like a Man's Hand

Up on the crest of Carmel a man stood watching. Before him lay the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, to the North the curving Bay of Acre, while to the south the white surf was breaking on the reefs of Philistia.

At the other end of the long Carmel ridge another man stood waiting. Before his eyes the great Plain of Esdraelon lay extended with the hills of Galilee to the North and the great bulk of Mt. Gilboa, faint in the summer haze, bounding the vision to the East.

Seven times the Watcher had climbed to the Western crest of[Pg 2] Carmel; six times he had returned to report that there was nothing to be seen, and seven times he had been bidden, "Go up again; look towards the sea." Now at last he knew that his vigil was ended; something had risen above the horizon that told him his watch was past. It was a very little thing; yet it sent him speeding back along the mountain's ridge until he came again to the man who was waiting. "Behold," he said, "There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand." And the man who waited sent word to a King of Israel, saying, "Prepare thy chariot."

A man's hand is a very little thing, frail and weak, but we have seen a cloud like a man's hand, a man's hand clad in armor, rising up beyond the sea. The shadow of that cloud[Pg 3] fell on Poland, and Poland died. It fell on Russia, and a great Empire went down in darkness and eclipse. It fell on Serbia, and blotted her out, on Roumania, and Roumania passed into bondage. It fell on Belgium, and Belgium cried out a little and then grew still. That shadow fell on France and even the trees withered and died. It stretched out over the sea and touched the Lusitania, and she crumpled and went down, carrying with her 120 American dead. And now that shadow falls upon our own shores and darkens the streets and homes of our towns and cities. So to-day the summons has gone forth to every American, "Prepare thy chariot!" Each one of us has his own—not to all of us is the same kind given. To some of us it is the[Pg 4] Red Cross, to others it is the voice or the pen, to every one of us it is the buying of Liberty Bonds, to some of us it is the Training Camp, the Trench, and the Battlefield. But to every man, woman, and child of us the hour has come to "Prepare our chariots." For America has willed with all her might, her soul, her strength, that the shadow of that "Cloud like a man's hand" shall forever pass away; that it shall no longer rest on Poland, Russia, Serbia, Roumania, Belgium, France or on our own America, but that Liberty, Justice, and Democracy shall shine in an unclouded sky and that no shadow of a man's mailed fist shall darken either the homes or the hearts of men.

In 1204 Philip Augustus laid siege to the Chateau Gaillard, which Rich[Pg 5]ard Cœur de Lion had built to defend his lands of Normandy. In the course of that siege, the little town of Les Andelys was destroyed, and the peasants, some 1400 in number, fled to the Chateau for refuge. But Sir Roger de Lacy, defending for England, was already facing starvation, England was far away, John Lackland was slow, and provisions were failing. He did not dare admit these 1400 "bouches inutiles," for that would mean the almost immediate surrender of his trust. Therefore he kept the gates of the castle closed. But the besiegers would not allow the refugees to pass through their lines, their Commandant believing that the compassion of the English would sooner or later compel them to receive these fugitives if they saw them starv[Pg 6]ing before their eyes. So they held them between the lines until they starved to death, so the story goes.

It is a long way from 1204 to the present time, but last year General von Bissing, the German Governor of Belgium, said to F. C. Wolcott, the representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, "Starvation is a great weapon. We mean to use it to force thousands of Belgian skilled workmen into German factories, thousands of Belgian farmers into the fields of Mesopotamia. The rest—the ineffectives, the very old and the very young, the weak and the useless—we mean to place in front of the firing line, put firing squads behind them, and drive them through the French and English lines, that France and England may take care of them." That[Pg 7] is what Germany has been doing ever since the war broke out. Wherever her armies have gone, from Armenia to Serbia, Poland, Belgium, and France, she has been driving women, children, and men through our lines for us to care for. Nay, it is more than this; it is not men, women and children, but it is the very essence and principle of manhood, womanhood, and childhood that she has been forcing through our lines and that we have called upon to care for.

I am not going to tell you again what Germany has been doing to men, women, and children; I am not going to repeat the stories of her atrocities. A year ago I should have felt compelled to tell you what to-day I feel I may leave unsaid, for a year ago we were not sure, we could[Pg 8] not, many of us, bring ourselves to believe, that men born of women could do such things. But to-day we know. The awful tale of helpless ships sunk so as to leave no trace, the shelling of life boats, the sinking of hospital ships, the bombing of hospitals and ambulances, the crucifixion of men, the outraging of women, the torturing of children, the enslaving of entire populations, all these barbarisms are proved not merely by the testimony of many witnesses, but from the lips of the very soldiers and sailors of Germany herself. So I gladly pass these things by, only bidding you remember that in this war German ruthlessness has driven manhood, womanhood, and childhood through our lines for us to protect.

