few miles back and forward in a month, and take and retake some miserable village three times. over in less than a week. Can you doubt that though we have lost all fear of being beaten (our darkened towns, and the panics of our papers, with their endless scares and silly inventions, are mere metropolitan hysteria), we are getting very tired of a war in which, having now reestablished our old military reputation, and taught the Germans that there is no future for their empire without our friendship and that of France, we have nothing more to gain? In London and Paris and Berlin nobody at present dares say "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?"; for the slightest disposition toward a Christian view of things is regarded as a shooting matter in these capitals; but Washington is still privileged to talk common humanity to the nations.

Finally, I may remind you of another advantage which your aloofness from the conflict gives you. Here, in England and in France, men are going to the front every day; their women and children are all within earshot; and no man is hardhearted enough to say the worst that might be said of what is going on in Belgium now. We talk to you of Louvain and Rheims in the hope of enlisting you on our side or prejudicing you against the Germans, forgetting how sorely you must be tempted to say as you look on at what we are doing, "Well, if European literature, as represented by the library of Louvain, and European religion, as represented by the Cathedral of Rheims, have not got us beyond this, in God's name let them perish." I am thinking of other things—of the honest Belgians, whom I have seen nursing their wounds, and whom I recognize at a glance as plain men, innocent of all warlike intentions, trusting to the wisdom and honesty of the rulers and diplomatists who have betrayed them, taken from their farms and their businesses to destroy and be destroyed for no good purpose that might not have been achieved better and sooner by neighborly means. I am thinking of the authentic news that no papers dare publish, not of the lies that they all publish to divert attention from the truth. In America these things can be said without driving American mothers and wives mad; here, we have to set our teeth and go forward. We cannot be just; we cannot see beyond the range of our guns. The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; the black smoke of the howitzer blinds us;

and what these do to our bodily senses our passions do to our imaginations. For justice, we must do as the medieval cities did-call in a stranger. You are not altogether that to us; but you can look at all of us impartially. And you are the spokesman of Western democracy. That is why I appeal to you.

AMERICA SHOULD INTERFERE1

We are a people different from, but akin, to all the nations of Europe. We should feel a real friendship for each of the contesting powers and a real desire to work so as to secure justice for each. This cannot be done by preserving a tame and spiritless neutrality which treats good and evil on precisely the same basis. Such a neutrality never has enabled and never will enable any nation to do a great work for righteousness. Our true course should be to judge each nation on its conduct, unhesitatingly to antagonize every nation that does ill as regards the point on which it does ill, and equally without hesitation to act, as cool-headed and yet generous wisdom may dictate, so as disinterestedly to further the welfare of all.

One of the greatest of international duties ought to be the protection of small, highly civilized, well-behaved and selfrespecting states from oppression and conquest by their powerful military neighbors. Such nations as Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Uruguay, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden play a great and honorable part in the development of civilization. The subjugation of any one of them is a crime against, the destruction of one of them is a loss to, mankind. I feel the strongest way that we should have interfered, at least to the extent of the most emphatic diplomatic protest and at the very outset and then by whatever further action was necessary—in regard to the violation of the neutrality of Belgium; for this act was the earliest and the most important and, in its consequences, the most ruinous of all the violations and offenses against treaties committed by any combatant during the war. But it was not the only one. The Japanese and English forces not long after violated Chinese neutrality in attacking Kiao-Chau. It has been alleged and not

1 From "America and the World War," by Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons, and reprinted here by permission of the publishers.

denied that the British ship "Highflier" sunk the "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" in neutral Spanish waters, this being also a violation of the Hague conventions; and on October 10 the German government issued an official protest about alleged violations of the Geneva convention by the French. Furthermore, the methods employed in strewing portions of the seas with floating mines have been such as to warrant the most careful investigation by any neutral nations which treat neutrality pacts and Hague conventions as other than merely dead letters. Not a few offenses have been committed against our own people.