But there is something else that has[Pg 9] been driven into our lines and which we are called upon to guard. We are protecting the freedom and dignity of Labor. I wish every laboring man could be made to understand Labor's stake in this war. The leaders of American labor, for the most part, have understood from the beginning. Their appeals to the manhood of the country have been stirring and stimulating, and to-day Labor is beginning to respond. There are fewer strikes and more effectiveness. But the individual laboring man did not grasp the issues from the first. If he had there would not have been 3000 strikes in the first year of our war, with a total of 6000 years of labor lost. Let me speak for a moment of Labor's stake in this war.

Ambassador Gerard says, "The[Pg 10] workingmen in the cities of Germany are worked longer and get less out of life than any other workmen in the world. The laws so much admired, insurance against unemployment, sickness, injury, old age, etc., are in reality skillful measures which bind the workmen to the soil as effectively as the serfs of the Middle Ages were bound to their masters' estates.

"I have had letters from workingmen ... begging for a steerage fare to America, saying that their insurance payments were so large that they could not save money from their wages. Of course, after making these payments for some years the workingman hesitates to emigrate and lose all the premiums he has paid to the State. In peace times a skilled mechanic receives less than two dollars[Pg 11] a day, for which he must work at least ten hours." He says that he visited a nobleman on his estate in Hungary, where—as throughout the Central Empires,—the agricultural work is largely done by women who are paid twenty cents a day. "The women in the farming districts of Germany are worked harder than the cattle. In summer time they are in the fields at five or six o'clock in the morning and they work until eight o'clock or later at night. For this they are paid as high as forty-eight cents a day in harvest time." We have a Contract Labor Law which forbids the importation of labor. Germany every year imports a million laborers from abroad and the employers favor both the employment of women in farm work and the im[Pg 12]portation of labor, for the more workers the lower the scale of wages throughout the Empire.

There is a document written by a German, Siegfried Balder, which is printed in the Congressional Record for January 17, 1918.

The writer says that in Prussia, whose population is two thirds that of all Germany, only one twentieth of the householders have an income equal to $750 a year, while over fifty per cent are living on $225 a year or less; more than 820,000 of the population of Berlin are living in single rooms, while 49,991 of these single rooms house from five to thirteen people each. Large numbers of the Prussian work people are doomed to live and die in quarters narrower than a prison cell.

But if this is what Germany does to her own, to men of Teuton blood and to the children of the Teuton God, what does she do to those who are born in the outer darkness of other lands, to those who are not of Teuton blood, to the laboring men of other nationalities?

You know the story of the Belgian Deportations. When the Germans overran Belgium many thousands of the people sought refuge under the flag of Holland. Germany then pledged her word to Holland that, if she would exert "gentle pressure" on these refugees and force them to return to their homes, the German Administration in Belgium would hold itself bound by the terms of the Hague Conventions. The German authorities "did not for a moment dream of[Pg 14] making them prisoners, of making requisitions, or of deporting those who are law abiding into Germany." The German Governor of Antwerp also gave his pledge to Cardinal Mercier, first verbally and then in writing, that "young men need not fear deportation into Germany whether for enrollment in the army or for employment at forced labor." This pledge was finally ratified by the Governor General, Gen. von der Goltz, in the presence of witnesses "pour la generalité du pays et sans limite de temps." (Les Deportations Belges, à la Lumière des Documents Allemands, Chapter 14.)

"Recently workmen have refused, without reason, in different parts of[Pg 15] the occupied territory, to obey the commands of the Military Commanders relative to the performance of necessary work; they have caused great harm to their communes and their fellow citizens. To avoid such conditions I order as follows:

"Those who are able but refuse to work or to continue their labors in accordance with their usual occupations, in accord with the interests of the German Military Administration and the desire of the German Military Commanders shall be punished by imprisonment up to one year. Also recusants may be sent into Germany. The fact that they appeal to any possible law of Belgium or even to International Conventions can never justify a refusal to work. The Military Commander alone will decide[Pg 16] on the acceptability of the forced labor."

One year later still, in October, 1916, the deportations began. It is not necessary that the story be told again. You know that boys and girls, men and women were torn from their homes, packed into cattle cars and sent on long journeys, with insufficient food and clothing, into Germany. There they were threatened with rifles, bayonets, and machine guns to compel them to sign statements to the effect that they were voluntary workers in German munition factories. Do you know that girls have been beaten with whips for failing to complete their tasks? In one place they were promised four marks a day, but two and a half marks were deducted for food and lodging,[Pg 17] one mark for clothes, half a mark went into a "reserve fund" and they were paid half a mark a day, about six cents. But they did not really receive that for they were under a military Governor who had the power to fine them up to fifty dollars for the infraction of any one of a hundred petty military rules, for failure to salute an officer, for instance, and remember, the German salutes his officer when he is two blocks away. In other words they were subject to a fine, without appeal, which was equal to more than two and one third years' pay at six cents a day! We have the record of a girl, which is interesting only because she is a type, who received 187 cents for 180 days work, about one cent a day.

An advertisement appeared recently[Pg 18] in a Berlin paper which read as follows: "For Exchange: Fifty Polish workpeople, twenty men, thirty girls, for exchange for an equal number of workpeople of other nationalities."

Wherein does this differ from slavery? God help the workers of America if Germany wins this war. Do you realize what Germany proposes for America? Mr. McAdoo has already told us that she proposes to take from us an indemnity of one hundred and twenty-five billions of dollars, one-half our total wealth. She has told us that she will take charge of our Monroe Doctrine and "put us in right relations with Germany." Now she tells us that she intends to dictate to us our tariff laws, to tell us what we must admit free of duty and what we must ship[Pg 19] without impost. In other words, Germany proposes to bring the American workman, who before this war was receiving an average wage of $667 a year, into competition with the Prussian worker, who lived on $225 a year. Let every laboring man, skilled or unskilled, understand his own vital stake in the winning of this war.

You know Germany's dream of a Middle Empire; of a great new kingdom that is to stretch from the English Channel to the Persian Gulf, from the borders of Normandy through Mesopotamia. It is to include Northeastern France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Austro-Hungary, parts of Switzerland and[Pg 20] Italy, Serbia, Roumania, Turkey, Armenia, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. Into this Middle Kingdom Greece and Roumania on the South and Norway and Sweden on the North are to be forced by economic pressure. To this Empire we must now add Poland, Courland, Livonia, Finland and the Ukraine, while Persia is to be "exploited" for the benefit of Germany.

Hungary, Roumania, Asia Minor, the Ukraine and Mesopotamia can feed the entire world. The oil fields of Roumania, Southern Russia and Mesopotamia can light the world. The iron fields of Mesopotamia are said to be the richest undeveloped iron mines existing on the globe, and the Argen[Pg 21]nis copper mines are without a rival. This Empire could provide an army of fifteen million men in times of peace and of forty million in times of war. Its railroads, rivers and canals afford the most complete transportation system heart could desire. You could not starve it and with its ports upon four oceans, you never could blockade it. Strategically, it lies across three great divisions of the world, Europe, Asia and Africa, in such position that it could dominate them all.

Now it is important that you should understand the relation of iron to this war, for iron means steel, and steel means guns, rifles, shells, aeroplanes, ships and all the material of war. A nation that can control the world's iron supply can dominate the world.

At the outbreak of this war Germany had an annual production of twenty-eight millions tons of iron, of which seven million came from Germany and twenty-one million came from Alsace-Lorraine, which Germany stole from France in 1870. France had twenty-two million tons of iron a year, of which fifteen came from the basin of Briey, in Northeastern France. The first rush of Germany carried her over the coal fields of Belgium, over Luxemburg, over the mines of the Briey Basin and put her in possession of practically all the foundries and steel mills that France possessed. When Germany settled down to trench warfare she had an annual production of forty-nine million tons of iron, seven million from Germany, twenty-one from Lorraine,[Pg 23] six from Luxemburg and fifteen from the occupied districts of France, while France had only seven million left. That is why Germany was so bitter against England when England entered the war; that is why she was so insistent that we should put an embargo on munitions, for if England had not come in and kept the seas open, if we had consented to forbid the shipment of munitions, France must have swiftly fallen through the sheer starvation of her guns, for a nation with seven million tons of iron a year cannot contend with one possessing forty-nine million tons.

But stop for a moment to remember, since we are speaking of the shipment of munitions, that Austria herself, the Government of Vienna, sold to the Confederate Government[Pg 24] some thousands of stacks of arms during our Civil War, and refused either to forbid the shipment or to resell to the Government in Washington. Germany sold arms to the Boers and to England during the War in South Africa, and when the English blockade made it impossible to continue selling to the Boers she went on selling to England. She sold to Spain during our war with Spain. She has never considered placing an embargo upon her own munition plants when other nations were at war, yet she poured out the vials of her hate upon us for doing what she herself has always done.