If, instead of observing a timid and spiritless neutrality, we had lived up to our obligations by taking action in all of these cases without regard to which power it was that was alleged to have done wrong, we would have followed the only course that would both have told for world righteousness and have served our own self-respect. The course actually followed by Messrs. Wilson, Bryan, and Daniels has been to permit our own power for self-defense steadily to diminish while at the same time refusing to do what we were solemnly bound to do in order to protest against wrong and to render some kind of aid to weak nations that had been wronged. Inasmuch as, in the first and greatest and the most ruinous case of violation of neutral rights and of international morality, this nation, under the guidance of Messrs. Wilson and Bryan, kept timid silence and dared not protest, it would be-and is an act of deliberate bad faith to protest only as regards subsequent and less important violations. Of course, if, as a people, we frankly take the ground that our actions are based upon nothing whatever but our own selfish and short-sighted interest, it is possible to protest only against violations of neutrality that at the moment unfavorably affect our own interests. Inaction is often itself the most offensive form of action; the administration has persistently refused to live up to the solemn national obligations to strive to protect other unoffending nations from wrong; and this conduct adds a peculiar touch of hypocrisy to the action taken at the same time in signing a couple of score of all-inclusive arbitration treaties pretentiously heralded as serving world righteousness. If we had acted as we ought to have acted regarding Belgium we could then with a clear conscience have made effective protest regarding every other case of violation of the rights of neutrals or of offenses committed by belligerents against one another or against

us in violation of the Hague conventions. Moreover, the attitude of the administration has not even placated the powers it was desired to please. Thanks to its action, the United States during the last five months has gained neither the good-will nor the respect of any of the combatants. On the contrary, it has steadily grown rather more disliked and rather less respected by all of them.

In facing a difficult and critical situation, any administration is entitled to a free hand until it has had time to develop the action which it considers appropriate, for often there is more than one way in which it is possible to take efficient action. But when so much time has passed, either without action or with only mischievous action, as gravely to compromise both the honor and the interest of the country, then it becomes a duty for selfrespecting citizens to whom their country is dear to speak out. From the very outset I felt that the administration was following a wrong course. But no action of mine could make it take the right course, and there was a possibility that there was some object aside from political advantage in the course followed. I kept silence as long as silence was compatible with regard for the national honor and welfare. I spoke only when it became imperative to speak under penalty of tame acquiescence in tame failure to perform national duty. It has become evident that the administration has had no plan whatever save the dexterous avoidance of all responsibility and therefore of all duty, and the effort to persuade our people as a whole that this inaction was for their interest-combined with other less openly expressed and less worthy efforts of purely political type.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NEUTRALITY1

In the present war America is neutral, Americans are not neutral. This paradox is easily explained. In the first instance the word neutral is used in an international sense; in the second instance it is used in a moral sense. Internationally the United States is out of the war; morally its people are in it and in it just to the extent that they have moral convictions.

1 From "Made in Germany," by Franklin M. Sprague. Copyright, 1915, by the Pilgrim Press, and reprinted here by permission of the publishers.

Our president in his proclamation of neutrality warns the people against hasty and partisan speech. Men of all nations are among us as neighbors. War stirs the deepest emotions. Thus far we agree with him. We are, however, moral beings and freedom of speech and of the press are corner stones of this republic. There are vast moral and political issues involved in this war, and Americans have a legitimate and profound interest in them.

We cannot, therefore, agree with the President in urging a complete neutrality of thought. We are bound to treat all belligerents alike but we are not bound to think of them alike. Neutrality does not mean that the government or the people shall have no opinions about the war or refrain from expressing them. It does not mean that they may not consider its causes and consequences, or that they are indifferent to the issues involved, or the manner in which the war is carried on. It does not hinder the people from criticising the belligerents. It requires neutral nations to assert and protect their own rights when threatened by belligerents, and, in case international laws governing the conduct of war are violated by any belligerent, it is the duty of a neutral, as one of the makers of such laws, to enter a solemn protest.

A subtle and mischievous thing about the discussion of neutrality in our country is the tacit assumption that there are two standards of morality concerning it, one for the private citizen and another for the government. Some say that private citizens may express their opinions, but the government must not criticise or protest against the most outrageous violations of international law by belligerents. Others regard the silence of the government in such cases as cowardly if not criminal.

A double standard of morality is essentially the negation of morality.

When Germany invaded Belgium the neutrality proclaimed by America would have violated law, betrayed Belgium and introduced international anarchy had it not been for a single circumstance, viz.: a release from her old obligations by Belgium.

Belgium had a legal, international and moral right to call upon every nation amenable to international law to help her enforce that law against Germany, who frankly and officially said to the world upon her invasion of Belgium, "This act is contrary to the rights of nations."