But now grant that Germany wins this war and that that Great Middle Empire, which already, mark you, is a reality from Lille almost to Bagdad,[Pg 25] remains and endures, who is going to control and rule it? Germany has forty-nine million tons of iron a year; Austria has very little iron, Italy has none, neither Roumania, Bulgaria or Serbia have any iron, Turkey has none except in Mesopotamia, which Germany will control. Who then will be the master of that Middle Empire? It will be only Prussia writ large. But Germany's control rests on other foundations still; her General Staff to-day controls the military establishments of all her allies, not a command can be given anywhere without Germany's assent. Moreover the printing presses of Berlin have been busy since the war broke out, stamping out paper money which has been loaned to Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey until[Pg 26] these countries are hopelessly entangled in an economic net.

Now, in the Spring of 1918, we are about to receive the impact of a new peace drive from Germany. But what may we expect Germany to propose? The most liberal terms that have been suggested are a return to the status quo ante, peace without indemnities or annexations.

But remember that Germany has collected her indemnities as she has gone along. She took four hundred and eighty million francs from Brabant alone in one seizure; she has been taking sixty million francs a month, 720 million francs a year from Belgium since she violated her frontiers. She has looted every safe, national, civic or in private dwellings, she has taken the locomotives and the[Pg 27] rolling stock from all railroads, the ploughs, harrows and live stock from all farms, the machinery from all factories, she has taken the art treasures from all museums, churches, palaces and homes; she has taken the mercury from the backs of mirrors, the wool from the mattresses, the linen from the shelves, she has taken name-plates, door knobs, knockers, curtain rods, carpet rods, kitchen utensils and the bells from the churches. She has drawn her net so fine that she has taken the francs and centimes from her prisoners and she has picked the pockets of the dead!

Advertisements appear in the Berlin papers wherein contractors offer to transport the loot from any conquered territory on most reasonable[Pg 28] terms, while at number 35 Schoenberger Strasse there is a great warehouse where you might buy linens, laces, furniture, statuary, bric-a-brac, cradles, anything you like for almost anything you care to offer, for official Germany is selling the loot and plunder she has gathered in in violation of those Hague Regulations which Germany signed and swore to observe; "Family honor and rights, individual life and private property as well as religious convictions and worship must be respected." Article 46.

Austria staggers beneath her load of debt; Bulgaria and Turkey are hopelessly impoverished, England and France march on towards bankruptcy, Germany also is drawing very[Pg 29] near financial ruin, but even at that she has gathered in such a harvest of wealth as no war has ever brought to any people, and now she asks for a "peace without indemnities"!

Belgium has been stripped to the bone. Her recovery will require centuries. Never again will Belgium be able to block Germany's pathway, never again shall there be an epic of Liège. So Germany will give back Belgium.

She will give back Serbia, but she cannot give back the Serbians. Those that have survived the battlefield, the famine, plague and pestilence are being, or have been, massacred. Her farms are tenantless, her cities empty, the grass is growing in her[Pg 30] streets. Never again shall Serbia bar Germany's drive to the east. Her abandoned leaseholds invite true Germans to move in and take possession. So Germany will give back Serbia. But England must give back Mesopotamia and let Germany come down to the Persian Gulf! England must give back Syria and let Germany come down to the Suez Canal! England must give back the colonies in Africa that her own colonists have won and suffer anew Germany's let and hindrance to the Cape to Cairo railroad!

What wonder Germany desires a "Peace without indemnities or annexations"? But we have not yet exhausted Germany's profits in this war. Without counting her recent advances into Finland, Roumania and[Pg 31] the Ukraine, without counting her last conquest in Russia, Germany has seized 500,000 square kilometers of conquered soil occupied by a population of forty-two millions; from these millions Germany has been drawing that forced labor which she has been paying at the biblical wage of a penny a day. I am often asked to admire the great fight Germany has put up against the entire world. But I know that that fight has been made possible only because, against all the instincts and laws of civilization, Germany has been enslaving huge populations, setting them to forbidden tasks in order to release every German for her armies. Without that slavery Germany could not have raised such armies or endured so long. Not to Germany, but to England and to[Pg 32] France, which—while enslaving no nation, have given twenty per cent of their entire population to this war, is honor and reverence due! And this Germany wants peace because she is already dreaming of another war. Frederick Nauman, member of the Reichstag, tells us that she will build barns and granaries to hold a supply of food sufficient for her entire population for ten years; that she will build concrete entrenchments, impregnable lines of defence, along all her frontiers. Germany has already enforced a dreadful kind of concubinage, to avoid a worse term, upon the women of the occupied territories, and now we have evidence that she is enforcing that same dreadful system upon the women of her own land in utter disregard of all[Pg 33] ethics, religion and the dignity of womanhood. At any expense Germany means to have boys that, twenty years from now, when France is still exhausted from this struggle and before England shall have regathered her strength, Germany shall have a new army to send over the Rhine, through spent Belgium and unrecuperated France. Then there shall be no halt before the walls of Paris, no battle of the Marne, no failure at Calais!

And let America keep in mind the fact that this Germany has expressed the greatest hostility for America. "Let America look out when this war is finished," and "I will stand no nonsense from America after this war," said the Kaiser to Ambassador Gerard. In 1898 Count von Goetzen[Pg 34] said, in substance, "About fifteen years from now my country will begin a great war; in a few weeks we shall have taken Paris; in three months we shall occupy London; then we will turn to America. We will take some billions of dollars from America in indemnities; we will put you in your right relation with Germany and we will take charge of the Monroe Doctrine for ourselves." "We are keeping books on you Americans," said Major Liebster. "It is a long account, and we have not missed a detail. We are keeping the account in black and white; rest assured that it will be presented to you some day for settlement." In 1901 Freiherr von Edelsheim of the German General Staff wrote a book on sea power, in which he briefly out[Pg 35]lined a German plan for the conquest of America and said: "Germany is the only power in a position to conquer America." If once we and our allies let go our grip, if we grow soft, if we falter and fail, be very sure we and our children shall pay to the full the penalty.

I heard Major Murphy say that the Captain of the Arabic, who had gone down with his torpedoed ship and had been rescued from the sea, told him that as long as he stayed on the bridge of that sinking vessel, every time he rang a bell to the engine room he got the answering signal. I know no story of heroism in all this war that moves me more than this. Have you ever been in the engine room of a great liner where the sides come close together and you can put[Pg 36] your fingers on the steel plates and know that just a fraction of an inch beyond, the deep green waters of the sea are running? Then take your stand with these thirty or forty stokers and engineers; the ship is sinking, you know that the life boats are putting off, rafts are being launched and men are leaping into the sea. Now turn and look up that narrow and twisting iron stairway and watch for the first green gleam of foam-flecked waters to come cascading down, and then every time the bell rings give back the answering signal.

Our Ship of State has pushed out into a stormy sea; the officers are on the bridge, the lookout at the prow; the fortunate men are at the gun. To us, far in the interior, there comes[Pg 37] the humbler task of keeping the fires burning on which depends the vital element of speed, but wherever you stand, whatever your work, see to it that when your call comes you can give back the answering signal.

In the first place this war has been made possible only by the ghastly education which Germany has been giving her children through the past forty years. Dr. Van Dyke said that there was an American professor, I think of Columbia University, who had written a life of Goethe. When he was in Germany the Minister of Education sent for him and asked permission to translate that Life into German for use in German schools.[Pg 38] Permission having been readily given he said: "But there is one chapter that must come out before we can put that book into the hands of German children. You have a chapter on Goethe as a lover of liberty; we would like that omitted from our text book." To the credit of America let it be said the book never was translated nor has it yet appeared in German schools; but it is significant that German children must not be taught that a great German could be a lover of liberty. Professor Kusian, of Hollins College, Virginia, said that in his day William Tell could not be read in German schools. There is a song that German school children are singing to-day that was written by a school master and this is the translation: "Over there in the cowardly[Pg 39] trenches lie the enemy, and no one but a dog will say that mercy should be given to-day. Shoot down everything that cries for mercy; kill everything like dogs; more enemies, more enemies, be your prayer in this day of retribution."

There is a juvenile paper published in Germany that recently contained an article whose substance follows: "War is divine, it is glorious. When the soldier falls upon the battlefield, his spirit goes directly to the gates of Paradise, where all good soldiers go, but none of those old women in petticoats who say that war is brutal; there a Prussian Lance Corporal throws wide the door." (It is worth noting that St. Peter has[Pg 40] lost his job, that a Prussian Lance Corporal now bears the key and determines who shall be and who shall not be allowed to enter.) "While old Fritz leaps from his golden throne to welcome each home-coming Prussian soldier." It sounds blasphemous, but it appears that Prussian militancy has dethroned even the Lord God Omnipotent, and has placed the Thief of Silesia on the Golden Throne. I wonder how he ever entered in. We are told that "Nothing that worketh abomination or maketh a lie can ever enter in," and it was old Fritz who once said "If it pays us to be honest; let us be honest. But if it is necessary to lie, let us be cheats."

There is, then, this that we can do. We can see to it that every child[Pg 41] in our schools, in our churches, in our homes, nay, that every man and woman, too, in all America shall be brought up to love and reverence every star in our flag, to such a consecration of life to all for which that flag stands as shall produce a devotion and loyalty that shall outmatch the best that Germany can do.

Our Flag!

"We who in the old days, the easy days of pleasuring,
Loitered in the distant lands, we know the thrill that came
When, in far foreign places, above the stranger faces,
The sight of it, the might of it, would wake us like a flame.
[Pg 42] Our own flag, the one flag, it stirred our blood to claim.

"We who in these new days, these days of all confusion,
Look upon it with the eyes of one long blind who sees,
We know at last its beauty, its magnitude of duty,
Dear God! If thus it seems to us, what will it mean to these
Who wait for it, who pray for it, our kindred over seas?

"These who face the red days, the white nights of fury,
Where Death, like some mad reaper, hacks down the living grain,
They shall see our flag arise like a glory in the skies,
The Stars of it, the Bars of it, that prove it once again
The new Flag, the true Flag, that does not come in vain."

It is for every one of us, if it costs all that we have and all that we are, to see to it that that Flag comes swiftly, with the maximum of power, and that it "does not come in vain."

There is another thing that we can do. We can remember that Loyalty to America to-day means also Loyalty to her allies.

A great propaganda is being waged throughout this country which is intended to arouse suspicion, distrust and antagonism towards England. The Germanic value of that propaganda is obvious. It is dangerous to-day to advocate sympathy for Germany, but if German agents can sow seeds of distrust among the Allies and can divide England, France and America or hinder their perfection of[Pg 44] coöperation Germany will be the gainer.

That propaganda may be found in books on the shelves of our libraries; it appears occasionally in the pages of some of our newspapers; it is working among the soldiers in our cantonments. It is playing on the memories of 1776 and of 1861; it is working on all Irish loyalties and sympathies; it is striking every note of passion and of prejudice. In view of this propaganda, it is time for us to review the relations of America with England and to strike a balance.

We have recently celebrated the Centennial Anniversary that commemorated the conclusion of one hundred years of unbroken peace with England. In view of that Centenary, we might consider the books[Pg 45] of 1776 as definitely closed, although still we should remember that Burke and Chatham together with a host of English Whigs fought the battle for the American revolutionists no less bravely and staunchly than did the armies of the Americans themselves. We might also recall the words of George III to Mr. Adams, the first Minister of the United States to Great Britain: "Sir," said the King, "I wish you to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made I have always said, as I say to you[Pg 46] now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power." That message of friendship surely closes the issues of the Revolution.

In 1861 and throughout the Civil War, it is admitted that the majority of the English aristocracy, the Parliament and the Cabinet were in sympathy with the South. But it is also true that the great mass of the scholars, writers and almost the whole of the English middle class were strong in their sympathies with the Government at Washington. Let me quote passages from Prof. Willis Fletcher Johnston's "American Foreign Relations," "The next step of the British Government was even more marked in its friendship to the United States. This was on June[Pg 47] 1st, the issuance of an order forbidding the naval vessels or privateers of either belligerent to carry prizes into any British port or territorial waters. The Confederate Commission in London earnestly protested against the order, but in vain, while Seward remarked that it would probably prove a death blow to Southern privateering. The example set by England was followed by France, Spain, Prussia, Holland, etc." "Adams reported to Seward that he was assured on every hand that sympathy with the Federal Government was universal." "The blockade brought to England the greatest industrial distress the land had ever known, for which at first the North was held responsible. Against this judgment several influences were in time tri[Pg 48]umphant." "Punch," attacking the attitude of the English Government wrote:

"Though with the North we sympathise it must not be forgotten
That with the South we've stronger ties which are composed of Cotton.
The South enslaves their fellowmen, whom we all love so dearly
The North keeps commerce bound again, which touches us more nearly.
Thus a divided duty we perceive in this hard matter.
Free Trade, or sable brothers free?
Oh, won't we choose the latter?"

"Battle of Humanity"

Since the Civil War, the evidences of England's friendship have been as many as they have been valuable. We have good reason to believe, although it never can be proved as the proposals were never reduced to writing, that at the time of our war with Spain an effort was made by the Powers of Continental Europe, who were all strongly pro-Spanish[Pg 52] and anti-American in their sympathies, to band Europe together and to intervene unitedly between the United States and Spain, but in the interests of Spain and to the detriment of the United States. This scheme was only blocked by the attitude of England.

At Manila

We should do well also to remember the day in Manila Bay when the English Fleet steamed and anchored between the German ships and Admiral Dewey's squadron and when Admiral Chichester practically gave von Diderich to understand that a shot fired against America would hit England first. Just before this war broke out, Ger[Pg 53]many went to England, unofficially, to say that that Government had it in mind to seize parts of Argentine and of Brazil and to establish Imperial colonies there, and wished to know the attitude of the English in such a contingency. England replied, also unofficially, that Germany had forgotten the Monroe Doctrine. Germany responded that she had not forgotten the Monroe Doctrine, but that she was prepared to meet that issue with America if, and when, America raised that issue. England then said that she could only consider such an act by Germany as an expression of unfriendliness and the German fleet never sailed.

Let us remember that Germany has never assented to the Monroe Doctrine. In 1898 Count von Goetzen[Pg 54] said "About fifteen years from now my country will begin a great war. In two months she will be in Paris; then will come the crushing of England. Some months after we have finished our work in Europe we will take New York and probably Washington and hold them for some time. We will put your country in its place with reference to Germany. We will take a billion of dollars or more from New York and other places. The Monroe Doctrine will be taken charge of by us, as we will then have put you in your place and we will take charge of South America as far as we want to."

"An Impertinence"

"The Monroe Doctrine cannot be justified, it is only an aspiration[Pg 55] which we Europeans consider an impertinence. The inviolability of American soil is invoked without there being at hand the slightest means of warding off an attack of a respectable European Power." So said Johannes Vollert in 1903.

I am told by men who freely admit England's friendliness and its value to America that after all, England is not disinterested. She saw herself confronted by the hostility of great powers abroad and needed the support of America; hence her friendliness. Is it not asking a great deal of any Government that we should demand that it should rest its policies on disinterested affection for another people and not upon the welfare of those for whose wellbeing they have been placed in office? But, if we dis[Pg 56]count English friendship on that ground, let us be logical and consistent. We have publicly and enthusiastically admitted our debt to France for the help she gave us in our Revolution. But before the year 1776 Vergennes, who was over the Foreign Office in Paris, had written a memorial on American affairs. "In the document the importance of maintaining a close alliance between the different branches of the House of Bourbon and of opposing on all occasions the interests of Great Britain was clearly demonstrated and especial stress was laid upon the necessity of aiding the Americans in their struggle for independence. The defeat and submission of the colonies would, Vergennes declared, be followed by disastrous consequences for[Pg 57] the French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies. If, however, the Americans won by their own exertions, they would be themselves disposed to conquer the French and Spanish West Indies, so as to provide fresh outlets for their productions. Hence it was of supreme importance that France should at once lay the colonists under a debt of gratitude...."

"Let Us Be Just"

I yield to none in my admiration and affection for France, but let us be just in the application of our standards and criterions of judgment. If we are to condemn and repudiate our debt to England because we deny it the element of disinterested[Pg 58]ness, let us also, and for the same reason, repudiate our admitted debt to France. It is admitted that we were utterly unprepared for war even as late as 1917. Mr. George Creel defends our unpreparedness and says that we could not logically and consistently work for peace while we prepared for war, but even in defending he admits the fact. While we have been so unprepared it has been the English fleet that has been defending our Monroe Doctrine; it is the English fleet that has kept our coasts unscarred; it is the English fleet that has enabled our commerce and our transports to cross the seas; it is that Imperial line of ships and guns and men that have protected us through our uneasy slumbers, that have given us time to wake up to the[Pg 59] issues of this war and upon which we have depended for the opportunity to make ready and prepare.

Again and again has England saved the world; once when the white sails of the Armada rounded Ushant and spread out over the English Channel; again when Louis XIV was threatening the Old World and the New; again when Bonaparte was making and unmaking kings from Madrid to Warsaw; but never did England give to the world a greater service than when she offered up that little Expeditionary Army and threw herself, all unprepared, across the pathway of victorious Germany. Not one of us can look at the ruins of the cities of France and Belgium and remember the threats of Germany directed towards ourselves without[Pg 60] thinking with a shudder at what might be the condition of our own cities and citizens had England failed the world in that dreadful summer of 1914.

"Poison of Hatred"

The American citizen who is opposed to England because of the memories of 1776, or because of the attitude of the English Government in 1861, we can understand. We can argue with him sympathetically, for his antagonism is based on American history imperfectly studied. But the German-American who hates England, not because of what she has at any time done to America, but because of what he thinks she has done or would do to Germany and who[Pg 61] spreads the poison of his hatred through America, is admittedly disloyal. The Irish-American who hates England, not because of anything she has done to America, but because of what Cromwell did in Ireland nearly three hundred years ago or because of what English Cabinets may not have done in more recent years may not be disloyal in intent, but he stands upon the same basis as the German-American in this, that he imports antagonism; he does not base it on American soil but on a soil that is three thousand miles away. His antagonism is not due to his Americanism, but to his affections for another land. But exactly the same must be said of the German-American who preaches hate for England. To-day English ships con[Pg 62]voy our squadrons safely through the seas made dangerous by Germany; American destroyers are helping to guard English shores; American regiments are merging with English regiments and are acting as reserves and reinforcements for the English Army; our flag and the English flag are flying side by side in Picardy. Our guns stand wheel to wheel with English guns; our ships, our armies and our Red Cross are standing side by side with English surgeons, nurses, soldiers and battleships. The same spirit of unity must be maintained at home as well as abroad and we must understand that a common cause makes a common foe, but it also makes a common friend. Loyalty to America to-day means also loyalty to England.

I have a friend, president of a large corporation which employs thousands of men, who has been called to the head of a Department of a certain war activity in Washington. He told me that they had given him what seemed to be a very unimportant task, one that any clerk in his employ could well discharge, "but," he said, "I am trying to make it important by putting into it the best I have and the best that I can do."

When that spirit grips us, every single one, we shall sweep forward to a victory that nothing in all Germany can ever halt.

There is one other issue in this war, one other thing for which we fight, and I have left it to the last.

Mr. La Follette tells us that we are going to war to protect our invest[Pg 64]ments, and we are. We have entered this war for just that purpose; we have gone to war to protect our investments, but not our stocks and bonds. Do you realize that ever since this war broke out in 1914, not a ship has sailed from any Atlantic port of America or Canada, but that it has carried Americans, men of our flesh and blood, speaking our language to fight this battle against the Beast. Wherever men have fallen, these have fallen; wherever men have died, on the land, in the air, on the sea or in German prison camps, these have died; their ashes lie mingled with those of England's best, their bones rest in the soil of Serbia, Italy, Belgium and France.

We all remember the vision of Constantine; that flaming cross gleaming in the sky with the words written over it: "In hoc signo vinces." But there is another vision of crosses that rises before our eyes. Little crosses, white crosses, wooden crosses, that march in serried ranks across the trench-scarred face of Europe from the North Sea to the Black Sea—a veritable forest of crosses, low-lying,[Pg 66] yet they throw a longer and a darker shadow than cypress, hemlock or than pine, for beneath them lie the great hearts of the Empire, of Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia, and Roumania; they call to us, they wait for us.

"Who says their day is over, while others carry on
The little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone?
Not while they deck a sky line, not while they crown a view,
Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew."

"In Flanders' fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;
While, in the sky,
[Pg 67] The larks still bravely singing fly
Unheard amid the guns.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, saw dawn, felt sunsets glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our battle with the foe;
To you, from falling hands we throw
The torch, be yours to bear it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
In Flanders' fields."

It was before Verdun. All day long the lines in the field-gray uniforms had been assailing a French trench. Late in the afternoon the continual pressure forced the French to yield the ground. Only the dead and dying[Pg 68] were left when the Germans filed through to take possession. Then a wondrous thing happened. There was a pile of the dead blocking up the trench, and that pile began to stir, a movement swept through it. Up from that ghastly heap there came first a hand, then an arm, a face, and a dying Frenchman looked his German conquerers in the eye. Then with a strength gathered from God knows where, he sprang to his feet, his voice rang out shrill, insistent, imperative, "Debout les morts,"—"To your feet, ye Dead," and by the Living God of Israel, the Dead heard him and up from the reek and mire of that blood-stained trench dying Frenchmen, men as good as dead, staggered to their feet and drove the living Germans from that trench. So[Pg 69] again the Tricolor rose above the parapet, the evening breeze caressed it, the last rays of the setting Sun saluted it!

Is there more of that spirit among dead Frenchmen than there is in living Americans? Thank God, No. Seicheprey gives us the answer. When we see one American boy going through a barrage of fire seven times to bring ammunition up to the front, when we hear another mortally wounded hand over his grenades saying "I can't use these now, take them and use them," when we see the entire line, outnumbered eight to one, give ground slowly, exacting the maximum price for every yard and then at last come back, driving the Germans out of the village, out of every captured trench, until the[Pg 70] flag once more covers every foot of ground over which it has flown at the sunrise; we know the soul of America still lives. But that spirit must live in us at home, as well as in the trenches of France. The cry of that dying Frenchman calls to us, insistent and imperative: "Debout les américains." "To your feet, America," and let your very soul make speed!